The Words of Jesus Christ
Contemplating Christ's Promise
God's Mercy is not earned or un-earned
Christ's Promise
“By this shall all man know that you are my disciples that you have Love for one another, just as I have loved you”
Introduction
(Video)
This 3 day retreat is a retreat where silence and solitude are harnessed into the direct experience of Infinite Love as expressed by Jesus Christ. Christ’s promise is that one needs not do or achieve anything but instead accept God’s Love trough the process of Surrendering to that Love. In addition to guided meditations, inspirations from the Christian contemplative tradition are used to help guide a person to the direct experience of the Infinite Presence.
The invitation for this 3 day retreat is to leave everything behidn and be completely with illumined Love. Without any connections to the world, the mind settles and is freed to return to its source.
In order to be completely with Love, this retreat invites to renounce for the 3 days all connections with the world both internally and externally. This is facilitated by not using the internet, cell phones, text messages or any form of communication troughout the whole retreat. The course material can also be downloaded if no internet connection is used.
Day 1 Mercy, Grace, Salvation
(Video)
Love is not to be acquired, pursued, achieved or manipulated but only surrendered to. In the beginning of the non dual journey of Love stands the embrace of one’s sinlessness and complete lovability as Love’s creation. Whatever has happened no longer has any meaning, the Grace, mercy and Love of Jesus Christ have taken them away. This blank slate upon which Love can now write is the moment of salvation. Salvation is the acceptance of one’s sinlessness and complete lovability not because of anything one has done or not done, but instead becasue one has been created by Love. This first evening is an affirmation and a rememberance that there is nothing that holds one back from the experience of Christ’s Love. Whatever illusions one still may have, they are offered this evening as a devotional gift to the source of Love. As salvation has come one now is free to be one with Love.
5pm opening, prayer & dedication
5.20pm Preparing for Christ’s transmission, preparing for salvation
“Mercy triumphs over judgment” The bible
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” Jesus Christ
Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ Jesus Christ (Matthew 9:13)
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; Luke: 6:37
6pm silent meditation: Mercy of the Lord “The heart of the Lord is mercy”, “I want mercy and not sacrifice”
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” The Bible
“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” Romans 6:14
” For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boas” Bible
7pm devotional service “laying down the past, salvation has come”
8pm entering the silence of Love
Day 2 Surrender,Love, Devotion
6 am Opening Dedication & Prayer for the day
7 am Breakfast and coninued silent sitting
8 am sitting
” Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And he pointed his hand to his disciples and said, behold my mother, and behold my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and my sister and my mother” Jesus Christ
“A perfect and true will is one completely aligned with God’s will, the more he joins in union with God. So if someone wished to touch him, he would first have to touch God; if someone wanted to approach him he would first have to pass through God.By aligning itself with God’s will, the soul takes on the taste of God: grief and joy, bitterness and sweetness, darkness and light, all become divine, whatever happens to this man.” Meister Ekhart
9 am sitting
Not one is so unprepared, unlearned, or uncouth that he could not become one with God.
If he is ready to unite his will purely and unreservedly will with the will of God, all he has to do is say:
“Lord show me thy will and grant me the strength to fulfill it”
And God does so with abundance.
That we may follow God, that our will may become one with His – May God help us!
Meister Ekhart
10 am sitting
“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” Theresa of Avila
11 am sitting
“The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God’s will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.” Meister Ekhart
12 noon Lunch
“One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be.”
―
1.30pm Christian Contemplative Chanting
2pm sitting
3pm sitting
4pm sitting
5pm dinner
7 pm devotional service “Surrender to Love”
8pm sitting 8
Day 3 Silence, illumination, transfiguration
6 am “God speaks in the silence of the Heart” Mother Teresa (clip)
7 am breakfast and silent meditation
8 am 11×17 poster – there is a huge silence within (eckhart)
9 am
“What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love. ” – St John of the Cross
“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”
―
10 am
“When the Divine Light penetrates the soul, it is united with God as light with light” Meister Ekhart
11 am
Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God’s will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually.
“Believe in the Light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light”
Jesus Christ (John 12:36)
12 noon lunch break
1pm
“God is Light”
Jesus Christ (John 1 5-9)
” Let your light shine before others” Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:16)
“I am the Light of the world, Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life”
2pm
“After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17)
3pm
4pm
5pm
Additional quotes:
“Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world.Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.”
Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world—everything is hidden in you.” -Hildegard of Bingen
“Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul.”
―
“All living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God’s brilliance, emerging from God like the rays of the sun.“ – Hildegard of Bingen
Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly. — St. Ignatius Loyola
God gives each one of us sufficient grace ever to know His holy will, and to do it fully. – St. Ignatius of Loyola
How happy I am to see myself imperfect and be in need of God’s mercy.
–St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, OCD
“It is love alone that gives worth to all things” Theresa of Avila
