NEWSLETTER CONTENT
The Emmaus Story »
The Importance Of Story »
Access To The Inner Landscape Of The Self »
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THE EMMAUS STORY
We Commemorate the Title of Our Newsletter
'On The Road to Emmaus'
On the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about eleven kilometers from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And Jesus said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?"
Jesus asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hope that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.
"Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find the body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said: but they did not see Jesus."
Then Jesus said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going ,Jesus walked ahead as if he were going on, but they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is evening and the day is now nearly over." So Jesus went with them.
When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, then their eyes were open, and they recognized Jesus; and he vanished from their sight.
The two disciples said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scripture to us?"
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gather together... these were saying
THE LORD HAS RISEN INDEED!
HE HAS APPEARED TO SIMON!
JESUS IS ALIVE!
THE IMPORTANCE OF STORY
by Daniel McDonald
If men desire wisdom, she will give them the water of knowledge to drink, They will never waiver from the truth; they will stand firm forever, Alleluia. [SIR 15]
STORY IS LIKE WATER: WATER REVIVES THE SPIRIT; WE CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT WATER NOR CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT STORY. BOTH ARE ESSENTIAL TO OUR TOTAL WELL BEING.
STORIES
tell us everything. Where we came from, who we are, and where we are going.
My mother use to tell us stories about how she found each one of her children in the garden. It seemed that one of my mothers favorite saints or sometimes, even The Lord Jesus would prompt her where to look in the garden. She found my brother Bernard under a cabbage plant, one early summer morning when there was still dew upon the cabbage leaves. God, it seemed had been suggesting to her for sometime that a new baby was about to come into the world. A dream told her where she would find her new son in the garden. My brother Leo similarly was found one bright April morning by my father as he came back from the barn after milking the cows. Little Leo was resting serenely in the center of a new and very large Rhubarb leaf. The rhubarb patch was nearby the kitchen door of our family home. My father would often point out the very leaf where he found little Leo.
Apparently, I was found by Auntie Shea as she came to our house through a short cut path through the orchard. Mrs. Shea, was not really my aunt at all. She was my mother's helper who did many things in our home to assist my mom. This big lovely woman would sing soft songs to us. We often could hear her singing when she went about her work sweeping, dusting, washing and cooking.
Mrs. Shea noticed something strange one morning as she came to work through the orchard, her usual short cut path. She thought that she could hear a baby crying. The sound seemed to be emanating from a cherry tree in full bloom. She found this a little bit disconcerting. She didn't quite know where to look. Then she looked up among the blossoms and to her great surprise she saw a baby swinging in what looked like a silver hammock made from a spiders web. The branch of the cherry tree was so bowed down with the weight of the infant swinging on it every so gently that Auntie Shea wondered why it didn't break.
She knew that my mother and father were thinking about having a family and were hoping to have children soon. Could it be that the angel who had the task of delivering new children into the world was a little worried about this child who cried so much. The angel borrowed the spider web so the child could swing back and forth and be comforted for a short while before delivery. The little infant needed some time to get used to living outside of heaven. It is a huge adjustment for little babies to leave the comfort of heaven and come into this world. The journey the child must make in order to be born is a very delicate matter. The wise angel realized that both the mother, father and baby needed some time to prepare themselves for this wonderful event of birth.
AND SO THAT IS HOW
Auntie Shea told me that I came to live with my parents on Cherry Blossom Farm. We children loved our mother's stories and as we grew a little older my mother would often introduce the piano to explore even more exciting stories about ourselves, our neighbors, the community and the world.
I know now how much these stories helped us to know God better, the Saints and to love the church. These stories not only taught us how to pray and to love one another they also taught us how to use our imagination and how to look at everything twice because you so often have missed something the first time you looked. Looking twice at people and things helps you to see everything there is about them.
My mothers stories were about relationships. They involved every member of the family, our dog and cat, the neighborhood and the community. They helped us appreciate every little bud and leaf on the branch of the tree, every little bird that came and made a nest in that tree and started a family of birds to live there. It helped us to discover the difference between a rain drop and dew drop. Everybody and everything had a purpose. We were all connected to each other.
Mystery was everywhere in life. We could find the most interesting things in our garden, or on the path to school. People like Granny Sloan who knew almost everything about flowers, their names, their colour and where best to find them. We also learned all sorts of things from our grandparents; how to make butter and how to shuck corm and dig potatoes. We learned that there were many kinds of families and each of us a belonged to a particular family. Mother Nature was a bountiful mother of so many different families: animal, mineral, vegetable families, insect, bird and grass families. We also learned that there were food families.
