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Medjugorje
Message: September 25, 2014 Dear children! Also today I call you to also be like the
stars, which by their light give light and beauty to others so they may
rejoice. Little children, also you be the radiance, beauty, joy and peace—and
especially prayer—for all those who are far from my love and the love of my
Son Jesus. Little children, witness your faith and prayer in joy, in the joy
of faith that is in your hearts; and pray for peace, which is a precious gift
from God. Thank you for having responded to my call. |
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Published
by the Marian Center of San Antonio / A Catholic Evangelization Ministry Our Lady’s message of joy calls to mind the great October saint,
Francis of Assisi, who taught joy as the hallmark of Christian evangelization. He forbade his friars to
ever appear gloomy or sullen, for they were to witness the Gospel (Good
News) at all times and wherever
they went, “using
words only if necessary.” For Francis, “perfect joy” was to be harshly mistreated without ever losing the interior sense
of Christ’s immense love and mercy, showing only gentleness and humility in
return. Similarly, another great October saint, Teresa of Jesus (Avila),
famously said, “God
preserve us from gloomy saints!” This incredible 16th
century Spanish mystic/spiritual writer of classics on prayer/reformer of the
Carmelite Order/foundress of 17 convents
who suffered giant obstacles and challenges on her path, was also an icon of joy as she danced with abandon among her sisters. A third October saint,
Therese of Lisieux (the French “Little Flower”), whose short life wracked with illness and whose “little way” of simple, childlike trust and small sacrifices made with great
love for God, inspired Mother Teresa of Calcutta, wrote: “My Jesus always
makes me understand that he alone is perfect joy when he
appears to be absent!...Joy is to be found in suffering without any consolation!” These three joyous October saints are tremendous luminaries in the sky over our
earthly pilgrimage on the spiritual journey, shining brightly and leading us
into profound depths of our Christian vocation. This month Our Lady beckons
us to be lights for others in the same way: “Also today, I call you
also to be like the stars, which
by their light give light and beauty to others so they may rejoice.” Our
demeanor, comportment, patience, gracious courtesy, easy humor and smiling
face should tell the world that we are at peace interiorly—despite any negative outward circumstances—because of the love and
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ whose Spirit indwells us. In this way,
Our Lady says, we are to “be
the radiance, beauty, joy and peace—and especially prayer—for all those who are far from my love and the love of my Son
Jesus.” When we think of “those
who are far” from this divine love, our
minds turn to the intense misery and heinous cruelty we are witnessing now on
the world stage, with religious extremists and ordinary psychopaths
committing barbarous acts of unspeakable violence and carnage, visiting
horrific deaths upon innocent victims, all filmed and broadcast through mass
and social media into our living rooms and troubled psyches, fanning the
flames of renewed warfare and international terror. These new atrocities add
to the many local wars, kidnappings, rapes, homicides, suicides, tragic illnesses
and accidental deaths of carelessness that already fill the airwaves across
our globe. For all the people involved in this vast planetary misery, Our Lady
says, we are to be “the light”—the “radiance, beauty, joy, peace, and
prayer” that are missing from their
lives. What a tall order! Yet we have great role models: With the weight of
the whole troubled world on his shoulders, Pope Francis wrote his first Apostolic Exhortation on “The
Joy of the Gospel,” and his personal presence exudes this joy of which Our Lady and our three great October saints speak.This
month’s message concludes: “Little children, witness
your faith and prayer in joy, in the joy of faith that is in your hearts;
and pray for peace which is a precious gift from God.” Here we are being given a mandate from Our Lady to banish
negativity from our character, “so they may rejoice”—“all those who are far from the love” of Mary and Jesus.
