An Invitation to a DEEPER Virtue

AN INVITATION TO A DEEPER VIRTUE

Can you love an enemy? Can you not give back in kind? Can you move beyond your natural reactions and transform the energy that enters you from others, so as to not give back bitterness for bitterness, harsh words for harsh words, curse for curse, hatred for hatred, murder for murder?

Can you rise above your sense of being wronged? Can you renounce your need to be right? Can you move beyond the itch to always have what’s due you? Can you forgive, even when every feeling inside of you rebels at its unfairness? Can you take in bitterness, curses, hatred, and murder itself, and give back graciousness, blessing, love, understanding, and forgiveness?

That’s the root invitation inside of Christianity and it’s only when we do this that we move beyond “an eye for an eye”.

To do this willingly and without resentment is difficult. It’s not easy to do this and not grow resentful and manipulative. More commonly, we carry others’ crosses – but end up being bitter about it and sending them the bill. Growing resentful or manipulative while serving others is a perennial danger.

The invitation of Jesus to what’s higher, more sublime, more noble, remains; as does the gentle, understanding, faithful, non-threatening, non-coercive, non-guilt inducing, but persistent and uncompromising, presence of God.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser
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20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Short Reflection for the 20^th Sunday of the Ordinary Time (B)

Readings: Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6 51-58

Selected Text: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." (John 6: 51)

Meditation: We are invited to partake of the living bread – Jesus Christ, the Lord. And by partaking of the living bread, we become truly ALIVE in Jesus and we become the living bread for others. We are reminded, too, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks his blood remains in me and I in him”. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

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…

19th Sunday Short Reflection

Short Reflection for the 19^th Sunday in the Ordinary Time (B)

Readings: 1 Kings 19: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 30 - 5: 2; John 6: 41-51

Selected Text: “It is written in the prophets: 'They shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”  (John 6: 45)

Meditation: Do we truly allow ourselves to be taught by God? Do we listen to God and learn from the Lord in our work and life?  When we partake of the Bread of life - Jesus himself - we are in communion with him - being one with him!

Visit: www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

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…

God as Victim

GOD AS VICTIM

God is not to be confusedly identified with the myths of success, power, glamour, and popularity. Never confuse God and what is holy with current cultural religion which, antithetical to Christ, worships the included, the glamorous, the ones who aren’t shamed and ridiculed, and the ones who seem important and indispensable.

The God of our culture and the God that is preached in so many of our churches is not the God who dies on a cross, is hated, spat upon, and is excluded and scapegoated in ignorance. No, our culture does not worship a crucified God. The God Jesus revealed, is still, in our very own culture, excluded, mocked, scapegoated, made expendable, and often killed, mostly in the name of God and truth. Where do we see this?

Our own culture, like every other culture past and present, creates a category of persons that it deems expendable and then subsequently victimizes through exclusion, ridicule, scapegoating, and often through actual death. Who constitutes that category shifts slightly from time to time, but there is always a common denominator, it includes always those who are the weakest.

Thus, for instance, our culture, marginalizes and scapegoats the sick, the poor, the handicapped, the unborn, the unattractive, the non-productive, and the aged. These we deem expendable and subsequently decertify in terms of full status within the human race. Worse still, we identify God and holiness with those who are doing the excluding. But that is antithetical to true religion – and true wisdom.

Where is God? God is on the side of the victim, standing with the one who is excluded, especially present in the one being ridiculed, and dying in the one who is being put to death.

True Christianity knows this: It worships the scapegoat – the one who is surrounded by the halo of hatred.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser
http://ronrolheiser.com/god-as-victim/#.WzECZxJKhmA
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