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PDF versionThe eternal christ in the cosmic story
Dec. 11, 2009
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Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province. He founded the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque in 1986, where he presently serves as its founding director. He is a regular contributor to Sojourners and Tikkun magazines, and the author of books such as Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality and Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation.
He is a sought-after speaker and retreat giver. Themes he addresses include the integration of action and contemplation, community-building, peace and justice issues, male spirituality, eco-spirituality, and the cosmic Christ. In this section, NCR’s Rich Heffern talks with Rohr about this last subject, how Jesus fits into the new universe story.
Heffern: At Christmas Eve Mass in my parish every year I hear the proclamation of the genealogy of Jesus, Christianity’s central figure, stating that all of creation is only a few thousand years old. I wince when I hear it because of the update we got that is the cosmological story science has been telling us for the last hundred years. It’s Christmas though, and I want Jesus, together with the update. How does Jesus fit into that new story from science that tells us the universe is 14 or 15 billion years old and our Earth at least 5 billion years old?
Rohr: Much of Christianity has made Jesus Christ into a denominational savior figure while others have looked upon his saving grace as limited to a few who meet strict qualifications. But what about creation as a whole? How far back and forward in time does the Christ figure extend, and who exactly is Christ?
Christian scripture, in fact, gives us Jesus’ place in that history counted in billions of years if you look for it -- in the prologue to John’s Gospel, for example, or in the Pauline hymns of the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, or in the opening of John’s first letter. All speak of Christ existing from all eternity. We just don’t see those references. They’ve never been unpacked for the majority of Christians, and we don’t have theology to know how to see it.
Richard Rohr: “What the Christ means is the confluence of divinity and physicality, spirit and matter. When the material and spiritual worlds coexist, we have Christ (NCR photo/Tom Roberts)Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The book of Acts says God has raised up Jesus and anointed him as the Christ. Our new awareness of the cosmos’ vastness and unimaginably ancient history is forcing us to rehear those scripture texts. It’s exciting good news. The Jesus we now have, the Jesus we participate in, are graced by, are redeemed by, is the risen Christ, the eternal Christ. The word “Christ” means “the anointed one,” and that anointment by God includes us and all of creation.
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The Gospels are about the historical Jesus. Paul, however, whose writings make up a third of the New Testament, never talks about that Jesus. He is talking about the Christ. Jesus is the microcosm; Christ is the macrocosm. There is a movement between the two that we ourselves have to imitate in our life and walk, the resurrection journey.
Western Christianity has plucked Jesus completely out of the Trinity. The historical Jesus has become the new monotheistic God -- God the Father for all practical purposes. Once you no longer have a Trinitarian view, you no longer have a dynamic view of God. When you emphasize Jesus apart from the Father and Holy Spirit, then creation is just an afterthought or a backdrop to a limited salvation drama, “an evacuation plan to the next world,” in Brian McLaren’s phrase. We become preoccupied with those last three hours of Jesus’ life, when we get the blood sacrifice that gets us humans saved, our ticket to heaven punched. Protestants are somewhat worse than we are on this, to be honest.
The real trump card of Christianity is not just that we believe in God. The mystery we are about is much more than that: It’s that the material and the spiritual coexist. It’s the mystery of the Incarnation.
Once we restore the idea that the Incarnation means God truly loves creation then we restore the sacred dimension to nature. We bring the plants and animals and all of nature in with us. They are windows into the endless creativity, fruitfulness and joy of God. We assert that we believe in the sweep of history, humanity and all of creation that Christ includes.
Incarnation is already redemption. Bethlehem was more important than Calvary. It is good to be human. The Earth is good. God has revealed that God has always been here.
It’s a Franciscan approach, and indeed was the theology of key Franciscan figures like Duns Scotus and St. Bonaventure. It will increasingly become mainline spirituality as we become more comfortable with an expanded view of the mystery of Incarnation in the cosmos. If we Christians had taken this mystery seriously, we would never have raped the planet like we do, never have developed such an inadequate theology about sexuality.
What does the Resurrection mean in this more cosmic view?
Resurrection fits into this shift in point of view beautifully and necessarily. Jesus died, Christ arose. That’s precisely what the transformation is -- Christ’s consciousness untied from a specific place and time.
When I was studying systematic theology back in the 1960s, my professor put it this way: If a video camera had been present at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection, we would not have seen a body leaving the tomb but probably a vast flash of light as that limited human body that contained Jesus became identified with something beyond space and time. It’s a way to understand the Resurrection. That’s why you and I have access to Christ. It’s why Jesus can say he is with us until the end of time and available everywhere. You can see the New Testament’s Resurrection stories saying precisely that. The angel asked, “Why are you looking up to the heavens for him?”
The opening of John’s letter tells us that, in Jesus Christ, what existed from the beginning is now reachable, touchable, knowable, seeable and lovable. We humans can’t fall in love with a concept, with something that is just pure energy. The gift of the Incarnation is that we have someone now we can see, touch and love.
