Schola Contemplatio
This section which I have named “Schola Contemplatio,” echoes the description of “schola”
that Beatrice Bruteau emphasises, as someone who studies contemplatively by giving her or
himself to the leisure of silence and the joy of creation. Here I present teachings and courses that we are
offering that aim to assist us to take the writings of the mystics deeper into our heart so that
words may continue to form in our understanding. This way of studying involves pondering,
musing, ruminating in how we may become more sensitive to the movement of the Holy
Spirit within our research.
Teachings on the Mystics
Courses on Spiritual Direction and Contemplation
Mystical Heart: Spiritual Direction in the Light of Contemplation
In the Centre of Nothingness:
Apophatic Prayer and the Awakening of the Apophatic Self
Spiritual Direction Formation Programme for Spiritual Directors and Contemplatives
23-24th July 2026
Online
“At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness …
a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, …
This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty
is the pure glory of God in us …”
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (1966), 140-142.
Overview
In this Mystic Heart formation offering, we will continue the theme of being pregnant with nothing, focusing on how we awaken the centre of nothingness in the ground of our heart through apophatic prayer. We will continue to develop a hermeneutic of beholding for interpreting mystical texts by authors such as Thomas Merton, Denys the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, Marguerite Porete, the Helfta Mystics, Jan van Ruusbroec, Julian of Norwich, the Cloud of Unknowing author, John of the Cross and many others.Our focus will be on creating an atmosphere and contemplative practices that support the awakening of a oneing heart awareness or Christ consciousness. Together we will continue to create a rich vocabulary of “apophatic knowing” and its meaning for an evolutionary world, as well as deepen our capacity for communion in heart dialogue. Through beholding communally, we will enter into the depthless depths of apophatic metaphors, into the evolutionary flow of how the prayer of the author, the writing, the reading, and the prayer of the reader, one together, unfold and awaken ever revealing apophatic wisdom.
Attention will be given to how spiritual directors may be naturally at home with apophatic language and create an atmosphere in the spiritual direction encounter that enables apophatic knowing to arise into conscious awareness without limiting its ongoing revelatory power. We will continue to awaken new sensitivities to the endless possibilities how the Spirit opens us to unitive participatory love knowing. Emphasis is on claiming the ontological space of contemplation and nurturing the oneing heart awareness that arises in stillness and silence. The presentations and processes will assist participants to sensitively go deeper into their own inner journey, so they can lovingly companion themselves and others into the depthless depths of divine-human intimacy encountered apophatically.
In the light of contemplation, we will cultivate a confidential, trustworthy, and sacred spaciousness, which includes enhancing contemplative presence to each other and fostering communion consciousness.
While it will be very helpful if participants have participated in previous Mystic Heart offerings, this offering can also be engaged with in its own right. However, it is essential that participants have a routine of contemplative prayer, are in spiritual direction, and participate in regular silent retreats. The offering will be, face to face at the beautiful Santa Casa Retreat Centre, Queenscliff, Victoria, or online.
For further information, please feel free to contact Robyn Fitzgerald (robyn.fitzgerald@proton.me)
Mystic Heart Previous Years Teachings
Mystical Heart 2025
Pregnant with God
In this Mystic Heart formation offering, we will delve into the Christian tradition of apophatic prayer. We will continue to develop a hermeneutic of beholding for interpreting mystical texts by authors such as Denys the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, Marguerite Porete, the Helfta Mystics, Jan van Ruusbroec, the Cloud of Unknowing author, John of the Cross and many others. Our focus will be on the language of apophatic prayer such as nothing, nada, cloud of unknowing, darkness, abyss and emptiness. Also, we will ponder the nature of the “apophatic self”, “apophatic knowing” and its meaning for an evolutionary world. Through beholding communally, we will enter into the depthless depths of apophatic metaphors, into the evolutionary flow of how the prayer of the author, the writing, the reading, and the prayer of the reader, one together, unfold and awaken ever revealing apophatic wisdom.
Attention will be given to how spiritual directors may be naturally at home with apophatic language and create an atmosphere in the spiritual direction encounter that enables apophatic knowing to arise into conscious awareness without limiting its ongoing revelatory power. We will continue to awaken new sensitivities to the endless possibilities how the Spirit opens us to unitive participatory love knowing. Emphasis is on claiming the ontological space of contemplation and nurturing the oneing heart awareness that arises in stillness and silence.
Mystical Heart 2024
Union with God
In this Mystic Heart formation offering, we will explore the Christian tradition of mystical union, delving into language such as the prayer of union, transformation of the soul in God, the unitive way, ecstatic union, mystical marriage, oneing, living in Christ, Trinitarian indwelling, boundless fulfilment, beatific vision, and deification. In particular we will focus on the naturally kenotic nature of contemplative prayer and the nuances of language such as yielding, surrendering, releasing, descending, emptying, voiding, abandoning, pouring and flowing. The sacred role of suffering in this transforming union will be explored. Attention will also be given to how spiritual directors may facilitate, in the spiritual direction encounter, the dissolving of binary thought patterns that compartmentalize ways of knowing, awaken new sensitivities to the touchings of Spirit, finetune the artistry of discernment, and support the one praying in surrendering into an ever deepening and expanding, evolving, oneing in Love.
