Transformation for Everyday Life…
A 40 Day Live-In Experience 

To meet the needs of long term Centering Prayer practitioners who want to share and grow in an extended community environment and experience. This Live-In Experience uses the luxury of 40 consecutive days as a unique training period for living the depth, breadth and length of the contemplative journey in everyday life. New teachings on the refinements of Centering Prayer and the impact of contemplative practice for your human experience and journey will be explored. There will be periods of structured retreat silence and solitude included, yet because the focus is on transformation for everyday life, the schedule will be more subtle and dynamic than having continual days of retreat. The Retreat Center allows for an environment of solitude and community, silence and dialogue, retreat and rest, and some on and off-site recreation. The staff will be Fr. Thomas Keating, David Frenette and Cathy McCarthy who draw from their backgrounds with live-in experiences at Chrysalis House and the recent 21-day Immersion Retreats. 

Date: October 6-November 14, 2003 

What is The Nine Month Course? 

by Cathy McCarthy

The Nine Month Course: The Practice of Contemplative Living is an ongoing formation that enables participants to create their own personal contemplative lifestyle in the contemporary world. The commitment is for one weekend a month (Friday evening through Sunday lunch) for the nine months of September through May. Prayer, contemplative living and the integration of contemplation and activity are cultivated in the community through the support, guidance, silence and solitude of the weekend, and then practiced in the participant’s own life. Formation is offered in contemplative prayer, lifestyle, and activity through the practice of Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, the Active Prayer, Logging, the “Welcoming” Prayer and Spiritual Reading. The contemplative dimension of one’s lifestyle is nurtured by exercising discernment, simplicity, forgiveness, integrity, and commitment.

A Presenter of this Course is one who has completed the Nine Month Course for at least three years, and is faithful to living a contemplative lifestyle (integration of the Prayer Practices into their daily lives). All staff must have completed the Formation for Contemplative Outreach Service and be faithful practitioners of Centering Prayer as presented by Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

This Nine Month Course: The Practice of Contemplative Living was created in the mid ‘80s by Fr. Thomas Keating and the residents of Chrysalis House, a contemplative lay community. It was first presented in September 1989 at Ball Road in Warwick, New York by Mary Mrozowski and David Frenette, and has continued at St. Andrew’s Retreat House, Walden, New York. May 2002 completed its 13th year.

This Nine Month Course is also presented in Florida and Denver; it was presented for the first time on Long Island in September 2002. For further information on making this Course available to your Chapter, contact Cathy McCarthy, cathymc@frontier.net or call 845-778- 2102.

Nine Month Course, Part II: A Deepening of Contemplative Living began at St. Andrew’s Retreat House in September 2002. The focus is on deepening one’s practice of contemplative living and broadening of the areas in which we open to God’s presence and action, and is available to those who have completed the first Nine Month Course.

Contemplative Outreach Ltd.
Study Program in the Christian Contemplative Tradition 

The Living Flame