Fatherless at the Depths of our Beings

FATHERLESS AT THE DEPTHS OF OUR BEING

A father had two sons. The younger comes to him and says: ‘Father give me the share of the property that’s coming to me.’ His father shares out his goods. The younger son takes his share, leaves for a distant country, and squanders his property on a life of debauchery. When he has spent everything, he finds himself hungry and humiliated and sets off to return to his father’s house, where he is undeservedly greeted, embraced, and taken back by his father.

At one level, the lesson is clear: God’s mercy is so wide and compassionate that nothing we can do will ever stop God from loving us.

But (philosopher and theologian) Jean-Luc Marion, drawing upon the specific wording of the Greek text, emphasizes another element in this story.  It implies that the son went to his father and asked for something more than property and money. It says that he asked his father for his share of the property (ousia).  Ousia, in Greek, means “substance”. He’s asking for his life, as independent of his father.

As a son and an heir, he already has use of his share of what is rightfully his; but he wants to own it and not owe it to anyone. He wants to have it as independent of his father, as cut off from his father,  in a way that he no longer has to acknowledge his father in the way he receives his life and freedom and uses them. The consequence of that, as this parable makes clear, is that a gift no longer sensed or acknowledged as gift always leads to the misuse of that gift, to the loss of integrity, and to personal humiliation.

The prodigal son wanted his life and the freedom to enjoy life completely on his own terms and, for him, that meant he had to take them outside his father’s house. That’s why Jesus repeated again and again, that he could do nothing on his own. Everything he was and everything he did came from his Father.

Our lives are not our own. Our lives are a gift and always need to be received as gift. We can enter our lives and freedom and enjoy them and their pleasures, but as soon as we cut them off from their source, take them as our own and head off on our own, dissipation, hunger, and humiliation will follow.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/fatherless-at-the-depth-of-our-being/#.XMcoMKZ7k_8
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2nd Sunday of Easter (C)

Short Reflection for the 2^nd Easter Sunday (C): DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

Readings: Acts of the Apostles 5: 12-16; Revelation 1: 9-11a, 112-13, 17-19; John 20: 19-31

Selected Passage:  Jesus said to him (Thomas), "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 20:29)

Reflection:  Do we need to put our fingers into his wounds in order to believe…?  Jesus is, truly, RISEN!  We believe, because the testimonies of his disciples are trustworthy. They saw and experienced the Risen Lord.

Today we remember God’s Divine Mercy. In the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, we experience God’s unfathomable Divine Mercy.

DHIKR PRAYER 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…

On Joy and Pain in Life

ONE OF ISAIAH’S VISIONS

These are important questions because how we understand the relationship between joy and pain helps determine how we understand ourselves, happiness, and the gospel.

Too often we have the false idea, very prevalent in our culture, that joy and pain are incompatible, and that Christ came to rescue us from pain. Our culture tends to believe that if you are in pain you cannot be happy and to be happy you must avoid pain.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Joy and pain are not incompatible, and Christ does not, as poor preaching sometimes wants us to believe, promise us less pain. The reverse is closer to the truth, though any formula linking joy and pain must be very carefully worded since masochism is always a danger.

Careful wording aside, in this life, joy always comes with pain. Joy and pain both lie at the heart of what it means to be human. In terms of a biblical definition, the human being might well be defined as a being of joy, living in pain. And in the end that is what separates us from the rest of creation.

The paradoxical connection between joy and pain, ultimately, points us towards eternity. By revealing to us our limits, it points us towards something greater, God's kingdom, a higher synthesis of love and communion, within which, as the vision of Isaiah has it, there will be satisfaction without limit, embrace without distance, success without jealousy, smiles without tears, reunions without separation, joys without missing your loved ones, and life without death.

What Christ promises us is not a life on this earth without pain, but an eventual joy that will be clear-cut, pure, and which no one or no thing can ever take from us.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/one-of-isaiahs-visions/#.XKufX-tKiu4
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Palm Sunday (C)

Short Reflection for Palm Sunday (C):The Lord’s Passion

Readings: Isaiah 50: 4 – 7; Philippians 2: 6 – 11; Luke 22: 14 – 23: 56

Selected Passage: Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23: 42-43)

Reflection: The Palm of Triumph

The peaceful figure of Jesus rises above the hostility and anger of the crowds and the legal process. Jesus remains a true model of reconciliation, forgiveness and peace. In the midst of his own agony and trial, we realize the depths of Jesus' passion for unity. He is capable of uniting even Pilate and Herod together in friendship (23:12). From the cross, Luke presents Jesus forgiving his persecutors (23:34) and the dying Jesus allows even a thief to steal paradise! (23:43).

