Personal Development

There is a lot to be said for the Benedictines' search for God through common and private prayer, manual labour, and study. In the high intensity world we inhabit, many of us find it difficult to find time for little more than private prayer and Sunday mass.

One aim of this website is to provide people with more opportunity to develop in their spiritual lives, and to provide encouragement and a way of sharing things and ideas we have come across that have helped us grow.

We hope that this section of the website will grow as we contribute to it. We also expect that its format will evolve.

Meditation

Meditation is mental prayer, reflecting on a chosen (often biblical) theme. An easy way to structure this in our daily lives is to make use of something like the daily reflections provided by the Jesuits at Creighton University; there is another direct link on our home page.

A recognised way of approaching meditation is known by its Latin name Lectio Divina.
Open or download a document about Lectio Divina. MSWord or RTF or PDF

If we cannot go on a physical retreat, how about joining in with the online retreat at Creighton University? If you want, while you are making the online retreat, there is a setup enabling those who are taking part to share their thoughts; this is very good for dispelling the feeling of doing this all alone.

You may have noticed that there are lots of other aids to spiritual development on Creighton University's onlineministries.

Reading

Reading and reflecting on what we have read (does 'study' sound a bit onerous?) can be a very powerful way of opening ourselves up to God.

In this section we hope that people will recommend books they have found helpful and perhaps share a few thoughts about why a particular book has been so useful. This can be done anonymously or not, as individuals prefer.