Also, until we saw Jesus we couldn’t imagine what God was like. We come at God inductively. Start with Jesus then we know what the heart of God is like. Then we can move backwards to the cosmic Christ who exists from the beginning. Then we live in a coherent universe where there is no division between the natural and the supernatural. That’s the unique message of Christianity, that there is nothing God is not available to.
“From the beginning” means from the time of the Big Bang 14 billion to 15 billion years ago. Duns Scotus said the first idea in the mind of God was the Christ, and what the Christ means is the confluence of divinity and physicality, spirit and matter. When the material and spiritual worlds coexist, we have Christ. Medieval icons always depicted Jesus Christ holding up two fingers, proclaiming in fact, “I am fully human and fully the son of God at the same time, and I hold these together. My divinity does not cancel out my humanity.”
The Vatican last month hosted a meeting of the world’s scientists to discuss the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe and the implications of that for Christian theology. When you think of how our idea of Jesus would fit into a universe possibly teeming with life, an image comes of Jesus trudging across the light years lugging a cross.
If we don’t have a more developed theology of the cosmic nature of Christ, then if the discovery of extraterrestrial life happens -- and there’s a good chance it will -- we will be in major trouble.
If Jesus becomes more the Christ, does he also become more remote from us?
Just the opposite: Everything that happens to Jesus must happen in our individual souls as well. The Incarnation means the divine indwelling is not out there, over there. It happens within us. This movement from Jesus to the Christ means that the same anointing that was given to Jesus is given to all of us. That’s why he didn’t say, “Worship me.” He said, “Follow me.” We’ve projected more onto Jesus than he ever asked for.
Also Jesus didn’t move from Jesus to the Christ without death and resurrection. And we ourselves don’t move from our independent, historical body to the Christ consciousness without dying to our false self. We, like Jesus himself, have to let go of who we think we are, and who we think we need to be. We have to become the naked self before the naked God. That will always feel like dying. We need to know, experientially, that naked, undecorated self is already and forever the beloved child of God. Jesus’ life is also our life.
Carl Jung called Christ the archetype of the soul. Jesus came forth from God, was initiated in baptism, went through a normal growing up then developed a ministry, was rejected, suffered, died and ascended -- returned back to where he came from. We all go through that journey of transformation that returns us to where we began but with a freer consciousness.
We’ve turned Christianity into that evacuation plan for the next world. The term “cosmic Christ” reminds us that everything and everyone belongs. We’re all unworthy but the mystery of the Incarnation means the divine indwelling is in all of us. We’re indeed the body of Christ. God’s hope for humanity is that one day we will all recognize that the divine dwelling place is all of creation. Christ comes again whenever we see that matter and spirit coexist. This truly deserves to be called good news.
Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His e-mail address is rheffern@ncronline.org.
The root of the
The root of the problem:
"Much of Christianity has made Jesus Christ into a denominational savior figure while others have looked upon his saving grace as limited to a few who meet strict qualifications."
A clue to the solution:
"Once you no longer have a Trinitarian view, you no longer have a dynamic view of God."
"Christ is not Jesus’ last
"Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The book of Acts says God has raised up Jesus and anointed him as the Christ."
Yes, indeed. Jesus the Christ - coming soon to an altar near you in his Vox Clara re-branding as "Consubstantial with the Father-" is a much easier and more manageable PRODUCT for the corporation to foist upon an unquestioning market.
Mass-produced by cookie-cutting cloistered females, portion-controlled by male clerical gatekeepers, then locked up in a nice little box for passive access from afar, with the occasional "cameo appearance" sealed in a glass case. No muss, no fuss. No untidy, unruly interference by the Holy Spirit...and Rome wants to keep it that way...forever and ever. Amen.
What is ONTOLOGICALLY
What is ONTOLOGICALLY SIGNIFICANT for males to realize is that the DNA of plastids and mitochondria present in body cells (male and female) originates in and is transmitted from/ by the original ovum that becomes the human person.
Every person subsists by female grace more than by male. It is Church teaching that Jesus, the Christ, was biologically conceived by a direct divine act, not by impregnation of a human male — which is an “ontological statement” that all DNA in Jesus’ body, including DNA of cell nuclei, is by divine/ maternal origin. If divine reciprocity (the Holy Spirit) incorporates ontologically the personal means of grace, it (He) does so disproportionately in reliance on the female person.
Christ Light, shine on! Christmas 2009
That's a very interesting
That's a very interesting statement about Jesus' DNA being a product of both the maternal and the divine. I've never thought about it specifically on those terms. Of course, 99% of Christians refer to the Divine in an obviously masculine sense (He, Him, The Father) which is perhaps even more telling regarding the persistence of patriarchy in modern religious culture.
Wasn't this theme also the
Wasn't this theme also the center of Teilhard de Chardin's work?