In reading the Passion of the Lord (Luke’s version), we meditate on God’s mercy, forgiveness and reconciling power. In Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, we have been reconciled with God and with one another. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR PRAYER 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…

Passion Sunday (C)

Short Reflection for Palm Sunday (C):The Lord’s  Passion

Readings: Isaiah 50: 4 – 7; Philippians 2: 6 – 11;  Luke 22: 14 – 23: 56

Selected Passage:  Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23: 42-43)

Reflection:  The Palm of Triumph

The peaceful figure of Jesus rises above the hostility and anger of the crowds and the legal process. Jesus remains a true model of reconciliation, forgiveness and peace. In the midst of his own agony and trial, we realize the depths of Jesus' passion for unity. He is capable of uniting even Pilate and Herod together in friendship (23:12). From the cross, Luke presents Jesus forgiving his persecutors (23:34) and the dying Jesus allows even a thief to steal paradise! (23:43).

In reading the Passion of the Lord (Luke’s version), we meditate on God’s mercy, forgiveness and reconciling power.  In Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, we have been reconciled with God and with one another. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR PRAYER 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…

The Power of Helplessness

THE POWER OF HELPLESSNESS

When we speak of "the passion of Jesus Christ" we are not talking so much about anything that Jesus actively did, but rather about what was done to him, what he endured, what he submitted to and what he carried in silence during his last hours on earth.

But what is the value of such "passivity"? How does silent suffering, that does not actively intervene and alter a situation, change anything? Why do we value Jesus' passion so much when it was precisely the time in his life and ministry (a very short time in fact) when he was not preaching, teaching, feeding, healing, and actively helping others? How can one help anyone by standing helplessly by as injustice unfolds? What is the value of these things: Sweating blood in a garden? Silent tears? Prayers that aren't publicly manifest? Interior dissent that is powerless to change the actual situation on the outside?

Jesus answered this with another question: "Wasn't it necessary?" Doesn't defeat sometimes mean victory? Aren't silent suffering, interior protest, and helpless empathy sometimes the real weapons for change? Isn't the sweating of blood the key to sustaining all of our commitments? Isn't the carrying of tension the key to love and family life? Isn't it only when we admit our helplessness that God finally enters? 

"Why is this necessary"? The answer to that questions lies at the heart of all wisdom, all Christian revelation, all depth, all maturity. But it is an answer that we will not find in books, nor in Socratic reflection. We will find it precisely when we ponder in the biblical sense, namely, when we stand helpless, muted, and frustrated, but listening, before a pain, an illness, or an injustice that so overwhelms us that we are unable to rely on any power save that of God.

What is taught us there holds the key to everything.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-power-of-helplessness/#.XIumjBMzZN0
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Shedding Things...

SHEDDING THINGS

From a certain point onward in our lives we begin to accumulate things, often without really realizing it.

Like the rooms in our houses, every day that we live, our internal rooms also fill up with more and more stuff: valuable things, toxic things, and junk. We all carry a lot more baggage now than we did at seventeen and this makes travel difficult, especially the travel that is asked of us as we get older, namely, the journey to become a gracious older woman or man, an adult, an elder, one who has aged gracefully, can bless the young, and let go of life without anger or silly clinging so as not to end up an embittered, old fool, but a happy, holy fool.

Julian of Norwich states that we will cling to God only when we no longer cling to everything else. Richard Rohr agrees with that, but expresses it this way:  As we get older, he submits, the real task of life, both in terms of human growth and life in God, is to begin to shed things, to carry less and less baggage, to slim-down spiritually and psychologically to match the meagerness of  the  possessions we  had  when we  were seventeen years  old and could still put  all we own  into  one little suitcase.

"Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I go back again. The Lord gives and the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Adulthood is contingent upon appropriating that.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/shedding-things/#.XHlDPC3L1N0
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5th Sunday of Lent (C)

Short Reflection for the 5^th Sunday in Lent (C)

Readings: Isaiah 43: 16 – 21; Philippians 3: 8 – 14; John 8: 1 – 11

Selected Passage:  “Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?’  She replied, ‘No one, sir.’  Then Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more.’” (Luke 8: 10-11)

Reflection:  The gospel tells us that God does not condemn us.  In fact, he gives us the grace not only to free us from our past but the opportunity to begin anew. Such is the LOVE of God that he offered his only begotten Son that we may have new LIFE!  Jesus tells us be slow in our judgment of others, because we ourselves are  sinners.  The Season of Lent is an invitation to be RICH in Mercy and Compassion. Cf. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR PRAYER 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…