Image above: sunrise on Skellig Michael
Find out more about the Skelligs here.
Find out more about the Skelligs here.
Highlights from New Pilgrim Path
In this section we bring you some of our Websites of the Week which have proved particularly popular with our visitors over the past nine years of our existence.
If we have omitted any that you would like to see featured, please let us know!
In this section we bring you some of our Websites of the Week which have proved particularly popular with our visitors over the past nine years of our existence.
If we have omitted any that you would like to see featured, please let us know!
A Celebration of Trees
The Bible mentions trees more than any living thing other than humans. There is a tree on the first pages of Genesis, in the first Psalm, on the first page of the New Testament (figuratively), and on the last page of Revelation. Whether it is the Fall, the Flood, or the overthrow of Pharaoh, every major event in the Bible has a tree, branch, fruit, seed, or some other part of a tree marking the spot. Moreover, every major character in the Bible appears in conjunction with a tree.
This week we bring you two marvellous reflections on the spiritual lessons we learn from trees, whose magnificence emerges from seeming immobility and darkness. One is by the Swiss-German writer, Hermann Hesse; the other is by Dominican friar, author and renowned retreat leader, Donagh O'Shea.
This week we bring you two marvellous reflections on the spiritual lessons we learn from trees, whose magnificence emerges from seeming immobility and darkness. One is by the Swiss-German writer, Hermann Hesse; the other is by Dominican friar, author and renowned retreat leader, Donagh O'Shea.
“Human beings are born in their sleep, they live in their sleep, they die in their sleep without every waking up”.
Anthony (Tony) de Mello (1939-1987) was an Indian Jesuit priest. He is widely known for his ground-breaking and enduring work that integrates western and eastern spirituality, and he is regarded as one of the 20th century’s foremost spiritual philosophers. Through his still bestselling books, De Mello presents a method of self-inquiry he described as a practical spirituality, in which a simple practice of awareness leads to the level of personal transformation that can open to realms of enlightenment.
Click on the image to listen to one of his excellent recorded talks on this subject.
Anthony (Tony) de Mello (1939-1987) was an Indian Jesuit priest. He is widely known for his ground-breaking and enduring work that integrates western and eastern spirituality, and he is regarded as one of the 20th century’s foremost spiritual philosophers. Through his still bestselling books, De Mello presents a method of self-inquiry he described as a practical spirituality, in which a simple practice of awareness leads to the level of personal transformation that can open to realms of enlightenment.
Click on the image to listen to one of his excellent recorded talks on this subject.
Brother David Steindl-Rast — 98 year-old author, scholar, and Benedictine monk — is beloved the world over for his enduring message about gratefulness as the true source of lasting happiness. Known to many as the “grandfather of gratitude,” Br. David has been a source of inspiration and spiritual friendship to countless leaders and luminaries around the world including Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, and more.
Click on the image to listen to one of his talks on living "a grateful day".
Click on the image to listen to one of his talks on living "a grateful day".
“We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action...The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It’s too busy weighing and feeling itself: ‘How will this affect me?’ or ‘What reaction does my self-image demand now?’ or ‘How can I regain control of this situation?’ Let’s admit that we all start there. Only after God has taught us how to live ‘undefended’.
"It has taken me much of my life to begin to have the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, yet it seems I cannot have one without the other. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give, although I don’t always do it."
American Franciscan friar, Richard Rohr, is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism. He teaches that religious conversion involves radical transformation – an experiential knowing of God; that our real selves are who we are in God and who God is in us. He holds that true spiritual knowledge is not cognition, but recognition. Click on the image to hear his challenging and inspiring talk.
Note: the talk is 90 minutes long. Click here to read a condensed version of the content.
"It has taken me much of my life to begin to have the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, yet it seems I cannot have one without the other. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give, although I don’t always do it."
American Franciscan friar, Richard Rohr, is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism. He teaches that religious conversion involves radical transformation – an experiential knowing of God; that our real selves are who we are in God and who God is in us. He holds that true spiritual knowledge is not cognition, but recognition. Click on the image to hear his challenging and inspiring talk.
Note: the talk is 90 minutes long. Click here to read a condensed version of the content.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel...Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.” Jer 18:2.
These words from the Book of Jeremiah inspired Donagh O’Shea, a Dominican friar, a highly regarded retreat leader, an authority on the mediaeval mystics, and a potter. 30 years ago, he began a series of workshops (which continue to this day) on meditative work with clay. His book, "Go Down to the Potter's House" has become a spiritual classic. In it, he draws practical spiritual lessons from every stage of the process of throwing a pot. "Throwing a pot upon a wheel", he says in the 5th video, "is like a parable of human change and transformation. It is endlessly engrossing".
He has now distilled his spiritual journey with pottery in a series of short videos. His aim is to overcome the effects of centuries of introspection and individualism and to help people discover in themselves and in the Gospel a straightforward simplicity.
Click on the image to watch the first of 10 fascinating episodes.
You can access the full series here.
These words from the Book of Jeremiah inspired Donagh O’Shea, a Dominican friar, a highly regarded retreat leader, an authority on the mediaeval mystics, and a potter. 30 years ago, he began a series of workshops (which continue to this day) on meditative work with clay. His book, "Go Down to the Potter's House" has become a spiritual classic. In it, he draws practical spiritual lessons from every stage of the process of throwing a pot. "Throwing a pot upon a wheel", he says in the 5th video, "is like a parable of human change and transformation. It is endlessly engrossing".
