1.  PRAYER

Where there is no vision, the people run wild, but blessed is he who follows divine instruction. Proverbs 29:18

Father, we pray that you would remind us that that we are all a part of building and expanding your Kingdom. We ask that you give us a fresh vision for your purpose for our lives. We ask that you open our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our minds to your vision so that we can live out our purpose. Remove anything from our lives that hinders us from discerning your vision. We pray that you would draw us closer to you as you bring us revelation to our purpose. Please reveal to us what we need to do today to not run wild, but rather be focused on your divine vision. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

2.  MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/pD1GAJ_GdOA

3.  SONG

https://youtube.com/shorts/CK_NgROiph4?si=hQDD8yNJWtBlWX-8

4.  NARRATIVE

Searching for Meaning

Monday, October 15, 2018

Searching for Meaning
Monday, October 15, 2018

During the next two weeks I will reflect on suffering and how we might recognize God’s image and likeness in people even—and perhaps especially—during hard times. Some of the greatest wisdom has come from those who experienced unspeakable trauma and harm. Holocaust survivor and respected psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) offered guidance for anyone who suffers. Rabbi Harold Kushner explained in his foreword to Man’s Search for Meaning:

The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. . . .

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. [1]

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young Jewish woman who died at Auschwitz, shared an intimate glimpse into her own experience through her journals:

June 14, 1941: More arrests, more terror, concentration camps, the arbitrary dragging off of fathers, sisters, brothers. We seek the meaning of life, wondering whether any meaning can be left. But that is something each one of us must settle with himself and with God. And perhaps life has its own meaning, even if it takes a lifetime to find it. . . .

June 15, 1941: For a moment yesterday I thought I couldn’t go on living, that I needed help. Life and suffering had lost their meaning for me; I felt I was about to collapse under a tremendous weight. . . . I said that I confronted the “suffering of mankind” . . . but that was not really what it was. Rather I feel like a small battlefield, in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is to keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. [2]

This is what it means to hold the contradictions and the pain of the world, as we do in contemplation. Hillesum accepted her destiny. She believed, as I do, that we are called to be both the agony and the ecstasy of God—for the life of the world. For me, to be a Christian means to accept that battlefield, to accept and to somehow participate in the mystery of death and resurrection in oneself and in the universe. It is a process of “oneing” with Foundational Reality, which some call at-one-ment.

Social psychologist Diarmuid O’Murchu writes:

Creation cannot survive, and less so thrive, without its dark side. There is a quality of destruction, decay, and death that is essential to creation’s flourishing. . . . And the consequence of this destructive dimension is what we call evil, pain, and suffering. Obviously, I am not suggesting fatalistic acquiescence. Indeed, I am arguing for the very opposite: an enduring sense of hope, which it seems to me is not possible without first coming to terms with . . . the great paradox. It is . . . the unfolding cycle of birth-death-rebirth. And it transpires all over creation, on the macro and micro scales alike. [3]

Yes, I know, sisters and brothers, suffering is and will always be a mystery, maybe the major mystery.

References:
[1] Harold S. Kushner in his foreword, Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press: 2006), x.

[2] Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941–1943  and Letters from Westerbork, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Henry Holt and Company: 1996), 29, 30-31.

[3] Diarmuid O’Murchu, Incarnation: A New Evolutionary Threshold (Orbis Books: 2017), 152.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, True Self, False Self, disc 5 (Franciscan Media: 2003, 2013), CD.

5.  MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/dWYTLEY5Lzo

6.  SHARING

7. PRAYER AND INTENTIONS

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5

Father, in the name of Jesus, as we begin to take steps in the direction of our purpose, we ask that you give us wisdom. We ask in faith, that as your Word promises us, that you will give us wisdom in every small and large decision as we step into our purpose. We thank you that we don’t have to rely on our own understanding, as we know that your wisdom will guide us to our exact purpose. Thank you that we can come to the throne and ask anything. We ask for your guidance, and we thank you for the gift and power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’s name.

8.  SONG

https://youtu.be/woNiRqfgbDk?si=CXUT3sTAJvFO3q9V

The Mass and the Eucharist

1.  PRAYER

Short Visit to the Blessed Sacrament By Blessed John Henry Newman

I place myself in the presence of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.

I adore You, O my Savior, present here as God and Man, in Soul and Body, in true Flesh and Blood.

I acknowledge and confess that I kneel before the Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary’s womb, and lay in Mary’s bosom; which grew up to man’s estate, and by the Sea of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the Cross, lay in the tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in Heaven.

I praise and bless, and give myself wholly to Him, Who is the true Bread of my soul, and my everlasting joy.

