Alan Dillingham will be facilitating Divine Friendships, a new monthly series exploring Christian contemplative and devotional classics. Rolling Ridge Retreat and Conference Center in North Andover, Massachusetts is hosting the series.
This series title draws its inspiration from the great 16th century Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, who described contemplative prayer as “a close sharing between friends”.
From the Christian perspective, divine friendships manifest themselves in at least three ways. The first is friendship within God expressed in the Holy Trinity. This is the original divine friendship out of which all the others flow. The second is friendship between God and the individual human person. The third is friendship between and among human persons united to each other through the Holy Spirit.
What can reading from Christian contemplative and devotional classics tell us about divine friendships? First, it can provide examples or templates for divine friendships showing us what they can look like. Second, it can help develop our own friendships with God by feeding our individual, unique practices of contemplative prayer. Third, it can help us to develop divine friendships with each other, grounded in the Holy Spirit.
I no longer speak of you as slaves . . . . Instead I call you friends. Jn 15:15
The first session began Monday, June 14 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm and looked at Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine lived from 354 to 430, during the late Roman Empire and his writings greatly influenced the development of Western Christianity. His Confessions are in the form of a sustained prayer to God, reflecting on his conversion to the church.
The second session continues on Monday, July 12 with The Imitation of Christ, perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional book after the Bible. Thomas à Kempis, a German priest who spent most of his long life in a Dutch monastery copying bibles, wrote the Imitation anonymously in the early part of the fifteenth century. It was primarily intended for his fellow religious, but became widely read among the laity. Click here to register for the next session.