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
"[N]ever have developed such
"[N]ever have developed such an inadequate theology about sexuality."
Fr. Rohr is (among other things, including these categories but not limited to them) a man, a Christian, a Catholic, a Franciscan (though it is not clear from Rich Heffern's post what part of the Franciscan family Rohr belongs to), and a Roman Catholic priest.
Which category or categories finds the Roman Catholic theology of sexuality "inadequate?" "Inadequate" in what way?
I wonder why his books are
I wonder why his books are only about male spirituality? How can he claim to be "buiding community" if he chooses to omit or ignore half of God's creation and comunity... girls and women?
I would like him to explain why he leaves out women in his theology and writings. He should consider women and girls too, as Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit do not omit women and girls, so why does Fr Rohr? Pope Benedict makes the same dreadful error, omits women in his books, and it is a concern that Rohr omits and ignores women. Not "buiding community" then and not true to Jesus who did not leave out or ignore women and girls.
Rather than presuming the
Rather than presuming the worst, maybe the issue is that he doesn't feel that he has a particular charism in that field. There are lot of female spirituality writers out there, and I don't take exception to that.
That should be understood as
That should be understood as "female-spirituality writers" rather than "female spirituality-writers."
He does approach feminine
He does approach feminine spirituality in his book. The writer of this article is the one that highlighted 'male spirituality'. Fr. Rohr's books, especially the more recent ones, are very inclusive.
Actually he has written
Actually he has written extensively about the feminine aspect of God and how it has been suppressed. It's intertwined with almost everything he writes. And his work with male spirituality leads to a much more balanced male identity that doesn't require violence against women, self or earth to sustain itself. Listen to a few of his talks -- they are uplifting and radical in the best sense of the word. There is no ignorance of women at all in his work.
Having read and listened to a
Having read and listened to a lot of Richard Rohr and spoken with him I would say he does not wish to presume to speak for women. I think he would see it as the height of arrogance to do so. HE says women need to address that portion of spirituality unique to themselves as he speaks for that portion of spirituality unique to males.
Father Rohr's books are
Father Rohr's books are numerous and varied. Male Spirituality is just one theme he writes about, and he has touched many lives of both women and men because of the spiritual life he has fostered through his work. As a feminist theologian I find his worked balanced. He writes on the Enneagram. Scripture, and his latest, The Naked Now Learning to See as the Mystics See, is being read by a woman friened of mine who is a post-colonial feminine scholar and she finds his work supportive of addressing the power and privilege that breeds injustice.
I visited Fr. Rohr and the
I visited Fr. Rohr and the New Jerusalem community in Cincinnati in 1976. There I heard him talk about the importance of the feminine in his personal life. Although not an exact quote, I remember his saying that he couldn't imagine living without the women of his community and their hugs and smiles. He said we had to be lovers or become dried up old men. All this without a trace of sexual scandal but with a deep respect for women and a profound appreciation of both male and female sexuality. So from that point of view, I believe his position is very different than the stereotype of the priest who walls out women out of fear or indifference.
To my mind it is O.K., that
To my mind it is O.K., that men focus on male spirituality. If they do so, they are aware of their limitations. It is a task of women to focus on women spirituality.
The error of hierarchy and pope Benedict XVI is that they do not let women freely to speak about their female spirituality, their error is that they use male spiritulity criteria for judging female spirituality. Men cannot know women so well as women know themselves and their spirituality. I am glad that now-a-days there are also women who write and speak about female spirituality
Father Rohr does acknowledge
Father Rohr does acknowledge women and girls-feminine spirituality. He has a cd on masculine and feminine spirituality. He has done several conferences with the likes of Sr Joan Chittister and Paula D'arcy; go to cacradicalgrace.org listen to the Easter Homily for 2009, it is primarily on women and feminine spirituality. All the questions you asked, he has addressed in his many, many works. I have several of his works, so I am a witness to this. Peace be with you.
Perhaps he understands
Perhaps he understands already the women are by nature and creation a more spiritual being! If you spend any time at all in organized religion/church you will soon see that it is primarily the women who do the serious praying, and the service work among others. The men maintain the figure-head, but few have much spiritual depth, compassion and maturity. I have not read Fr Rohr's books so I can't say for sure, but just maybe he sees the real need is among men so his writing targets them. Goodness knows there are plenty of books, writings, tv classes, educators, and weekend retreats aimed specifically at women! Time for men to jump on board.
In many ways, the mass as it
In many ways, the mass as it was before 1969, addressed many of the concerns voiced here.
First and foremost, the ad orientem posture was the attempt to symbolize the waiting of all creation, not just the congregation in the church building, for the return of Christ in the east, coming to complete his redemption of all creation, not just fallen humans. Reintroducing such orientation, at least from time to time, would help the congregation to remember the cosmic dimension of the liturgy and the cosmic renewal of Jesus' work on earth. Moreover, the beginning of John's gospel used be be said at the end of mass, a reminder, though poorly placed in the liturgy, of Jesus' being eternally begotten. Now it is heard twice a year in the United States: if you attend Christmas mass during the day and the priest hasn't decided to use the gospel from one of the three other Christmas masses and again on the morning of December 31.
