Gnostic Anglican "Priestess", Supporter of Homosexual Unions to Lead Prayer at Minneapolis RC Chuch

Faithfulrebel ^ | July 13, 2008

[NYer]

Thanks to a reader for the tip.

As you may recall, some months ago in Minneapolis, St. Paul Archdiocese, A Faithful Rebel exposed the proposed lecture of Carol Curoe, an active lesbian who was scheduled to speak at a Catholic parish in Minneapolis.

Now, as if the radicals hadn't learned the lesson then, when the Archdiocese had to very wisely intervene and suggest that the venue be moved, now they are aiming at stirring up a little more scandal. They have invited a female Anglican "priestess" and supporter of homosexual unions to lead Catholics in "Centering prayer and inner awakening", again at a Minneapolis Catholic Church. One wonders why they cannot seem to grasp the serious and scandalous nature of such activities being held in Catholic parishes, by people who actively contradict the Church's teachings.

Here is the notice on the web site for St. Olaf parish in Minneapolis:

Centering Prayer & Inner Awakening

Let by nationally-acclaimed
author Cynthia Bourgeault
A day of teaching based upon her book

Saturday, July 19
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
St. Olaf Catholic Church, Fleming Hall

Bring a bag lunch (beverages and snacks provided)
Free will offering ($25 suggested)
Now you may ask, and I wouldn't blame you for asking, "what's wrong with a little 'centering prayer?' " Well let's look a little closer at the teachings of this Ms. Bourgeault and see whether she is to be trusted in leading Catholics in any sort of prayer:

The following, according to the tip I received by email, is from An informative introduction into a gnostic understanding of Jesus Christ, April 4, 2006 by Midwest Book Review in Oregon, WI. After reading it, you will need no further explanation, and I urge you to immediately contact the Archdiocese of Minneapolis St. Paul at the number at the end of this post to prevent this from taking place.

Encountering The Wisdom Jesus: Quickening The Kingdom Of Heaven Within (Sounds True Audio Learning Course-6 CDs) by Cynthia Bourgeault (Principal Teacher and Advisor to the Contemplative Society in Victoria, British Columbia and founding director of the Aspen Wisdom School in Aspen, Colorado) provides an informed and informative introduction into a gnostic understanding of Jesus Christ, the man who was foremost seeking to radically alter the consciousness of those who would follow Him. Teaching the reader of Christ's many variable concepts, and how to retain an enlightened perception of Him, Encountering The Wisdom Jesus progressively educates listener with an intuitive enlightenment into what Christ's true teachings were intended to convey, and a sound knowledge of early Christianity and the evolution of the Church. Encountering The Wisdom Jesus is very highly recommended for all who are seeking a greater and more complete understanding of their Savior and Lord, and a more informed perspective of the Christian religion. (6 CDs, 6 hours and 45 minutes)

____________

Cynthia has a definite love of Christianity and is able to pass that love on through her words and ideas. These cds are a pleasure to listen to, and Cynthia lets her love and knowledge shine through. She does incorporate the Gnostic gospels, but do not be afraid that is all- she does not exclude the canonical Gospels, but weaves them all together in a seamless fashion.

Guest Preacher: Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault

January 25, 2004

Sermon based upon 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

THE FIELD

I have some things to say about the gospel today as we begin our symposium later this afternoon. But for this sermon time I want to 'take on' the epistle. There are no accidents I believe, and it is astonishing how St. Paul's beautiful metaphor of the many members, one body, should come up again just now in the three year lectionary cycle, just at the time when the Episcopal Church and in fact the whole Anglican community is so rent with dissention and with threatened schism and with anguish, and with good people not able to understand where the others are coming from. So within this context, I think it is really important for us as a Christian community to see if we can listen to these words of wisdom of Paul with fresh ears.

So how do cells differentiate within a body, and yet stay together? What tells a head to become a head, a leg to become a leg, or a hair follicle, a sperm cell, a liver cell? What keeps them working together yet allows them to differentiate? This is a question that has fascinated scientists for years and is particularly at the forefront for scientists today.

