Heartland Center for Spirituality is a retreat and conference center located in Great Bend, KS. We utilize space in the Dominican Sisters' convent there, hosting groups and providing a variety of retreats and workshops along with services like spiritual direction and massage. For years, our Internet ministry was an outreach with little direct connection to on-campus activities, but, gradually, the two have
become intertwined. There is hardly an on-campus program we offer now that does not include the possibility of participation via Zoom, for example, and our Facebook page provides a wonderful ministry of inspiring and encouraging messages. Even spiritual direction happens now with people around the world via Zoom, and I frequently point them to resources developed in webinars and online teachings. It's been energizing to be part of this kind of integral development! Some have inquired whether we
will make much use of AI in our teaching and counseling, and I think we've hit a boundary there. Some ministries require a living, discerning consciousness, which AI cannot provide, but I am paying attention to what positive benefits is might have. More on this next year, perhaps . . .
Philip St. Romain
Internet Ministry
Coordinator. _____ Donations are eligible for tax-deduction. Online donations (secure payment link): Check payments: - Heartland Center for Spirituality Internet Ministry 3600 Broadway Great Bend,
KS 67530
For my part, the only perfection I know of is a hearty love of God, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Charity is the only virtue which rightly unites us to God and other people. Such union is our final aim and end, and all the rest is mere delusion.
- Jean Pierre Camus -
(Love of God and neighbor is the context for evaluating all virtues and actions. First things first!)
_____ Christianity and Spirituality monthly forum
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Ez 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9; 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17 Jn 2:13-22 Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in
the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making
my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
"What sign can you
show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews said,
"This temple has been under construction for
forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered
that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.
Reflection on the Scriptures
St. Paul says that Jesus is our foundation. It is secure. Each of us is a temple of God. What flows forth
from us? We are called to be holy because the Holy Spirit dwells in the temple. Re-read that first reading. Does what comes from me have the effect of making the world around me fresh and alive? Does my life produce healing and fruitfulness? It can, but only if this small t temple relies on the water that flows from the large T Temple. Jesus was zealous about the Temple in Jerusalem because it was supposed to be a house of prayer, not a place to buy and sell. He honored and respected it. However, in Him, a new Temple was here. The old Temple was the place where God dwelt in the midst of his people. Now, God had come in the flesh and that new Temple could be destroyed but not for long. He indeed raised it up in three
days. Jesus’ body is the living Temple of God. All of us who follow him are also temples of God. Our lives are called to holiness because the Spirit of God dwells in his temples. We become fruitful, life-giving temples when we
feast on the water of life flowing from Jesus. Our bodies will one day be destroyed but, just as Jesus’ body was raised from the dead, we have been promised that our bodies, our temples, will also be raised. In the meantime, let
us glorify God in our bodies and bring life to the world.
-by George Butterfield
St. John of the Cross and the Beginning of Contemplation by James Arraj From St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. J. Jung, Part II, Chapter 3. Inner Growth Books, 1986.
From Meditation to
Contemplation
The beginning of contemplation is often gradual and blends imperceptibly with the simplification of ordinary prayer. However, it can also take place in a sudden and disconcerting fashion. This latter
case is instructive because it points to the underlying discontinuity of the two states. St. John has likened this transitional stage to the weaning from the breast of sensible consolations, and to the shutting out of the sun of divine favor. "Consequently, it is at the time they are going about their spiritual exercises with delight and satisfaction, when in their opinion the sun of divine favor is shining most brightly on them, that God darkens all this light and closes the door and spring of the sweet spiritual water they were tasting as often and as long as they desired." (13) The heights of consolation for the beginner often have a mystical flavor to them; there is a certain savour and experience and sense of the presence of God which is best described as the sensible analogate of contemplative experience. Unfortunately, the limitations of this state are quite hidden from the person experiencing
these consolations. For this reason the sudden cessation of consolation is experienced as a terrible trial. There is intense soul-searching for the reason why it has happened. There is a fruitless search for the unrepented sin which must underlie God's apparent anger. The resultant anxiety is more oppressive than the loss of consolation itself, for it centers on the apparent loss of God. The frantic attempts to recapture this lost sense of communion by a return to meditation and spiritual
practices is doomed to failure, and only exacerbate the predominant mood of anxiety. Seen objectively, it is clear that the person is already learning the necessary distinction between sensible consolation and God Himself by means of this privation, but subjectively he is convinced that God has left him.
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