Christian meditation and healing groups to form

Friday, Nov. 21, 2014

OGDEN — Jesuit Father Richard Hunt, administrator of Saint Florence Mission, will lead two six-month sessions, one on Christian meditation and the other on healing, beginning in January. The groups will meet at the Give Me a Chance building in Ogden.

Fr. Hunt, who has master’s degrees in divinity, theology, and psychology as well as political science, has studied various forms of mediation and healing; he also has taught both arts in various places such as Boston and New York, and used them when he worked as a therapist before coming to Utah.

Contemplative prayer “is the ancient tradition of the Church,” Fr. Hunt said. “There’s such a huge litany ... of saints that have been involved with this kind of prayer.”

The meditation sessions will have a Scriptural foundation, he said; the purpose of this contemplative prayer will be to develop a loving relationship with Christ. He will include lectio devina and Ignatian meditation in the sessions.

In addition to meditating, the group will read and discuss various works “partly to develop a sense of what Christian spiritual life is,” he said; the first book the group will discuss will be Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird.

The 90-minute meditation session will be followed by the healing meeting, which will be called the Saint Luke Society. Fr. Hunt strongly recommends that those who attend the healing group go to the contemplative prayer session beforehand. 

“To work on healing, you really need a prayer context,” said Fr. Hunt, who has studied many healing methodologies, beginning with physicist Lawrence LeShan, author of How to Meditate.

After a week with LeShan, “it was clear that what he wanted was to really have us learn how to mediate because if we could shift consciousness to a deep enough level, the healing would just take place,” Fr. Hunt said, adding that he originally was extremely skeptical about the practice. 

“I had this illusion that you had to be somebody like Padre Pio; you know, a saint, in order to be able to heal people,” he said. “It took me years to finally realize that it had nothing to do with my being some kind of heroic saint; it had to do simply with being willing to love someone and to share that love connection with them. I had to come to realize that this is not me, this is Christ.”

He intends to teach several ways of healing, including traditional Christian methods, such as laying on hands.

“I feel it’s important to have a kit bag of tools,” said Fr. Hunt, who is interested in physical, psychological and spiritual healing. 

Daughter of Charity Maria Nguyen, who attended the meditation class Fr. Hunt offered at St. Florence, suggested that he move the location to Ogden “because I feel that it is a very valuable class,” she said. “In Utah, we don’t have a lot of opportunities for Christian formation, so this is a great opportunity, and I’d like to make it more available to a larger audience.”

People in today’s world “have lost direction,” she said. “We need to spend some time to calm ourselves down and be present to God, because that’s the purpose of being Christian, that we be called to God and understand God’s will in our lives, so we need to listen.” 

Both groups will meet on Thursdays from Jan. 7 to June 24 at Give Me A Chance, Inc., 2913 Grant Ave. in Ogden. The Christian meditation group will be from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m.; the Saint Luke Society will meet from 7 to 8:30 p.m. For information, contact Fr. Hunt at 801-645-9219 or Richard.hunt998@gmail.com; or Sr. Maria Nguyen at 801-643-1221.