We learned that God had created us all.
We learned that all creatures belonged to the family of God. God lives everywhere in the whole cosmos and heaven is just the name of his special arm chair. My father also told stories. His stories were about what marks the the difference in the world. He taught us that everything was different – no two snow flakes were the same. Everything is unique he would say, everyone and every thing is different not better, but just different. No two peas in a pod are the same. Just like you three children, each of you are so different from one another, and each of you have special gifts, each of you smile in a different way and yet each of you are brothers.
DREAMS
are night stories about ours selves. Dreams are powerful stories from the deep unconscious of the soul. Some dreams are about us, others are about the community of us.
Collective Dreams are stories from the unconscious soul, community dreams from the universal self.
Mythologies, religious, poems, art and music evolve from these Collective and universal dreams.
All stories have powerful energies; they can transform and transcend the world, they can heal pain and suffering.
"These divine manifestations are ubiquitous, only our eyes are not open to it." [Joseph Campbell]
"Symbols take us to the center of the circle, not to another point on the circumference. It is by symbolism that man enters effectively and consciously into contact with his own deepest self, with other men, and with God..." [Thomas Merton]
All Stories are alive. They energize us instruct us and encourage us, they inspire us with hope and confidence to create new vision and new possibilities for ourselves and others. STORIES introduce us to the world and all peoples of the world. They let us know that we are not alone and that there has been someone before us who has experienced a similar life experience. Stories encourages us to continue the struggle to live inspite of our personal difficulties and that there is more in life left to live than we have ever imagined. Stories feed life with hope, self confidence, self awareness and self esteem.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
is about our personal story. Sigmund Freud encouraged talk therapy, self stories, dreams, feelings emotions are part of our story. Our stories are in our bodies and in our psyche, they reside in any emotional or physical trauma we may have experienced in life.
Sigmund Freud came from a people of tradition who knew and believed in scripture, the story of God and his people. God knew that the narrative had power to heal. He also recognized the importance of relationship and community in the process of healing and maintaining wellness.
WE TELL STORIES OF ALL KINDS; STORIES OF EXPERIENCES, HISTORICAL STORIES OF TRUTH, STORIES OF JOYAND SADNESS. We tell stories to entertain us, to calm us. We tell love stories. We tell stories of peace. Every nation of the world have their own stories. You have your own story. Stories need to be told and they need to be told to someone. Psychotherapy is about telling and listening to personal stories.
Like water stories wash over us. We bathe our hearts in the depths of stories and we are immersed in feeling. Like rain water stories soften us and make the seeds of hope in us ready for sowing. Like water stories provide moisture and nutrients for the soul.
ACCESS TO THE INNER LANDSCAPE OF THE SELF
by Daniel McDonald
Teachers, chaplains. Spiritual directors must go beyond imitation to reach the inner life of man.
C.G. JUNG
Too few people have experienced the divine image as the innermost possession of their own souls. Christ only meets them from without, never from within the soul ; that is why dark paganism still reigns there, a paganism which now in a form so blatant that it can no longer be denied and now in all too threadbear disguise is swamping the world of so called Christian culture. [excerpt from C.G. Jung The Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy]
Just because you hang out with Jesus, Just because you have traveled with in thoughout his earthly Journey does not mean that You have Jesus within your soul. The two disciples in the story ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS knew him very well, they lived with him, they eat with him and they traveled with him, but they did not recognize him on the road to Emmaus. The were caught up in grief and were fleeing Jerusalem. Their despair overwhelmed them.
The man they had trust had let them down, their hopes for a new life had gone out the window, he had died and left them like so many other so-called saviours had done in their lives. Death and human suffering is too great to bear. Like so many other saviours he worked magic while he was alive, but now look who has won in the end, The wicked and evil ones those who connive and are corrupt those who cheat and steal those with jockey for positions of power and greed.
Unless you believe that nothing is impossible with God, not death, not even when it seems that you must sacrifice your children, your personal love, nothing like that, sacrifice of things and people is not what God wants, not things to be bargained for or negotiated but a true heart a heart of love, that believes totally in the God of Life.
The access to the inner life is so important today, it is so important because the outer world is so strong, it calls us away from our selves. The computer, the cell phone, the hype, the hunger for relationship. The gifts of man are so manifest that we have become blind to the inner life of the soul.