This includes the horrifying cast of players on the world stage of terrorism
and violence, but also the many people we meet in our ordinary daily
lives—friends, relatives, coworkers, and those we encounter in healthcare,
commercial or service settings. Many are living under a heavy pall of
negativity, hopelessness, depression, mistrust, victimhood, anger, grief, and
despair. Into this dark cloud we are to be a
ray of piercing light that’s composed of unflagging
JOY in our Christian faith, hope and love that conquers the world. Along with this witnessing of our faith in joy, Our Lady asks us to “pray
for peace, which is a precious gift from God.” Next to the Mass, there is no more powerful prayer than the rosary,
so especially during this October month of the Holy Rosary, let us tell our
beads for PEACE on earth. October Musings . . . Wisdom from Pope Francis & Two Modern Franciscans Guidance for
Reading the Scriptures from Pope Francis: In the presence of God during a recollected reading of the
scripture text, it is good to ask: “Lord, what does this text say to me? What
is it about my life that you want to change by this text? Why am I not interested in this? Or perhaps: What
do I find pleasant in this text? What is it about this word that moves me?
What attracts me? Why does it attract me?” When we make an effort to listen to the Lord, temptations usually
arise. One of them is simply to feel troubled or burdened, and to turn
away. Another common temptation is to think about what the text means
for other people, and so avoid applying it to our own life. It can also
happen that we look for excuses to water down the clear meaning of the
text. Or we can wonder if God is demanding too much of us, asking for
a decision which we are not yet prepared to make. This leads many people to stop taking pleasure in the encounter
with God’s word. But this would mean forgetting that no one is more patient than God
our Father,
that no one is more understanding and willing
to wait. He always invites us to take a step forward, but does not
demand a full response if we are not yet ready. He simply asks that we sincerely
look at our life and present ourselves honestly before him, and that we be
willing to continue to grow, asking from him what we ourselves cannot
as yet achieve. –Evangelii Gaudium (The
Joy of the Gospel), 153 + + +
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+ + Modern Science and
Our Christian Faith: Ilia Delio, Franciscan sister,
author, teacher While some see modern science as a challenge to faith, it is
actually an opportunity to think in new ways about God, creation, and the
incarnation. The age of the universe alone requires us to talk about creation
and Christ in a new language. The whole cosmos, from the Big Bang on, is
that Word of God being spoken in the vast spaces of the universe. That same
Word is made flesh in Jesus Christ. But he’s more than the man who
walked from Galilee to Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. Christ is probably the
most inclusive term we could use to talk about God’s presence.
Christ is the one who draws together, who unifies the new creation. That
unity is simply the love of God that binds all things together, and
that’s where we come in. While the fullness of God’s love is revealed in
Jesus, what happened to Jesus must happen to us as well. The
Christian vocation is one of recognizing relationships, both to creation
and to other human beings. For followers of Jesus, that means building
bridges, especially across religious traditions. Heaven takes
place on earth when we begin to live in God’s love in a new way. It
can sound abstract and yet, it’s the most concrete thing we can do. Every age must discover Christ anew. When we make Christ an academic study or just a doctrinal
formula, he loses his vitality and meaning for our everyday lives. This
matters especially now because the world has changed radically since
Christians first started reflecting on who Christ is. Science has opened up
for us the cosmos in a new way. Now we know that the cosmos is much older than we could have ever
imagined—13.7 billion years old. Science
also reveals that the cosmos is dynamic.
So if God is the creator of this cosmos, we’re talking about a very dynamic
God, not a static, boring God. This is a God who is engaged and relational, a
God of dynamic love. These discoveries challenge us to rethink the
meaning of Jesus Christ…. Big Bang One is the cosmos; Big
Bang Two is God exploding now in human history and giving an explicit
direction to the whole course of evolution in Jesus Christ. A “cosmic christology,”
a more expansive understanding of Christ, is about relationship.
To be related to the incarnation is to be related to one another and to
all of creation. It means seeing the incarnation as the real presence of
God in real time, in concrete material reality…. How do we live the life of Christ? That’s where I bring in the
mystics. We’ve become too analytical. Our approach is about law: Do good, avoid evil. But the mystic is one who, through
prayer, enters into the mystery of God as love.
Christian life is first of all a mystery,
the mystery that the incredible,
incomprehensible love of God is the source of all that we are. The
mystical way is one of vision. The mystic moves from
the head to the heart to see the world in its true reality.
