Patrick's Books And Mp3 Talks
Fr Richard Rohr OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation, New Mexico:
“Patrick’s insights are truly excellent and profound!
In his work in scripture, Patrick rightly highlights the maturity of the seeker as paramount, and opens up the Bible as the spiritual adventure that it was meant to be …”
Send an email to Patrick to order his books or mp3 talks … [email protected].
~ Payment can be made by direct deposit, Paypal, cheque or money order ~
PDF books can be sent by email, and audio presentations can be sent by email through Dropbox
(there’s no need for you to have a Dropbox facility to receive the audio talks. A link will be sent to your email)
Books
Stations of the cross: The soul’s journey
The “Stations of the Cross” have been part of Christian tradition for many centuries. In this ritual, we accompany Jesus contemplatively on his journey through his trial, his carrying of the cross and his ultimate death. Patrick adopts and adapts the older forms of the Stations and rewrites them from the vantage point of the soul – both individual and communal.
17 pages. $10 per booklet, plus $5 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
PDF copy: $5.00
How True This Is! A Soul Approach to Savoring the Scriptures
(2021)
“How True This Is” takes stories from both the Jewish Scriptures and the New Testament, to re-read them not as history, not as dogma, but as stories of the soul. Most of the biblical stories chosen are those which can be puzzling or confusing – for example, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the plagues of Egypt, the divine commands to kill Amorites and Hittites, some of the puzzling sayings of Jesus, and the Book of the Apocalypse. Patrick takes such stories and re-looks at them from the point of view of soul: how can they be seen as rich resources that describe the experience of being continuously found by a God who is always searching for us?
Patrick says: “The scripture is what I call the meta-story of humanity. It paints the over-arching sweep of the human journey, and provides us with a pattern within which we can make sense of our individual smaller stories. Yes, we read the biblical text, but it’s true also that we are the biblical text in whatever moment and space we find ourselves. Our little lives contain all the warp and woof of the scriptures, in all its beauty and terror, its sophistication and rawness, and its ecstasy and earthiness.”
132 pages. $25 plus $6 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
ALSO AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON KINDLE (type “Kindle Store” into Google, press, and then put “Patrick Oliver” into the search box)
Listening Prayerfully to Our Dreams
(2019)
Patrick says:
“It has been a privilege for me to have listened to many thousands of dreams through the years, and I am always amazed at the creativity and ingenuity that they bring forth. We seem often to be far more creative when we’re asleep than when awake!
A dream can be like a lighthouse, beaconing and beckoning us through those times when perhaps everything else has seemed to turn to night. Rather than dreams leading us away from the presence of God, I have found that dreams can mirror the great Gospel themes of reconciliation, grace, healing and love.
They lead us into death and out again. Like the biblical theme of the least being the vital element, the disregarded and ignored dream is, as the Jewish rabbis liked to put it, “like a letter that is unopened from God.”
70 pages. $25 plus $6 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
ALSO AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON KINDLE (type “Kindle Store” into Google, press, and then put “Patrick Oliver” into the search box)
The Freeing of God:
A spiritual Director's rendering of the Gospels from a Soul Perspective
(2012, 2023)
available as a set of four printed copies (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) or four PDFs
Sadly, countless people through the years have been bruised and bludgeoned through the misuse and abuse of the scriptures. The liberating message of the Gospel so often has been twisted into a voice of condemnation, a confirmation of self-hate, and a reinforcer of people’s fear of themselves as a failure – and it’s this abuse that “The Freeing of God” sets out to offset.
Hopefully somewhere along the line we gradually learn that love can’t be earned, that peace of soul can’t be bought and that forgiving life for being imperfect is the only way through. In this “second half of life”, we can let mistakes and wounds be the way into deeper loving, we can let ourselves and others be mixtures of light and shadow, and we can surrender the need to be something other than who we are. Such shifts in perspective also change the way we let the gospels tell us of who God is …
“The Freeing of God” systematically follows through every chapter and verse of the four Gospels, and recounts them in a way that breathes a contemporary and soulful perspective through Jesus’ stories and teachings.
Printed Copies: $25 for one gospel, and then $20 for each other gospel purchased. Postage and packaging extra, according to number of volumes purchased.
ALSO AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON KINDLE (type “Kindle Store” into Google, press, and then put “Patrick Oliver” into the search box)
Electronic Copies: $10 for the set of four PDF email attachments.
The enneagram can help prepare the soil for openness to the gospel – which at its core is about self-surrender, letting grace teach us about reconciliation, and allowing the crucified Christ to convert our woundedness so we can be mirrors of the healing Christ for the sake of the world’s transformation.
