Home >> Online Talks & Retreats >> Spiritual Enrichment Lecture Series

Praying in the Company of Mary

18th September 2021
2:45pm-4:25pm via Zoom

“She is the woman of prayer and work in Nazareth, and she is also Our Lady of Help, who sets out from her town “with haste (Lk 1:39) to be of service to others. This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelisation.”.

Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 288

What can we learn about prayer from Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and the perfect disciple of Jesus, her Son?

Join us in this presentation to learn about Mary from a Carmelite perspective

To us Carmelites, she is not a distant figure from the past but is, in fact, our mother from whom we draw life. This places us in a privileged relationship with Mary, the woman of prayer.

This topic will explore Mary’s place in the life of Christians (cf. John 19:26) with a view to responding to her inviting us to prayer (cf. Acts 1:14) and encouraging us to “ponder the Word” with her (Luke 2:19) and to be “obedient to the Word” (Luke 1:38; John 2:5).

It will explore how this means “sitting at the feet of Jesus”, for example, and learning everything from him, just as was the practice of  Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who carried her copy of the Gospels on her at all times, to consult them at any point, and also Elizabeth of the Trinity, who steadily studied the Epistles of St Paul, and developed her relationship with Christ from what she found there.  These two lives exemplify for us how, learning from Mary and heeding her advice, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5), we grow into a deeper relationship with Christ which is the essence of Carmelite prayer.

Thérèse’s reflections on Mary from the Last Conversations exemplify the Carmelite Marian spirit. This talk will also highlight how a knowledge and love of the scriptures and attentiveness to the daily readings of the Church’s liturgical year can substantially feed our prayer life and enable us to be true to the Carmelite spirit of prayer captured in the Rule of St Albert which urges us to spend “day and night meditating on the Law of the Lord.”

About the Talk

Your Speaker

Kelvin Ekhoegbe, OCD

Schedule

2:45pm – Zoom opens
3:00pm – Welcome, Introduction and Opening Prayer
3:05pm – Session One
3:40pm – Break
3:50pm – Session Two
4:25pm – Concluding prayers

We hope to see you there!