From Billiards Room To Zendo, From St. Francis Xavier Parish To Zen Medition

From the website of the Jesuit Church of St Francis Xavier in New York City

Zen Meditation
Every Monday at 7 pm.
Newcomers are especially welcome and introductory instruction is available. Call Peggy and Paul Schubert at 212-260-248 or e-mail: schubertnyc@gmail.com

Link (here)

More from the instructors blog

Sensei Paul Seiko Schubert, a resident of New York City, is a dharma successor to Roshi Robert Kennedy, S.J. of the White Plum Asanga. He received transmission from Roshi Kennedy in August 2007.

Zen Teaching Schedule– Paul Schubert (Updated 3/20/09)

Home Groups

Zen at Xavier Mondays 7:00 p.m. St. Francis Xavier, 55 W. 15th St., New York

(Peggy/Paul Schubert, schubertnyc@gmail.com)

Link (here)

Pastor of the Church of St Francis Xavier Rev. Joseph S. Costantino, S.J. (Page 12) in a 2004 article in the NY Times (here) and (here) entitled A Jesuit Retreat Throws In Some Zen.

Father Costantino's official mission was to diversify programming, form a board of directors, make capital improvements, expand youth programming and institute a training program for religious and lay people.

But Father Costantino, 47, has gone further. Beyond pouring $750,000 from benefactors and donations into sprucing up the mansion, from fixing the slate roof to upgrading the electrical service and redoing the marble floors and the chapel pews, he gave the Catholic retreat house a New Age twist.

''We have added things like yoga, Reiki, massage and reflexology,'' he said, showing off the new gym, complete with sauna and Jacuzzi, on the lounge level. An outside pool dates to the 1920's, and there is a brook that many sit by and meditate. To help participants in their search for tranquillity, a labyrinth was added three years ago. And while the retreat house has offered Zen meditation sessions for several years, the former billiards room was recently converted into a zendo.

The United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops have recently released a ruling on Reiki (here)

An excerpt of that ruling

Reiki therapy finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief. For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support (or even plausibility) is generally not prudent. In terms of caring for one's spiritual health, there are important dangers.

To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science.

Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition

More at Ignatius Insight on Reiki (here)