The modern world is devoid of what it means to love. We have trivialized love to a feeling, to a fleeting moment of pleasure, love becomes an obsession. Sentimentality is a disguise for love. Symbiotic relationships of mutual ego needs pass for the commitment and security of love. True love comes from the inner landscape of the self, in the temple where the holy spirit dwells in each of us.
[Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12] With Ezekiel we are in the waters below the temple immersed first up to our ankles, then up to our knees, and then up to our waists. Then the water becomes a deep river. Wherever the river goes it's fresh water flows with the richness of life, making everything fresh and giving life to every creature that swarms. The trees on the banks of both sides of the river will yield fresh food continuously and Their leaves will never wither nor will their fruit fail. The leaves are for healing all our illnesses. This is how our God loves us. Our love should mirror this relationship we have with such an abundant loving God.
ANNOUNCING THE JOURNEY PROGRAM SCHEDULE FOR 2008
Journey Into Self Discovery For Men In Ministry 2008
Please book Early we are limited to the first 15 participants
TRANSFORMING MINISTRY / RECOVERING PRIESTHOOD
Click the .pdf icon to download the New Brochure »
21 CONSECUTIVE YEAR OF EXCLUSIVE WORKSHOPS FOR FOR MEN IN MINISTRY / JOURNEY INTO SELF DISCOVERY FOR PROFESSIONALS
Journey Into Self Discovery For Professionals 2008
Please book Early we are limited to the first 15 participants
Exploring profession as a Life of Ministry
Click the .pdf icon to download the New Brochure »
« Click the .pdf icon to download the registration form
JOURNEY INTO SELF DISCOVERY INTERNATIONAL
THE JOURNEY INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
Celebrating Journey sessions in:
South Africa
Australia
India
From November, December of 2006 and January 2007 Daniel McDonald, our Director, journeyed to South Africa, Australia and India to conduct workshops. In South Africa at the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers' Formation Centre he was invited to work with the young brothers in formation. It was exciting to work with young men from all over Africa who were learning to dedicate their lives in the service of others.
[click each photo for larger version]
In Australia he conducted two five-day Journey into Self Discovery for men in ministry workshops. Men came from all over Australia and Pappau New Guinea and New Zealand. Daniel was also invited by the Christian Brothers to work with several teachers and other groups while he was in Australia.
In India, the Medical Missionary Sisters through their Auyusha Centre kindly sponsored three five-day workshops - one was the Men in Ministry workshop. Priests and brothers came from many dioceses throughout India. The other was a Journey into Self Discovery for professional people: spiritual directors, nurses, teachers, and the third workshop was the Dream Journey. For five days we explored the dream world and the importance of dreams in our daily lives and in our spirituality. These 15 days were filled with much excitement, joy and fulfillment. There was also time for teaching the art of psychotherapy to a few professional people.
A letter from John Holden, South Africa
Dear Brothers,
Greetings from Colm Keating Formation Centre, Cape Town...Why I am writing? Dan McDonald, renowned psychotherapist from Toronto, who
is no stranger to many of our Brothers in Canada, is offering workshops in
upcoming months in Sydney, Australia and in Changanacherry, India. The
workshop is entitled: "Exploring the Call to Ministry: Journey Into Self-Discovery
for Men in Ministry." And I just want to let you know that Dan has truly been a
tremendous gift to many of our Brothers in Canada over the years in the way of
therapy and workshops... Click to read the entire letter » |
ASKLEPION IN ASSOCIATION WITH CPEB THERAPIES INC
St. Raphael
Archangel of Healing
ASKLEPION CENTRE AND C.P.E.B. CENTRE ARE HEALING PLACES
Asklepion Centre and C.P.E.B. Therapies Inc. are dedicated to assisting better understand of the whole human person.
Asklepion offers special assistance to those who are suffering addictive and compulsive behaviour.
- Learning to cope through healthy lifestyles
- Learning self confidence through healthy sexuality in marriage and committed relationships
- Learning self awareness through healthy sexuality in Celibacy
- Learning self esteem through the 12-step program
Asklepion was an ancient place of healing dedicated to the gods of healing. In the Judaic, Christian & Islamic traditions, angels have always played an important role in healing of the spirit and of the body.
Please direct all correspondence to:
Daniel McDonald, Director
C.P.E.B. Therapies Inc./Asklepion Centre
145 Spadina Road
Toronto, ON M5R 2T1, Canada
Telephone: 416.928.9570
Fax: 416.921.7464