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The Julian Meetings is a loose umbrella organisation for local Christian contemplative prayer groups which meet in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries. [1]
The 1960s and 1970s saw a revival of interest in the United Kingdom, North America and elsewhere in mysticism and meditation, including the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer. The Julian Meetings is one of several organisations set up to meet this interest and to foster Christian meditation. Others include Contemplative Outreach, which encourages centering prayer, the World Community for Christian Meditation and the Fellowship of Meditation.
The Julian Meetings were founded in 1973, when Hilary Wakeman (an Anglican who in 1994 became one of the first female priests in the Church of England) wrote a letter published in Christian newspapers in the United Kingdom asking if some readers might like to meet together for Christian meditation. This led to the formation of 11 local groups. About a year later the name "The Julian Meetings" was adopted, after Julian of Norwich, although the organisation is not specifically linked to Julian of Norwich's teachings. [2]
Meetings may include a reading, music, pictures or objects, to aid contemplation, but the focus is on silent contemplation. [3]
In 2016 there were some 300 local groups, in the United Kingdom and other anglophone countries, as well as a number of individual members. [4] Individual Julian Meetings are small, welcoming people of all denominations or none. They take place in peoples’ homes, in churches or chapels, meeting rooms and other places. [3]
At the United Kingdom national gathering of the Julian Meetings, on 20 May 2017 in Derby, the keynote speaker was the poet, singer and academic Malcolm Guite, who spoke on poetry and prayer. [5]
Formal organisation is kept to a minimum, there are no paid staff, and the umbrella organisation is not a charity. Each local meeting is autonomous and responsible for its own finances and pattern of meditation. A National Council, and a smaller Core Group, provide resources and advice to local meetings and perform functions like the production of a magazine, running a website, and organising the occasional national gathering. [6]
Membership is not tied to any particular denominational allegiance: both the umbrella organisation and local meetings are ecumenical.
Records relating to the Julian Meetings from 1973 to 2016 are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. [9]
Christian mysticism is the tradition of mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation [of the person] for, the consciousness of, and the effect of [...] a direct and transformative presence of God" or Divine love. Until the sixth century the practice of what is now called mysticism was referred to by the term contemplatio, c.q. theoria, from contemplatio, "looking at", "gazing at", "being aware of" God or the Divine. Christianity took up the use of both the Greek (theoria) and Latin terminology to describe various forms of prayer and the process of coming to know God.
The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the Late Middle Ages. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God's particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one's mind and ego to the realm of "unknowing", at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God.
In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation.
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Catholic spirituality includes the various ways in which Catholics live out their Baptismal promise through prayer and action. The primary prayer of all Catholics is the Eucharistic liturgy in which they celebrate and share their faith together, in accord with Jesus' instruction: "Do this in memory of me." The Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council decreed that "devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them." In accord with this, many additional forms of prayer have developed over the centuries as means of animating one's personal Christian life, at times in gatherings with others. Each of the religious orders and congregations of the Catholic church, as well as lay groupings, has specifics to its own spirituality – its way of approaching God in prayer to foster its way of living out the Gospel.
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Arthur Macdonald "Donald" Allchin, published as A. M. Allchin, was a British Anglican priest and theologian. He was librarian of Pusey House, Oxford, from 1960 to 1969, a residentiary canon of Canterbury Cathedral from 1973 to 1987, and programme director of the St Theosevia Centre for Christian Spirituality in Oxford from 1987 to 1996.
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