What signs would convince other people that we are the Body of Christ? St. Paul speaks of we becoming “one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:17).
When the rich are not sharing with the poor, nor are the vulnerable being assisted. The deepest meaning of the Eucharist is denied!
St. Paul challenges us to become the food we partake: the Body of Christ.
South Sudan's Challenge
Healing & Reconciliation
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Risen Lord Breathes on the Disciples...
The Risen Lord breathes on them...
The Gospel of John (19:20-23) describes another way the Holy Spirit is given to the apostles: the risen Jesus breathing on the apostles to impart the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Spirit not only authorizes, but also empowers the apostles to forgive and to retain sins.
Jesus formally sends out to the world his apostles, as he had been sent to the world by the Father.
Jesus' breathing on the apostles huddled in the Upper Room recalls Genesis 2:7, where God breathed on the first man and gave him life; just as Adam's life came from God, so now the disciples' new spiritual life comes from Jesus.
(Source: Fr. Rosica, CSB)
The Gospel of John (19:20-23) describes another way the Holy Spirit is given to the apostles: the risen Jesus breathing on the apostles to impart the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Spirit not only authorizes, but also empowers the apostles to forgive and to retain sins.
Jesus formally sends out to the world his apostles, as he had been sent to the world by the Father.
Jesus' breathing on the apostles huddled in the Upper Room recalls Genesis 2:7, where God breathed on the first man and gave him life; just as Adam's life came from God, so now the disciples' new spiritual life comes from Jesus.
(Source: Fr. Rosica, CSB)
Friday, June 10, 2011
The God who embraced me...
Folks,
Peace!
Simply sharing this short story below as we prepare for the Feast of Pentecost,...
Jun Mercado, OMI
----
The God Who Embraced Me
by John W. Fountain
“It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become.”
I believe in God. Not that cosmic, intangible spirit-in-the-sky that Mama told me as a little boy "always was and always will be." But the God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives -- from my life at age four -- the night police led him away from our front door, down the stairs in handcuffs.
The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, where the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my 'hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; who claimed me when I felt like "no-man's son," amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, "everything's going to be okay," to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel His presence -- whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life's storms, telling me (even when I was told I was "nothing") that I was something, that I was His, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance.
I believe in God, the God who I have come to know as father, as Abba -- Daddy.
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have about the birds and the bees, or about nothing at all -- simply feeling his breath, heartbeat, presence. As a boy, I used to sit on the front porch watching the cars roll by, imagining that one day one would park and the man getting out would be my daddy. But it never happened.
When I was 18, I could find no tears that Alabama winter's evening in January 1979 as I stood finally -- face to face -- with my father lying cold in a casket, his eyes sealed, his heart no longer beating, his breath forever stilled. Killed in a car accident, he died drunk, leaving me hobbled by the sorrow of years of fatherlessness.
By then, it had been years since Mama had summoned the police to our apartment that night, fearing that Daddy might hurt her -- hit her -- again. Finally, his alcoholism consumed what good there was of him until it swallowed him whole.
It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that He -- God, the Father, God, my Father -- had found me.
Source: All Things Considered, November 28, 2005
Peace!
Simply sharing this short story below as we prepare for the Feast of Pentecost,...
Jun Mercado, OMI
----
The God Who Embraced Me
by John W. Fountain
“It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become.”
I believe in God. Not that cosmic, intangible spirit-in-the-sky that Mama told me as a little boy "always was and always will be." But the God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives -- from my life at age four -- the night police led him away from our front door, down the stairs in handcuffs.
The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, where the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my 'hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; who claimed me when I felt like "no-man's son," amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, "everything's going to be okay," to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel His presence -- whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life's storms, telling me (even when I was told I was "nothing") that I was something, that I was His, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance.
I believe in God, the God who I have come to know as father, as Abba -- Daddy.
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have about the birds and the bees, or about nothing at all -- simply feeling his breath, heartbeat, presence. As a boy, I used to sit on the front porch watching the cars roll by, imagining that one day one would park and the man getting out would be my daddy. But it never happened.
When I was 18, I could find no tears that Alabama winter's evening in January 1979 as I stood finally -- face to face -- with my father lying cold in a casket, his eyes sealed, his heart no longer beating, his breath forever stilled. Killed in a car accident, he died drunk, leaving me hobbled by the sorrow of years of fatherlessness.
By then, it had been years since Mama had summoned the police to our apartment that night, fearing that Daddy might hurt her -- hit her -- again. Finally, his alcoholism consumed what good there was of him until it swallowed him whole.
It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that He -- God, the Father, God, my Father -- had found me.
Source: All Things Considered, November 28, 2005
The Feast of the Pentecost
Dhikr for Pentecost Sunday (B)
Text: “Jesus breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (John 20: 22-23)
Meditation: We have not received the spirit of slavery and live in fear, but the spirit that makes us sons and daughters of God and empowers us to call God – Abba!
DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:
1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!
It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…
Text: “Jesus breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (John 20: 22-23)
Meditation: We have not received the spirit of slavery and live in fear, but the spirit that makes us sons and daughters of God and empowers us to call God – Abba!
DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:
1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!
It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…
Monday, June 6, 2011
The Cosmic Christ
Folks,
Peace!
The Feasts of Easter, Ascension and Pentecost invite us to a much bigger God...
The short reflection below on the Cosmic Christ is an example of responding to that invitation...
Cheers!
Jun Mercado, OMI
------
THE COSMIC CHRIST
Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a much more inclusive title, which we so consistently tack onto the name Jesus that we think Jesus Christ is his full name! There is a wonderful and correct phraseology in Peter's first sermon after the Pentecost event; he says "God has made this Jesus whom you crucified into the Christ" (Acts 2:36). That would probably be the correct way of starting to understand what we mean by the Cosmic Christ. Most of us have believed in Jesus, but we have not necessarily believed in Christ.
When we believe in Jesus CHRIST, we believe in something much bigger than just the historical Jesus. The entire sweep of meaning of “The Christ” includes ourselves as the Body of Christ, and all of creation too (Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:16). Many people have a personal relationship with Jesus, but have almost no relationship with what we had relationship with—which is the full Christ Mystery! Maybe this is the major reason that so much Christianity is so individualistic and sometimes even petty. We know and love Jesus but not Christ.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, OFM' s The Cosmic Christ (CD/MP3)
Peace!
The Feasts of Easter, Ascension and Pentecost invite us to a much bigger God...
The short reflection below on the Cosmic Christ is an example of responding to that invitation...
Cheers!
Jun Mercado, OMI
------
THE COSMIC CHRIST
Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a much more inclusive title, which we so consistently tack onto the name Jesus that we think Jesus Christ is his full name! There is a wonderful and correct phraseology in Peter's first sermon after the Pentecost event; he says "God has made this Jesus whom you crucified into the Christ" (Acts 2:36). That would probably be the correct way of starting to understand what we mean by the Cosmic Christ. Most of us have believed in Jesus, but we have not necessarily believed in Christ.
When we believe in Jesus CHRIST, we believe in something much bigger than just the historical Jesus. The entire sweep of meaning of “The Christ” includes ourselves as the Body of Christ, and all of creation too (Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:16). Many people have a personal relationship with Jesus, but have almost no relationship with what we had relationship with—which is the full Christ Mystery! Maybe this is the major reason that so much Christianity is so individualistic and sometimes even petty. We know and love Jesus but not Christ.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, OFM' s The Cosmic Christ (CD/MP3)
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