Embedded Files
Our Monastery is here and nowWhere you are todayThe person you are speaking withThe room you are sitting inThe street where you are walkingThe action you are doing nowThis is your monasteryThis is your prayerEternity is nowThe city is our monastery.
The City Is My Monastery
The City Is My Monastery
A Contemporary Rule of Life
A Contemporary Rule of Life
Richard Carter
The Nazareth Community at St Martin-in-the-Fields is a reimagining of monastic disciplines and work, here, in our lives, now.
The disciplines include silence, prayer, contemplation, lectio divina, liturgy, sacrament, service, hospitality, sabbath.
Richard Carter previously spent 15 years in the Solomon Islands as part of the Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican community who take renewable vows for 5-year terms.
This intentional community was formed by 48 people at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 2018. They practice Lectio Divina daily, Eucharist weekly, and once a month gather together for spiritual companionship. The Nazareth Community have an annual renewal of vows every March, on St Joseph's day.
Service is Living the Beatitudes ...
Service is Living the Beatitudes ...
There is a passage in the bible "about the person who invited important guests to a wedding feast, but they all made excuses why they couldn't come. So the owner of the house said to his servants, 'go out into the roads and the lanes and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, so that my house may be full'."
Lectio Divina ...
Lectio Divina ...
The text is seen as a gift to be receivedThe passage of Scripture is read slowly It is given time and space It is allowed to filter into our own life and contextIt is repeated, each reading taking us deeper. The text questions us and opens possibility It is a means of discovering GodIt is a means of discovering our hidden selves.
The Sleeping Bag ...
The Sleeping Bag ...
I bought it at a camping shop last yearA three-season sleeping bagIt was warm and pleasing, the way good quality things areOne day, I was asked, as I often am, by a man at the International Group (for those facing destitution with no recourse to public funds) for a sleeping bag But I had none left, only this one which was mineIt felt wasteful to buy a sleeping bag for your holiday and then just give it awayBut I thought of this man trying to sleep on the streetIt kept nagging at meHe will use it far more than meOr was it the realization that if I didn't give it away I would never be warm? So I gave it to him, somewhat grudgingly.
He took it without realizing how much it had cost, that givingTook it with no more thank you than if it had been a cheap oneTook as if it was his right to receive and my duty to giveWhich it isThis year I have another sleeping bagIt's not like the last, and all night in my tent on holiday I lie awake feeling cold Wishing I had the warmer oneWhen I told him before I left that I would need that sleeping bag, he laughed 'It's too dirty now,' he said, 'from sleeping on the streets.' 'Yes, but it's warm,' I said 'Yes, it's warm,' he said, 'and waterproof in the rain - the best sleeping bag.' I felt good when he said thatI had given him the best. My bestI will buy another, and give that away too.
He took it without realizing how much it had cost, that givingTook it with no more thank you than if it had been a cheap oneTook as if it was his right to receive and my duty to giveWhich it isThis year I have another sleeping bagIt's not like the last, and all night in my tent on holiday I lie awake feeling cold Wishing I had the warmer oneWhen I told him before I left that I would need that sleeping bag, he laughed 'It's too dirty now,' he said, 'from sleeping on the streets.' 'Yes, but it's warm,' I said 'Yes, it's warm,' he said, 'and waterproof in the rain - the best sleeping bag.' I felt good when he said thatI had given him the best. My bestI will buy another, and give that away too.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse