{"id":19453,"date":"2020-11-02T09:55:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T14:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19453"},"modified":"2020-11-02T09:55:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T14:55:19","slug":"obedience-to-gods-will-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19453","title":{"rendered":"Obedience to God&#8217;s Will of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Obedience\nto God&#8217;s Will of Love<\/strong><br>\nMonday, \u202fNovember 2, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Benedictine\nSister Joan Chittister is a theologian, author, and speaker, whose wisdom and\napproach to social justice I take very seriously. I offer you these encouraging\nwords from her about what it means to work for the common good. Joan writes:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t-29WLQ3trA\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>In\nall my years of traveling around the world, one thing has been present in every\nregion, everywhere. One thing has stood out and convinced me of the certain\ntriumph of the great human gamble on equality and justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everywhere there are people who, despite finding themselves mired in periods of national or personal marginalization refuse to give up the thought of a better future or give in to the allurements of a deteriorating present. They never lose hope that the values they learned in the best of times or the courage it takes to reclaim their world from the worst of times are worth the commitment of their lives. These people, the best of ourselves, are legion and they are everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nis the unwavering faith, the open hearts, and the piercing courage of people\nfrom every level of every society that carries us through every major social\nbreakdown to the emergence again of the humanization of humanity. In every\nregion, everywhere, they are the unsung but mighty voices of community,\nhigh-mindedness, and deep resolve. They are the prophets of each era who prod\nthe rest of the world into seeing newly what it means to be fully alive,\npersonally, nationally, and spiritually. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nis that steadfast, unyielding, courageous commitment to the eternal Will of God\nfor Creation\u2014whatever the cost to themselves\u2014that is the prophetic tradition.\nIt sustains the eternal Word of God while the world spins around it, making\nGod\u2019s Word\u2014Love\u2014the center, the axle, the standard of everything the faithful\ndo in the midst of the storm of change that engulfs us as we go. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our\ntask is to be obedient all our lives to the Will of God [which is Love] for the\nworld. And therein lies the difference between being good for nothing and good\nfor something. Between religion for show and religion for real. Between\npersonal spirituality that dedicates itself to achieving private sanctification\nand prophetic spirituality, the other half of the Christian dispensation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes,\nthe Christian ideal is personal goodness, of course, but personal goodness\nrequires that we be more than pious, more than faithful to the system, more\nthan mere card-carrying members of the Christian community. Christianity\nrequires, as well, that we each be so much a prophetic presence that our corner\nof the world becomes a better place because we have been there. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The quality of\nlife we create around us as \u201cfollowers of Jesus\u201d is meant to seed new life, new\nhope, new dynamism, the very essence of a new world community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solidarity:\nA Public Virtue<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fNovember 1, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Citizens of the United States will finish voting&nbsp;this\nweek. Many of us are feeling demoralized, and many others carry serious\ndistrust of American political institutions. The most vulnerable in a society\nhave already experienced the discouragement from which so many are suffering\ntoday. They know firsthand that the system has not worked, at least not for\nthem, for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two\nyears ago, I wrote in <em>Sojourners<\/em>&nbsp;magazine that for me, personally, voting is a\ndeeply moral act\u2014a decisive statement of Christian faith that I matter, that\njustice matters, and that other people matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadly,\nfor many religious people, the public forum has historically remained the most\ndisconnected from our faith. Unlike its Jewish forebears, Christianity, in its\nfirst two thousand years, has kept its morality mostly private, interior, and\nheaven-bound, but with very few direct implications for what is now called our\ncollective economic, social, or political life. I am not talking about <em>partisan politics<\/em>&nbsp;here, but simply\nthe connecting of the inner world with the outer world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nweek our meditations will be focusing on what I call \u201cpublic virtue.\u201d The\nvirtue in which I was trained in the seminary, I\u2019m sorry to say, was \u201cprivate\u201d\nvirtue that taught me how I could be virtuous in my interior life. As my novice\nmaster put it in a good 1961 fashion, \u201cTry to make it as easy as possible for\nall others to love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps\nI, myself, was good and could go to heaven. But such personal salvation does\nnot come close to the mystery of the Body of Christ, which turns focus outward,\nto ask: how can I be good for the sake of my neighborhood, my city, my church,\nmy community, and the world? It really is a different starting place. It\u2019s not\nseeking my own ego enhancement, but the spiritual and physical well-being of\nothers, as Jesus did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nreally is no such thing as being non-political. Everything we say or do either\naffirms or critiques the status quo. Even <em>to say nothing is to say something<\/em>. If we say nothing, we\ncommunicate that the status quo\u2014even if it is massively unjust and deceitful\u2014is\napparently okay. This common \u201cnon-political\u201d stance is an illusion, and the\npowerful have always been able to use it to manipulate people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nmust use the power of the Gospel to critique and affirm both the Left and the Right\non most public positions, even while knowing that political or programmatic\nchanges\u2014of themselves\u2014will never fully bring about the goodness, charity, or\ntransformation that the Gospel offers the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I mean by\npublic virtue is primarily about <em>solidarity\nwith others, as opposed to an exclusive concern with \u201cmy inner life.\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;As different parts of the Body of Christ, we\neach have strengths and gifts that are needed by the entire body. We are called\nby the Spirit to use these gifts in service and love for our hurting world and\nnot just for our private sense of \u201choliness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Obedience to God&#8217;s Will of Love Monday, \u202fNovember 2, 2020 Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister is a theologian, author, and speaker, whose wisdom and approach to social justice I take very seriously. I offer you these encouraging words from her about what it means to work for the common good. Joan writes: In all my years [&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\/19453"}],"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=19453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19454,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19453\/revisions\/19454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}