ARK PROGRAMS
Please Note: The units of work contained in these
programs involve profound sacramental, doctrinal and scriptural theology. The
scope of content can be customized depending upon the target audience ranging
from parochial groups to certification level through to post-graduate level.
These programs can therefore be offered in durations as limited as one hour
extending to 36 hours per pack. Abstracts are available outlining doctrinal,
theological and scriptural content for post-graduate programs.
Please use our Contact Us page to request program
abstracts.
A Prescribed Reading List and Seminar topics are
available for each relevant level of delivery.
ARK PROGRAMS - SELECTED LIST
GENERAL TOPICS (Selected Extracts below)
Adoration of the Most Holy
Eucharist
Mary: Woman of the Eucharist
Mary, Mirror of Jesus
The Call for Mystics in the
Modern World
Water as Symbolism and the Holy
Trinity
The Mass - Our Walk to Emmaus
The Eucharistic Prayer - Our
Greatest Prayer
The Our Father - A Spiritual
and Theological Study
People and Pathways to Prayer
A Spiritual Approach to
Holistic Healing
Responding to the Spiritual
Needs of the person with Alzheimer's
Holy Spirit: Spouse of Mary (3-part
series)
The Beckoning (5-part series)
CARMELITE SPIRITUALITY
With Empty Hands - A Time of
Reflection with St. Therese (Retreat)
The Last Retreat - Following St.
Elizabeth of the Trinity's Footsteps (Retreat)
Seven Petals - A Week with St. Therese
of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (Retreat)
SELECTED EXTRACTS
Some sample extracts from the General Topics programs are provided below. The Extracts here target parochial groups.
> Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist
The following quotations offer us profound material for meditation when we present ourselves to the Lord in Eucharistic Adoration: Zechariah 12:10 - “They will look to the One Whom they have pierced.” John 19:34-35 - “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a lance… this is the evidence of the one who saw it.” Revelation 1:7 – “Everyone will see Him, even those who pierced Him”. In these three quotations we realize that the past (Zechariah), what was the present for John, and the still to come (Revelation) meet. This provides for us a glimpse into how divine time and God’s human time merge. Our thoughts are further challenged when we involve the teachings of St. Pope John Paul II into our meditations. He explains to us the notion of how the mysterious “oneness in time” happens at every Consecration of every Mass. The past, the present and the still to come fuse when we approach the Lord in adoration. The host, consecrated on the altar at the hands of the priest remains the same consecrated host that we now gaze upon at Eucharistic Adoration. We become those who will “see Him, even those Who pierced Him”.
> Mary: Woman of the Eucharist
For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must somehow have meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart that beat in unison with hers… and it must somehow have meant re-living what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross.” (St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia). And so, we encounter the first indication of the duality of experiences of Eucharist. Mary must have felt ecstatic joy at having God within her being once more. Yet at the same time, overwhelming sorrow of Calvary at His Death. When we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we conceive the Living God, we become “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh” (Genesis) but to experience His ecstatic glory, we must constantly die to our own passions. Conception and death. Death to our passions causes us pain but through such pain we are purified for the in-dwelling God. Mary was immaculately free of any selfishness which might obscure God’s Light. She was as empty of all egotism and sin as a pane in a very clean window which has no other function than to admit the brilliant light and heat of the Son. When we walk with Mary as our model and mother, we are allowing her to tell her Son that we wish to be purified. And God will purify our soul through the ordinary circumstances of our lives. He uses bitter remedies of illness, separation from loved ones or bereavement to purify us. So that His glory may shine through the window that is our soul. Like an officer directing traffic, the virtues regulate our emotions. All disordered emotions become ordered, controlled when we live a life according to the Beatitudes. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that when we are poor in spirit, we are dissuaded from seeking an abundance of external goods when we are meek, we are dissuaded from aggressive emotions when we have a pure heart, we are blessed in every action we perform. Purity of heart informs and gives form to all the other Beatitudes. It is at the epicenter of our journey. Through our prayer life, we become ordered, controlled, humble, lowly. Prayer is something we often try to avoid because prayer is never an ego trip. Prayer is a trip into our ego and it is there that God allows us to encounter ourselves. In our prayer journey, God purifies us and as Thomas Green S.J. teaches us ‘ by learning from our past experiences, we can forearm ourselves by unmasking the deceits of the evil one.’ (pg 17, Come Down Zacchaeus)
> The Call for Mystics in the Modern World
In Genesis 15:12, Yahweh draws Abraham into a "tardema". A "tardema" is like a place deep within our beings where we become no longer aware of our surroundings or our faculties a place where a profound and absolute stillness envelopes every part of our being. This is the place where Abraham encountered God and where the Almighty revealed Himself to Abraham, communicated His covenant to Him, demonstrated the utter love He had for him. This is the place of meeting, the profound depths of our being where God is met and becomes a reality. And this is the place where prayer will take us as we are invited into mystical contemplation.
