Lord, I often find it challenging to be kind to those who have wounded me. I struggle to be friendly, let alone to forgive. Please help me find comfort in knowing I do not have to rely on my strength for things like this. Instead, it is You who I get to rely on, so please soften my heart and help me to forgive. Amen.
In this homily, Father Richard Rohr reminds us of the radical and transformational power of forgiveness:
When all is said and done, the gospel comes down to forgiveness. I’d say it’s the whole gospel. It’s the beginning, the middle, and the end. People who know how to forgive have known how good it feels to be forgiven, not when they deserved it, but precisely when they didn’t deserve it.
If we’re Christian, we’ve probably said the “Our Father” ten thousand times. The words just slip off our tongues: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” By saying this prayer, we’ve asked and prayed for forgiveness. Notice the full correlation between how we give and how we receive: “Forgive us as we forgive.” They’re the same movement. We need to know that we need mercy, we need understanding, and then we also need to know how to give it. Each flows with the energy of the other.
I have often found people in 12-step programs or in jail who were quite forgiving of other people’s faults because they’d hit the bottom. They knew how much it hurt to hurt. They knew how terrible it is to hate yourself and to accuse yourself. When someone with a generous heart and a loving spirit entered their lives and forgave them, it was like being reborn. Someone else loves a part of me that I can’t love myself! They just taught me how to do it!
I remember when I was jail chaplain in Albuquerque, I would read in the newspaper the stories of criminals in our city and I would form an opinion about how terrible they were. Years ago, a young woman committed murder to steal a baby. Everybody in the city hated her, I think. I went to the jail the very next day, and they told me that she wanted to see a priest.
I didn’t want to go in the cell because I knew I wouldn’t like her. I knew I would judge her because I’d already judged her. I can’t tell the whole story, but I will share this much: when I left that cell, I had nothing but tears and sympathy for the suffering of that young woman.
You see, the One who knows all can forgive all. But all we know is a little piece—the part that has offended us. Only God knows all, and so God is the One who can forgive all.
If we’re honest, none of us have lived the gospel. None of us have loved as we could love, or as we have been loved by God. I talk about it from the pulpit much better than I live it. And yet that very recognition—that I have not yet lived love—allows me to stand under the waterfall of infinite mercy. It’s only then that I know how to let mercy flow through me freely. That I receive it undeservedly allows me to give it undeservedly.
Father, I thank You for the gift of forgiveness You gave me. Although I deserve nothing, You give me everything. Please provide me with a gracious and loving heart so that I may be able to go into the world and forgive those who need to experience the power of Your forgiveness. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.
This is an easy chili to prepare and also conveniently cheap. Every ingredient can be obtained from Dollar Tree. My picky taster, my husband Bob, loves this.
Easy Chili Using Items from Dollar Tree
Ingredients
1 bag frozen Santa Fe Blend
1 can red or green enchilada sauce
1 cup or more oat milk from a carton
Garlic, onion, and cumin powder to taste
1 can mixed chili beans or other kind
2 tbsp cornmeal (optional)
Instructions
Add the ingredients in slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours or at high for 3 hours. I cooked mine in an Aroma brand multi cooker at slow cooker setting for 2 hours.
The great wisdom teachers and mystics say in various ways that you cannot truly see or understand anything if you begin with a no. You have to start with a yes of basic acceptance, which means you do not too quickly label, analyze, or categorize things in or out, good or bad. This is Contemplation 101. You have to be taught how to leave the field open. The ego or false self strengthens itself by constriction, by being against, or by re-action; it feels loss or fear when it opens up to subtlety and Mystery. Living out of the True Self involves positive choice, inner spaciousness, and conscious understanding rather than resistance, knee-jerk reactions, or defensiveness. It is not easy to live this way. It often takes a lifetime of prayer and honest self-observation to stop judging and starting with no.
We see what we are ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see. If you start with no, you usually get some form of no in return. If you start with yes, you are much more likely to get a yes back. Once you have learned how to say a fundamental yes, later no’s can be very helpful and are surely necessary. Beginning with yes is the foundation of mature nonviolence and compassionate action.
The Risen Christ is a great big yes to everything (see 2 Corinthians 1:19), even early, incomplete stages. “Transcend and include” is an important principle here. The final, stupendous gift is that your false self becomes the raw material for your unique version of True Self. This is the wonderful metamorphosis we call Resurrection. The Risen Christ is still and forever the wounded Jesus—and yet now so much more. Your ordinary life and temperament is not destroyed or rejected. It is “not ended but merely changed,” as the Preface of the funeral liturgy puts it. “This perishable nature will put on imperishability, and this mortal body will put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15: 52-54)—one including the other, not one in place of the other. Picture the nesting dolls that keep including smaller dolls inside of ever larger ones.
Importantly, the Risen Christ is beyond any limits of space and time, as revealed in his bilocation (Luke 24:32-39); passing through doors (John 20:19); and shape-shifting into a gardener (John 20:14-18), a passer-by (Luke 24:13-35), and a wounded man that can only be recognized when Thomas touches the wounds (John 20:27f). The Risen Christ reveals a universal presence that is truly intimate with and connected to everything. The one and the many have become One in him. He reveals that we can operate as a part of the biggest ecosystem or force field possible. Paul’s metaphor for this is “The Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12ff), where even the “weakest members are the most indispensable ones . . . and are clothed with the greatest care” (12:22f). This is an utterly new and upside-down universe that is revealed in the Risen Christ!
