{"id":18677,"date":"2020-03-20T09:45:36","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T13:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18677"},"modified":"2020-03-20T09:45:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T13:45:36","slug":"life-coming-to-a-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18677","title":{"rendered":"Life Coming to a Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Homily from Richard Rohr<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Life Coming to a\nFocus&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><br>\nFriday, March 20, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j25JqWgjDF4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>As we grow in the spiritual life, our life\nwill become increasingly centered. Only a few things will really matter.\nBecause of the coronavirus outbreak, I see a lot of people right now thinking\nthis way. There\u2019s a sense that we\u2019re all in this together\u2014every continent,\ncountry, class, religion, race, age, or gender. We\u2019re all subject to this\ncrisis. Suffering has an ability to pull you into oneness.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe you\u2019ve seen such oneness emerge in your family. I\nwent to Kansas last month for my sister\u2019s funeral, and all of my family was\nthere. We don\u2019t have any big resentments or conflicts, but the suffering\u2014and\nacceptance of that suffering in her death\u2014brought us together in the most\nbeautiful way. It was such an honor to have the funeral with my own family and\nfor my own sister.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see an increasing centering take place with Jesus and\nthe disciples in the gospel text from this past Sunday [Matthew 17:1-9]. Jesus\nis leading the disciples towards the Transfiguration experience. He is\npreparing them for the cross, and saying, \u201cIt\u2019s going to come! Be ready. It\u2019s\nprobably the only thing that will transfigure you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I said in yesterday\u2019s reflection, there are only two\nmajor paths by which the human soul comes to God: the path of great love, and\nthe one of great suffering. Both finally come down to great suffering\u2014because\nif we love anything greatly, we will eventually suffer for it. When we\u2019re\nyoung, God hides this from us. We think it won\u2019t have to be true for us. But to\nlove anything in depth and over the long term, we eventually must suffer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The disciples first respond to the Transfigured Christ\nwith fear. In our global time of crisis, this is where many of us are today.\nThe disciples mirror the itinerary of the spiritual journey: we start out with\nmany concerns, fears, and worries. Our minds and hearts are all over the place.\nBut Jesus comes, touches them, and says, \u201cGet up and do not be afraid.\u201d When\nthe three disciples raise their eyes, they see nothing but one image: Jesus.\nTheir lives have become fully focused and simplified on the one thing that is\ngood, the one thing they desire, and the one thing that is necessary. What a\nmoment of grace and encouragement!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then Jesus\nleads them down the mountain, back into the ordinary world to continue his\nlabor of love, healing and nonviolent protest against Empire. We can\u2019t stay on\nthe mountaintop forever. And then Jesus ends with a line that to me was always\na disappointment: don\u2019t tell anybody about what just happened. He might be\nsaying, \u201cDon\u2019t tell this story to someone else, because they\u2019ll think they\nunderstand it just by hearing about it.\u201d Religious experience has to be\nexperienced firsthand. We can\u2019t believe it because someone else talked about\nit. Sooner or later, we have to go to our own mountaintop. We have to have our\nown transfiguration, and we have to walk down the mountaintop into the ordinary\nworld, on the path of suffering, and the path of love\u2014which are, in the end,\nthe same. As we experience a suffering world together, I pray that this\ncommunity will be drawn to center itself on the cross and bring Jesus\u2019 teaching\nto life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Homily from Richard Rohr Life Coming to a Focus&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Friday, March 20, 2020 As we grow in the spiritual life, our life will become increasingly centered. Only a few things will really matter. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, I see a lot of people right now thinking this way. There\u2019s a sense that we\u2019re [&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\/18677"}],"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=18677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18678,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18677\/revisions\/18678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}