Mystical Heart 2023
Desiring Love: Sensual, Spiritual and
Apophatic Knowing
In this course, we will explore the Christian tradition of desiderium (divine-human desire) and enter into thewisdom waysof knowing that our eternal yearning for intimacy and oneness with divine love initiates. We will focus on the nuances of the transformation of consciousness that occur through contemplation, by exploring the intricacies of the inter-relationship between the sensual knowing of the bodily senses, the sexual energies of eros, the spiritual vivaciousness of the mystical senses, the ecstasy of mystical union and the apophatic intuition that arises from yielding into the unknown in God in the oneing of Love, in a desire without end. Attention will be given to how spiritual directorsmay facilitate, in the spiritual direction encounter, the dissolving of binary thought patterns that compartmentalize ways of knowing, awaken new sensitivities to the touchings of Spirit and expediate the one praying into an ever deepening and expanding, evolving, oneing in Love. Emphasisison claiming the ontological space of contemplation and nurturing the oneing heart awarenessthat arisesin stillnessand silence.
Mystical Heart 2022
Wisdom of the Spiritual Senses
This year, this mystic heart formation offering for spiritual directors and those interested in contemplation, assists participants to enter into the silent ground of their heart, and access and integrate the wisdom of the spiritual senses, to bodily knowing. From this ground of being centered in divine Love and living in the flow of Trinitarian joy, we will be present to personal, ancestral and collective trauma that is arising at this time in our evolutionary oneing into God. Drawing on a metaphysics of oneing expressed in classical Christian mystical texts, we will integrate this sapiential knowing to contemporary spiritual, anthropological and psychological research on the effects of trauma on the body, soul, mind and heart. We will be especially attentive to how trauma impacts on our image and relationship with God as well as our contemplative practice. Compassionately, we will discover ways to cooperate with the touchings of grace healing and enabling us to evolve in wellness and consciousness. Emphasis is on claiming the ontological space of contemplatio and nurturing the oneing heart awareness that arises in stillness and silence.
Mystical Heart 2021
Mystical Death
This formation offering draws on the wisdom of the mystics to assist spiritual directors in entering into the depthless ground of the heart with directees, as they seek to discern the stirrings of Spirit and the infusing of contemplation that is beyond language. Classic mystical texts by mystics such as Julian of Norwich, theCloud of Unknowing seer, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, Gertrude of Helfta, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Teilhard deChardin, Beatrice Bruteau, Ilia Delio will be drawn on to shed light on some of the more complex issues that arise in spiritual direction as we journey into the deep inner heart. Emphasis is on claiming the ontological space of contemplation and the heart wisdom that arises in stillness and silence.
In these two days, we will explore the wisdom of themystical senses, movements of ecstatic mystical union, sexual wounding, living our diminishments and walking with the dying. We will continue to deepen into the foundational themes of this formation course, including ways of contemplation, discernment, the knowing of the mystical senses, the grace of darkness and unknowing, the gift of being wounded, sacred sensuality and sexuality, surrender and annihilation, dying and giving birth, unitive, Christ consciousness, ecological consciousness and an evolutionary vision.
Mystical Heart 2020
Intimacy, Sexuality and Mystical Union
This formation offering will draw on the wisdom of the mystics to assist spiritual directors in entering into the depthless ground of the heart with directees, as they seek to discern the stirrings of Spirit and the infusing of contemplation that is beyond language. Classic mystical texts by mystics such as Julian of Norwich, the Cloud of Unknowing, Meister Eckhart, Gertrude of Helfta, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Teilhard de Chardin, Beatrice Bruteau, Ilia Delio will be drawn on to shed light on some of the more complex issues that arise in spiritual direction as we journey into the deep inner heart. Emphasis will be on claiming the ontological space of contemplation and the heart wisdom that arises in stillness and silence. Topics will include ways of contemplation, discernment, the knowing of the mystical senses, the grace of darkness and unknowing, the gift of being wounded, sacred sensuality and sexuality, surrender and annihilation, dying and giving birth, unitive, Christ consciousness, ecological consciousness and an evolutionary vision.
Previous Years Teachings on the Mystics
Sublime Love: A Weekend Retreat with Andrew Harvey, 2024
Come to mirror Love’s sublime nature
Who is so tender that at every hour
She drowns in Love what people do to her
Be it pleasure or pain, good or evil.
