A big thank you to all who joined our online Zoom meditation on October 4, marking the Feast day of St Francis of Assisi, and praying for the healing of our suffering world, and for an outpouring of love upon all of humanity. About 60 people from a variety of locations joined our afternoon meditation, including from New Zealand and Spain, and from across Australia as well.
Corrie van den Bosch MSS led the meditation and in her reflection shared that the inspiration for this day of prayer “came from the awareness of our wounded world and the appreciation of the power of collective prayer and meditation for the good of others and the world”.
“Our world is deeply wounded in many ways and in every place: poverty, oppression, wars and violence, sickness, racism, loneliness, etc,” said Corrie. “Earth itself is hurting because of environmental degradation, global warming and the extinction of species. On top of that, we have Covid-19 and its impact on people, societies and economies.”
“All of us know some people and situations that tug at our hearts. We are also well aware of the global issues that plague our world. It is for these, and all other people, places, creatures and situations of suffering that we gather for prayerful meditation today, that we might be – and become – a healing presence in our world.”
“When we chose as the theme for this day of meditation and prayer, ‘Inundating the world with the energies of Love’, we invited you to participate in something very powerful. To meditate or pray individually is a powerful gift to the world. But to gather the energies of many people who intentionally unite in prayerful meditation, is truly releasing a force for good. And our world desperately needs it, as we are all aware.”
“The expression, the energies of love, comes from Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, a scientist, palaeontologist, mystic and prophet ahead of his time. He died in 1955 aged 73 years. Teilhard had an extraordinary sense of the sacredness of matter, seeing the presence of Christ at the heart of matter, Earth, the Cosmos. That Christ presence he saw of the fire of Love, and he saw our role in the evolving universe, to harness that love. He wrote:
Some day,
after mastering the winds, the tides and gravity,
we shall harness for God the energies of Love,
and then, for a second time in the history of the world,
humans will have discovered fire.
“We have come a long way in harnessing the energies of wind and tides and gravity. But we human beings have not yet learned to so live that every being on Earth, human and other-than-human, can flourish. For this, we need to harness the Energies of Love. And that is our mission. That is what we are doing as we gather here today,” said Corrie.
Read Corrie’s full reflection, here.
Following the opening reflection, there was half an hour of silent meditation, with participants invited to intentionally breathe in the energies of Love, and then breathe it out upon the whole world.
In closing, Corrie thanked all who joined in the meditation, saying, “Thank you all for being here, for bringing your presence and prayerfulness to this group, for the healing of the world.”
“And we acknowledge the many who couldn’t be with us on Zoom but have told us that they were with us in spirit, meditating and praying in their own space and time.”