#179: Universal Christ

Any insights from the new weekly Silent Hour and book discussion of Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ?

Indeed! In fact, outside of Eucharist, speaking for myself, I can’t remember a more personally transformative program we have held for the adults of our parish since my tenure began in 2014. The silence has been SUCH a grace and the book discussion downright riveting! Below is an excerpt from Rohr’s book that we discussed at length this past Tuesday. If you find it as consoling as we did, consider yourself very welcome and invited to join in! We will have read up to chapter 9 come Tuesday, Oct. 29. I suspect that we will continue into November. Silent hour begins in the Disciples room at 11AM (arrive any time you like) and the book discussion starts at Noon.

From Rohr’s Universal Christ, emphasis his:
If any thought feels too harsh, shaming of diminishing of yourself or others, it is not likely the voice of God. That is simply your voice. Why do humans so often presume the exact opposite –that shaming voices are always from God, and grace voices are always the imagination? That is a self-defeating path. Yet, as a confessor and a spiritual director, I can confirm that that broken logic is the general norm. If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God…

#178: Fundamentalism

I have a friend who attends a “non-denominational” Christian church who says that Catholics don’t believe in the literal, infallible and inerrant truth of the Bible. Is this true?

Well, your friend is both right and wrong. It sounds like your pal supports a fundamentalist approach to our scriptures which declares verbal inerrancy, infallibility, and literal truth of the Bible in every detail. In this the words of the Bible are believed to be plain and simple: their meaning is self-evident and does not need to be interpreted. All that is required is that it be read in faith, with prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if we take this to mean that anyone asking for an accurate interpretation will be given one without any research necessary, then the multiplicity of interpretations, even among fundamentalists themselves, should give people a gnawing sense that the Holy Spirit is not doing its job very effectively.

We run into all sorts of problems when we read the Bible literally, that is, without trying to interpret its meaning. Noted Catholic Scripture scholar Fr. Eugene Laverdiere once said “Fundamentalism is not a particular interpretation of the Bible, but rather the lack of any interpretation.”

#177: Exclusion

Why do some priests at funeral and wedding Masses announce that only Catholics in ‘good standing’ can receive Communion? Sounds pretty judgmental and unchristian to me.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were a tad preoccupied with issues of "purity." The scribe’s advice to maintain purity was to avoid anything unclean. The scribes set and maintained boundaries. John Shea says “Jesus boldly crosses this boundary of clean and unclean. This boundary had become a division, and the division had lead to exclusion. Jesus represents God’s loving outreach to those whom society, in the name of holiness, had pushed away and whom Jesus, in the name of holiness, draws in.” Jesus is teaching us that the path of love sometimes requires that we cross boundaries.

#178: Wealth

Why do we talk about money so often in church?

The manager in our parable today knows that his job loss will lead to starvation. If something doesn’t change, he is going to die. So, he sizes up his situation and wastes no time executing his sly plan for survival.

While he still has power to make deals with his master’s money, he calls each of the debtors in for a one-on-one meeting. He has each of them acknowledge how much they owe and then has them altar the numbers. It is the manager’s idea, but the debtors change the amount owed in their own handwriting. Now they are partners in crime. The manager has taught them how to cook the books, but they have gone there willingly. When he’s fired, they will welcome him into their homes because if not, he will ‘out them’ to the master.

And Jesus says “his master commended that dishonest manager for acting shrewdly.” And we all say “Whaa?”

Reflection on the lost sheep/coin, Luke 15:1-32 (Audio & Text)

To LISTEN to this reflection on Luke 15: 1-32 as it was delivered at Mass, please follow this link: http://www.ctredeemer.org/september-15-2019/

The parables we hear today speak to our deep longing for a sense of wholeness and belonging. By God’s design, all of creation is connected in ways that we couldn’t even begin to understand.

Just like a bee is drawn to pollen and a flower turns towards the sun and soaks up the rain, so too we are created by God for relationship. So when we are fragmented or alienated from one another, we suffer and wither.

And yet, a stark division begins this Gospel reading. The tax collectors and sinners on one side - and the Scribes and the Pharisees on the other. Per usual, Jesus doesn’t wag a finger at the sinners, but rather addresses these parables to the religious authorities, who are criticizing Jesus’ choice of dining partners.

One of the keystones of Jesus’ ministry was to eat with those who were labeled by society as unclean. Those who, for the most part, disregarded religion because they were considered outcasts.

#176 - Tradition

Why am I here today?

I’m Lisa Brown, the Director of Religious Education here at CTR. Part of my job is writing this little column where someone submits a question and I do my best to respond. I made-up this particular question because I suspect many of us are asking it quietly to ourselves at this prickly juncture in our Catholic history.

I’ve only been given 600 words, so let’s cut to the chase - it’s been a rough year for us Catholics. Well, maybe we should say a rough 17 or 70 years given the sexual abuse crisis? Or a rough 1000 years since the Crusades? Well, dang, let’s just call it. We Christians have been a train wreck from day one. So why are we still here?

The late Irish poet John O’Donohue, says “Tradition is to the community what memory is to the individual…it’s a huge naïveté for anyone to believe that a religion, understood as the collective wisdom and the lived spirit experience of a people, is an empty mass. It’s a huge resource! Tradition, like memory, has huge dark passages - within the Christian tradition there are dark zones of complete horror - but there are also zones of great light and immense wells of refreshment and healing.”

This speaks to me. My rose-colored glasses are long gone, but my love for our resilient Catholic family hasn’t waned. We just keep showing up and searching for God in this mess and there is something deeply endearing about this indomitable level of hope; something I find safe and lovely. Yes, we Catholics have a seemingly bottomless font of dysfunction, but what family doesn’t? To leave would be just trading one family’s problems for another. I intimately know MY family’s problems; our language, customs, faults and factions, and I feel that in terms of bringing about change, this awareness is an extremely valuable tool.

#175 - Mystery

Is it true that the “tree” that grows from the mustard seed is actually considered more of a weed in the region where Jesus lived?

It’s this kind of unexpected tidbit that makes me fall even deeper in love with Jesus and his style of teaching. No matter how learned we are, there are still surprises such as this; things that invite us to ponder each parable anew and reexamine what we “think” we know about the great mystery we call God.

In the atrium with the children we describe parables as “short stories Jesus told that hold a mystery.” They are not mysterious because Jesus is trying to conceal something from us or keep the Kingdom of God hidden from us, but rather it is because the mystery of God is so big and beyond our understanding, the closest we can come with our little brains to understanding is through metaphors, or parables.

The first thing that parables teach us is that “mystery” is not something different than our everyday lives; rather it is the real meaning – the secret truth – the hidden seed at the very heart of our lives. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to interpret a parable because each holds a surplus of meaning that we can never exhaust; a mystery not in the sense of a puzzle or problem to be solved but rather as the sometimes-elusive depth of life where meaning dwells.

Tis true that the mustard seed isn’t highly prized. It is used to flavor food and some parts of the plant are thought to have medicinal properties, but it is also considered something of nuisance.