In terms of recovering a more Trinitarian outlook, the following prayer, addressed to the Trinity, used to be said at ever mass at the offertory:
"Receive, O holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee, in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the Saints, that it may avail unto their honor and our salvation, and may they vouchsafe to intercede for us in heaven, whose memory we celebrate on earth. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen."
It was replaced by the completely new (and vapid) "Blessed are you" prayers. Moreover, the following preface, once used every Sunday when green vestments were worn, is now said once a year on the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity:
"It it truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God; Who, together with Thine only-begotten Son, and the Holy Ghost, art one God, one Lord: not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance. For what we believe by Thy revelation of Thy glory, the same do we believe of Thy Son, the same of the Holy Ghost, without difference or separation. So that in confessing the true and everlasting Godhead, distinction in persons, unity in essence, and equality in majesty may be adored. Which the Angels and Archangels, the Cherubim also and Seraphim do praise: who cease not daily to cry out, with one voice saying:"
I also know from experience that priests don't say this preface even when they are supposed to. Maybe attending the traditional Latin mass every once in a while isn't such a bad thing; I probably go four of five times a year.
Ooooh, my CPTCHA problem is 17+0. I'm so going to get this one right!!
Right on! Someone who sees
Right on! Someone who sees that we can learn from the Tridentine Mass without letting overcome the Novus Ordo! I'm particularly impressed at your use of, "From time to time." Most people who talk about the Tridentine Mass insist it should be the /only/ way.
And there are also some things that have been improved in the Novus Ordo Mass (like making God the master of all languages). For example, it is dear to my heart that we have recognized that all the aspects of God cannot be contained in one Eucharistic Prayer. While the arguments for the consistency of the old canon are at least worth listening to, I believe that increased attentiveness to the meaning behind the Eucharistic prayers, particularly Prayer II, oft-used but seldom discussed, would be beneficial alongside a conscious effort by priests to use all 4 on a somewhat-regular basis.
I always felt that the Feast
I always felt that the Feast of the Annunciation where Christ is Incarnated in the womb of the Blessed Virgin is just as vital to the Salvation story as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. Yet it passes each year without liturgical fanfare.
You're right. It almost
You're right. It almost always falls in Lent or Holy Week, and even when it falls on a Sunday, it gets postponed. I like it because other than Christmas, it's the only other day of the year when we genuflect during the Creed at the words, "By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man."
Tom, If you're the same Tom
Tom,
If you're the same Tom A. as the one at Fr. Z's blog, maybe you saw this:
http://www.danielmitsui.com/hieronymus/index.blog?entry_id=1970156
"When I was studying
"When I was studying systematic theology back in the 1960s, my professor put it this way: If a video camera had been present at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection, we would not have seen a body leaving the tomb but probably a vast flash of light as that limited human body that contained Jesus became identified with something beyond space and time." Earlier in his article, Fr. Rohr admits that this idea is nearly 50 years old. We've discovered a lot in those past 50 years. I would update this thought to "a flash of energy" that would not be observable to the human experience. The human body remains in the tomb as a natural observable event. The universal spirit of energy, that is the Divine, remains throughout the universe. Some people call this "God".
Yep, the only woman the Pope
Yep, the only woman the Pope and most of the hierarchy ever considers, if even that, is the One and Only, Extra Special, One of a Kind Super Holy, Virgin Mary.
No other woman is worthy of any interest or consideration, and Virgin Mary is mostly ignored. Pope Benedict is averse to women. This is a truly troubling mind-set that the Pope has. It damages the church and the world the way the Pope disregards and disrespects women and girls of the world and ignores most female saints and female Apostles of the New Testament.
Not true! Several of the
Not true! Several of the most recently canonized saints have been women too, such as Geltrude Comensoli, Caterina Volpicelli, and Marie de la Croix Jugan. Mother Angelica got a very cool papal award recently as well. Who says this pope wants women to keep quiet?!
Okay, while Benedict has his
Okay, while Benedict has his faults, certainly, he does in fact have a Marian devotion. I'll admit I can't speak to its depth (though who can?), but he certainly isn't ignoring her.
I agree, though, that an Immaculate woman is hardly the best case-study for the rest of "normal" women.
I find all these myths and
I find all these myths and doctrines of Christology not only mind-boggling but stunning. And they keep growing as the centuries pass. Within my heart I find the teacher/preacher Jesus of Nazareth far more inspiring and moving than all these fabrications we are now being fed. God comes to us in simplicity.
Within my heart I find the
Within my heart I find the teacher/preacher Jesus of Nazareth far more inspiring and moving than all these fabrications we are now being fed. God comes to us in simplicity.
