Carl McColman's Blog, page 33

The Communion of Saints Who Watch Over Me As I Write

Todays post is just for fun!

This morning on Facebook my cousin Danny, up in Manhattan, made a comment about the beautiful icon of the Holy Cross, written by iconographer Fr John Walsted of Staten Island. I decided it would be fun to show Danny that I have a replica of that icon right above my computer. So I took the picture, and then realized, Well, he might want to know about some of my other icons and that led to maybe some other folks would be interested and this blog post is the end...

Praying with the English Mystics

Dear friends, I have now experienced what it is like to direct a spiritual retreat online.

And while it is certainly not the same thing as a retreat in person (especially at a monastery, surrounded by the atmosphere of prayer and the timeless cadences of monastic chant), it is still a way for us to pause, take a deep breath, and attend to our souls especially in this time of pandemic and social distancing.

Thanks to Br. Aidan of Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, who invited me to lead...

Hildegard of Bingen: A Medieval Mystic Superstar

A human being is a vessel that God has built for himself and filled with his inspiration so that his works are perfected in it. ~ Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to Elisabeth of Schönau, c. 1152

Eleventh-century Europe usually is a topic of interest only to scholars, medievalists, and the occasional church geek, but somehow, Hildegard of Bingen, who lived from 1098 to 1179, has managed to achieve an unusual degree of visibility in our time. Others from her age, like Bernard of Clairvaux...

How to Find the Right Contemplative Community

A reader named Brian writes:

Being a Lay Cistercian seems to be an important part of your journey. Im wondering if becoming an oblate is a next step for me?
My spiritual director and I have discussed this off and on for over a year now. While I have an established contemplative practice (e.g., Daily Office, Lectio Divina, Examen, Centering Prayer), he and I agree that scaffolding helps keep me intentional, accountable, and engaged with community.
How to discern which monastery to affiliate...

A Centering Prayer Video for You

During this time of social distancing and sheltering at home, its a perfect opportunity to learn or refresh your knowledge of one of the simplest and yet most spiritually rich contemplative practices available to us: Centering Prayer.

Centering Prayer was developed by Trappist monks including William Meninger, M. Basil Pennington, and Thomas Keating (see below for a list of some of their books). It was based on the medieval manual for learning contemplative prayer, The Cloud of Unknowing....

How Does Contemplative Practice Benefit Us — And the Communities We Are Part Of?

In response to an old blog post of mine, Between Shambhala and the Catholic Church, one reader tweeted the following:

These questions are too big for twitter, but  Does contemplative practice bring unique gifts/experience to "saving the burning building," beyond protecting us and teaching us how to tell the truth? And how does it do these things?

Our Lady of Constant Reproach (@met_annoy_a) April 26, 2020

Maybe those questions were big for Twitter, but I appreciate you asking them. Let me...

Contemplating Calm Awareness

The contemplative psychiatrist, spiritual director, and author Gerald May wrote in his book Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology:

Water is a commonly used metaphor for consciousness and awareness in both Oriental and Western traditions. Sometimes consciousness is seen as a vast ocean, constant and unruffled in its depths, and awareness as its more variable surface, sometimes tossed about by winds and currents, sometimes still and calm In the East, and especially in Zen, awareness is...

Some Thoughts On the Dolphins That Are (Not) in Venice

Shortly after the shelter-in-place orders started to show up at local and state governments across the land, I read somewhere I dont remember where that dolphins had been seen in the canals of Venice. Perhaps it was this tweet:

Venice hasn't seen clear canal water in a very long time. Dolphins showing up too. Nature just hit the reset button on us pic.twitter.com/RzqOq8ftCj

Luca De Santis (@yeSaints) March 17, 2020

Other stories were making their way around the interwebs. Not only...

Every Mystery is a Story

I have a guilty pleasure that I dont think Ive ever written about, here on my blog. Well, here goes: Im a fan of Neil Gaiman.

Years ago somebody told me I simply had to read the Sandman comics. At the time I just filed that recommendation away for future reference (Im slowly making my way through them now). On a trip to England about fifteen years ago now, when a friend learned that I had never read Good Omens he immediately went to a bookstore and bought a copy, which he gave to me to read...

Twelve Mystics Who Lived Through Epidemics and Pandemics

Its been over a month now since the World Health Organization has acknowledged that COVID-19 is a pandemic. As of today (4/13/20), over 22000 Americans and 116,000 people worldwide have died from the virus; and those numbers will certainly rise in the days and months to come. While this is not the plague (which decimated over a third of Europes population in one terrible four-year period), its far worse than the ordinary flu or even the swine flu. Almost everyones lives have been affected,...