Slides from a day-long retreat on Persistent Prayer for Benedictine Oblates at St Scholastica Monastery, Duluth MN. Include clickable links to video of Fr William Meninger from Souljourners.

1. OBLATE RETREAT:
PERSISTENT PRAYER
Sister Edith Bogue
St. Scholastica Monastery,
Duluth, Minnesota
12 April 2014

2. MORNING PRAYER

3. MORNING PRAYER
“Lord, Open my lips…”
Psalmody, ending with “Glory be…”
1 minute of silence between psalms
Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24
2 minutes of silence
Benedictus with Antiphon, with “Glory be…”
Our Father
Collect
Blessing

4. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
CONTEMPLATION

5. MONASTIC CONTEMPLATIVE TRADITION
• Grounded in Scripture
• Begins with Lectio
– Reading. Read a passage slowly many times. Read it
silently, read it aloud. Try memorizing the passage.
– Meditating. As words or phrases stand out, focus on
them. Dialogue with. What do they remind you of?
– Praying. Do you find yourself asking God questions?
Do people or situations come to mind? Allow the
connections to become a natural conversation with
God.
– Contemplating. This is a gift from God. It may not
happen and it is not the “reward” for a well-done
lectio divina! It is the delightful “aha-moment,” a
sense of timelessness, an inner awe at the beauty
or love or wisdom or of God.
• Centering Prayer

6. SOULJOURNS: REVIVING A 4TH CENTURY DESERT SPIRITUAL PRACTICE!
FATHER WILLIAM MENINGER, OCSO
CONTEMPLATIVE MEDITATION (CLICK ON IMAGE OR LINK BELOW)
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/7860339

7. AN EXPERIENCE OF GROUP LECTIO
(OPTION FOR INDIVIDUAL PRAYER)

8. BREAK

9. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
CREATIVITY & BEAUTY

10. The American Dominicans make a distinction between Creation spirituality and
Redemption spirituality. Redemption spirituality stresses fault, sin, and
Redemption by Jesus Christ.
Creation comes before Redemption.
It is God's first gift to mankind.
Creation spirituality is marked especially
by gratitude for God's beauty which
shines through creation.
Measuring Benedictine spirituality against
these two, it seems to me that it inclines
more to the spirituality of Creation.
Benedict talks less about fault and sin, and
more about the daily round of community life,
in which the order of Creation is reflected. Benedict is preoccupied with careful
handling of creation and praise of the Creator, who has given us this marvelous
world for us to take care of it.
Anselm Grün, “Benedict and Creation”
AIM Bulletin 78/79
Click on photo to see exhibit information from Monastery of St Gertrude

11. “Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work
together with God in the creation of our own
life, our own identify, our own destiny. We are
free beings and sons of God. This means to
say that we should not passively exist, but
actively participate in (God's) creative
freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of
others, by choosing the truth. To put it better,
we are even called to share with God the
work of creating the truth of our identity.”
Thomas Merton
New Seeds of Contemplation
Drawing by Thomas Merton

12. “Monks have been the great preservers of
literary tradition, saving many sacred texts … and
illuminating manuscripts with gorgeous art. They
have offered their gifts in the service of creating
beautiful spaces of sanctuary. Monasticism has
given us the great tradition of chant to immerse
us in the continuous cascade of praying the
Liturgy of the Hours. These ways of being in the
world have been cultivated over hundreds of
years of practice and offer us tremendous
wisdom about what it means to live a
meaningful, vital, and creative life.”
Christine Valters Paintner
The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul
with Monastic Wisdom
Click photo to go to interview of Chrsitine Valters Paintner by
Kristin Noelle, artist who made this drawing

13. CREATIVE TIME:
 DRAW  WRITE  KNIT  IMAGINE  GAZE 
 SNAP A PHOTO  NOTICE  REMEMBER 

14. BREAK

15. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
MANUAL LABOR
MEAL PREPARATION IN SILENCE

16. When they live by the
labor of their hands, as
our fathers and the
apostles did, then they
are really monks. Yet,
all things are to be
done with moderation
on account of the
fainthearted.
Rule of Benedict, Chapter 48
Sweet corn harvest, Yankton Benedictines

17. PREPARE LUNCH USING SPEECH
ONLY AS NECESSARY
“One of the practices that all of us should
undertake from time to time is actual
physical silence. We need to practice NOT
saying even the good thoughts that we
have, NOT communicating them to
anyone. Part of this practice will show us
the places and the people that stimulate
us to communicate. Another part of this
practice will show the strength of our
desire to communicate and the strength of
our own will to resist that desire.”
Abbot Phillip Lawrence,
Abbey of Christ in the Desert