This summer, a very fascinating book came across my desk. I think it was actually on the best-seller list. It's called, "The Field." And is by a British Investigative journalist by the name of Lynn McTaggart and what she did in this quite fascinating piece of research was she started with a cross section of about five or six different scientific disciplines such as quantum physics, nuclear biology, neurobiology, astronomical engineering. And she showed how starting from these different points of a circle, scientists were beginning to converge on a similar understanding. Namely that there has to be a uniting something, which the Particle Physics folks call the zero-point field, and she called it just The Field. Or in other words, what it means is that matter and even energy are both embedded in a matrix or something more subtle which you could only call consciousness or coherent purpose. The blueprint lies there. A very interesting study! And she says, in this field, this matrix, it's property is coherent purposive consciousness, which essentially allows all the parts to be instantaneously, simultaneously in connection with each other and know how to go within the whole. So this is very fascinating. What it's coming back to is the old metaphysical notion that consciousness precedes form. We used to say, back a hundred years ago, "I have a body, therefore I'm conscious!" Now more and more science is coming around to what metaphysics has said all along. "I am conscious, therefore I have a body."

Well, there was a particularly poignant fascinating section to me in this book. It had to do with ground breaking research in cancer. Now the conventional wisdom is that cancer is a disease that originates at the cellular level as a deficiency in the immune system that lets invading cells get in. But some of the new data that's being turned up against the backdrop of this hypothesis of the field, is that cancer may in fact be a disequilibria, something scrambled in the field that prevents or that blocks the signal and keeps the various parts from knowing how to differentiate. It posits that there is a fundamental harmonic of health peculiar to each person but still a fundamental harmonic that allows everything to tune in, to hear simultaneously, and instantaneously do its part. Cancer in some sense, scrambles the signal, like a low level rock station scrambles your beloved classical music station and so in that circumstance when the basic harmonic of health can no longer be heard, what's left is proliferating undifferentiated mitosis.

Well, now this is a very fascinating metaphor. A simple, and new way of looking at things. And I want to set that on the shelf for just a minute. I'm going to come back to it.

But first I want to read to you a very very beautiful poem that was written by a fellow who lived exactly a thousand years ago. A Greek theologian, an abbot, a mystic named Simeon The New Theologian. And one day he apparently had a very profound vision. An experience of what it means personally to be a cell in Christ's body. And this is what he wrote about this vision that he had:

We awaken in Christ's body

As Christ awakens our bodies and my poor hand is Christ

He enters my foot and is infinitely me

I move my hand and wonderfully see, my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of him,

For God is indivisibly whole, seamless in his Godhood

I move my foot and at once he appears in a flash of lightning

Do my words seem blasphemous?

Then open your heart to him and let yourself receive the one who is opening to you, so deeply

For if we genuinely love him we wake up inside Christ's body

Where all our body, all over, every most hidden part of it is realized in joy, as him

And he makes us utterly real

And everything that is hurt,

Everything that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful, maimed, ugly,

irreparably damaged

Is in him transformed and recognized as whole, as lovely and radiant in his light

We awaken as the beloved in every last part of our body

Isn't that extraordinary? To feel in that the completely permeable boundary between Christ, your participation as a member of the mystical body of Christ, and Christ as interpenetrating and inhabiting your very being. I think this is a wonderful mystical take on the zero point field, if we could see in some sense from our position of faith, of Christ the mystical body as that point field in which all the parts are coherently simultaneously in connection with each other

So what would the healing harmonic be? I think the fundamental harmonic of the body of Christ is healing love. It is the signature of Christ. Everything that is dark, harsh, shameful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, in him is transformed and recognized as whole. That is the healing harmonic of Christ. It is what holds the body of Christ together. So what can we infer from this in terms of our dilemma today? First of all, I think we are forced to conclude that differentiation is good. No one every said the parts had to have the same function or see things the same way. In fact this passage from Paul seems to imply the opposite. Over the centuries our Western Church has made a fundamental confusion of oneness with uniformity. And we have to keep coming back to this passage that says that oneness is really differentiation held together by a higher unity. And I think we need to trust that and realize as we go about the Anglican Church there are going to be people in different life situations, different communities, different ethnic backgrounds, different sexual orientations, seeing things and living things from different parts of the body. But what holds them together is not a uniformity that makes all one, but rather keeps them marching to that fundamental harmonic of love. I speak very personally here and so I wouldn't want to lay this on anybody, but I believe it is an extraordinary blessing to be in places where God blesses faithful committed heterosexual unions and I also find it an honor to be in places where God blesses faithful committed homosexual unions as all proceed in sincerity, in love to unfold the blueprint which finally belongs to Christ.

And in conclusion I would simply say I have also come to believe that although the past is a guide, what keeps us together is not what was, but that fundamental harmonic of what is. And what is – is the healing love. We can find it simply, here and now. If we don't find it here and now, there's no point in coming to the altar. But as we find it and connect with it, it will be the guide that allows us as cells to walk our part in love. Distinctly, uniquely, but with the whole, which can live with greater flexibility because the oneness at the center is so strong. May that oneness be lived in our lives and in the life of our church. AMEN.

