
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
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A blog about contemplative prayer and the centering method that can introduce you to deeper meditation. Written by Fr. Terry Ryan.
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
8h ago
Well, it can be a Happy Valentine Day if you can love yourself. To wish someone else a happy Day while ruing your day and life, does not bring much happiness to them. A Valentine starts from within oneself. You give the love you have for yourself and expand it to love others. You cannot give love that you do not have. Many people sit in recovery meetings feeling down because on this day they don’t have someone “special” as a Valentine. But the fact that they are in recovery shows they loved themself enough to do the recovery work of showing up. A ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
1d ago
In the first chapter of the gospel of Mark in the New Testament, Jesus encounters a man described as having “an unclean spirit.” Well, doesn’t that sound like a good description for an alcoholic…and I suppose a few other types of people. What does Jesus do? He tells the unclean spirit it to shut up. “Be quiet” to quote the Bible. After Step Five of the 12 step recovery process, a person is supposed to sit “quietly” for an hour to see if they got everything out in telling another person the mess they made of their life. Did they bring up all the sp ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
2d ago
The Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures are actually songs written in a certain meter or beat for the sake of singing. Song formates are for the purpose of remembering something important. A certain refrain remains in your memory as opposed to some written item. Love songs are for the same purpose, to remind us of something that is important. A lot of the psalms are of an uplifting type of nature, about love, future good times, a new and wonderful relationship and so on. In the “Sound of Music” movie, the young nun is really hiding out in the monastery, lacking ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
2d ago
Fortunately, for my religious education, I had a loving mother. When I messed up with Mom, I might feel guilty, but powerless to make things right. I was but a kid, with few resources. But my mother still loved me. She might correct me but it was for my betterment, not just to punish me. So, when I went to school and the sisters talked about a loving God, one who loved me even when I messed up and could not fix things, I had a comparison with my Mom. A lot of kids do not have this, so such an idea of God is but a myth.   ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
3d ago
Enormous effort is being made to put out the wildfires in California. But this is not the only fire that some people try to put out. People in recovery and Christians have the fire of recovery or baptism. Their life is supposed to change for the better. Though this fire is within and good, some people don’t like it because it rubs up against self-centeredness. If you are hanging round with people who are basically all about themself, and you start to change with this inner fire, they don’t want you around unless you go back to what you were. Recovering ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
4d ago
When we get obsessed with the struggle for temporal existence, we can become complacent about spiritual growth. Our religion becomes one of materialism, security and good health. So ask yourself what you do pray for? What is primary? For Christians, recall that your savior did not come into the world in a nice home or with a nice bank account. His health was in danger as the local potentate wanted to kill this little baby. For those in recovery from addiction, is your first prayer in the morning, assuming you pray at all, gratitude that you woke up and ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
5d ago
The divine will for Christians is that silence must be a good part of our day, that is the silence of prayer, rather than the grumbling about the mess of the world or our own life. Why? Because the Christian God came as a baby. What do you do if you want the baby to sleep and thus grow up to a mature adult? Shut up while the baby sleeps, right? Remember, in Jesus day he did not have a big house with his own room where one could close the door and then go about babbling on. Silence is the way that our infant spirituality grows into adult maturity.   ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
6d ago
When people first enter a recovery program, they initially feel they are nothing. They have lost so much and their life is a mess. Then they get a sponsor who walks them or drags them through the 12 steps, gets them to be of service at meetings, and to feel better about themself. They begin to feel important and this is good for sobriety. But recovery programs are more than sobriety. It is about transformation. A complete change from deep within our innards. To get moving into this deeper dimension we must let go of our sense of importance. Reali ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
1w ago
In any program and religion that has lots of rules, people who keep to the rules can become a bit complacent. Keep the rules and regulations and you will be on the inside, the correct side. But this can lead to complacency because you are not so open to something new, different, a change. Traditionalists want things always to be the same as they are. Change in itself is not necessarily good either. But I notice that when Buddha, Moses and Jesus came along, the rules and regs people, government and religious officials, were not so able to get on board. They i ..read more
Father Terry's Spiritual Stuff
1w ago
When people begin to pray, and meditate, they tend to want a payoff, as in good feelings, concepts, and images in their imagination. But this is like getting off to a good start in a foot race. The start is not the race, but only the beginning. If we will only pray when we get a good start then we are full of self and ego. If you keep on with the prayer, you have to let go of the need for the good stuff at the beginning. Why? So that you can let go of self and allow God, your Higher Power, to show up on God’s terms and not yours. God’s terms migh ..read more