Volume 21,  Number 2 · January / June 2006

by Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler

In my article in the previous issue, entitled Practice, Practice, Practice, and God does the Rest, I discussed the importance of contemplative practice in daily life. What I sought to illustrate, through my own experience over the years, is that practice becomes a way of life and acts as the daily stepping-stones to a life of prayer without ceasing. Our practices support and guide us, keeping us present to the presence of God moment-by-moment, ever mindful of the indwelling Spirit. We are encouraged to see God in all ordinary activities that make up our lives: cooking meals, driving to the office, taking care of our children, our pets, our gardens, going to the grocery store and so on. We can move from one activity to the next mindlessly or we can make them occasions for prayer. 

The silence from our Centering Prayer practice permeates the daily routines of ordinary life, helping us to be present, mindful, aware of the sacredness of the ordinary. The Welcoming Prayer gratefully reminds us to ‘focus, sink-into, welcome and let go’ when the difficulties of persons and situations assert themselves and our emotional programs get triggered. Our word, phrase, prayer or question from Lectio Divina is a guiding Light, perhaps providing us with a certain intention for the day or illuminating a certain moment in a new way. Our active prayer sentence keeps our hearts and minds open and in God around the clock. 

The more that we call on God through our various practices, the more God becomes present to us in life — in ourselves and in others. Over time, one of the fruits of contemplative practice is the contemplative life. We delight in the ordinary! Even driving and waiting for the red light to turn green can be a moment when we turn to God. God is our constant companion, one with us and enjoying our life through us. 

The contemplative life is also an integrated life. The divisions and compartments of our lives dissolve. We no longer have a personal life, a professional life, a social life and a spiritual life. We live and enjoy one life in God. We move from the level of ‘doing’ the practices to the level of intimacy with God, in silent conversation and communion. We can experience fewer struggles with the practices – trying to find the time to ‘do’ them, trying to exact certain results from them, trying to figure out how to stack them on top of everything else in our busy lives. Our practices move from disciplines to ways of relating with God. In this way, there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to figure out. We can simply and joyfully be.

This year, through The Contemplative Life Program (CLP), over 1300 of you have focused on the various practices that revealed deepening layers of intention, consent and surrender to God’s will and the endless opportunities to let go and welcome the Spirit. Our CLP team worked together to publish each praxis booklet with love, intention and thoughtfulness. It was much more than a simple writing project; it was an experience of prayer , writing, and surrender to the collective will of God for each of us that eventually manifested in our work together. We were moved by the depth of what each contemplative practice offers — the magnificent transformational depth — and had the experience of contemplative community in action.

Researching, studying, writing, editing and designing were challenging in the face production deadlines and the pressures of our other duties and responsibilities. We welcomed, we surrendered, we discerned, we prayed together. It was never easy, as God always seemed to be calling each one of us to new levels of consent and surrender. Fr. Thomas is one of our team members and it is a pleasure for all of us to work together. The fruit of the program is apparent, the CLP has created a deep sense of belonging to a world wide contemplative community – invisibly and silently participating in the Body of Christ, sharing and transmitting Divine love. 

Some exciting new things have opened up as part of The Contemplative Life Program. Our discernment praxis introduced a new, three-layered contemplative practice: discernment in love, discernment as surrender to God’s will and discernment as Presence.

We engaged well over 300 subscribers and participants in a dialin teleconference where Fr. Thomas gave a presentation and then he and I answered many questions sent to us prior to the call. We received rave reviews and are now hosting calls on a regular basis (These calls are open to anyone.) While writing the praxis booklet on forgiveness, I discovered that forgiveness is another word for “people who love poorly” It touched my heart and deepened my understanding that love is always forgiving. Like discernment, forgiveness, has many layers and many opportunities inherent to turn to God for help. 

At the writing of this article, the CLP team is currently working on the praxis for Active Prayer and Intention/Attention for the Advent season. 

I’d like to acknowledge those of you who have shared your daily way of practice with me. I am touched and most grateful to have acquired many new friends and pen pals. We share a precious gift, a means to enter the heart of God through a contemplative commitment to transformation. We have a responsibility to share this gift with others. One of my pen pals expressed it this way: “If you want to heal cancer, do contemplative practices; If you want world peace, do contemplative practices; If you want to rid the world of terrorism, do contemplative practices.” How is this so? Because of our commitment to live a contemplative life converts our hearts and in turn the heart of the world. It changes attitudes from the inside out and builds up the Body of Christ. We can cooperate with the healing process by surrendering to God’s will on a moment-to-moment basis. Then, we are living a contemplative life in the marketplace and impacting others with kindness, goodness, joy, peace, love, patience, self-control and yes, joy. The contemplative life is a life lived in joy in the fullness of God’s abiding presence.