I strongly urge concerned Catholics to contact the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul and humbly request that they not permit this activity to take place at a Catholic Church. The people who organized this should be reminded that Catholic Church's DO NOT belong to a particular group of people at the parish. They are a part of the universal Catholic Church, as administered through the Diocese, and they are dedicated and sacredly consecrated to the worship of God.

Many will defend this as an ecumenical activity. Remember that true ecumenism recognizes what is true in each "tradition," (to use the language of the moderns themselves), and so they must recognize the scandalous nature, in Catholic practice, of having someone lead Catholics in prayer who proclaims herself a priest in contradiction to Catholic teaching and openly "preaches" against the Catholic teaching on homosexual unions and other matters.

The Archdiocese of Minneapolis St. Paul may be reached by calling 651-291-4400.

[NYer]

St. Olaf Catholic Church

[x_plus_one]

She looks like a witch...

[wideawake]

Paul Z. Myers will be serving as altarperson, I understand.

[Unam Sanctam]

From the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."

2 Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. 3For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of Heaven."

I guess she just wants to be a man...

[AnAmericanMother]

Birds of a feather . . . .

The "Centering Prayer Group" at St. Olaf is led by one "Sr. Joan Tuberty, St. Olaf staff person, teacher, spiritual counselor, and coordinator". Need I say more?

[NaughtiusMaximus]

I wish Pacelli was still Pope.

[Radl]

You just insulted witches.

[DieHard the Hunter]

It would be indeed disturbing to see the Catholic Church tolerating this nonsense for more than, say, the short amount of time it takes to complete this posting.

[sockmonkey]

I wish these types would just get the Heck out of the Catholic Church. In the only Catholic Church in my town (I drive sixty miles to avoid this local parish)they recently hosted as one of their CAFE (Catholic Adult Faith Enrichment) a program extolling the virtue of some Muslim Poet/prophet ..Apparently his poetry is the latest trendy thing.

In the bulletin it described him as a Prophet from another Faith Tradition. Not mentioned was his advocating killing enemies and infidels. I almost puked at the stuff some try to foist on unsuspecting Catholics these days.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I read this post thinking this must be another apostate hijink coming from St. Joan of Arc. But no, there are more parishes just as whacked-out. The Pope should have come to America with a shotgun, mop and broom to clean house. Papal instructions don’t seem to be enough.

[trisham]

One wonders why they cannot seem to grasp the serious and scandalous nature of such activities being held in Catholic parishes, by people who actively contradict the Church's teachings.

******************

One certainly does.

[Dr. Sivana]

Minneapolic/St. Paul has a new bishop, and they are trying to force either a misstep or wear him down to “tame” him. They pulled this (I’m afraid successfully) with Cardinal George in Chicago.

The event must be cancelled, and an “assistant” pastor who will report openly and honestly to the bishop should be placed, if there is some reason that the bishop thinks removing the pastor is ill-advised.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, as long as we're wishing . . .

[DogwoodSouth]

From this Sunday’s (July 13th) bulletin:

Centering Prayer
& Inner Awakening

Led by nationally-acclaimed
author Cynthia Bourgeault

A day of teaching based upon her book

Saturday, July 19
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Fleming Hall at St. Olaf

Bring a bag lunch (beverages and snacks provided)
Free will offering ($25 suggested)
To register, call the St. Olaf office, 612-332-7471 or online at
www.SaintOlaf.org/events.htm

Free parking in the Energy Ramp (between 8th and 9th Streets); entrances on 3rd and 4th Avenue. Handicap parking only in the church parking lot.

This event is sponsored by the
St. Olaf Centering Prayer Group and Minnesota Contemplative Outreach.

- END -

My observation: terribly scandalous to the faithful.

[Manfred the Wonder Dawg]

On this we can heartily agree - the none sense this woman is promoting is dangerous. Press on and warn many RCs about the attending dangers of occult practices such as centering prayer.

In depth information on such on this site: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/index.html

[marshmallow]

St. Joan of Arc parish? No!!! St. Olaf's! Another name to add to the Minneapolis "lunacy log".

The insanity appears to be contagious!

[Dick Vomer]

2 Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. 3For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of Heaven."

[ChurtleDawg]

Gnostic? How does one go about becoming a Gnostic these days?

I have the book of the Nag Hammadi translations, and I will tell you there is some gnostic stuff that makes no sense at all.