THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

What follows is a cryptic outline of the blogs I will narrate for YouTube. Contemplate practice is just that, the repetition of going into your inner room, locking the door, and waiting.

OUTLINE OF THE ART OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

I. FUNDAMENTAL CORE OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

SKILL ONE: What is the purpose of life? Learn how to discover the meaning of life? Skill: How to be aware of God’s purpose for humanity?

SKILL TWO: What is my purpose of life within that purpose? Learn how to discover the purpose of your life within God’s purpose. Skill: How to choose a personal center within what God intends for humanity?

SKILL THREE: What does reality look like? Learn how to approach one reality using the divine gift of eyeglasses so you can see three distinct universes. Skill: How to see Jesus in three universes yet one reality. How to view the spiritual universe with Pauline duality: The World and The Spirit?

SKILL FOUR: How does it all fit together? Learn how all reality is centered on six cosmic paradigm shifts that lead to you. Skill: What are six paradigm shifts that happened in the cosmos, and what does that have to do with my contemplative approach to moving from self to God?

SKILL FIVE: How do I love fiercely? Learn how to love in three universes, discovering resonance and not dissonance in reality. Skill: What tools for good works does St. Benedict recommends in his Prologue to the Rule? How can I become what I read?

SKILL SIX: I know I am going to die, now what? Learn how to use contemplative practices to place you in the presence of God where you seek to love others each day as Christ loved us, and how Heaven or Hell begins now, on earth, and continues after you die. Skill: How do you put together all six questions as part of the Divine Equation? How to interpret the six elements of the Divine Equation as you grow from self to God?

II. FORMATION: THE CONTEMPLATIVE SKILLS AND PRACTICES TO ALLOW ME TO GROW IN THE CAPACITY FOR GOD (Capacitas Dei)

SKILL SEVEN: What is Christ’s tools to live in a corrosive reality? Learn how the Rule of St. Benedict is a guide, an ongoing movement process to help you sustain and toughen your Faith amid a secular society without God. Just because your road is rocky doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path. SKILL: How to see Jesus in Scripture? How to use the Rule of St. Benedict to grow into what Scripture invites us to become? (John 20:30-31)

SKILL EIGHT: Real Food and Real Drink that is a person. Learn how to eat the food for the journey to sustain you in your current struggle to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) Skill: How to see Jesus in the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration and sit next to the heart of Christ in love.

SKILL NINE: How to manage the effects of Original Sin. Learn the meaning of mercy and how to make all things new in your spiritual journey. Learn how to forgive others even if they don’t forgive you. Skill:  How to make all things new with Christ?

SKILL ELEVEN: Learn how to use the various ways to pray with Christ through His Church to be present to God now and in Heaven. Skill: Lectio Divina and Liturgy of the Hours as waiting for the coming of the Lord.

III. TRANSFORMATION: USING THE SKILLS YOU HAVE ACQUIRED TO MOVE FROM YOUR FALSE SELF TO YOUR TRUE SELF (Conversio morae)

SKILL TWELVE: How to see Jesus. Learn how to sit on a park bench in the middle of winter and listen to Jesus with the “ear of the heart.”Skill: How to move from your false self to your true self.

EXERCISE THIRTEEN: Prayer links “the moment” with the Christ Principle. Learn what and how to pack for the journey to Heaven. Skill: How to Link each day to the death and Resurrection of Christ using the Golden Thread.

SKILL FOURTEEN: Learn how to use the five unique gifts you received at Baptism from your Father in Heaven to allow you to thrive as an adopted son or daughter of the Father. Skills: How to activate the five gifts that Christ gave us to grow in the capacity of God (capacitas dei): Silence, Solitude, Prayer, Work, Community.

SKILL FIFTEEN: Learn how to use silence and solitude in Lectio Divina to seek contemplation to help you survive as a pilgrim in a foreign land while you wait to claim your inheritance as a son or daughter of the Father. Skill: Learn how to enter the one place no one wants to look and find fulfillment as a human being using silence and solitude.

SKILL SIXTEEN: How to seek God each day by conversion of life. Learn to see what Heaven will be like now while you live and be aware of what Hell is like now. Skill: How to live each day using all of these skills to grow to “have the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

Next step: Narrate a ten to fifteen-minute YouTube on each skill.

The Center for Contemplative Practice is a HOW TO dimension of living a contemplative lifestyle in the midst of the chaos of the World.