{"id":17446,"date":"2018-11-05T09:51:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T14:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17446"},"modified":"2018-11-05T10:02:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T15:02:29","slug":"our-holiness-is-gods-holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17446","title":{"rendered":"Our Holiness Is God\u2019s Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R3Wf2ptiAbk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Holiness Is God\u2019s Holiness<\/strong><br \/>\nSunday, November 4, 2018<\/p>\n<p>Self-hatred is also the hatred of God, because God and ourselves are united. \u2014Thomas Keating [1]<\/p>\n<p>There is only one thing you must definitely answer for yourself: \u201cWho am I?\u201d Or, restated, \u201cWhere do I abide?\u201d If you can get that right, the rest largely takes care of itself. Paul answers the questions directly: \u201cYou are hidden with Christ in God, and Christ is your life\u201d (Colossians 3:3-4). Every time you start hating yourself, ask, \u201cWho am I?\u201d The answer will come: \u201cI am hidden with Christ in God\u201d in every part of my life. I am bearing both the mystery of suffering humanity and the mystery of God\u2019s glory, which is precisely the mystery of Christ. (Allow yourself to be shocked by the universality of Scriptures like 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, 15:22-28 or Colossians 1:15-20.)<\/p>\n<p>God looks at us and always sees Christ, and God thus finds us always and entirely lovable. God fixes God\u2019s gaze intently where we refuse to look, on our shared, divine nature as God\u2019s children (1 John 3:2). And one day our gaze will match God\u2019s gaze. We will find God entirely lovable and ourselves fully lovable in the same moment. Why? Because it is the same set of eyes that is doing the looking. \u201cAll of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit\u201d (2 Corinthians 3:18).<\/p>\n<p>All we have to do is receive God\u2019s gaze and then return what we have received. We simply complete the divine circuit, \u201clove returning love\u201d as my father St. Francis put it. This is our spiritual agenda for our whole life.<\/p>\n<p>We are saved by standing consciously and confidently inside the force field that is Christ, not by getting it right in our private selves. This is too big a truth for the small self to even imagine. We\u2019re too tiny, too insecure, too ready to beat ourselves up. We do not need to be correct, but we can always try to remain connected to our Source. The great and, for some, disappointing surprise is that many people who are not at all correct are the most connected by reason of their intense need and desire.<\/p>\n<p>All we can do is fall into the Eternal Mercy\u2014into Love\u2014which we can never really fall out of because \u201cwe belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God,\u201d as Paul so beautifully stated (1 Corinthians 3:23). Eventually, we know that we are all saved by mercy in spite of ourselves. That must be the final humiliation to the ego.<\/p>\n<p>Our holiness is first of all and really only God\u2019s holiness, and that is why it\u2019s certain and secure. It is a participation in love, a mutual indwelling, not an achievement or performance on our part. \u201cIf anyone wants to boast, let them boast in the Lord,\u201d Paul shouts at the end of his long argument (1 Corinthians 1:31). Jeremiah said the same long before Paul: \u201cThus says the Lord: Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, nor the strong boast of their strength, nor the rich boast of their riches. But rather, let those who boast, boast of this, that they know me\u201d (Jeremiah 9:22-23).<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Challenge and Opportunity in Relationship<\/strong><br \/>\nMonday, November 5, 2018<\/p>\n<p>I think most people are called to marriage because we need at least one other person to be like a mirror for us, to reflect our best self\u2014and our worst self\u2014in a way that we can receive. The interesting thing about a mirror is that it doesn\u2019t change the image; it simply takes it in as it is. Our closest friends or life partner hold a mirror up to us, revealing our good side and our dark side and reminding us that we still haven\u2019t really learned to love. That\u2019s what every healthy relationship does. When we fall in love, we fall into an infinite mystery. That\u2019s why Jesus gave what was symbolically an infinite number, \u201cseventy times seven\u201d (Matthew 18:22), as the number of times even good people will need to forgive each other.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, the Gospel does give us a blessed assurance that we are operating inside of an abundant, limitless, infinite Love. So even though we will constantly fail, failure is not the final word. We also have hope that everything can be mended, healed, and restored. Where the welding takes place is normally the strongest place of all on a steel bar. It\u2019s the breaking and the welding and the mending that creates the real beauty of relationship. This is the dance of intimacy: as we ask one another for forgiveness, as we confess to one another that once again we didn\u2019t do it right. Don\u2019t be surprised and don\u2019t hate yourself for it (which we all do). Darn it, I didn\u2019t love right again! How can I miss the point so many times?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s when we do it wrong that we are taught vulnerability. We finally realize we are falling ever-deeper into something we can never live up to\u2014a sustained vulnerability, a continual risk. It\u2019s not a vulnerability and an intimacy that we need just now and then. Eventually, it becomes second nature to apologize, to admit we are wrong, to ask for forgiveness but not to hate ourselves for it.<\/p>\n<p>The dynamics for divine intimacy and human intimacy are the same. I believe one is a school for the other. Most start with human intimacy and move from there to divine intimacy. But some begin with the divine ambush, first learning how to be vulnerable before God, and then passing it on to others.<\/p>\n<p>The only people who change, who are transformed, are people who feel safe, who feel their dignity, and who feel loved. When you feel loved, when you feel safe, and when you know your dignity, you just keep growing! That\u2019s what we do for one another as loving people\u2014offer safe relationships in which we can change. This kind of love is far from sentimental; it has real power. In general, we need a judicious combination of safety and necessary conflict to keep moving forward in life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>YOU CAN LIVE as close to Me as you choose. I set up no barriers between us; neither do I tear down barriers that you erect. People tend to think their circumstances determine the quality of their lives. So they pour their energy into trying to control those situations. They feel happy when things are going well and sad or frustrated when things don\u2019t turn out as they\u2019d hoped. They rarely question this correlation between their circumstances and feelings. Yet it is possible to be content in any and every situation. Put more energy into trusting Me and enjoying My Presence. Don\u2019t let your well-being depend on your circumstances. Instead, connect your joy to My precious promises: I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will meet all your needs according to My glorious riches. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from My Love. <\/p>\n<p>PHILIPPIANS 4: 12<br \/>\nI know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.<\/p>\n<p>GENESIS 28:15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PHILIPPIANS 4:15 Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only;<\/p>\n<p>ROMANS 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Holiness Is God\u2019s Holiness Sunday, November 4, 2018 Self-hatred is also the hatred of God, because God and ourselves are united. \u2014Thomas Keating [1] There is only one thing you must definitely answer for yourself: \u201cWho am I?\u201d Or, restated, \u201cWhere do I abide?\u201d If you can get that right, the rest largely takes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17446"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17450,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17446\/revisions\/17450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}