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I do too.
I agree. Rather than further
I agree.
Rather than further mystification, the efforts expended in current evangelization should be towards simplification--a characteristic of all truths.
As with Jesus' sermons, we should strive to bring to the reach of all persons the graces of God, of faith, of what "salvation" is all about. As St. Francis of Assisi has chosen to do.
A super-mystical Jesus Christ is a Christ (and a Jesus) removed from the ken of most men. How can that be the objective of his becoming flesh?
It is to be understood, of course, that attempts towards understanding of creation and the Christ Event will be stiffly fought against by persons and institutions "benefiting" from or holding on high statuses/great powers as in the past and current situation. Let us pray for their belated enlightenment--and our profounder discernment of the state of things.
After reading Fr. Rohr's
After reading Fr. Rohr's comments, I hear that small voice suggest: but Jesus is the Word. HOw many more volumes of treatises and tomes do we need to know that?
The simplicity of loving one another is the absolute core of the Word. All his actions and words reveal that. Yes, life as we keep on discovering it is fantastic and marvelous, yet if God is to be real to all hearts and minds, there must be a simplicity (ala St Francis) to the Word. I don't need to worry about a "cosmic Christ." ET's on other worlds cannot change my perception of God. I am; and I was created by God to be and to love.
Keep our minds and hearts
Keep our minds and hearts open; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit enter(s) both; mysteries still abound as we consider the infinite possibilities.
Videos per se weren't in my world in the 60s.
This is great!
This is great!
Regarding his books about
Regarding his books about male spirituality......he doesn't feel that women need initiation rites, as males do. Women by their very nature go thru these, ie dying and being transformed monthly and when giving birth. Fr. Rohr is very inclusive about women in the church. Check out his books & cd's
Is this book meant for high
Is this book meant for high flying astronauts?
....." The Gospels are about the historical Jesus. Paul, however, never talks about that Jesus".
Stunningly mistaken, dear friend: I am Jesus whom you persecute!"
And in all the Acts, Paul speaks and defends historical Jesus; speaks about Jesus.
Paul is the first ever theologian; he was not in charge of writing another Gospel!
Further on......"(Paul) is talking about the Christ. Jesus is the microcosm; Christ is the macrocosm"
Who, within the catholic community made up of simple people is going to understand such a terminology?
I do not doubt american catholic theologians, whether they are priests, nuns or lay, women and men have good intentions; but many times and quite often they go overly creative, tempted to experiment and TEST new ideas and methods.
Instead of addressing american people deep and simple faith based on Bible and their daily faith struggle and journey,they seem to write for pilots and hostesses, who fly at 37 thousand feet, let alone astronauts; as if they were writing for angels or ethereal spirits, not for simple folks who come for our Masses and Liturgies.
Don't lose your talents, money and precious time on experiments.
St. Paul himself, writing about the mistaken view they had of God, in Rom 10, 2-4 says that their knowledge about God is UNENLIGHTENED. "I can be witness for them that they are deeply devoted to God, but their devotion is not based on true knowledge. For they have not known the way in which God puts men right with himself, and have TRIED TO SET UP THEIR OWN WAY,..... Christ is the end of the law.....
I totally agree with Mr ARBoulanger (Dec. 13, 2009) whom I QUOTE with his kind permission:
"I find all these myths and doctrines of Christology not only mind-boggling but stunning. ........ Within my heart I find the teacher/preacher Jesus of Nazareth far more inspiring and moving, than all these FABRICATIONS we are now being fed. God comes to us in simplicity."
NEVER WERE SO MANY BOOKS, ESSAYS, DEBATES AND ODD EXPERIMENTAL IDEAS WRITTEN IN AMERICA FOR SO MANY INTELLECTUAL FEW!
Let's follow Jesus and learn from Him, in his simple and down-to-earth witnessing, delivery, presentation and teaching about the Kingdom of God.
"Bethlehem was more important
"Bethlehem was more important than Calvary..."
I have much appreciation for Fr. Rohr's strong accent on a Trinitarian view of God's work in Christ, but cannot be in full agreement with him on all points.
It is one thing to honour the Christ's role re the creation of all things, the unity of Creator and creature actualized in Him, the divine, sustaining love and providence towards all of his creation, as well as the reconciliation and glorification thereof, and quite another thing to, as I am afraid Fr. Rohr does, identify Christ with the creation in a panentheistic way.