For the True Self, there is nothing to hate, reject, deny, or judge as unworthy or unnecessary. It has “been forgiven much and so it loves much” (Luke 7:47). Compassion and mercy come easily once you live from inside the Big Body of Love. The detours of the false self were all just delaying tactics, bumps in the road, pressure points that created something new in the long run, as pressure does to carbon deep beneath the earth. God uses everything to construct this hard and immortal diamond, our core of love.
Diamonds are the hardest substance on earth. The strong diamond of love will always be stronger than death. Diamonds, once soft black carbon, become beautiful and radiant white lightning under pressure. The true pattern, the big secret, has now been revealed and exposed, “like a treasure hidden in a field.” You did not find the Great Love except by finding yourself too, and you cannot find your True Self without falling into the Great Love.
Gateway to Silence: God in me loves God in everything.
Faithful Father, who offers stable love and a grounding presence, help me navigate this change. In the midst of uncertainty, give me confidence in your abiding presence. Help my sense of real loss at what was, not disrupt the potential of new relationships and new opportunities. In the midst of this discomfort, keep me from making drastic decisions that may derail what you have for me. And, help me trust you no matter what. Amen.
This is a no fuss non-alcoholic margarita, which for me is better than some alcoholic ones I have had. This was inspired by a recipe from the Pinch of Yum website. I simplified their procedure and shortened the list of ingredients.
This is a perfect refreshing summer drink to relax with. Try it.
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: …‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” —Mark 12:28–31
In this homily, Father Richard considers Jesus’ response to the question, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”:
I don’t think any of us really know how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We might want to love like that, but how do we put all the parts of ourselves together and actually do it? It takes our whole life to figure out what Jesus’ words might even mean. Then Jesus says, “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Mark 12:31). Do any of us do that? Do we really love other people? Do we really give them as much attention as we give to ourselves? I don’t think so. We need to recognize, of course, that Jesus does imply that you must love yourself. If we hate ourselves, then how can we possibly know how to love our neighbor? We have to know proper and appropriate love of self, but we cannot stop there.
Imagine how different the world would be if we just obeyed that one commandment—to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It would be the most mighty political, social upheaval imaginable. The world would be radically different if human beings really treated other people as they would like to be treated. We can take this as a simple rule of thumb: What would I want from that person right now? What would be helpful for me to receive? Well, there’s our commandment. There’s our obligation to do to others!
It’s so simple that we can see why we put all our attention on the Ten Commandments, or the hundreds of other regulations culture and religion place on us. It’s much easier to worry about things that keep us “pure,” so to speak, but are of little consequence.
I think the scribe is asking a very good question. After all is said and done, it comes down to loving God and loving our neighbor—and that implies loving ourselves. If I said this without quoting Jesus, I could be accused of oversimplifying or ignoring some of the important commandments, but thank God Jesus said it first. He taught that it’s all about love, and in the end, that’s all we’re all going to be judged for. Did we love? Did we love life? Did we love ourselves? Did we love God and did we love our neighbor? Concentrating on that takes just about our whole lifetime and we won’t have much time left over to worry about what other people are doing or not doing. Our job is to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbor.
Your body, heart, and spirit need to stand in your power to access and engage their full and authentic capacity.
I know sometimes you think that it would be easier to stand in your power if you looked like them, or had their experience, or access to those resources, or were educated to this level, or had more happiness in your childhood, or if that hadn't happened to you, and, well, if you were an entirely different person.
'I could stand in my power if (fill in the blank)...' is a place we've all been.
Here's the thing: believing that you can't stand with what you've got and what you've been given will have you on your ass in no time. And the only way to get back up from this kind of fall is self-love and acceptance.
Which isn’t easy. Self-love and acceptance can be challenging because we've all done things we are ashamed of, things we knew were wrong, things that have hurt others, things that we would not accept from another person.
Self-love and acceptance are difficult because when life cracks us open, when confronted with ourselves, it's sometimes hard to love what we find.
Self-love and acceptance are hard because we've been taught systematically by some factions of religion, consumerism, pop culture, politics and policies, and more, that we simply are not worthy of self-love and acceptance. And worse, that to love and accept ourselves would leave us unhinged and abandoned to our own evil inclinations and desires.
But dear one, is that working for you? A life disassociating your heart and body and mind from your own love and acceptance? Self-hatred and non-acceptance don't make you holy. It's a conduit of pain and trauma that makes you lonely and sad.
Mark Twain said:
"The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself."
Rupi Kaur said:
"How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you."
"True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance."
Richard Rohr said:
"Love is not something you do; love is someone you are. It is your True Self. Love is where you came from and love is where you're going. It's not something you can buy. It's not something you can attain. It is the presence of God within you, called the Holy Spirit—or what some theologians name uncreated grace. We can't diminish God's love for us. What we can do, however, is learn how to believe it, receive it, trust it, allow it, and celebrate it, accepting Trinity's whirling invitation to join in the cosmic dance...
[buckle in, because this could change your life]
The very nature of God is to seek out the deepest possible communion and friendship with every last creature on this earth. That's the job description of God. That's what it's all about. And the only thing that can keep you out of this divine dance is fear and doubt, or any self-hatred. What would happen in your life—right now—if you accepted what God has created and even allowed? Suddenly, this is a very safe universe. You have nothing to be afraid of. God is for you. God is leaping toward you! God is on your side, honestly more than you are on your own."
Mindful Prompt: You will not become overrun by evil if you let love well up inside of you for your own life. Love is already in you, willing you to stand, wanting to heal you - set the flow moving.
PRAYER: “God, I am in awe of Your love for me. You are so great, and I am so small, yet You love me fully. I remind my soul today that nothing can separate me from Your love – I am so grateful! There is nothing I can do to win or lose Your love; You love me without condition.
