Published by the Marian Center of San Antonio /
A Catholic Evangelization Ministry River of Light

           October 2011

 

Our Lady’s call this month is “for this time to be for all of you, a time of witnessing.” What does it mean for us to “witness”?  A witness is one who provides evidence and testimony for something that has been experienced firsthand. What have we experienced that we are now called to “witness”?  Our Lady says, “You, who live in the love of God and have experienced His gifts, witness them with your words and life...” The first question to ask ourselves is: Do I ‘live in the love of God’ and ‘experience His gifts’?  Sadly, to say that we are “Christians” is not an automatic “Yes” to this question. Today many of us who call ourselves “Christians” harbor tremendous fear, anger, hatred, discrimination, rage, unforgiveness, bitterness, and revenge in our hearts. Many who proudly proclaim ourselves “Christian” in public forums are “witnessing” only to violent extremism and elitism rather than the compassionate all-inclusive care for creation that brings the Christlike peace of universal justice. Many who call ourselves “Christian” have only a partial “pro-life” ethic, championing such anti-life acts as war and capital punishment, mired perhaps in a nationalistic ideology that borders on idolatry. Many who call ourselves “Christian” are indoctrinated in egoic self-sufficiency as the source of our wealth and consumeristic power, rather than the humble realization of everything we have  as “His gifts” to us, freely given. (Mt 10:8)  So Our Lady’s message invites us to ponder deeply whether we are, in fact, living in the love of God and experiencing His gifts of kindness, mercy, truth, forgiveness, fidelity, compassion and gentleness. If not, then we cannot answer Our Lady’s call to “witness them with your words and life”—for our words and life reflect only what is in our heart and lived experience.  If that is selfishness, cruelty, harsh condemnation and toxic vitriol, then we are not the “witnesses” Our Lady needs in the world today, with “faith always alive and joyful, and in the love of God.” In order to live in God’s love and experience His gifts, a daily practice of silent prayer is essential.

But why should we care about “witnessing” at all? Why not stay secluded in our private club of spiritual superiority with our own kind, and not worry about anyone else? Our Lady asks us to give witness for this reason: for the joy and encouragement to others in faith.” We are to bless and make happy other people—all those who do not yet “live in the love of God” or “experience His gifts” due to unawareness of Reality. St. Paul explains our role as evangelizers in this great interconnected web of human life: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him....But how can they call on him in whom they have not yet believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not yet heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?...Thus faith comes through hearing, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:12-17) Like it or not, our life as Christians is inextricably linked to every other life on the planet in a web of divine love through which we are to strive for the common good. And herein lies the martyrdom of “witnessing.”  The Greek word for “witness” is “martyr.” In our life of witnessing the love of God and His gifts, we are called to pick up our cross and go with Jesus to Calvary, to crucify our passions and our selfishness, to die the thousand daily deaths to our own ego and its insane delusions of superiority, the attachment to our own preferences, our own way, and the aversion we feel to all that is contrary to self-will. Indeed this is an ongoing mar-tyrdom of many times keeping our mouth shut and witnessing only by our quiet lovingkindness.  (As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel at all times; use words when necessary.”) Whether our natural inclination is to the “right” or the “left,” we are each called to the center of the Cross of Jesus Christ our peace— where all opposites are united in the Heart of Love —“making the two one and breaking down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh.”  (Eph 2:14)

 

 

“Without the presentation of the contemplative dimension of the Christian religion, the Gospel is not being fully proclaimed, because the most important part of it is being left out.”  –  Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO

 

Many think that the [teaching of contemplative practice] today is a novelty, New Age, or even non-religious. But it can be traced through the Greek and Latin traditions of contemplation, the apophatic tradition in particular, and the long history of what was some-times called “The Sacrament of the Present Moment” (Br. Lawrence, OCD; Francisco de Osuna, OFM; Jean Pierre de Caussade, SJ). The mystical tradition inside of Orthodoxy and Catholicism often divided contemplation into two types: infused or natural contem-plation, and acquired contemplation....

