To pray is to practice that posture of radical trust in God’s grace—and to participate in perhaps the most radical movement of all, which is the movement of God’s Love.
—Richard Rohr
Father Richard’s faithful trust in God’s love leads him to both prayer and action.
I’ve often said that we founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 to be a place of integration between action and contemplation. I envisioned a place where we could teach activists in social movements to pray—and encourage people who pray to live lives of solidarity and justice. As we explained in our Center’s Radical Grace publication in 1999:
Action and contemplation were once thought of as mutually exclusive, but we believed that they must be brought together or neither one would make sense. We felt that we were trying to be radical in both senses of the word, simultaneously rooted in tradition and boldly experimental…. We believed … that the power to be truly radical comes from trusting entirely in God’s grace and that such trust is the most radical action possible. [1]
Contemplative prayer allows us to build our own house. To pray is to discover that Someone else is within our house and to recognize that it is not our house at all. To keep praying is to have no house to protect because there is only One House. And that One House is everybody’s Home. In other words, those who pray from the heart actually live in a very different world. I like to say it’s a Christ-soaked world, a world where matter is inspirited and spirit is embodied. In this world, everything is sacred, and the word “Real” takes on a new meaning. The world is wary of such house builders, for our loyalties will lie in very different directions. We will be very different kinds of citizens, and the state will not so easily depend on our salute. That is the politics of prayer. And that is probably why truly spiritual people are always a threat to politicians of any sort. They want our allegiance, and we can no longer give it. Our house is too big.
If religion and religious people are to have any moral credibility in the face of the massive death-dealing and denial of this era, we need to move with great haste toward lives of political holiness. This is my theology and my politics:
It appears that God loves life: The creating never stops.
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We will love and create and maintain life.
It appears that God is love—an enduring, patient kind.
We will seek and trust love in all its humanizing (and therefore divinizing)forms.
It appears that God loves the variety of multiple features, faces, and forms.
We will not be afraid of the other, the not-me, the stranger at the gate.
It appears that God loves—is—beauty: Look at this world!
Those who pray already know this. Their passion will be for beauty.
| We Are Broken Mirrors |
 Click Here for AudioThe creation account in Genesis contains a revolutionary notion about human dignity. Unlike pagan creation myths which devalue humans as the disposable servants of the gods, Genesis elevates human value by calling us representatives of God. The man and woman were created in God’s image and commissioned to reflect that image throughout the earth.In the creation account, although every creature draws its life and breath from God, only humans are made in his image. In this way, we have a vital and unique role in the cosmos. As images, we are designed to reflect or reveal something other than ourselves. In other words, our purpose is unique and different from that of other creatures in the way a mirror differs from other objects. Whereas a painting or a vase is displayed to draw attention to itself, a mirror is not. Instead, its purpose is to draw attention to the object it reflects. Humans are like mirrors—we reflect the image of what we behold. This means purpose and meaning are not to be found within ourselves, despite what our culture might proclaim. Instead, purpose and meaning are defined by whatever external object captivates our hearts which are then reflected by our lives.The Lord created us to find our purpose and meaning in him. He is what we are to behold and reflect, but if we reject this calling and abandon our Maker it does not stop our inherent reflectivity. When we permit something else to captivate our hearts—when an idol becomes the object of our affections—we will reflect that false god instead. The idol will come to define our meaning and purpose. The call of Christ is a call back to our original vocation—to once again reflect our Creator. We sometimes refer to the act of turning away from our idols to behold God as “conversion” or “repentance.” Of course, even after turning back toward God, we do not reflect his image perfectly. We are, after all, broken mirrors cracked by sin, evil, and rebellion, and the image of God we display will be warped. Over time, and with God’s grace, the cracks are mended, the bends smoothed, and the mirror polished. Until the day when we again become the glorious image-bearers of God we were created to be. DAILY SCRIPTURE 1 CORINTHIANS 13:8–12 2 CORINTHIANS 3:12–18 WEEKLY PRAYER Irenaeus (c. 130 – 200) I appeal to you, Lord, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob and Israel, you the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Infinitely merciful as you are, it is your will that we should learn to know you. You made heaven and earth, you rule supreme over all that is. You are the true, the only God; there is no other god above you . . . O Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, look upon us and have mercy on us; you who are yourself both victim and priest, yourself both reward and redeemer. Keep safe from all evils those whom you have redeemed, O Savior of the world. Amen. |