Something else that bothers me: Though I can understand that Fr. Rohr derives some of his main ideas from De Chardin, I fail to see how he, in the light of the New Testament [incl. Pauline]witness, can say that the incarnation is more important than Calvary. Just as we should not be ashamed to testify that the complete being of God came to dwell in Christ Jesus, we should also not be ashamed to proclaim that God chose to reconcile the whole of creation to himself precisely by making peace through the shedding of his blood upon the cross [Col. 1:19-20]. In Johannine theology it is at Calvary that the glorification of God reaches it's pinnacle [cf. John 12]. And in the book of Revelation the Christ is again and again called "the Lamb of God", especially "the slaughtered / slain Lamb of God". According to probably the better reading of 13:8, Christ is the Lamb "who was slaughtered / slain from the foundation of the world", i.e. [as I understand it] Christ's redemptive death "was decreed in the counsels of eternity" [Mounce], or: "God's saving purposes for his creation, in eternity, find their focus in the cross of Christ" [Smalley]. No indication here of Calvary being less important than the manger in Bethlehem!
Fox calls for a return to mysticism (an experiential, nondualistic, "right-brain" way) and a shift in focus from the historical Jesus to a pantheistically understood "Cosmic Christ" who is continually incarnated in all creation. A New Age challenge to orthodox Christianity that makes for dense, controversial reading.
Friends, do not let an
Friends, do not let an imperfect treatment of a deep mystery trouble you. God loves us all, even people who leave out of their writing ideas that matter to us. When a pope forgets to recognize feminine graces and powers, some of us will remind the rest of those willing to hear. It is the job of those who may understand Bonaventure to make his ideas palatable to people in our time and future times. The old saying, "nobody likes a smart guy" can also be implied in the current idea that it is better to be nice (and right) than simply right. I hope I have not offended anyone. By the way, how does Fr. Ed Hays strike you as one who honors both men and women in his writing?
God forbid that other peoples
God forbid that other peoples are found on other planets.
And are not Christians. They will never be able to tell their origin myths or what is holy and important for them. They will be conquered and all their lands will be claimed and they will enslaved and forcibly converted.
Institutional Christianity has a good history in using the power of the stated to do this.
Read up on the history of the take over and demise of the native peoples of North and South America and you will see the horror of this story.
The Church has "an inadequate
The Church has "an inadequate theology about sexuality"??
If we read JPII's Theology of the Body which he introduced between 1979 and 1984 (and further developed and presented by Christopher West), we would know that the Church not only does not have an inadequate theology about sexuality, it has, in fact, a dynamic exquisite theology that satisfies every heart's longing. It is magnificent; it is JPII's time bomb waiting to be studied and absorbed.
And, yes, Jesus is "fully human and fully the Son of God". But let us be more specific, He is divine; He is God: "In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God; and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made." (John 1) In this article which is often thoughtful, the author, at the same time, seems to lead us to imagine Jesus as this murky universal one who is a prototype of the eternal dweller ("That’s why he didn’t say, 'Worship me.' He said, 'Follow me. We’ve projected more onto Jesus than he ever asked for.) The four gospels attest to the fact Jesus not only preached and healed, but stated and re-stated His divinity. In the awe-inspiring mysterious cosmic presentation He is God ... and we are not. God alone demands worship.
But Donna, Jesus NEVER
But Donna, Jesus NEVER said---"Worship ME! Not in any gospel---no place---nowhere! After the Resurrection, Jesus, appearing to Mary Magdalene states, "But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'." (John 20:17-18). Jesus calls his Father---his God (and our God).
Jesus asked that we emulate him---NEVER WORSHIP! That is what Fr. Rohr is stating.
Fr. Ray's interviewed his
Fr. Ray's interviewed his ideas, which I strongly agree with, except in one import aspect. The Church is Catholic - the body of Christ that believes that The Son of God became man to teach that the Daddy-God loves each and every one of us, everybody, all men women and children of all times and all places. We are nothing without The Holy Spirit, who does what He pleases and teaches us how to do it. Catholic means everything, not just my local parish. I thank God-Father-Brother-Friend for sending me holy and wise men and women to teach me that God is for EVERYBODY!
Cosmic Christening: The
Cosmic Christening: The anointment of destiny is an ongoing awakening—the conscionable enlightenment of the Cosmic Psyche in individual and communal consciousness. The Cosmic Psyche is the realm of the Self-aware. Self-awareness is the well of intuitional understanding that pools in what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin calls the “noosphere”, the origin and destiny of spiritual consciousness.
The focus of psychical insight clarifies in the individual person with maturity (age and grace), both with respect to spiritual consciousness and the sharpening of the senses in response to physical/ psychic communication inside nature’s ecology. The process of physical/ psychical informing keeps one connected uninterruptedly to nature’s ecology/ economy and to the cosmic noosphere—and—it keeps one codependently linked by many means of communication to peers pursuing common destinies under natural circumstances that are in common.
While psychical/ physical circumstances are “in common”, the particulars of every individual life differ. It is in the realm of individual differences that calls for right judgment and expectations of conscience impose on personal awareness. The genetic makeup, physical and psychic, of the individual person is different in the same way, that is, in personal genetic constitution which is diversely mixed in parental joining. DNA is different in the same way in individuals.