> Water as Symbolism and the Holy Trinity
The multiple symbolic usage of water in the Old Testament foreshadows the sacrificial offering that Jesus would make on Calvary. Today our meeting places are not at water wells. The spring of life is now to be found in one another through the gift of the Holy Spirit given by Jesus. Some of us drink deeply from this new Well, others, not at all. We are called to bring forth the Spirit of God in every encounter with other whom we meet on our life's journey. We thirst for Jesus as His Spirit beckons us to know Him. When we pray, we drink from His Spring of Life. We are called to witness to others so that they too may meet and drink "at the well."
> A Spiritual Approach to Holistic Healing
“He that touches you, touches the apple of my eye” (Zech. 2:8). It is a loving thing for our God to teach us and He may do this in many ways. He loves us with His millions of gifts which bring us joy. But He also loves us when He allows temptation to assail us, hurts to bend us. If we see these things as coming from God, “This thing is from me” (I Kings 12:24), then our weakness becomes His might our safety lies in letting Him fight for us. He will do this when we recognize the tools and weapons used by Satan and when we hand them over to our God. He becomes in that moment the God of our Circumstances Whose supplies for healing and spiritual power are limitless (Phil. 4:19).
> Fear, Faith and Holy Scripture
“They go out, they go out full of tears they come back, they come back full of song.” (Psalm 126:6) If we go out about our lives full of tears, a great deal of fear must be enveloping us: fear of failing our children or our parents fear of not having enough time to spend with loved ones fear that our family members may walk away from God fear of advising them in the wrong direction fear of watching a loved one in pain. Faith in God destroys all of this fear. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us the seven traits of faith which we can use as a blueprint of success over fear within our family, which is the image of the Trinity. Each of these traits provide us with powerful spiritual tools which when we apply them, empower us to protect this privileged community.
> Mary, Mirror of Jesus
The God of Creation took human shape and grew in the womb to the physical likeness of His mother, Mary. She, in turn, grew in spiritual likeness to her son as she constantly contemplated His Divinity. She became His mirror image and the burning love that is His love for humanity was, and is, reflected through her. She is His Mother and as Scripture and tradition show us, He refuses her nothing. And so we approach her in all our sadness and worry and fears. Being our mother, she appeals to us to allow her to take these darkened hearts of ours and present them to the One Who pleads for them – her Son, Jesus. When we agree to give over our broken hearts to her care, she will take time with our precious gift. She will remove those tarnished parts of it and replace them with the humility so loved by God and she will form it to fit within a garment of beauty which will delight her son.
> The Mass - Our Walk to Emmaus
How do we make these stories from Scripture enter into our lives and become part of us… because that is what is supposed to happen. One story that we have heard before is of Jesus and a Samaritan woman from John 4:10. This describes how the woman at the well is approached by Jesus and He asks her for a drink. In other words, Jesus is telling her that He is thirsty. But this God of ours does nothing without an ulterior motive. This entire episode may be understood to be all about prayer. In this petition from Jesus (He asks for water), He is telling us that none other than the living God pleads with us moment by moment to respond to Him because He thirsts… and His thirst is for us. In this way, we begin to understand how the gospel story draws our story, our lives into its profound meaning.
> The Eucharistic Prayer - Our Greatest Prayer
St. Paul teaches us that just as in Genesis when “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to the woman and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24), a new existence begins. Paul takes that language in 1 Cor 6:17 when he explains that a spiritual and physical bonding is fulfilled in Communion, “ He who cleaves to the Lord becomes one Spirit with Him.” So Paul takes the exact same language from Genesis which relates directly to marriage and related it to a union with Christ. Pope Benedict XVI describes it as “nuptuality”. If we are the Church, Christ has just become one body with His Church in the giving of Himself in the Eucharist. An indissoluble, Spiritual-bodily union has just taken place but we nonetheless remain, as Pope Benedict XVI puts it, “unconfused and unmingled”.
