New monasticism is not just about the renewal of the church or self, it’s also about the transformation of society. Renewal and transformation happens because new monasticism, as with traditional monasticism, is about taking people, through a Rule of life, to stop and listen to the heartbeat of God.
An article by Trevor Miller On a recent visit to Roslin to see Brother John, my spiritual director, who along with the late Roland Walls, was a founding member of the Community of the Transfiguration, we talked about the significance of those spiritual influences that had shaped our formation and spirituality as respective Communities. One […]
An article by Trevor Miller One foundational aspect of prayer taught by the Church Fathers is so basic that it can easily become a case of ‘familiarity breeding contempt’. It is this: in seeking to understand prayer the spiritual masters were more interested in the state of the heart before God rather than the techniques […]
A Quiet Day Reflection from Trevor Miller This obscure scripture passage is part of our Day 15 meditation in Celtic Daily Prayer – linked to Day 14 and Day 16 prayers for Holy Island – with its recognition of the reality of spiritual warfare. William Barclay called it a ‘compact and eerie little parable about […]
A transcript of a talk by Trevor Miller (continued from Part 1) So as this New Year continues to unfold, let’s resolve to seek God but to do so fully aware 1] That we don’t know the future but God knows Imagine God planning for our future! He desires us to have hope – a […]
A transcript of a talk by Trevor Miller I’ll start with some good news – it’s only 330 days to Christmas. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it that another year has passed. However, as we’re still less than a month into the New Year; we are still in that time frame when we think […]
A Reflection by Trevor Miller. One of my all-time favourite children’s books when our kids were little had a great title, ‘Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day’. We’ve all had them, when the ‘never rains but it pours’ syndrome brings back-to-back disappointments. Here is an excerpt: ‘I went to sleep with […]
Paul Cullity provided us with this important Paper over 20 years ago. It remains a powerful and significant outline of Monasticism: The Heart of Celtic Christianity If you want to capture the idea of Celtic Monasticism in words, you’ll find that words themselves seem inadequate. I have struggled for weeks now to present the essence […]
The following outline notes were taken from a talk that Roy Searle gave to a community gathering earlier this year: Almost Monastic in Nature ~ Hope for Society Dynamic & erratic, spontaneous & radical, audacious & immature, committed if not altogether coherent’, ecumenically open & often experimental, visible here & there, now and then, […]
In this transcript of a retreat talk, Trevor Miller offers an outline for Understanding Desert Monasticism. DESERT FATHERS In the early centuries of the Church’s history, spreading as it did along the trade routes of the Middle East and the Mediterranean and Aegean coastlands, places of worship were the homes of believers or the open […]
A transcript of a retreat talk given by Trevor Miller. President FD Roosevelt got tired of the many White House receptions where all he did was smile his famous big smile and utter the usual banalities to the awed guests. One day he decided to find out whether anybody was listening and paying attention to […]