Ken Leong, the author of The Zen Teachings of Jesus, posted this on Facebook the other day: I was having a conversation with a group of American Christians. I told them that in the Chinese version of John’s Gospel, the WORD was translated into “Tao.” They asked me for the definition of the Tao. I replied that the Tao cannot be defined and they laughed. Apparently they...
Yesterday I received this message: Hi, Mr. McColman, Quick question. Are there any periodicals, journals, etc. that publish primarily articles about the subjects about you write that you recommend? Best regards and looking forward to the new book. This is a great question and unfortunately I don’t know of a mainstream journal or magazine that publishes literature specifically for...
What is Christian hospitality? What does it mean to receive guests, strangers, travelers, pilgrims, refugees, as if we were receiving Christ himself? What does it mean to find Christ in all people, or as I put it the other day on Twitter… Hospitality, for Benedict, meant receiving guests as if they were Christ. So, for us, it means finding the Divine within all who come to us. — Carl...
What does it take to get started with a daily practice of praying the Liturgy of the Hours? A reader of this blog asks the following question: I have an established practice of Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer in the early morning and Examen and Centering Prayer in the late afternoon. I’m captivated with praying the Daily Office, but I’m struggling how to incorporate Matins, Vespers, and...
We’re just over a week away from Ash Wednesday! Which means it is time to be reflecting on your Lenten devotion. Continue reading on Patheos. Note: This post was originally published on Patheos. It is worth visiting the Patheos site for this post to see the comments, some of which were posted by people who identify as atheists or agnostics and therefore were unsympathetic to my...
Believe it or not, Lent is just over two weeks away. Which means it is time to select your Lenten book for devotional reading. Lent is a time for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. According to the Rule of Saint Benedict, it’s also an ideal time for devotional reading. In The Rule of Saint Benedict we find this mandate: During this time of Lent each one is to receive a book from the library...
About ten years ago I had a conversation with an elderly Trappist monk about the book I was writing — a book on Christian mysticism. Hearing that it was intended to introduce mysticism to the general public, he scoffed. “Not everyone is called to be a mystic,” he objected. “But doesn’t God want us to be in union with him?” I replied. “Well, yes,” he...
The heart of Christian spirituality is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. This is the ancient wisdom teaching that God is one God, in three persons: Father/Creator, Son/Redeemer, and Spirit/Sanctifier. We call ourselves “Christians” because we follow the 2nd Person of the Trinity: Jesus, the Christ. But it would be just as accurate — some might say even more accurate — to call...
December 6 is Evelyn Underhill’s birthday, born this day in 1875. Not only did she go on to become one of the most important Christian mystics of the 20th century, but she also influenced a number of key figures who came after her, including C. S. Lewis and Thomas Merton. A Trappist monk once told me that her book Mysticism was required reading when he was a novice monk in the 1950s. A...
Readers like you make this website possible. Anamchara — an online resource for the exploration of Christian and interfaith mysticism, contemplative living, and silent prayer — includes a blog, a knowledge base, and audio/video content. It’s a labor of love and requires several hours each workday to keep going. This website is made possible by the generous support of readers like you. When...
Note: the following quotations are excerpted from The Little Book of Christian Mysticism which features over three hundred quotations of the mystics, from Biblical times to the present day. Seek by reading and you will find by meditating; cry in prayer and the door will be opened in contemplation. — Saint John of the Cross The important thing is not to think much, but to love much; do, then...
This post is a sequel to my post from last week called How to Find a Mystical Teacher. The person who originally wrote to me, responding to that post, in which I argued for the importance of embedding our quest for mystical training with engagement in a community of faith. She wrote: I do attend a local church. After a long search, I have found a church home in the Episcopalian Church (ECUSA). ...