“All in the Flow” employs three images which are frequently used throughout the writings of Christian mystics:
- The image of God as an infinite ocean, used particularly by Catherine of Siena;
- The image of the mirror, used particularly by Teresa of Avila, and
- The image of gazing upon the cross, used particularly by Clare of Assisi.
The first booklet of “All in the Flow“, entitled “The Enneagram’s Gift to Prayerfulness” starts with the contemplation of how we’ve always been held within the compassionate Love of the Trinity. It doesn’t use the enneagram as a psychological tool but as a tool of spiritual awareness, and so its continuous accent is upon our response to God’s initiative.
The second booklet of “All in the Flow”, entitled “The Call of the Cross” uses a framework based on the writings of St Clare of Assisi, and uses the enneagram to reflect upon how we are called to into conversion through the Cross. What insights might the enneagram give us, that can help us be molded and fashioned into more of the image of Christ?
The third booklet of “All in the Flow”, entitled “The Enneagram, Scripture and Modes of Maturing” is for those who already are conversant with the enneagram. It employs a fresh understanding of the traditional arrows, and it is a perspective that Patrick has gained through his work in spiritual direction. His enneagram “triangles” helps the appreciation of the mega-story of the Scriptures in which we are invited to consciously participate, for the sake of becoming mirrors of God for the world’s transformation.
Booklet I: “All in the Flow: The Enneagram’s gift to prayerfulness” is $20, plus $8 postage and handling throughout Australia.
BOOKLET ONE IS ALSO AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON KINDLE (type in “Kindle Store” into Google, press, and then put “Patrick Oliver” into the search box). On Kindle, it is entitled “The Enneagram’s Gift to Prayerfulness”.
Booklet II: “All in the Flow: The Call of the Cross” is $20, plus $8 postage and handling throughout Australia.
Booklet III: “All in the Flow: The enneagram, scripture and modes of maturing” is $20, plus $8 postage and handling throughout Australia.
(Of course, postage rates would fluctuate, depending upon the number of booklets being posted at the one time)
PDF copies of Booklets II and III: $10 for each of the three booklets, or $20 for all three.
A God to Fall Into: seven echoes of the great adventure of living in the heart of God
(2005)
This spirituality kit was self-published in 2005. It gives a way into the key elements of the Christian tradition by distilling seven major themes or “echoes” that run through the scriptures. These echoes are each divided into ten sub-themes that break open their richness in the scriptures and in the essence of Christian spirituality.
The kit comes with a total of one hundred and five meditation cards. The ways of using this kit for prayer are endless: you might use them very specifically to pray through each day or each week. You may just wish to dive into the book when you’re searching your soul for a way to meet a particular situation, and you’re not sure how to approach it in a prayerful manner.
Themes:
A. Living life-death-life
B. It’s about grace, not collecting badges
C. It’s never what you expect
D. Engagement and detachment
E. The discovery and expansion of soulspace
F. Prayer and non-violence
G. There is only One.
186 pages plus cards
$20 per set, plus $14 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
This book takes mythological motifs from around the world to illustrate how the spiritual journey is an integral part of being human. Drinking Deeply uses many dreams as jumping-off points for showing the beauty, subtleties and challenges of the Journey.
Themes: A: Story and the great adventure B. The path of the great adventure C: Some motifs of the great adventure
149 pages
Available as e-book only for $5.00 (paper copies out of print).
This book undercuts our tendency to hide behind religious language, by re-looking at key elements of Christianity as invitations for authentic transformation.
Written in the aftermath of September 11, it highlights the connection between blindness and violence, fear and hatred. It goes to the core of transformation and the Christian journey, and gives a way of conversing that allows us to avoid the minefields and misunderstandings of religious language.
Themes: A: Getting out of the way: openness to the adventure B: “Know thyself!”: the importance of self-knowledge C: Jesus: the human face of God D: Living as Jesus: the pattern of being fully human
157 pages
$10 per copy, plus $7 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
MP3 Talks
The Beauty of Healthy Religion: putting words around the maturing moments of our journeys
(2017)
available as an mp3
Part of sharing the faith journey involves encouraging others to express their intuitions and hunches about being invited into a deeper maturity of faith. Often though, we can stumble a little in how to articulate these hunches, for the weight of traditional Church phrasings and formulations can often seem to squash our confidence to express our new vistas of the journey of faith.
This presentation will look at the world of difference between “unhealthy religion” and “healthy religion”. The healing factor is “deep simplicity”, which is the field where all genuine seekers of faith eventually come when they want to be faithful to the Spirit’s call.
