Francis
My favorite saint, although I've not given a lot of thought to it, might be Francis of Assisi, not necessarily as he actually was in real life, I don't know about that; but as he is expressed in the lives and religion of the Franciscans, to my knowledge as modeled by Fr Richard Rohr; and also as Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, has encouraged the Church to become, starting with his choosing of his name.
Religion is not The Thing, The End, the purpose of religion is not to be "saved" and avoid "excommunication" by claiming to believe certain doctrines and dogma, but to live life in a certain way, which is specifically The Way of the Cross, a life of love and sacrifice for others; "love" in the sense of the NT Greek word agape, which is Unconditional Kindness toward All, especially the "Samaritans" of our lives; "sacrifice" in the sense of giving up one's "rights" as necessary so that others may live and love.
That is to say, religion as a Way of Life; religion has no other purpose or value.
As per Fr Richard's meditation for today (scroll down), this approach to religion is an attitude toward life itself that involves the ongoing change of deliberate evolution toward the godly image in which we are created. In this 21st century C.E., we are unspeakably far from "godly," at least, as "godly" is seen in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
RSF&PTL
T88&c
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Thirty-Five: Order, Disorder, Reorder
Positive Disruption
Things standing shall fall, / but the moving ever shall stay. —Basava
Brian McLaren describes how Jesus often provoked disruption to move people beyond the status quo:
[There is] a powerful story at the beginning of John’s Gospel: Jesus’s protest in the Temple [see John 2:13–22], when he drove out the merchants of sacrifice and appeasement and then made two outrageous statements. [1] First, he said that God intended the Temple to be a house of prayer for all people (no exceptions), and second, he said that the corrupted Temple would be destroyed and replaced by something new, which would be resurrected in its place….
Jesus continues to use the imagery of disruption (John 3–4). First, he tells a man that in spite of all his learning, in spite of all his status, he needs to go back and start over, to be born again—perhaps the most apt image for disruption ever. Then he tells a woman that the location of worship doesn’t matter at all—which in their day meant that temples were irrelevant. What matters, Jesus says, is the attitude (or spirit) and authenticity (or truth) of the worshipper. Jesus was calling for a radical disruption in his religion, a great spiritual migration, and a similar disruption and migration are needed no less today in the religion that names itself after him.
A later New Testament writer repeated and expanded upon the disruption and migration Jesus was calling for (1 Peter 2:5). The way of life centered in the Temple must be disrupted because God wanted to dwell not in buildings of bricks or stones cemented together by mortar, but rather in human beings—living stones, he called them—cemented together by mutual love, honor, and respect.
McLaren invites us to trust the Spirit’s call to keep moving:
This disruptive revolution, this liberation, this great spiritual migration begins with each of us presenting ourselves, with all of our doubts and imperfections, all of our failures, fears, and flaws, to the Spirit…. You. Me. Everyone. No exceptions.
“The moving ever shall stay,” [twelfth-century Hindu mystic and poet] Basava said. [2] Those words contradict so much of our inherited religious sensibility. “Stay the same. Don’t move. Hold on. Survival depends on resistance to change,” we were told again and again. “Foment change. Keep moving. Evolve. Survival depends on mobility,” the Spirit persistently says. That prompting tells us that the migration we seek is not merely from one static location to another. It is, rather, from one static location to a journey of endless growth.
If you want to see the future of Christianity … don’t look at a church building. Go look in the mirror and look at your neighbor. God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.
Story From Our Community
I am a lifelong sufferer from scrupulosity (religious perfectionism), which I experience as OCD. I found great encouragement and wisdom in Fr. Richard’s book Breathing Under Water, and the related online course. The spiritual approach to the 12 Steps and creating my own meditation practice have become anchors in my recovery process. The contemplative wisdom I have found with CAC has been a grace to me.
—Joseph M.
Share your own story with us.
[1] In the Synoptic Gospels, the cleansing of the Temple happens a few days before Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion; each Gospel has unique details. See Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; and Luke 19:45–46.
[2] Basava, Vacana 820. See Speaking of Śiva, trans. A. K. Ramanujan (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), 88.
Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian(New York: Convergent, 2016), 192–193, 194–195.
Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, cracked stained glass (detail), 2020, photo, Albuquerque. Click here to enlarge image. Like this cracked stained glass, sometimes we have to let the old structures deconstruct in order to make room for the new.