Wisdom Circle – Seeing the Word: Illuminating Advent

Mondays, November 30th-December 21st at 6:30-7:30PM via Zoom.

Seeing the Word: Illuminating Advent is a contemplative prayer practice using illuminations from the St John’s Bible. These images bring to life passages from Scripture, helping us to engage with the Word, encounter the Divine, and enact the Message in our daily lives.

Advent honors the time of waiting for the arrival of the Christ child. We gather each week in hope, peace, joy and love to meet the Messiah who is – and is yet to come – through guided reflections. The illuminations from the Saint John’s Bible, which reflect scripture readings for the season, draw us further into contemplative prayer. As we open “the eyes of our heart” (visio divina) and “the ears of our heart” (lectio divina), we discover what the Word means to us and what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do in the world today.

The Saint John’s Bible is the first of its kind in 500 years. Commissioned by the Benedictine monks at St. John’s Abbey, as a tribute to the new millennium, this handwritten NRSV Bible has over 160 illuminations to bring the Word of God to life today. By praying with the illuminations, we may search deeper into the meaning for our lives.