The maturing of reason is a process that seasons the psychic personality. Reason is engaged from within by the ongoing process of enlarging consciousness, which is stimulated by the dialog of inner consciousness (word, idea development) with outer media, including physical growth and consumption in concert with other life.
http://www.secondenlightenment.org/The%20Human%20Distinction.pdf
Spirituality, personal consciousness, is soul derived from and transformed within natural/ human ecology. Body and soul, we are ecological persons. The commission of consciousness is to inform the self of place and destiny in cosmic ecology—the place and origin of natural/ human ecology. Within this awareness a person comes to a sense of destiny and purpose, and awakening to the essential codependency of economies in the benign/ divine harmonies of communities within Cosmic Ecology.
The task of the “anointed” is to confront mindlessness with mindfulness. Conscience is a voice of anointing that prods consciousness for a lifetime to understand and advance wellbeing. Conscience is personal, communal work, an anointment that is personal and intentional before it is communally intentional.
The maintenance of ecologic harmony relies on conscionable insight, on the intentional commitment of individuals to pursue and maintain personal/ social wellbeing. Conscionable commitment is the commission of the Cosmic Christ seeking expression in universal consciousness, in the willful giving of self to the “within” wholeness of the Cosmic Ecos, the Body of Christ, the milieu (noosphere) of Chardin. In service to this common communion all are called, all are priests, destined in service to Divinity.
Cosmic christening, the divine way of cosmic anointing, is the compulsion of conscience driven from within. The rational compulsion of truth-seeking and authentic living begins as a sparkle in the eyes of the newborn and grows into the deep scintillating awareness of a long life sensitized in the interest of other. Social anointing comes with recognition of life well lived. Anointing is something to which all are called, something achieved in greater and lesser degrees. Anointment to priesthood is not an institutional honorarium, rather it is cosmic spirituality perfected in the enduring commitment of conscionable living, i.e., in Eucharistic awareness and self-commitment.
Bread is Eucharist; bread is flour of grass seeds; bread is grass; “all flesh is grass”, the Bread of Eucharist. What is Universal Priesthood? Universal Priesthood is cosmic christening, anointing from within; formal anointing of universal priesthood is culturally signified in baptism with water, the universal means of consciousness, the symbol of transparent truth.
“Trimorphic Resonance: The tri-atomic molecules of water and carbon dioxide are specifically disposed to be harmonic, i.e., to attenuate infrared wave energy, thereby enabling photosynthetic structuring of seed carbohydrates and proteins.
“Plastids have a role in converting thermal energy to chemical; chloroplasts in leaf-cells bond carbon/ water by way of trapped photons (photosynthesis). The plastids embedded in the endosperm-starch of the cereal grain seed respond to energize the stepped linkages of hydrogens and hydroxyls in after-ripening. Plastids may be understood as self-charging battery-plates, and mitochondria as energy-rods (poles) transforming battery potential into usable energy (reverse hydrolysis). These cellular agencies (plastids and mitochondria) in grain seeds collect, store and avail energy to living systems.
“They are basic food/ energy mechanisms in live cells. Plastids and mitochondria are maternal in origin, that is, they are genetically transmitted in egg-cytoplasm only. The DNA contribution of the sperm is to the nucleus only, not cytoplasmic. This female/ male codependent fact is with "religious" significance, i.e., as to the essential, ontological nature of humankind.
http://www.evolution101.org/PRINTBK4a.pdf, pg 10
TRINITY IN NATURE’S CATHEDRAL
Up the cathedral dome and down,
The green grail leaves turn to the Sun;
These symbionts squint their chloroplast lids
To avoid burn of the ultraviolet light;
Musically-noted tri-atoms tunefully orchestrate
Sweet, bubbly nectar from the atmosphere
And collect hydrocarbon strands
In chained lines striated in leaf-grana;
Chlorophyll green separates lamellar panes
In electrical plates of crystal sweet grain,
Strained in arrays of sweet reeds taken
From the stray rays and streams of sunshine.
Richard Rohr for pope! That
Richard Rohr for pope!
That is, if we can't have Joan Chittister.
Ummm...there's one problem
Ummm...there's one problem with Richard Rohr's Franciscan contruction of the cosmic Christ - and that is the Gospel testimonies of people who claimed within an historical time and place to interact with the visible and physically resurrected christ. ANy historian of Jewish theology knows that there is NO WAY 1st century jews would have ever used the words 'resurection' about Jesus if they were not certain that He had experienced a boldily revivificaton. The "flash of light" theory does not deal properly with the revolutionary claims of the Gospels and APostolic preaching + Paul's actual tangible references to "Jesus" and NOT just "the Christ". The point of the New Testament testimony is the ramifications of a bizarre, startling and shocking thing that happened within the confines of history - the resurection of Jesus of Nazareth - thus proving that He was indeed the Christ. The encounter with THomas (touch my sides, my hands etc...) is an inocculation against making Jesus as harmless "spiritual" concept who mreley arose as a 'flash of light'...in which canse there is no concrete challenge to the world in his raising.