 

After the oppositional mind was set in place during the Reformation of the 16th century, and after the Enlightenment of the 17th -18th centuries, this ancient tradition was largely lost, except among individuals. We lost the older tradition of “praying without words” as the entire Western and Eastern Churches became quite preoccupied with words and proving words to be true or false. This is the only period that Protestantism and Evangelicals have ever known. So for at least 400 years, we have had neither an understanding of infused nor acquired contemplation!  It is such foreign terrain to all Protestants, and most Catholics and Orthodox, that they immediately think it is heresy or even pagan, when in fact, it is the solid tradition of the first 1400 years of Christianity!

 

“Infused” or “natural” contemplation, along with mystical contemplation of the natural world and metaphysical contemplation of Being and Consciousness...are both the ground and the process for breaking through to theological contemplation of God, and acquired contempla-tion of Jesus, the Gospels, and all spiritual things. These [contemplative paths] are teaching how to see and be present, not what you should see when you are present.

 

[Modern contemplative paths] are teaching a morality and asceticism of recognizing and letting go of “the self that has to die” (Mt 16:25), or “ego,” what Jesus calls the “grain of wheat” (Jn 12:24); so that another self can be born (“consciousness”), the person born again in Christ. [Modern contemplative teachers] are giving us some practices (similar to how John Wesley gave “methods” or Ignatius gave “exercises”) whereby we can be present to the grace of the moment and stop the “passions,” the “egocentric mind,” or the “prideful self” which keeps us from true goodness (or God). Each tradition uses different language for what is to be overcome, but it’s always some form of “un-love” and selfishness.

 

Today we need whatever methods or help we can receive to allow the Christian message to take us to a deeper level of transformation. Our history...shows this has clearly not been happening on any broad scale. This is an opportunity for us to understand our own message at deeper levels. It would be a shame if we required [contemporary teachers] to speak only in our language and vocabulary before we could critically hear what they are saying that is true and helpful to our own message.

 

What if John’s Gospel had refused to use the word “Logos” which was a term directly taken from Platonist philosophy? What if Paul had kept the limited vocabulary and categories of Judaism when he preached in Rome and Athens? What if Thomas Aquinas had not written his Summa because it was a dialogue with Aristotelian philosophy? Would they have had any success as evangelists? Admittedly, this [learning from modern contemplative teachers] will be harder for those Christians who emerged after the 16th century when the older contemplative tradition was no longer taught....Catholics and Orthodox have the advantage of apophatic saints like Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Palamas, Dionysius the Areopagite, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, the Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade.

 

Unfortunately, most of Western Christianity has un-derstood Jesus apart from the eternal Trinitarian life and the Pre-Existent Cosmic Christ that is presented in Colossians 1:15-20 or Ephesians 1:8-11. Here “the Son” is at work in the universe from the very beginning and everywhere, and not just during and after Calvary. Both Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure said, “Deus est Ens,” God is Being Itself. This is not a new or dangerous teaching, but [without] a tradition of philosophical theology or the preexistent Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity inherent in the very pattern of creation, [new teachers of contemplative consciousness/Being] will be foreign terrain. Yet we are preaching to a largely secular world, and must find a language they can understand, as Paul did. How else can we ever be “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22) or “preach the Gospel to all creation” (Mk 16:16)?    

                                                                                                    — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM

 

 

 

Marian Center of San Antonio

A Catholic Evangelization Ministry

 

Coordinators:  Therese H. Palacios

                        Michele E. Maxwell

                        Steven J. Kobernat

 

Spiritual Dir:    Fr. Mike Levy, OMI

 

Marian Center Message Line:  210-225-MARY

Fax Line:                                   210-225-0044

 

Mailing Address:   Marian Center of San Antonio

                              PO Box 831001

                              San Antonio, Texas  78283-1001

Email:                    mariancenterofsa@hotmail.com