18. LUNCH
WITH RECREATION

19. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
MANUAL LABOR
MEAL CLEAN-UP IN SILENCE

20. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
PRAYER IN
OTHER CHARISMS

21. DOMINICANS
Study
Nine Ways of Prayer

22. STUDY
“Dominican study is a special gift of the Order. It is a gift for each of us as
consecrated religious women who take on the responsibility and the joy of
studying sacred truths. At the same time it is a gift to the Church, providing
a means for these truths, contemplated through faithful and assiduous
study, to be passed on to others.
For this reason study is both formative and fruitful for the Dominican
soul. Like prayer, it is a necessary means for union with God, involving all
the soul’s powers, integrating and ordering them in a specific way under
the intellect. Study nourishes the mind and trains the will to search for and
enjoy the truth. This love then lends itself to the flowering of zeal for the
salvation of souls.
Dominican Study
http://nashvilledominican.org/apostolate/dominican_study

23. FROM THE “NINE WAYS OF PRAYER”
• First of all, bowing humbly before the altar as if Christ, whom the
altar signifies, were really and personally present and not just
symbolically.
• Sometimes, when he was in a priory, our holy father Dominic would
stand upright before the altar, not leaning on anything or supported
by anything. … If you had seen his devotion as he stood there, erect
in prayer, you would have thought you were looking at a prophet
conversing with an angel.
• He was also often found stretching his whole body up towards
heaven in prayer, like a choice arrow shot straight up from a bow
(Isaiah 49:2). He had his hands stretched right up above his head,
joined together or slightly open as if to catch something from
heaven. And it is believed that at such times he received an
increase of grace.

24. IGNATIAN (THE JESUITS)
Sister Paule Pierre Barbeau

25. IMAGINATIVE PRAYER
(NOTES FROM THE PRESENTATION BY SISTER PAULE PIERRE BARBEAU)
• Take time to quiet yourself
• Choose a scripture passage with action and several
characters (Last Supper, Woman at the Well)
• Read it once to see the big picture
• Pause to think who you might be in this scene: a server? an
apostle? Jesus? the landlord? Judas? the donkey?
• Read the passage again from that role’s perspective.
• Go into your imagination to be part of the scene. What
smells and sounds would you experience? Imagine the seat
beneath you, the warmth, the tastes, the sights.
• Hear the words of Jesus, watch for the action of God
• Remain in this scene as long as you like; the meditation will
usually end on its own.

26. FRANCISCAN
In the world.
Meeting Christ in humility and poverty

27. The Franciscan path “to God” is an inversion of
monastic values. Rather than fleeing the world
to find God, God is to be found in the world.
The idea that “the world is our cloister” finds
its root in Francis of Assisi.
God loves us where we are—with our frailty,
weaknesses and insecurities. This is the
meaning of his encounter with the God of
compassionate love as seen in the cross of San
Damiano.
From “St Francis’ Style of Prayer” by Ilia Delio, O.S.F.
St. Anthony Messenger October 2004
Click on image to go to website for the full article

28. PRAYER PRACTICE & BREAK

29. PERSISTENT PRAYER:
PRAYER WITH AND
FOR COMMUNITY

30. For Benedict, everything takes place
within the context of community.
Whether he is talking about prayer,
relationships, work, or whatever, the
disciple is reminded that he or she is part
of a community.
Our common prayer reminds us that
sometimes we carry each other on this
journey and sometimes we are carried.
When our faith is weak and wavering,
others hold us up; when we are strong
we in turn help our brothers and sisters.

31. PARTICULAR PRAYER INTENTIONS
• Deceased of our community
including oblates
• Deceased of our federation,
diocesan priests, the monks of St
John’s Abbey
• Our relatives, friends, and
benefactors
• Our sponsored organizations
• Those about to be executed and
for an end to the Death Penalty
• Victims of human trafficking
• Canonization of Dorothy Day
(29th of the month)

32. When we pray together we
pray not only for our
immediate community, but we
pray for all those who do not
pray. We hold those who have
no faith in our prayers.
Through our common prayer
we remember and incorporate
the deepest, unvoiced
concerns of the people in our
world who never pray.Image is a Facebook cover for a Timeline.
Click image to go to its Facebook page

33. From the article Praying Always by Cheryl Cope.
Click the image to go to the webpage.

34. MIDDAY PRAYER
RENEWAL OF OBLATION

35. OBLATE RETREAT:
PERSISTENT PRAYER
Sister Edith Bogue
St. Scholastica Monastery,
Duluth, Minnesota
12 April 2014