Tag: social justice

CURING INDIVIDUALISM

Scripture says Satan, the Father of Lies

loves to deceive mortals

and so all private revelations/claims of visions/voices

are subjected to rigorous discernment

by Vatican authorities

Teresa of Avila had a private revelation

a vision of an Interior Mansion inside everyone

and we progress from one inner mansion to another

and riches/treasures/joys are in the fifth mansion

and the majority of people gain admittance there

and the devil is kept out

and the Vatican approved this vision 

as far as visions go, believers cannot trust society

to tell us the ways of God and Satan 

because society is confused/blown about 

by constant winds of change/

only concerned with pragmatism/and immediate consequences

and so, believers must somehow learn

to trust God again 

and there is objective good/objective truth

society cannot save us for 

“It has become normal to feel ill-at-ease

as we watch the fraying rope

of our culture unravel strand by strand

and slowly break” – Bruce Cockburn

families tie society together but individualism unravels them

curing individualism comes from recognizing

we are essentially social beings

we are all subjects before God

we are interdependent

and called to unity/accountability for others/the world/ourselves

the best way to be accountable is thru contemplation

for the essence of contemplation 

is to experience God’s “I AM” which:

illumines your own “i am”

ties us all together as one family of daughters/sons of God

being loved by one Eternal Mother/Father

being mindful of the Holy Spirit/the Present Moment/

healing of all our mental/physical wounds/

awareness of Jesus the Great Healer/the healing of the Trinity.

ARMCHAIR CATHOLICISM

As churches institutionalized, they professionalized

and a professional elite took over, the clergy

who focused on how to live the Christian life but lost the why –

the motivations of regular lay believers

 

Catholic clergy have been wrestling with laity forever:

when Catholicism fought the heretical monster

it labeled “modernism”

it condemned modernism’s chief architects:

Galileo/Darwin/Marx/Freud

all Christian and Jewish-atheist laymen

who threatened the church’s

classicism/Hellenism/Thomism

 

however, Bernard Lonergan’s “transcendental precepts”

that underlie his General Epistemological Method (G.E.M.)

that underlies all the hard and soft sciences:

attentiveness (paying attention)/intelligence (what seems to be happening?)/

reasonableness (is that accurate?)/responsibility (what should be done?)

gave Catholicism a new way of doing theology

that matched our fast-emerging world civilization

 

hopefully Lonergan’s work will not be subverted

because assertion and then subversion

of the good/true/beautiful

is the basic pattern of the Bible –

the nonviolent resistance of Jesus to the “normal” state

of his society – the violent Roman Empire –

is met with his murder

 

when individualism reigns in our society

Christian charity alleviates the suffering of individuals

but ignores the unjust structures/laws

made by the privileged to protect the privileged

that cause the suffering in the first place

 

“A Merchant Mentality destroys compassion and the soul –

and the sin behind all sin is dualism – splitting things apart”

– Matthew Fox

 

rather than meditating on God from our armchair

it would be more fruitful to actually unite

with “others” who are least like us

and find Jesus the Christ in them too.

 

TEST EVERY SPIRIT

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit

but test the spirits to see

if they are from God” – I John 4:11

There are many visionaries/prophets in the world today

but we must discern the rind from the fruit.

Meister Eckhart is no Gnostic

but he emphasized transcendent/ineffable knowing

which the 21st century mind cannot grasp

since it believes all knowledge can be rationally analyzed

or if not, the knowledge-object does not exist.

But God transcends human rationality –

“My thoughts are not your thoughts

and My ways are not your ways –

as the heavens are higher than the earth

so My ways are higher than your ways

and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” – Isaiah 55:8-9.

Limited 21st century rationality proclaims this god must not exist.

Eckhart was under the influence of mystical Judaism

therefore, the Hasidim (Jewish mystics), show up in his writing –

the Baal Shem Tov said “In remembering lies redemption”

and Eckhart called Christ “The Great Reminder.”

Eckhart reminds us the heart ties together God’s triple-c calling:

communion with God/

community with others/

commission – ministry for others.

Eckhart believed salvation must include social justice

but most traditional salvation theories ignored the obvious:

racism/sexism/slavery/poverty/degradation of Earth –

Protestants overlooked the decimation of indigenous Americans

and Catholics overlooked the poverty of social justice in Latin America.

Recognizing the inner beauty of each human being

is at the heart of being human –

when we judge others we deny their inner beauty/

their beauty never gets a chance to shine/

and we block evolution’s flow

to greater love and consciousness.

 

 

 

3 Big Ideas for May 23, 2019

  1. The only way to understand the power of the message of Jesus is by imitating him and actually living the life of a disciple.
  2. The problem for most of us in the spiritual life is that we want to be a saint but we also want to experience all the sensations sinners have. If we become too angelic we can be no earthly good. And if we become too focused on the body alone we can become lower than the animals. It is always difficult to keep spirit and body integrated.
  3. The marriage of eastern and western religion may be necessary not only for the Church but also for the survival of civilization itself. Eastern religion emphasizes contemplation and western religion emphasizes social justice. Together they would keep the transcendence and immanence of God alive. Contemplation counters civilization’s obsession with consumerism and social justice counters it’s obsession with individualism.

3 Big Ideas for April 3, 2019

  1. The reason I am not an atheist: that the universe exists at all, that it obeys laws, that out of those laws come galaxies, stars and planets, that on one planet life and consciousness has evolved (and probably on many others), are all one wonder after another. It requires more gullibility to believe this all just happened by accident than to believe there is a Supreme Omnipotent Intelligence behind it all. Faith in God is not irrational at all.
  2. Contemplation does not free you from conflict, anguish and doubt. Rather it creates serious questions about the whole status quo of everyday injustices we constantly see all around us and accept as if they were unquestionable dogmas. True contemplation leads one to social justice which is the proper distribution of love throughout society.
  3. The Body of Christ is not bound to any one race, nation, tradition, culture or theology but can learn from them all new ways of expressing the truth of the message of Jesus the Christ. Churches can enrich, and be enriched by, many different cultures.