The Hiddenness of God and the Darkness of Faith

THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD AND THE DARKNESS OF FAITH

One of the standard answers to that question was this: If God did manifest himself plainly there wouldn’t be any need for faith. But that begged the question: Who wants faith? Wouldn’t it be better to just plainly see God?

There were other answers to that question of course, except I didn’t know them or didn’t grasp them with enough depth for them to be meaningful. For example, one such answer taught that God is pure Spirit and that spirit cannot be perceived through our normal human senses, but that seemed too abstract to me. And so, I began to search for different answers, and it led me to the mystics, particularly to John of the Cross, and to spiritual writers such as Carlo Carretto.

They offer no simple answers but offer various perspectives that throw light on the ineffability of God, the mystery of faith, and the mystery of human knowing in general.

In essence, how we know as human beings and how we know God is deeply paradoxical, that is, the more deeply we know anything, the more that person or object begins to become less conceptually clear.  One of the most famous mystics in history suggests that as we enter into deeper intimacy we concomitantly enter into a “cloud of unknowing”, namely, into a knowing so deep that it can no longer be conceptualized.

John of the Cross submits that the deeper we journey into intimacy, the more we will begin to understand by not understanding than by understanding. Our relationship to God works in the same way. Initially, when our intimacy is not so deep, we feel that we understand things and we have firm feelings and ideas about God. But the deeper we journey, the more those feelings and ideas will begin to feel false and empty because our growing intimacy is opening us to the fuller mystery of God. Paradoxically this feels like God is disappearing and becoming non-existent.

Faith, by definition, implies a paradoxical darkness, the closer we get to God in this life, the more God seems to disappear because overpowering light can seem like darkness.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-hiddenness-of-god-and-the-darkness-of-faith/#.XeaK4ZNKg_8
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When Feeling Down and Out...

WHEN FEELING DOWN AND OUT

The natural temptation is to try to get out of loneliness by plunging ourselves into busyness, distractions, amusements, and social life with the hope of fooling ourselves about our own despair. Part of that too is the tendency to see our emptiness and frustration as a sign that there isn’t any God. Emptiness and chaos can easily cause us to doubt.

But, says Rahner, in this kind of despair we are confusing the true God with the God of our own imaginings. The God of our imaginations, rightly, does not exist. But God is not as we imagine him to be, namely, “the God of earthly security, the God of salvation from life’s disappointments, the God of life insurance, the God who takes care so that children never cry and that justice marches upon the earth, the God who transforms earth’s laments, the God who doesn’t let human love end up in disappointment.” That God doesn’t exist.

Tough words, but true. When we break down, it’s not the real God we despair of, but only God as we imagined him. What we feel in emptiness is not the death of God but rather the space within which God can be born. What loneliness and despair deprive us of is not God, but our illusions about God. The finite, not the infinite, is what’s taken from us.

At the end of the day our task is to recognize that God is in the silence, the frustration, the loneliness, the emptiness. Our job is to become aware of this.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/when-feeling-down-and-out/#.XhNuKRdKg_8
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2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Short Reflection for the 2^nd Sunday of the ordinary time (A): Fiesta of Sto. Nino

Readings: Isaiah 9: 1-6; Ephesians 1: 3-6; Matthew 18: 1-5. 10

Selected Passage: "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  5 And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.” (Matthew 18: 3-5)

Meditation: The greatest in the kingdom is the one who humbles himself like a child. Jesus identifies himself with the child. He who accepts (welcomes) the child accepts and welcomes Jesus.  Yes, the Gospel and the Feast of Sto. Nino invites all to be humble like little children. Visit:  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (A)

Short Reflection for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (A)

Readings: Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38; Matthew 3: 13-17

Text: “After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him.” (Matthew 3: 16)

Meditation: We, too, at our baptism were filled by the Holy Spirit and we have become “Spirit-filled persons”.  Let us, then, honor the HS in us and let the Spirit continue to be at work in our lives. By the power of the same Spirit, we become God’s own sons and daughters and we are given the power to call God – ABBA – Father.

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Sharing our Riches with the Poor...

OUR NEED TO SHARE OUR RICHES WITH THE POOR

These are all axioms with the same warning: we can only be healthy if we are giving away some of our riches to others. Among other things, this should remind us that we need to give to the poor, not simply because they need it, though they do, but because unless we give to the poor, we cannot be healthy ourselves.

Jesus teaches this repeatedly and without compromise. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus warns us that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Nevertheless, he praises the rich who are generous, condemning only the rich who are stingy. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus reveals what will be great test for the final judgment: Did you feed the hungry? Give drink to the thirsty? Cloth the naked? Even more strongly, in the story of the widow who gives her last two pennies away, Jesus challenges us to not only give of our surplus to the poor, but to also give away some of what we need to live on.

We see the same message repeated in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. From Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891 to Pope Francis’ recent, Evangelii Gaudium, we hear the same refrain: While we have a moral right to own private property, that right is not absolute and is mitigated by a number of things, namely, we only have a right to surplus when everyone else has the necessities for life.