2.  MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/-9KLB2HI9BI?si=u73t20f78S2MKNec

3.  SONG

https://youtu.be/gADDeVUH4uc?si=7KPH5xr3eZc18j07

4.  NARRATIVE

Father Richard Rohr views the Mass and the Eucharist as a bodily, participatory, and unitive mystery rather than an abstract concept or a mere ritual to be observed. 

Key Themes of Rohr's Teachings on the Mass & Eucharist

Moving from Thought to Embodiment: Rohr emphasizes that Jesus did not tell us to simply think about or stare at the Eucharist, but to "Eat this!" The sacrament moves faith from the rational or intellectual level down to the physical, cellular, and unitive level. 
"I Really Am What I Eat": Through consuming the Eucharist, believers realize they are absorbing the Body of Christ and, in turn, recognizing that same divine presence and dignity within themselves and all other people. 
The Cosmic Christ: In works like The Universal Christ, Rohr broadens the meaning of "This is my body" to encompass the entire physical, material universe infused with the divine. The Incarnation means God entered physical reality and chose to become food. 
The Posture of Surrender: Rohr teaches that the prerequisite for receiving the Eucharist is simply hunger and a need for grace, rather than ego, perfection, or human worthiness. 
Local Parish Homilies: For years, Rohr delivered short, conversational homilies during Mass at Holy Family Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which are preserved through the Center for Action and Contemplation podcast network. 
3 min read
·
Jun 26, 2015

The following is an adapted extract taken from a talk given by Richard Rohr in 2000.




I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
(John 6:58)

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)

The mystery of Eucharist clarifies and delineates Christianity from the other religions of the world. We have many things in common, but Christianity is the only religion that says that God became a human body; God became flesh, as John’s Gospel puts it, (1:14). Our fancy theological word for that is the Incarnation, the enfleshment. It seems that it is much easier for God to convince bread of what it is than for God to convince us. Incarnation is scandalous, shocking — cannibalistic, intimate, sexual!

He did not say, “Think about this,” “Fight about this,” “Stare at this;” but He said “Eat this!”

A dynamic, interactive event that makes one out of two.

If we did not have the Eucharist, we would have to create it; sometimes it seems that outsiders can appreciate it more than Christians.

As Gandhi said, “There are so many hungry people in the world that God could only come into the world in the form of food.”

It is marvellous, that God would enter our lives not just in the form of sermons or Bibles, but in food.

God comes to feed us more than just teach us. Lovers understand that.”

When we start making the Eucharistic meal something to define membership instead of to proclaim grace and gift, we always get in trouble; that’s been the temptation of every denomination that has the Eucharist.

Too often we use Eucharist to separate who’s in from who’s out, who’s worthy from who’s unworthy, instead of to declare that all of us are radically unworthy, and that worthiness is not even the issue. If worthiness is the issue, who can stand before God?

Are those who receive actually saying they are “worthy”? I hope not. It is an ego statement to begin with.

The issue is not worthiness; the issue is trust and surrender or, as Thérèse of Lisieux said, “It all comes down to confidence and gratitude.”

I think that explains the joyous character with which we so often celebrate the Eucharist. We are pulled into immense gratitude and joy for such constant and unearned grace.

It doesn’t get any better than this! All we can do at Eucharist is kneel in gratitude and then stand in confidence. (Actually, St. Augustine said that the proper Christian posture for prayer was standing, because we no longer had to grovel before such a God or fear any God that is like Jesus.)













Christ is the bread, awaiting hunger.
(Saint Augustine)

Eucharist is presence encountering presence — mutuality, vulnerability. There is nothing to prove, to protect, or to sell. It feels so empty, naked, and harmless, that all you can do is be present.

The Eucharist is telling us that God is the food and all we have to do is provide the hunger.

Somehow we have to make sure that each day we are hungry, that there’s room inside of us for another presence.

If you are filled with your own opinions, ideas, righteousness, superiority, or sufficiency, you are a world unto yourself and there is no room for “another.

Despite all our attempts to define who is worthy and who is not worthy to receive communion, our only ticket or prerequisite for coming to Eucharist is hunger. And most often sinners are much more hungry than the “saints.”




5.  MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/dWYTLEY5Lzo?si=XwS2BBU4aP3sheW3











6. SHARING




7.  PRAYER AND INTENTIONS

Before the Blessed Sacrament Prayer from the Fátima Children

O most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly. I offer You the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of sinners.



8.  SONG
https://youtu.be/crgIRDh6IaA?si=H9Ihu6XSLgyS5B18