He has now distilled his spiritual journey with pottery in a series of short videos. His aim is to overcome the effects of centuries of introspection and individualism and to help people discover in themselves and in the Gospel a straightforward simplicity.
Click on the image to watch the first of 10 fascinating episodes.
You can access the full series here.
It is absurd to think we can enter heaven without first entering our own souls, without getting to know ourselves. How important it is to recognise this truth that the Lord is within us and that we should be there with him! How is it, Lord, that we do not look at your face, when it is so near us? All our trouble comes to us from not having our eyes fixed upon the Divine.
A 14-minute video features some gentle and practical advice for meditative prayer, drawn from the teachings of the great 16th century mystic and reformer, St Teresa of Avila. A prolific writer, she sought to demystify the mystical experience and make it accessible.
Click on the image to listen.
A 14-minute video features some gentle and practical advice for meditative prayer, drawn from the teachings of the great 16th century mystic and reformer, St Teresa of Avila. A prolific writer, she sought to demystify the mystical experience and make it accessible.
Click on the image to listen.
The ‘Christian Art’ website is the brainchild of a former director of Sotheby’s, London, Patrick van der Vorst, now a Catholic priest in the diocese of Westminster. He describes his offering as "Simple: one newsletter a day where we simply send you the Gospel reading of the day, alongside a work of art that we believe is poignant, reflective and appropriate to that reading. We offer a short reflection on the artwork and the reading. We simply give you the tools for you to meditate on the daily Gospel alongside a work of art."
Simple, it may be, but the results are sometimes astonishing. The frequently surprising art choices and thought-provoking commentary at times achieve the nearly impossible - casting a new light on scripture passages, long blunted by familiarity.
Visit this inspiring website and sign up for the daily reflection here.
Click here for an example of one of Patrick's daily emails (scroll down to 'About the painting').
"The greatest sin is the unlived life" - John O'Donohue on aging.
The late, great Irish poet, author and philosopher, John O’ Donohue, wrote that “The greatest sin is the unlived life”. In a powerful one-hour talk on "Imagination as the Path of Spirit", he urges the need to enter fully into our own lives, becoming all that we are capable of becoming – so that “when the time comes for us to lie down and die, we will be able to look back on a life that took honourable risks, that pushed its own frontiers, that tried to look after its own healing...that was compassionate, that didn’t judge, and that tried to look after the poor and neglected, and the unspoken for.”
Click on the image to listen to this inspiring 45 minute talk.
Click on the image to listen to this inspiring 45 minute talk.
The Four Gospels for a Visual Age
For the first time, the entire Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been brought to life in a compelling cinematic portrayal of the life of Jesus – accompanied by a complete and unabridged narration (using the New International Version of the New Testament, and also available in the King James Version). The narrations are accessible in a wide range of languages. This ground-breaking Biblical resource, the Lumo Project, has been created to transform the way in which people engage with, discover, and study the life of Jesus through the Gospels. It is also a wonderful pastoral resource.
Click on the image above to watch the Gospel of John.
Click on the image above to watch the Gospel of John.
Listen to the entire Bible in 80 hours! David Suchet, the actor best known for his role as Agatha Christie’s detective, Hercule Poirot, was raised without religion. In 1986, at the age of 40, he underwent a religious conversion after reading Chapter 8 of St Paul's Letter to the Romans in his hotel room. Soon afterwards, he was baptised into the Church of England. Since then, it has been his dream to make an audio recording of the whole Bible. He has now created the very first full-length audio version of the NIV Bible spoken by a single British actor. The end product is 80 hours of beautifully read Old and New Testaments (there is an advertisement at the start, which you can skip after four seconds). You can also search for a particular book of the Bible by Googling. e.g.: Suchet Bible Psalms.
The desert is a theme of central importance in Sacred Scripture as well as in monastic history and spirituality. It continues to be an image of purification and transformation, of fascination and of danger. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has given six inspiring talks on modern Christian meditation and the desert tradition, drawing on the spiritual teaching of Benedictine monk, Dom John Main. Listen here to “The Spirit in the Desert”.
James Finley reflects on the Thomas Merton he knew when he was a novice at Gethsemani Trappist monastery in Kentucky and Merton was director of novices.
Karen Armstrong, religious historian and former Catholic nun, is a provocative, original thinker on the role of religion in the modern world. Her "Charter for Compassion" promotes a new kind of religious discourse that goes back to the core values of religion: every single religion is based on compassion and on the golden rule, first propounded by Confucius 500 years before Christ, “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain, and then refuse under any circumstance to inflict that pain on anybody else... This is civilization”.
Listen here to her fascinating TED talk.
Listen here to her fascinating TED talk.
“We do not know how to pray”, says St Paul, “but the Spirit prays within us, deeper than words”. For the prayer of the Spirit of Jesus to well up in our hearts, flood our hearts, and overflow in us, we have first to become still, to concentrate. Benedictine monk, Laurence Freeman, who heads the ecumenical World Community of Christian Meditation, introduces the ancient and simple practice of meditation.