{"id":17534,"date":"2018-11-28T09:26:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T14:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17534"},"modified":"2018-11-28T09:49:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T14:49:50","slug":"joy-in-contemplation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17534","title":{"rendered":"Joy in Contemplation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1T2tMt0Ky6g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joy in Contemplation<\/strong><br \/>\nWednesday, November 28, 2018<\/p>\n<p>Joy proceeds from the inner realization of union with God, which descends upon us at ever deeper levels as we walk our faith journey. This deepening is the goal of Christian contemplation and is the heart of perennial wisdom from every faith. This is how contemplatives \u201cknow\u201d things: The soul itself is an image of God, to which God is so present that the soul can actually grasp God, and, as Bonaventure wrote, \u201cis capable of possessing [God] and of being a partaker in [God].\u201d [1] Ironically, it is in letting go that we most truly \u201cpossess\u201d God and participate in God\u2019s fullness.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus modeled and taught contemplative prayer. He invited us to \u201cgo to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret\u201d (Matthew 6:6). Our beloved Father Thomas Keating (1923\u20132018), who recently passed away, explained how such prayer helps us access the joy of experiential union with God:<\/p>\n<p>In Jesus\u2019 formula for waking up to who we are, he suggests entering this inner room. Then he says shut the door, meaning stop the interior dialogue. Get free or detached from our over-identifications with our thoughts, experiences, past life, future hopes. It doesn\u2019t mean leaving anything behind, but changing your attitude to everything, so it\u2019s a non-possessive attitude, which is the nature of [God] or the Beloved, or the Ultimate Reality. . . .<\/p>\n<p>[We are] in the process of awakening to the divine image within us, the supernatural organism where faith, hope, and charity, the divine indwelling, and the fruits and the gifts of the Spirit are sitting, so to speak, in our ontological unconscious, gathering dust, waiting to be used. And they can\u2019t come into full action until our over-identification with the false self and its programs for happiness that can\u2019t possibly work have been reduced.<\/p>\n<p>So life, then, is constant death and resurrection at every moment. We die to our own will and enter the present moment by consenting to whatever it is, either by accepting it or doing something that the Spirit suggests to improve the situation. This divine enlightening process sometimes gives us an Aha! experience. It\u2019s still on the egoic level, so it\u2019s penetrated with some misunderstandings, but nonetheless, this is what Alleluia means. \u201cAahh\u201d\u2014this is the primordial sound that that you hear in Allah or in Alleluia or in Aum [Om] as the Hindus put it. It\u2019s waking up!<\/p>\n<p>. . . Everybody has personal, unique relationship with God and capacity to manifest something of that infinite goodness that is a torrent that simply moves from relationship to relationship in the Trinity in a kind of moving ocean of infinite love that is reaching out and drawing everybody back through the unspeakable groanings of the Spirit that dwells even in matter [see Romans 8:22-23], but especially in our inmost being and conscience, calling us into freedom, into peace, into joy, which we already possess at the hidden level. That\u2019s why we need to find out who we are!<\/p>\n<p>We are already all these things. We just think we aren\u2019t. Stop thinking, and you\u2019ll find out. [2]<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PastedGraphic-1-500x231.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"231\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-17536\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PastedGraphic-1-500x231.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PastedGraphic-1-300x138.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PastedGraphic-1-768x354.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PastedGraphic-1.png 885w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_1681-500x414.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"414\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-17539\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_1681-500x414.jpg 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_1681-300x248.jpg 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_1681-768x636.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joy in Contemplation Wednesday, November 28, 2018 Joy proceeds from the inner realization of union with God, which descends upon us at ever deeper levels as we walk our faith journey. This deepening is the goal of Christian contemplation and is the heart of perennial wisdom from every faith. This is how contemplatives \u201cknow\u201d things: [&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\/17534"}],"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=17534"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17541,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17534\/revisions\/17541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}