> The Our Father - A Spiritual and Theological Study
And this is another little gift which we can offer to the Father. When we are insulted or injured, we can reveal how His Son has touched our hearts and how we can now agree to enter into the magnificent act of His Mercy from the Cross. Once again we are drawn into the deep well of His humility. When do we feel hurt or insulted? It is usually when we feel that our honor has been slighted. This honor is rooted in pride yet to forgive such paltry insults becomes our gift on a platter of forgiveness that we offer to the Father because of the Son and through the Holy Spirit.
> People and Pathways to Prayer
The words from Mark that most impact understanding are: “Do you believe that I can do this? ...According to your faith, let it be done to you.” This is a most personal exchange, it is one-to-one. Jesus is speaking to each of us intimately when he says “According to your faith let it be done to you”. Prayer and belief and faith and submission to God’s Will are all woven into His question “Do you believe that I can do this?” In the encyclical Faith and Reason, St. John Paul II teaches us about faith and belief when he quotes from St. Augustine who says “To believe is nothing other than to think with agreement, believers are also thinkers. In believing they think. And in thinking they believe. If faith does not think, it is nothing.” What response does Jesus call from the blind men? The blind men are asking for sight, certainly, but if you and I were having this exchange with Jesus today, we also would be asking for sight and Jesus would be calling for a faith response from us also. We would be asking Him for the ability to see – not physical sight but to see Him more clearly in our lives so that we could offer our agreement to deepen our spiritual vision and so move ever forward into deeper faith. And Jesus asks of us, “Do you believe that I can do this?”
> Responding to the Spiritual Needs of the person with Alzheimer's
During their suffering, you, the carer, pray for and appeal to the Father on their behalf. Yours is their voice which praises God for loving them. Yours are their hands which have tended to the needs of others all their lives. Yours is their faith that cries with deep humility and trust that it is the Christ that they follow, Who goes ahead of them, and through Whom this pain has first passed before it reached them. But when this God of Love calls them home, a beautiful reversal takes place. It is now they who approach the King’s throne on your behalf. It is they who petition Heaven for you. It is they who become your advocate, reminding the Father of the loving care and compassion which you showed to them during the last part of their journey. And it is they who now reveal to the Father, His very own Son, the in-dwelling Suffering Servant who, in their broken minds and bodies, was so clearly visible to human eyes and Whose wounds you lovingly and compassionately tended.
> Holy Spirit: Spouse of Mary - Session 1
"You, O Mary, are the young plant that produced the fragrant flower of the Word, only begotten of God because you were the fertile land that was sown with His word." - St. Catherine of Siena "At the mention of this name, the angels rejoice and the devils tremble through this invocation, sinners obtain grace and pardon." - St. Peter Canisius Quote One directs our thoughts to the source of all grace, the Spouse, the Holy Spirit Who filled Mary when He overshadowed her and she became the fertile soil. Quote 2 directs our thoughts to the power that flowed from God through Mary because she is "holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5): she is the "Panaghia" of the Orthodox Churches. And finally, we now move directly to the teacher who will guide us in this session, St. Maximilian Kolbe. "The Immaculate alone has from God the promise of victory over satan. She seeks souls that will consecrate themselves entirely to her, that will become in her hands forceful instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spread of God's Kingdom."
> Holy Spirit: Spouse of Mary - Session 2
What happens when we ask Mary to be our mother? She whispers to her Spouse and He overshadows us, pitches a tent around us...and the child begins to resemble the mother just as the mother resembled the child." Mary is the prototype of praying souls. Mary prayed ceaselessly because her desire for God was ceaseless. How deep is our desire for God? St. Augustine teaches us "… your desire is your prayer if your desire is continuous then your prayer is continuous, because the Apostle did not say in vain: “pray constantly” (1 Thess. 5:17). Do we constantly pray on our knees, prostrate our bodies or raise our hands to obey the order to “pray constantly”? If that’s what prayer means to us, then I think we cannot do it constantly. But there’s an interior prayer that goes on ceaselessly and that is desire. If you wish not to interrupt your prayer, never cease to desire. Your ceaseless desire will be your ceaseless prayer” (St. Augustine, On the Psalms). Mary's ceaseless prayer sanctified her state. She and her Spouse will teach us how to sanctify our state in life no matter what or where it is. They will help us to bring it into submission to God's Holy Will. They will help us to allow it to become the instrument to reach eternity. And they will teach us how to do all of this in love."
