Articles and Talks

Prayer of the Heart: A Retreat for Deepening Practice

Sarah led a silent retreat at St Clement’s Galong, in January 2020. The talks are available here:

Prayer Of The Heart – Retreat Talks

Silence in the City

Sarah spoke at Silence in the City, at Westminster Cathedral Hall on 19 May, on the theme of The Work of Love in the Face of Doom. The two talks are available here:

Talk 1 The Face Of Doom

Talk II The Work Of Love

One in Christ

On 15 May, Sarah gave a talk with James Alison at the World Community for Christian Meditation’s Meditatio Centre in London on the theme, ‘One in Christ: Why do LGBTQI people feel rejected by the churches?’.

The link to the talks is available here.

The text of Sarah’s talk is ‘But I Have Called You Friends’.

Contemplating Consumption

On Saturday 14 October, Benedictus hosted a seminar to explore how a contemplative perspective might help shift our personal and societal compulsions to over-consume and over-produce, and imagine new models of economy.

Listen to the talks –

Linda Chapman (environmental advocate and contemplative)
Peter Martin (economics editor for Fairfax Media)
Sarah Bachelard (Benedictus Contemplative Church)

Marriage Equality

Contrary to the claim made by defenders of so-called ‘traditional’ marriage that marriage has ‘always’ been ordained by God to involve one man and one woman, it’s clear that understandings and practices relating to marriage have a long and varied history.

As I understand it, the heart of Christian marriage is that those who marry vow to embody the very movement of self-gift and love for the other that is manifest in the self-giving love of Christ for God’s people. It’s this dynamic of life-generating communion between persons which gives marriage its sacramental character – that is, its capacity to participate in and reveal the Trinitarian love of God.

This possibility of self-giving, unconditional love, which transforms lover and beloved and gives life to all, is evidenced as much by committed gay unions as by straight. As such, I believe they are equally sacramental signs of God’s love for the world, and for this reason, I intend to vote ‘yes’ in the postal survey concerning amendments to the marriage act.

Marriage and the Sacred: Fragments Straight and Gay

Aliens and Strangers

Sarah gave the bible studies at the Perth Anglican Diocese Clergy School in June 2017. The text of the three talks are available here:

Talk 1 – From One Degree of Alienation to Another
Talk 2 – Citizens of Heaven
Talk 3 – Seek the Welfare of the City: Living as Aliens and Friends

Practising the Vocation of Ageing

Sarah and Neil gave this talk at the Meditatio seminar on Meditation and Ageing in Sydney, 19 November 2016.

Download Practising the Vocation of Ageing talk

Exiled from Country: Deep Listening to the Spirit of Place

Sarah spoke at the conference ‘Exiled from Country: Deep Listening to the Spirit of Place’ in Alice Springs in July 2016. A story about the conference featuring an interview with Sarah was broadcast on The Spirit of Things, on Radio National.

The Spirit of Listening

Risking Delight

This public lecture was delivered at St John’s Anglican Church, Camberwell in Melbourne on March 3, 2016.

Risking Delight: Yearning for Joy in a World of Pain

Meditation in the Monastic Tradition

In July 2015, Sarah gave three talks at a conference, Meditation in the Monastic Tradition, organised by the World Community for Christian Meditation and the San Anselmo Benedictine Monastery in Rome. The text of the three talks is available here.

Talk 1 – Stumbling into Grace Towards a Contemporary Theology of Prayer
Talk 2 – On Not Knowing How to Pray
Talk 3 – Lex Orandi_Lex Vivendi