The content of this talk was originally presented at an evening with the Australian Network for Spiritual Direction, at Stafford 30th August 2017.
For detailed notes on this talk, please contact Patrick on [email protected]
Total time: 1 hour 35 minutes (CD1 – 47 minutes, CD2 – 48 minutes)
mp3:$10, available through a Dropbox link sent through your email.
Patrick says:
“I have been fascinated with the topic of life after death since I was a little boy. It seemed natural to me that this life was meant to go somewhere, and that just beyond our conscious awareness there hovered an existence both beautiful and intriguing – something that whispered like the wind and was as real as the grass on which I lay as a lad.
These four CDs are an expression of many of the reflections that have come to me in my thirty-three years of ministry of companioning people in their faith journeys. As the years go by, the list of those who have predeceased me grows progressively lengthier, yet the childhood sense of heaven’s reality has never left me. Carl Jung commented that the most essential question for people to ask is ‘are we related to the Infinite or not?’ This set of talks is my contribution to responding to the question in the deeply affirmative.”
The mp3 recording contains thirty minutes of narratives sent into Patrick by people from South-East Queensland, who have had experiences of deep simplicity, and glimpses of eternity and the afterlife.
Topics:- Deep Simplicity and Eternal Life 64 minutes Some Thoughts about Heaven 53 minutes Hell and other considerations 67 minutes Preparing for Death and Windows into Eternity 65 minutes
Total time: 4 hours 9 minutes
mp3: $10, available through a Dropbox link sent through your email.
The Apostles’ Creed dates back to the early years of the Church, and is the common wealth of denominations across the spectrum. We have heard its words so many times, yet because of repetition we can become a little un-attuned to what we’re saying.
What gifts might a revisiting of the Apostles’ Creed have for a prayerful life? How might a contemplative revisit help us to move beyond a mere creedal approach, and take us into much more rich appreciation from the point of view of the soul? How might we move from a moral perspective into a mystical perspective of the Creed – and indeed, of life’s unfoldings? How might it take us beyond the limits of our denominational borders, and into a deeper and more sublime space of grace?
This presentation was recorded at St Mark’s Anglican Church at Buderim on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, in May 2015.
Topics: – Living contemplatively 42 minutes A contemplative approach to the Creed 38 minutes A contemplative approach to the Creed (cont’d) 57 minutes
Total time: 2 hours 17 minutes
mp3: $10 for the three talks, available as a Dropbox link sent through your email.
CD set: $20 per set plus $6 postage and packaging throughout Australia.
During August 2012, Patrick presented a series of four evenings to The Gap Uniting Church, Brisbane, on the topic “Christianity as the Way of the Wound: reflections on the experience of suffering”.
In this three-CD series, Patrick looked at insights from the book of Job and other scriptural stories, to show how we’re invited to move from a stance of trying to rationally understand suffering, into a space where we can let suffering be transformative by standing under it. He describes how wrestling honestly with suffering can move us into a third way of seeing, so divine creativity can flow through us, our churches and our communities.
The third CD contains a short talk that asks how the gift of “standing under” suffering can help us to re-see the gift of the Cross. We have projected much of our own self-loathing and hankering for revenge onto God – yet when we allow the Gaze to suffuse our souls, we can see a depth of beauty and richness in the Cross that is transformative and transfigurative for the world.
Topics: – Outgrowing the clichés 74 minutes The giftedness of those who’ve suffered 70 minutes Clichés and the cross 34 minutes
Total time: 2 hours 58 minutes
mp3: $10 for the three talks, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
On a cold May morning in Msswellbrook, New South Wales in 2012, Patrick Oliver gave a series of short talks to parishioners of local Anglican communities. These three talks were given on the day before Pentecost Sunday, and they reflect upon elements of our relationship with God by using the image of the “three gates” from St Clare of Assisi. Through these reflections, Patrick led those present to prepare for the forever-coming of Pentecost in our lives and in our communities.
Topics: “Meeting God in our shortfalls” ; “We’re a mixed bag” 71 minutes; “Nothing’s wasted by God” 66 minutes
mp3: $10 for the two talks, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
From Glare to Gaze: Jesus' Beatitudes and the Journey
(2011)
available as an mp3
Presentation One: Jesus’ Beatitudes: what could he mean?
The Sermon on the Mount begins with the proclamation of the beatitudes, which can seem bizarre, unreal and naïve at best. What could Jesus have been trying to say by these seemingly cryptic riddles? What do they have to do with practical life and loving? How are we to understand the rather threatening tones of “Woe to you!” that are in Luke’s Gospel? This presentation was given to the Emmanuel Community Seniors in March 2011.