Hadewijch of Antwerp, Love is Everything,
trans. Andrew Harvey
We, Andrew Harvey and Kerrie Hide invite you into a birthing process, into the ever-deeper experience of the oneing of sublime Love. Andrew will turn to one of the midwives of this process, Hadewijch of Antwerp and speak of her vast realization. Kerrie will draw us into the flowing light of embodied love through the illuminations of Mechthild of Magdeburg. Both Andrew and Kerrie will then harness the energies of Love through the writings of Teilhard de Chardin who reminds us:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity,
we shall harness for God the energies of love,
and then, for a second time in the history of the world,
humanity will have discovered fire.
Teilhard de Chardin, Towards the Future
Let us as a community discover this fire together, as a communion of souls pouring out our hearts in love. We will intentionally enter into the fiery flow of amorizing love and contribute to creating more intense union and communion in the noosphere.
Heart dialogue between Andrew and Kerrie, facilitated by Robyn Fitzgerald, will create a safe and spaciously ecstatic field that can deepen and expand into a communal heart dialogue, centered in and flowing from within Omega. In harmony, as a community of lovers, we will surrender into the evolutionary holocaust of amorizing love that is fashioning a new, profound potential for communal healing, transformation and peace.
Please feel free to invite your friends to join us in our desire to strengthen and refresh you in your journey into love and into being a birthing field yourself, of Christ consciousness in the noosphere.
O you pouring God in your Gift!
O you flowing God in your Minne!
O you burning God in your Yearning!
O you melting God in union with your Beloved!
O you resting God in my Breast!
We cannot live without You.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Divine,
trans. Kerrie Hide
A Heart Cloven: Three Hours Beholding with Julian of Norwich
with Veronica Mary Rolf, May 2023
And there, our good lorde showed a fair and delectable place
large enough for all humankind to rest in peace and love.
Julian of Norwich, A Shewing of Love, Revelation 10
These teachings were given in celebration of 650 years of the Revelations of Julian of Norwich. To begin this three-hour immersion in Julian, Veronica offers an overview of Julian’s life and revelations, focusing on Julian’s mystical experience of the blessed Trinity and the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as her sublime theology of the unconditional love and mercy of God. Veronica will also delve into the deeper meaning of the most famous words associated with Julian: “All Shall be Well”.
In the middle phase, Kerrie explores the beauty of Julian’s way of contemplation. She beholds Julian’s ripening teachings about prayer, beginning in Julian’s earliest account of her shewings, drawing on the compilation of the Westminster text, and then tracing her teachings about how “prayer oneth the soule to God” in her longer manuscript. Together, as a communion, we enter into Julian’s way of beholding, exploring how our deepest wounds become the ground of oneing, and participate in the ground of the enfolding, enclosing, beclosing, oneing of Love’s Trinity.
Guided by Julian, in the final hour, Veronica, Kerrie, and Robyn engage in dialogue as beholding, as contemplation. They enact the deep meaning of dialogue as dia-logos, “heart conversation through the Word”. Veronica and Kerrie behold and speak from the ground of the heart, from the indwelling Word, who is flowing through, releasing the wisdom of mutual indwelling. Thus, from the ground of immersion in the flow of oneing love, as “trewe loverse”, this dialogue illuminates in ever new ways Julian’s wisdom for today and the evolving future.
Beatrice Bruteau and Neo-Feminine Consciousness
Omega Australia Conference, 2020
“We are coming to know the Sacred Heart from the inside, inside his consciousness, and inside our consciousness. And our ‘inside’ comes to be more and more coincident with his ‘inside’. His Heart is becoming the heart of our heart.”
Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism, 98.
These teachings were given at the Omega Australia Conference, 2020, “The Life and Vision of Beatrice Bruteau: Awakening Neo-Feminine Consciousness in Our Time”. In two lectures, I introduce the writings of the renowned scientist, scholar and mystic, Beatrice Bruteau, before exploring her invitation to awaken into a new era of consciousness.
Teaching One
Teaching Two
Please click on the images above to listen to and download the audio lectures
Margaret Holgate, I Sleep But My Heart is Awake
Let that meek darkness be a mirror
and your mind whole.
Think no further of yourself,
than I beg you do of God,
so that you be one with God in spirit
without scattering or distractions in your mind.
Cloud of Unknowing seer, Book of Privy Counselling, 136: 7.
Communion Consciousness in Christian Meditation
Teachings from the WCCM Victoria Conference, Nov. 2020
These teachings were given as part of the Christian Meditation Conference, on the theme of communion consciousness in Christian Meditation. The first reflection, I Sleep But My Heart is Awake, explores our desire to be one with God in contemplation. The second reflection, An Awake Heart, focuses on the wisdom knowing of the heart. The third, Communion in the Heart of Hearts, ponders how communion consciousness arises when we connect with each other heart centre to heart centre. The final reflection, Nurturing Communion Consciousness, looks at how the maranatha energy field helps foster Christ consciousness in the noosphere.
I also invite you to enjoy contemplatio with a selection of paintings from Margaret’s Retrospective, which are available here