> Holy Spirit: Spouse of Mary - Session 3
In his book Witness to Hope, St. Pope John Paul II teaches us that the ideal of sanctity has already been programmed in Mary. Mary gives us a profile of what a disciple looks like. She was the ideal disciple before Christ was born so she shows us how the People of God should live. So, how should we live in the model of Mary? St. Therese of Lisieux gives us five of the most beautiful jewels in the heart of Mary: Her simplicity Her abandonment Her love for the Cross Her thirst for souls, and the diamond in the center: Her love. “It is because she is, of all the saints, the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possess as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God. And we will most truly posses Him when we have emptied ourselves and become poor and hidden as she is, resembling Him by resembling her. All our sanctity depends on her maternal love. The ones she desires to share the joy of her own poverty and simplicity, the ones whom she wills to be hidden as she is hidden, are the ones who share her closeness to God” (Thomas Merton, Understanding Catholic Devotion to Mary).
> The Beckoning – Week One
Prayer is the desire to seek God, to pursue Him. This very desire itself is from God … so, in seeking Him, our desire means we have already found Him. Prayer is a major threat to satan. In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul tells us that prayer reveals the works of satan. The Father told St. Catherine of Siena that prayer unwinds the bandages of self-love. St. Teresa of Avila reminds us that when we invite God to take up lodging in us He will always pay us generously for sharing our roof with Him. “How can we doubt that he will work miracles within us since He is in our home? His majesty never offers too little payment for His lodging if we treat Him well.” Way of Perfection (pg 224).
> The Beckoning – Week Two
Last week we talked about being drawn into the silence of our souls through prayer – the place where God dwells. Seeking silence is not about seeking an absence of noise. It about seeking the PRESENCE of the Holy One within. To do this, to enter this interior silence, we spoke about going into solitude with God. Going into solitude is not the same as being in isolation, Isolation brings withdrawal and sadness. These are feelings that happen when we are lonely. Going into solitude with God means that we will have contact with Another. When we step out of our little desert, our solitude with God, we will be RESTORED. One effect of this is that our minds to go into wonder when we attend Mass and hear the language of this beautiful Sacrifice. We will no longer be spectators, we will be participants.
> The Beckoning – Week Three
We are now at the midway point of our retreat. We move tonight with courage towards the all-important last Wednesday of our retreat before Holy Week and Easter when we will be silenced … WITH SHOCK AND AWE… at the revelations that we will now examine as we begin to look at the Source and Summit of our Catholic lives – the Most Holy Eucharist. To prepare us, we look this evening at the Beatitudes which are a call to become the "anawim" of God. In order to make us His "anawim", God will use every circumstance in our daily lives to get our attention, to make us trust in Him alone. He allows us to learn hard lessons if we are His pre- destined ones, His children. He allows us to go into a sort of Spiritual boot camp. The circumstances which bring about trials cause us to ask: What has God taught me from failure? What has God taught me from lack of money? What has God taught me from pain or sorrow or depression? What has God taught me through waiting? What has God taught me through illness? What has God taught me from disappointment?
> The Beckoning – Week Four
In Week One, we retreated to examine our weaponry in the battle to win souls, our own and others, for God. And our first week’s weapon was PRAYER. In Week Two, we looked for a worthy companion to walk with us as we try every new day to respond to the beckoning from God. And our eyes turned to Mary, the beloved daughter of the Eternal father, the admirable Mother of the Son and the Faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit. This woman, who is the world of God, will teach us how to empty ourselves. In Week Three, we sought a roadmap for direction on the journey and we found the Beatitudes. Tonight, we will pick up a tool that was given by Our Lady to St. Dominic and which gives us strength in responding to the power of the Call. The tool is the Rosary. Tonight, we will use the Luminous Mysteries to enter into Mental Prayer guided by the Holy Spirit.
> The Beckoning - Week Five
And when your heart resembles Mine, when you are drawn to prayer and come to Me, when you empty yourself of sinfulness, when you find Me in the silence and humbly listen to Me, when you allow yourself to be used and used up for Me, and be broken like Me so that others may live, when you unite yourself to Me in the Eucharist, THEN "…I will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of Dawn, make you to shine like the sun…"
(c) ALL CONTENTS Copyright ARK Ministries 2022, for the glory and honor of God.