Deep Silence

 

Thank you to all who underpinned my recent event with prayer.  It was a pleasure to lead another Touching the Cloak day - this time for the folks at Holy Trinity, Meir.  And, on a Saturday in June, a little corner of Stoke-on-Trent became a 'thin place'. Deep healing flowed in the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit.

One participant summed the day up for me when she said, "It saddens me that people who don't believe healing is possible just don't realise what they're missing".  Amen to that!

Deep silence, combined with imaginative contemplation with the healing scriptures, often proves to be a powerful vehicle for facilitating healing.  I continue to feel deeply humbled whenever this happens. Ignatius, who first recognised the benefits of contemplation with the scriptures, would have been thrilled!

Of course, deep silence in its raw simplicity can heal too.  By this I mean deep internal silence, as in the stillness of contemplative prayer.  This is something that a group of us explored with Fr. Martin Laird last weekend in an event at Tabor Retreat House.  As well as drawing on Fr. Martin's extensive experience of this practice, we explored, with his help, the increasingly accepted medical benefits of contemplative prayer and the riches of finding communion with God.  For anyone interested in this, I highly recommend Martin Laird's two books, Into the Silent Land and A Sunlit Absence.

Please pray for me now as I complete my preparations to lead a Touching the Cloak retreat next week at Penhurst.  Please pray for Spirit-led preparation and for God to touch each participant in ways beyond their imagining.

Finally, some exciting news.  Look out for Mary Fleeson, the illustrator of my new book, who will be appearing on Songs of Praise soon. The programme is due to be broadcast on August 4th.  Catch it if you can!

Thank you again for your much valued prayerful support.   

Summer blessings to you all. 

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