Presentation Two: Some marks of maturing on the journey
One of the great joys of companioning others in spiritual direction is helping them to link their individual story to the larger and more human story – and explicitly to the Great Story of the Scriptures. In this excerpt from a talk to the Australian Network for Spiritual Direction (Qld) in February 2011, Patrick offers his thoughts as to how we might be able to see some everyday maturing in the lives of directees.
95 minutes
mp3: $10, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
Soulspace
(2010)
available as an mp3
This series of talks was presented in September 2010, at a Reflection Day sponsored by the Caloundra Spirituality Support Group. Its focus was the care of the soul, and how this soul care invites prayerfulness and presence to all that is.
Patrick enlarges on some Gospel stories that can provide a portal through which we can drop into an awareness of the God who is Presence itself. He takes us through re-looking at how failure and brokenness can be invitations into an eternal relationship with Love.
Topics: Talk 1 The Soul of God Talk 2 Sitting by the Well Wall Talk 3 Passages into Eternity
116 mins.
mp3: $10, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
Pregnant with God: Mary's Story and Ours
(2010)
available as an mp3
One of the emblems of the Christian Brothers is that of the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This mp3 talk was given to the Taringa community of the Christian Brothers in June 2010, and looks at ways in which we can appreciate how Mary is a gift for those who wish to live their lives more in union with Christ. Mary demonstrates how she – like we – are invited to be both nurtured and empowered by the gracious God.
Topics: Talk 1 Being trusted by God Talk 2 Giving birth to God Talk 3 Sharing God’s breath
95 mins.
mp3: $10, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
Time to Grow Up: Living into our eternal destiny
(2009)
available as an mp3
This series of talks was presented at the Christian Meditation Community’s retreat day in November 2009. Patrick reminds us that eternal life isn’t a prize in the future for those who’ve fulfilled certain requirements, but it’s about sharing in God’s presence now. Heaven and hell are real – but not as places we get sent to because we’ve passed or failed a moral exam. God’s judgment and justice are real – but not as we may have thought.
Topics: Talk 1 You’re already home Talk 2 Justice and mercy embrace Talk 3 Some sticky scriptures
102 mins.
mp3: $10, available through a Dropbox link sent to your email.
Excerpts from an interview with Jan Herring in January 2006.
So what made you write on “A God to Fall Into: Seven Echoes …”
I wanted to find a way whereby people could get a sense of what is in the spirit of the “Great Tradition” of Christian teaching and what is not. When we are faced with the myriad of opinions, comments, books and biases of people’s reflections on the Christian Scriptures, it can be quite confusing and overwhelming. I wanted to provide a kind of ready-reckoner, a little discernment tool to help us see what lines up with the Tradition and what doesn’t. It isn’t the last word, only hopefully a little help along the way. On the personal level, I get tired of people pulling out this half-verse and that half-verse and stringing them together to get whatever meaning they want to fit their bias; it’s such an abuse of the Scriptural tradition. I also wanted to show the reader the perennial relevance and timelessness of scripture as well. You can get such a perspective not by simply cutting and pasting verses here and there, but by seeing and recognising the overall great patterns, which I call “echoes”. I suppose it took about two years to read through the Lectionary and observe what themes kept coming up. As I was reading, my hunch was that those themes that kept arising would be “meeting points” which would provide common ground with other religions and denominations, because God’s Spirit isn’t contained by geographical or cultural boundaries. The biblical story is the human story of divine encounter.
How do your Seven Echoes come into this retreat?
The invitations of the Holy Spirit go on in our lives whether or not we name them in religious terminology. Transformation and conversion happen in the ordinary stuff of life, and if it doesn’t happen there it’s not happening.
It doesn’t matter to God whether you’ve got the right terminology. The Seven Echoes hopefully cover much of the “stuff” of life – the joys and sorrows, the personal interactions, the warp and woof that makes up the everyday. They are designed to help us read Scripture with a deeper insight, so connections with daily life can be made more readily. These seven echoes are the “life-death-life pattern”, “it’s about grace and not collecting badges”, “God’s never what you expect”, “engagement and detachment”, “the discovery and expansion of soulspace”, “the two-sided coin of prayer and non-violence”, and “there is only One”. When we’re aware of the great themes of the scriptures, we don’t so easily get thrown off and miss the wood for the trees.
Eternal life isn’t simply something to happen down the track, but it’s also taking place “in the now”. Right now you’re living within God, and life after death is the fullness of how you’re choosing to live now. If your desire is to live within the One Love of God, then that is where you find your home. Eternal life is the life that happens within God – and that is the only real life there is.