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Contemplative Christianity: the Union of Wisdom & Compassion

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‘Christianity is essentially a contemplative religion, founded on the inseparability of wisdom and compassion, of kingdom (spirit) and temple (matter). It is this unity which is the essence of the Good News or Gospel preached by Christ.’ 

Sylvester Houédard OSB of Prinknash Abbey

In this experiential day retreat we will reflect on Christianity as a fundamentally contemplative religion, a “Way” taught by Jesus as a path to the union of wisdom and compassion which has become one of Christianity’s best kept secrets.

In 1986 my teacher, the remarkable Benedictine monk Dom Sylvester Houédard of Prinknash Abbey, gave a paper to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation and others, to support dialogue between Benedictines and a visiting Tibetan delegation, ‘to understand each other so that each will understand itself more deeply.’

Working from the striking summary of Christian contemplative wisdom and theology given in this paper, we will explore what Houédard, Maggie Ross and other contemporary teachers say about the essence of the Gospel as the union of wisdom and compassion, as a path to becoming living templesmanifesting the divine truth of who we are.

“The temple of our body,” writes Houédard, “surrounds the inmost room that we enter to pray; the kingdom is manifest in the deeds that flow out from that centre. The unity of what flows out in the kingdom from the centre to which we turn (and which we enter) in prayer, is what Christ taught and is the authentic tradition of the Church – the unity between knowing God in contemplation and loving God through compassion for the whole of mankind.”

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