1. PRAYER
Dear Lord, my mind is racing and I am overthinking things that are beyond my control. I confess I am worried. Help me, Lord, to stop doing and start trusting. Calm my anxious heart and fix my mind on You. I cast my burdens upon You and ask for Your peace to guard my mind and heart. I choose to trust that You are working on my behalf, even when I cannot see it. In Jesus’ name, Amen."
2. MEDITATION
https://youtu.be/cyMxWXlX9sU?si=TnlNCXqzPR0sEB-4
https://youtu.be/LcSmJdhMzSQ?si=05ZlKlP9Iv28mDKp
4. NARRATIVE
The Inefficiency of Faith
Richard Rohr writes that holding the tension of paradox helps us grow in consciousness and love.
All the great religions at the more mature levels learn and teach a different consciousness, which we call the contemplative mind, the nondual mind, or the mind of Christ. The levels of spiritual development begin with dualistic, exclusionary, either/or thinking and become increasingly nondual, allowing for a deeper, broader, wiser, more inclusive and loving way of seeing.
If we are to live on this Earth, we cannot bypass the necessary tension of holding contraries and inconsistencies together. Daily ordinary experiences teach us nonduality in a way that is not theoretical or abstract. It becomes obvious in everything and everybody, every idea and every event, almost hidden in plain sight. Everything created is mortal and limited and, if we look long enough, paradoxical. By paradox, I mean something that initially looks contradictory or impossible, but in a different frame or at a different level is in fact deeply true.
I am talking about just holding the tension, not necessarily finding a resolution or closure to paradox. We must agree to live without resolution, at least for a while. This is very difficult for most people, largely because we have not been taught how to do this mentally or emotionally. We didn’t know we could—or even should. As Paul seems to say (and I paraphrase), hope would not be the virtue that it is if it led us to quick closure and we did not have to “wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24–25).
I think opening to this holding pattern is the very name and description of faith. Unfortunately, in Christianity, faith largely became believing things to be true or false (intellectual assent) instead of giving people concrete practices so they could themselves know how to open up (faith), hold on (hope), and allow an infilling from another Source (love).
We must move from a belief-based religion to a practice-based religion, or little will change. We will merely continue to argue about what we are supposed to believe and who the unbelievers are. We need contemplative practices to loosen our egoic attachment to certainty and retrain our minds to understand the wisdom of paradox. [1]
Contemplative prayer is largely just being present: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment to God instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. In our daily lives, this prayer is most commonly articulated as a willingness to say, “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current.
That may sound impractical, but the way of faith is not the way of efficiency. So much of life is just a matter of listening and waiting and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009), 100, 106–107, 108.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Yes, And…: Daily Meditations (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2013, 2019), 383.
5. MEDITATION
https://youtu.be/tN2dpw0kGas?si=f-r04pPSeANH7CWR
6. SHARING
7. PRAYER AND INTENTIONS
Act of faith. My God, I believe in you, and all that your Church teaches, because you have said it, and your word is true.
Lord, I believe in you …
… Because the beauty of the world speaks of you.
… Because the goodness in the world comes from you.
… Because I can discern and know the truth.
… Because the laws of the universe are ordered.
… Because your creation is sustained in being.
… Because I am a mystery to myself that your words illuminate.
… Because you are the foundation of truth.
… Because you are too great for me to fully understand.
… Because trustworthy people have believed in you for centuries.
… Because of the witness of science.
… Because of the witness of the saints.
… Because of the witness of the Gospels.
… Because you have given me the gift of faith.
… Increase my faith.
8.SONG
https://youtu.be/08vSmDJjl-k?si=vi5r4MlVPadeu1EP
