RIVER OF LOVE - Richard Rohr

"When we learn to enjoy and trust the presence of God, we will naturally turn to that presence in prayer.  When the church is no longer teaching the people how to pray, we could almost say it will have lost its reason for existence.  Prayer is the ultimate empowerment of the people of God, and that may be why we clerics prefer laws and guilt, though they often disempower us and make us live in insufficiency and doubt.  Prayer, however, gives us a sense of abundance and connectedness. An overemphasis on social prayer (i.e. attendance at services where the clergy happen to be in charge) has left many of our people passive, without a personal prayer life and comfortable with “handed-down religion” instead of first-hand experience.  We don’t do God any favors by keeping the people passive and unaware." ~ Richard Rohr From Everything Belongs, p. 147

Desire

Where do contemplative people come from? Contemplative people come from all walks of life and personalities. Eventually, contemplative people seem to take on some of the same characteristics like simplicity, justice, caring for the poor, but these characteristics are more the fruit of a contemplative life than common characteristics present at the beginning of a contemplative journey.

The common characteristic of contemplative people is that they all seem to have been visited by grace in a way that tore back the veil to time and eternity. Author James Finley eloquently puts it this way, looking back:

…We are able to see moments of love, birth, religious experience, justice, aesthetic inspiration, or of sensing the incomprehensible stature of simple things, we glimpsed a great depth, which we intuit to be the hidden depths of the life we are living*…

These glimpses into the depths “have occasioned within us the DESIRE for a more abiding, daily awareness of the depths so fleetingly glimpsed*” along with the “riddles*” or mystery that go along with them. 

This weekend I have been feeling this desire; the desire to abide, and to be constantly aware of the divinity of the present moment. How about you? Looking back...Was there a time in your life where you sensed there must be something more? Did you have a "glimpse into the depth of things? Maybe at some point you sensed the "incomprehensible stature of simple things?" Or through a "moment of love, birth, religious experience, justice, aesthetic inspiration" you sensed the "depths of the life you are living."

Learning to pray: If you have the desire to abide and live in the present moment and mystery of God’s grace, accept the invitation to “join in the general dance*.”

*“Contemplative Heart” James Finley

Litany of Penitence for Lent

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people

We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,

We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

Accept our repentance, Lord. 
Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us; 
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great. 
Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
That we may show forth your glory in the world.
 By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord, 
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Richard Rohr Drops the Gloves! I Love It!

Social Justice
 The very fact that Glenn Beck, a national commentator, could get away with criticizing and even mocking the phrase “social justice” without major outcry, shows how comfortable and numbed much of our country and church have become. He dared to infer that it was a non-Christian concept and even sank to calling it socialism or communism. To my knowledge and disappointment, no bishop or church conference has publicly corrected him on this.

Can we not see that the other justice issues we are supposedly concerned about (such as abortion) are one “seamless garment,” to use Cardinal Bernardin’s brilliant metaphor? If social justice is not the foundation of God’s kingdom then it is hardly God’s kingdom at all, but merely tribalism.

Resources of Fr. Richard’s that address this topic include
A Lever and a Place to Stand (CD) and
Contemplation in Action (book)

Carrot On A Stick Christianity - Richard Rohr

ADULT CHRISTIANITY


Paul says in Galatians 3 that the law will kill you, that the law leads to death, and only an experience of the Spirit has any saving power. Jesus says much the same with his mantra, “The law says, but I say. . .” (Matthew 5:20-45). This has had little effect on the church recently.

Many Christians and many clergy are still trapped under the law and remain in the first half of life, spiritually speaking. This is not the gospel, but its most common counterfeit. You always fail if you’re under the criteria of the law because you can never attain something that you already have—namely your daughterhood and sonship in God. The law will send you on a wild goose chase that never ends and usually makes you more and more legalistic. Religion at this level becomes an eternal carrot on a stick held out in front of you. Unfortunately, we see this in many rigid and unhappy Christians. Their disappointment with God and themselves is visible to all but themselves, I am afraid. We can do so much better.



Adapted from Adult Christianity and How to Get There CD

If you are inspired by Richard's Daily Meditations,
please consider attending Loving the Two Halves of Life:
The Further Journey, a conference hosted by the
Center for Action and Contemplation, January 21-23, 2011.

Mr. Lightbulb by Richard Rohr

Great people are usually humble. They understand and accept that they draw from another Source; they are satisfied to be an instrument. Their genius is not of their own making but a gift. They do great things precisely because they do not take first or final responsibility for their gift, and they don’t worry much about their failures. They understand that their life is not their own but has been entrusted to them. Someone Else has taken them seriously, and they feel profoundly respected, which is what men ultimately want and need.

A few weeks ago I was invited to meet with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, South Africa. He told me that he—and I—were mere lightbulbs. We get all the credit and seem to be shining brightly for all to see, but we both know that if this lightbulb was unscrewed from its source for even a moment, the brightness would immediately stop.

He laughed hilariously afterwards, and gave me a wink of understanding!

Where is the abundance in my life?
And how do I pass it along to others?

FROM DAY 341 OF FR. RICHARD'S NEW BOOK: On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for Men

840,000 Saved

840,000 saved through night and day prayer in South Africa in the last six years. For video CLICK HERE