Poustinia is a place where you can physically go and shut the door on the world to be alone with God – it’s a desert place where you can meet with God in silence, solitude and prayer to listen to what he is saying to you.

The following is an adaptation of Poustinia for Sacred Space Prayer Station, Burniston Church (Scarborough) during Easter. I pray that people who visit the prayer station over the Easter period will find their Poustinia waiting.

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Sacred Space of the Heart (Poustinia)

Seek the open heart and listening soul of a silent contemplation by locating a sacred space within your heart. This is a desert place where you can meet Christ in silence, solitude and prayer. This type of stillness can fulfil a yearning for those who desire communion with God.

Leave the noise and harried pace of daily life to enter your place of silence and solitude – and shut the door on the world around you. Contemplate the Easter story in visual form at the Sacred Space Prayer Station. Maybe this will be the place where you encounter Poustinia, your personal desert where you can return whenever you need silence, solitude and prayer.

Once you find Poustinia within your heart you will have it with you always and everywhere – God within you (Immanuel). You can return to that sacred space anytime in your imagination: in the marketplace, in the midst of countless conferences, traffic jams, bus trips, or a hospital ward – and find consolation within your vision of a personal desert that can bloom in simple, profound prayer.

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text adapted from http://www.madonnahouse.org/publications/store/shop/doherty/poustinia/ where you can read about Poustinia in its entirety.