The
mystic doesn’t do what is right out of duty, but because she sees the
presence of God in the poor, the sick, those who are anxious, the
marginalized. Incarnation is also about seeing the hiddenness of God.
Francis of Assisi was very focused on the humility of God, who is hidden
in everyday, ordinary reality. What do you see when you see
another person? When you see an animal? A tree? A sand dune?...What does that mean for how we treat the rest of
creation?... There’s nothing earthly that doesn’t have some divine dignity to
it. God created the quark and the star, the bacteria, the snake. Everything
reflects God in some way. Because every created thing has a relationship to
God, I can’t misuse, abuse, or control it. Cosmic christology
calls us to be in relationship to created things as sister or brother. We
are all part of the one cosmic family. Would you really abuse and
misuse and manipulate a person or thing you claim to love?...We’ve
been very selfish and self-centered, and we have not treated the rest of
creation with a sense of dignity, respect, or reverence. Understanding
God in our midst in the natural world might give us a new consciousness that
we use things as gifts. All of life is a gift. That’s what love is about. A mystical Christian encounters a person as an encounter with
God. This is incarnation now. We allow that person to be who they are
because that’s the person God created. It’s a matter of looking at the
person as an icon of God—one in whom God is shining through.
Unfortunately, we don’t see people or the created world as icons. Instead we
treat them as objects—an object you can manipulate and control.
Other
religions are not outside the Christ mystery. They are part and parcel of
that mystery. That’s why dialogue with the world’s religions is very
important. We Christians are called to be bridge builders, and
unless we do that, we are going to continue to suffer violence in the world
because a lot of the violence is religious in nature. Christianity has the
responsibility to incarnate the love of God by reaching out to other
religions to talk about this mystery of God. You’re going to find more things
in common than things that divide. And when you find that bridge
of commonality, there is Christ. I think there
is more good to discover in other religions than to
be wary of. God seeks to be incarnate in an expanding incarnation. The Christ
is waiting to be born anew. Christian life
is an adventure, God’s adventure in love. We need to recapture a sense of
this cosmic adventure in love and that we’re part of it. The evolutionary
universe may go on for 100 trillion years. I think in the next billion years,
the best is yet to come. + + +
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+ + Life as Participation in the Flow of the Whole: Franciscan Fr.
Richard Rohr I am convinced that most of the major beliefs and doctrines of
the Christian churches (e.g. Jesus is “fully human and fully divine,” Mary is
both virgin and mother, bread is still bread and yet Jesus, etc.) can be
understood, relished, and effectively lived only through non-dual consciousness,
by contemplatives—people who know
how to be present to the naked and broad now. I think we are on the
very edge of history—and about to be edged over—by the depth of the need for wider consciousness and
from the depth of our own desire. We live in an amazing time, where quantum
physics and neurology are among the sciences supporting our mystical
intuitions! It seems God has wired us for love, for intimacy, for empathy,
for compassion, and for union—beginning with the gaze between a mother
and her newborn, which some say creates the mirror neurons necessary for
healthy relationship. To practice contemplative prayer is to practice being in loving
relationship with God, with others, with everything, and even with oneself.
Those who fall into the safety net of
divine silence find that it is not
at all a fall into individualism, but just the opposite. True prayer
or contemplation is a leap into commonality and community and connection.
You know that what you are experiencing is also held by the whole and that
you are not alone anymore. You are a part…. As a part, you are participating in the whole. It seems to me that contemplation makes it almost inevitable that
your politics is going to change; the way you spend your time is going to be
called into question, and any smug or inferior social and economic perspective
will be slowly taken away from you. When
anyone meditates consistently, the things that we think of as our necessary
ego boundaries—giving us a sense of independence, autonomy, and private
self-importance —fall away, little by little, as unnecessary and even
unhelpful. This imperial “I,” the self that most people think of
as the only self, is not substantial or lasting at all. It is largely a
creation of our own minds. Through contemplation, protecting this
relative identity, this persona (“mask”), eventually becomes of less and less
concern. “Why would I bother with that?”