Not that this fact at all diminishes his points about the cosmic nature of the christ - except to say that (lest we do go down De Cahrdin's pathway) the Historical Jesus IS indeed the risen and reigning Lord over the Cosmos - and in himself, ONLY in HIM can the universe and all within it ever hope to be reconciled and experience the shalom of God.
To spiritualise the CHrist loses the stunning claims of the APostles first preaching - God as made this Jesus both Lord (kurios) and Christ: He is the Lord of the Universe; the Jesus that walked the seas of Galilee is now Lord of all.
Peace!
Richard Rohr lives in an all
Richard Rohr lives in an all male, same sex community and he has developed a "male theology" or spirituality of maleness. Likewise many women religious livng in all female, same sex communities have developed "feminine spirituality." Both of these theologies, ie, "male spirituality" and "feminine theology" seem to promote same sex life choices, rather than marriage. What about "married theology" the bride and bridegroom which I believe if spoken about by the Catholic mystics and Jewish theology. This is what is lacking in the Roman Catholic clerical system. No Roman Catholic priest or nun can honestly develop a spirituality for marriage, even if that spirituality is in the Bible developed for humans who marry somone of the opposite sex. Let's just forget this nonesense of male spirituality and female spirituality and work on the holistic spirituality of marriage, which of course serves the interest of the laity and the majority of human beings and what God intended in the garden. The Roman Catholic church has just let same sex theology dominate far too long at the neglect of marriage and the family, and the spirituality of Holy Matrimony.
"Marriage" I agree , the
"Marriage" I agree , the nonesense of male and female spiritually is a red herring. I have seen more shananagans in the name of "spiritually" involving the female spirituality to last many lifetimes. Work on the holistic spirituality of marriage would definately serve the interest of the majority of both religious and laity as God did intend in the garden and it would make honest men and women give poor Eve a break and many children their "fathers".
How about St. Paul saying,
How about St. Paul saying, "YOu are neither slave nor free, jew or gentile, woman or man, but you are one in christ Jesus? This is a line from a song, once used regularly in the liturgy-"One Bread, One Body".
Has anyone noticed that the litirgy uses scripture selectively, and in a manner not always best for the formation of a Christian conscience? Whatever happened to the liturgy of the St. Louis Jesuits, Marty Haugen, Michael Joncas, even John Michael Talbot? Whatever happened to this church, anyway? Where is the Spirit in all of this? (Rhetorical speech is my strong point.)
I thought that when God
I thought that when God showed me the glory and truth He has entrusted to His Catholic Church, that I had moved forever far beyond the (so-called) "theology" I toyed with in Unitarian seminary. Thirty years ago we sat in a circle and discussed Jung, feminism, Teilhard, and so on, considering ourselves so very enlightened, so very cosmic in our consciousness.
What a painful surprise to see so much of that worming its way into the Church. Why?! Do Catholics just not know what they have? Do you not know that you are trading true and precious jewels for cheap colored glass?
Once you give assent to one millimeter apart from the mark, it is only a matter of time. The trajectory is set, the arrow continues to fly, the target is lost.
Thomas
Donna P, JPII Body Theology
Donna P, JPII Body Theology is harmful, unchristian nonsense not based on the New Testament at all and not based on scripture or the traditions and teaching of Jesus. It is merely a false teaching to control and to deny women their place at the altar. It is based on ancient pagan unscientific misinformation and really is harmful to the church and the community.
Instead JPII should have concentrated on teaching the real traditions and teachings of Jesus who never put up barriers against women, and never claimed women are just to clean and to bear children. As a wife and mother, I read the bible, and I know JPII has written a false tract against the dignity and vocation of women. It is the woman of the city who anoints our Messiah, while he lives, and Jesus praises her lavishly. Women too are holy to Jesus just as men are able to image Jesus ro the world, as apostle-priests, so are women. Plus the married and much re-married are chosen for apostleship, the real deal, by Jesus whether married or male or female. JPII is big time wrong in his writings. He forgot to look in the book, the New Testament.
If we don’t have a more
If we don’t have a more developed theology of the cosmic nature of Christ, then if the discovery of extraterrestrial life happens -- and there’s a good chance it will -- we will be in major trouble.
Richard Rohr's words about developing a theology of the cosmic nature of Christ causes me to ponder wondrously. I have been viewing Morgan Freeman's narration about the origins of the universe---or universes! The science behind the nature of the inter-relatedness of space and time and that "now" is past, present, and future. Parallel universes, string theory, quantum physics, etc., all cause us to get out of our narrow understanding of "our" world and Jesus and salvation, etc. Christ is bigger than all that we've been taught!
I wish the pope and his fellow "hierarchs" would stop putting muzzles on theologians who dare to dash out and explore possibilities that affect our theological understanding.
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