We need to be giving some of our possessions away in order to be healthy. The poor do need us, but we also need them. They are, as Jesus puts it so clearly when he tells us we will be judged by how we gave to the poor, our passports to heaven. And they are also our passports to health. Our health depends upon sharing our riches.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/our-need-to-share-our-riches-with-the-poor/#.XcrjLb97k_8

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The Feast of the Epiphany (A)

Short Reflection for the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord (A)

 Short Reflection for the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord (A)

Readings: Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ephesians 3: 2-3a. 5-6; Matthew 2: 1-12

Selected Passage: “They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”  (Matthew 2: 10-11)

Meditation: This feast celebrates the manifestation of the Lord to the Magi. They saw his star and followed it until they saw the child, the savior.  We need to see, too, his star, today, and follow it in our daily journey through life. Yes, his star continues to shine, but we need a discerning eyes and a heart attune to God so that we, too, one day, we find him and pay him homage. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Readings: Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ephesians 3: 2-3a. 5-6; Matthew 2: 1-12

Selected Passage: “They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”  (Matthew 2: 10-11)

Meditation: This feast celebrates the manifestation of the Lord to the Magi. They saw his star and followed it until they saw the child, the savior.  We need to see, too, his star, today, and follow it in our daily journey through life. Yes, his star continues to shine, but we need a discerning eyes and a heart attune to God so that we, too, one day, we find him and pay him homage. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

The Meaning of Christmas - Connecting the Dots between the Crib and the Cross

THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS – CONNECTING THE DOTS BETWEEN THE CRIB AND THE CROSS

The Gospel stories about the birth of Jesus are not a simple retelling of the events that took place then, at the stable in Bethlehem.

In his commentaries on the birth of Jesus, the renowned scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, highlights that these narratives were written long after Jesus had already been crucified and had risen from the dead and that they are colored by what his death and resurrection mean.

At one level, they are as much stories about Jesus’ passion and death as they are about his birth. When the Gospel writers looked back at the birth of Jesus through the prism of the resurrection they saw in his birth already the pattern for both his active ministry and his death and resurrection: God comes into the world and some believe and accept him and others hate and reject him. For some, his person gives meaning, for others it causes confusion and anger.

There is an adult message about Christ in Christmas and the meaning of Christmas is to be understood as much by looking at the cross as by looking at the crib. Hardly the stuff of our Christmas lights, carols, cribs, and Santa. And yet, these too have their place. Karl Rahner, not naïve to what Raymond Brown asserts, argues that, even so, Christmas is still about happiness and the simple joy of children captures the meaning of Christmas more accurately than any adult cynicism.

At Christmas, Rahner contends, God gives us a special permission to be happy: “Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I [God] wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. … I no longer go away from the world, even if you do not see me now. … I am there. It is Christmas. Light the candles. They have more right to exist than all the darkness. It is Christmas. Christmas that lasts forever.”

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-meaning-of-christmas-connecting-the-dots-between-the-crib-and-the-cross/#.XfpH69ZKg_8
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The Hiddenness of God

THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD AND THE DARKNESS OF FAITH

One of the standard answers to that question was this: If God did manifest himself plainly there wouldn’t be any need for faith. But that begged the question: Who wants faith? Wouldn’t it be better to just plainly see God?

There were other answers to that question of course, except I didn’t know them or didn’t grasp them with enough depth for them to be meaningful. For example, one such answer taught that God is pure Spirit and that spirit cannot be perceived through our normal human senses, but that seemed too abstract to me. And so, I began to search for different answers, and it led me to the mystics, particularly to John of the Cross, and to spiritual writers such as Carlo Carretto.

They offer no simple answers but offer various perspectives that throw light on the ineffability of God, the mystery of faith, and the mystery of human knowing in general.

In essence, how we know as human beings and how we know God is deeply paradoxical, that is, the more deeply we know anything, the more that person or object begins to become less conceptually clear.  One of the most famous mystics in history suggests that as we enter into deeper intimacy we concomitantly enter into a “cloud of unknowing”, namely, into a knowing so deep that it can no longer be conceptualized.

John of the Cross submits that the deeper we journey into intimacy, the more we will begin to understand by not understanding than by understanding. Our relationship to God works in the same way. Initially, when our intimacy is not so deep, we feel that we understand things and we have firm feelings and ideas about God. But the deeper we journey, the more those feelings and ideas will begin to feel false and empty because our growing intimacy is opening us to the fuller mystery of God. Paradoxically this feels like God is disappearing and becoming non-existent.

Faith, by definition, implies a paradoxical darkness, the closer we get to God in this life, the more God seems to disappear because overpowering light can seem like darkness.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-hiddenness-of-god-and-the-darkness-of-faith/#.XeaK4ZNKg_8
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4th Sunday of Advent (A)

Short Reflection for the 4^th Sunday of Advent (A)

Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-14; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-24

Selected Passage: “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.  She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’."  (Matthew 1: 20-21)

Meditation:  In facing life’s challenges, we are, often, afraid.  The message to us is similar to Joseph: ‘DO NOT BE AFRAID’. Trust in God! Christmas is a celebration of God dwelling in us and in the world through Mary, our mother!

Today we, too, can give birth to Jesus, if we allow God to intervene in our lives.

Giving birth to Jesus in our own times, we need to hear his voice and heed the call to GIVE LIFE TO OTHERS, especially to those in need.

www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.