the True Self asks. If your prayer goes deep, invading your unconscious, your whole
view of the world will change from fear to connection, because
you don’t live inside your fragile and encapsulated self anymore. In meditation, you are moving from ego consciousness to
soul awareness, from being driven to being drawn. Of course, you can
only do this if Someone Else is holding on to you in the gradual dying of the
False Self, taking away your fear, doing the knowing, satisfying your desire
as a great Lover. If you can allow that
Someone Else to have their way with you in contemplation, you will go back to
your life of action with new vitality, but it will now be smooth, a much more
natural Flow. It will be “no longer you” who acts or
contemplates, but the Life of One who lives in you (Gal 2:20), now acting for
you (Father) and with you (Holy Spirit) and as you (Christ)! Henceforth, it does not even matter whether you act or
contemplate, because both will be inside the one Flow, which is
still and forever loving and healing the world. Christians would call this the
very flow of life that is the Trinity. Here we “live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) +
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Mark Your Calendar!
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October 1 |
St. Therese of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (Carmelite) |
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2 |
The Guardian Angels |
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4 |
St. Francis of Assisi,
founder—Order of Friars Minor First Saturday of Month
Class: Portraits of World Mysticism:
Sufi Mysticism with Prof. Michael
Sells (U. of Chicago); 9 am-12 pm; OST Whitley Theological Center, 285 Oblate
Dr., $40, call (210) 341-1366 x 212 |
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7 |
Our Lady of the Rosary
3 Tuesdays Class: The Path of
Forgiveness (10:30 am-12:30 pm) and Bridges
to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton (1-3 pm); OST Rock House, 285
Oblate Dr.; (210) 341-1366 x 212 |
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11 |
Our Lady of Fatima
Anniversary/Rosary Celebration; 10 am, Plaza Guadalupe, 1327 Guadalupe St., 2
pm Mass with Bishop Pfeifer, OMI; call (210) 823-2849 |
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13-15 |
Freedom
to Love: An Ignatian Preached Retreat on
Discipleship with
Cliff Knighten; Mon. 11 am-8 pm; Tue. 9 am-8 pm;
Wed 9 am-12 pm; Oblate School of Theology, 285 Oblate Dr.;$300 incl. meals
& lodging; call (210) 341-1366 x 212 |
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15 |
St. Teresa of Jesus, Doctor
of the Church |
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20 |
4 Mondays Class: Scripture, Spirituality & Spiritual
Direction Part II—Attending to the Word of God in the Lives of Others
with Dr. Renata Furst;
7-9 pm, OST Whitley Theological Center, 285 Oblate Dr., $50; call (210)
341-1366 x 212 |
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3 Tuesdays Class: Moses—Messenger of God to Jews, Christians
and Muslims with Rabbi Samuel Stahl, Dr. Francisco Garcia & Sarwat Husain; 7-8:30 pm; SoL
Center, 300 Bushnell; $45; call (210) 732-9927 |
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25 |
St. James, Apostle |
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25 |
PEACE
MASS: 12 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; Rosary at 11:30 am |
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26 |
Rosary-making:
2:00-5:30 pm, St. Mary’s Church, 202 N. St. Mary’s; free parking &
materials
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28 |
St. Simon & St. Jude,
Apostles |
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31 |
All Hallows Eve (Vigil of
All Saints Day) |
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To reject the contemplative
dimension of any religion is to reject the religion itself,
however loyal one may be to its externals and rituals. This is because the contemplative dimension is
the heart and soul of every religion. It initiates the movement into higher states of
consciousness. The great wisdom teachings of the Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhist
Sutras, Old and New Testaments, and the Koran bear witness to this truth.
Right now there are about two billion Christians on the planet. If a
significant portion of them were to embrace the contemplative dimension of
the gospel, the emerging global society would experience a powerful surge
toward enduring peace. If this contemplative dimension of the
Christian religion is not presented, the Gospel is not being adequately
preached. – Fr.
Thomas Keating, OCSO |
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reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without permission.
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