{"id":17578,"date":"2018-12-06T09:15:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T14:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17578"},"modified":"2018-12-06T09:22:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T14:22:08","slug":"the-universal-christ-christ-is-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17578","title":{"rendered":"The Universal Christ; Christ Is Everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Universal Christ<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Christ Is Everywhere<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Thursday, December 6, 2018<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F6oxXwRWFTo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nChrist is the eternal amalgam of matter and spirit as one as they hold and reveal one another. Wherever the human and the divine coexist, we have the Christ. Wherever the material and the spiritual coincide, we have the Christ. That includes the material world, the natural world, the animal world (including humans), and moves all the way to the elemental world, symbolized by bread and wine. The Eucharist offers Christians the message in condensed form so we can struggle with it in a very concrete way. We cannot think about such a universal truth logically; we can only slowly digest it! \u201cEat it and know who you are,\u201d St. Augustine said. [1] We are what we drink and eat, as any good nutritionist will say.<br \/>\nOnly slowly does the truth become believable. Finally, the Body of Christ is not out there or over there; it\u2019s in you\u2014it\u2019s here and now and everywhere. The goal is then to move beyond yourself and recognize that what\u2019s true in you is true in all others too. The Universal Christ permeates all creation including us. We are all the image and likeness of God!<br \/>\nThis recognition was supposed to be a political and social revolution. But Christians wasted centuries arguing about whether it was true at all! The orthodox insistence on the \u201cReal Presence\u201d in the Eucharist is merely taking the Mystery of Incarnation to its natural and full and very good conclusion. Here I am quite happy to be fully Catholic. \u201cThere is only Christ, he is everything, and he is in everything,\u201d Paul shouts (see Colossians 3:11). This is not pantheism; it is the much more subtle and subversive panentheism, or God in all things.<br \/>\nYou and I are living here in this ever-expanding universe. You and I are a part of this Christ Mystery without any choice on our part. We just are, whether we like it or not. It\u2019s nothing we have to consciously believe. It\u2019s first of all announcing an objective truth. But if we consciously take this mystery as our worldview, it will create immense joy and peace. It gives us significance and a sense of belonging as part of God\u2019s Great Work. We are no longer alienated from God, others, or the universe. Everything belongs. And it is pure, undeserved gift from the very beginning.<br \/>\nParticipating in Christ allows each of us to know that \u201cI don\u2019t matter at all, and yet I matter intensely\u2014at the same time!\u201d That\u2019s the ultimate therapeutic healing. I\u2019m just a little grain of sand in this giant, giant universe. I\u2019m going to pass in a little while like everyone else will. But I\u2019m also a child of God. I\u2019m connected radically, inherently, intrinsically to the Center and to everything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Universal Christ Christ Is Everywhere Thursday, December 6, 2018 Christ is the eternal amalgam of matter and spirit as one as they hold and reveal one another. Wherever the human and the divine coexist, we have the Christ. Wherever the material and the spiritual coincide, we have the Christ. That includes the material world, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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\/17578"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17580,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17578\/revisions\/17580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}