Contemplative prayer or Christian meditation, has been part of Christianity from the beginning. Jesus spent whole nights alone in prayer. The Desert Fathers and our own Celtic hermits sought places to be alone with God. But for some centuries the Christian Churches neglected this most basic form of prayer. In 1973 a letter in English church papers of various denominations led to people setting up Julian Meetings and today there are over 400 Julian Meetings in the UK and worldwide.
The Julian Meetings movement was named after Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth century mystic. Her inspired writings are sometimes used at meetings but JM is in no way a Julian cult. The purpose of JM is defined as fostering the practice and teaching of contemplative prayer within the Christian tradition, and this accords with Julian's precept that the highest form of prayer consists in simply waiting on God. Many people will have heard of Julian's saying that 'All shall be well'. At our meetings we take it in turns (if willing) to lead the rest of us into the silence with appropriate music and a short reading from the Bible or other spiritual book to help us leave our daily busy-ness to one side and focus simply on God as far as we are able. After half an hour's silence the leader will invite us into a brief time of intercessory prayer before we share the Grace and the Peace and have a cup of tea or coffee together. We meet at 183, Millbrook Road East at 7.30pm on the first and third Mondays of the month and are very happy to welcome anyone who would like to come and see if this is for them.
The Julian Meetings movement was named after Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth century mystic. Her inspired writings are sometimes used at meetings but JM is in no way a Julian cult. The purpose of JM is defined as fostering the practice and teaching of contemplative prayer within the Christian tradition, and this accords with Julian's precept that the highest form of prayer consists in simply waiting on God. Many people will have heard of Julian's saying that 'All shall be well'. At our meetings we take it in turns (if willing) to lead the rest of us into the silence with appropriate music and a short reading from the Bible or other spiritual book to help us leave our daily busy-ness to one side and focus simply on God as far as we are able. After half an hour's silence the leader will invite us into a brief time of intercessory prayer before we share the Grace and the Peace and have a cup of tea or coffee together. We meet at 183, Millbrook Road East at 7.30pm on the first and third Mondays of the month and are very happy to welcome anyone who would like to come and see if this is for them.
