{"id":19907,"date":"2021-03-08T09:34:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T14:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19907"},"modified":"2021-03-08T10:28:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T15:28:26","slug":"the-fullness-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19907","title":{"rendered":"The Fullness of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jP2nz6PG8KM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>What some call \u201climinal space\u201d or threshold\nspace (in Latin, <em>limen <\/em>means\na threshold) is a very good phrase for those special times, events, and places\nthat open us up to the sacred. It seems we need special (sacred) days to open\nus up to all days being special and sacred. This has always been the case and\ndidn\u2019t originate with Christianity. Ancient initiation rites were intensely\nsacred time and space that sent the initiate into a newly discovered sacred\nuniverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What became All Saints Day and All Souls Day\n(November 1\u20132) were already called \u201cthin times\u201d by the ancient Celts, as were\nFebruary 1\u20132 (St. Bridget\u2019s Day and Candlemas Day, when the candles were\nblessed and lit). The veil between this world and the next world was considered\nmost \u201cthin\u201d and easily traversed during these times. On these days, we are\ninvited to be aware of deep time\u2014that is, past, present, and future time\ngathered into one especially holy moment. We are reminded that our ancestors\nare still in us and work with us and through us. We call it the \u201ccommunion of\nsaints.\u201d The New Testament phrase for this was \u201cwhen time came to a fullness,\u201d\nas when Jesus first announces the Reign of God (Mark 1:15) or when Mary comes\nto the moment of birth (Luke 2:6). We are in liminal space whenever past,\npresent, and future time come together in a full moment of readiness. We are in\nliminal space whenever the division between \u201cright here\u201d and \u201cover there\u201d is\nobliterated in our consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deep time, or the communion of saints\nprofessed in Christian creeds, means that <em>our\ngoodness is not just our own, nor is our badness just our own. <\/em>We\nare intrinsically social animals. We carry the lived and the unlived (and\nunhealed) lives of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents as far\nback as DNA and genomes can trace them\u2014which is pretty far back. It does take a\nvillage to create a person. We are the very first generation to know that this\nis literally and genetically true. There is deep healing and understanding when\nwe honor the full cycle of life. No wonder so many are intrigued today by\ngenealogy searches and ancestry test kits. Many cry and laugh at their newly\ndiscovered place in a long family tree about which they knew little.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Living in the\ncommunion of saints means that we can take ourselves very seriously (we are\npart of a Great Whole) and not take ourselves too seriously at all (we are <em>just a part <\/em>of the Great Whole) at the\nvery same time. I hope this frees us <em>from <\/em>any\nunnecessary individual guilt\u2014and, more importantly, frees us <em>to be <\/em>full \u201cpartners in God\u2019s triumphant parade\u201d\nthrough time and history (2 Corinthians 2:14). We are in on the deal and, yes,\nthe really Big Deal. We are all a very small part of a very Big Thing! We are\nlittle happy and content fish in a huge and limitless ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Community of Holy People<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the fourteenth century, the inspired, anonymous author of <em>The Cloud of Unknowing<\/em> taught that God in Christ dealt with sin, death, forgiveness, and salvation \u201call in one lump.\u201d It is a most unusual, even homely, phrase; for me, this corporate and even mystical reading of divine history contributes toward the unitive vision so many of us are seeking. Jesus by himself entered history as an individual, albeit a divine individual, but the Universal Christ is a compelling image for this \u201cone-lump\u201d view of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think this collective notion is what\nChristians were trying to verbalize when they made a late addition (fifth\ncentury) to the ancient Apostles\u2019 Creed: \u201cI believe in the communion of\nsaints.\u201d They were offering us this new idea that the dead are at one with the\nliving, whether they\u2019re our direct ancestors, the saints in glory, or even the\nso-called souls in purgatory. The whole assembly is one, just at different\nstages, all of it loved corporately by God (and, one hopes, by us). Within this\nworldview, we are saved not by being privately perfect, but by being \u201cpart of\nthe body,\u201d humble links in the great chain of history. This view echoes <em>the biblical concept of a covenant love\nthat was granted to Israel as a whole<\/em>, and never just to one\nindividual like Abraham, Moses, or Esther. We are often too preoccupied with\nthe \u201csalvation of individuals\u201d to read history in a corporate way, and the\nresults have been disastrous. The isolated individual is now left fragile and\ndefensive, adrift and alone, in a huge ocean of others who are also trying to\nsave themselves\u2014neither assisting nor relying on one another or the whole Body\nof Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Theologian Elizabeth Johnson, a Sister of\nSaint Joseph, has worked for many years to redeem and expand the Catholic\nunderstanding of what exactly is meant by the \u201ccommunion of saints.\u201d She\ndescribes it as an \u201cintergenerational community of the living and the dead\nstretching across time and space and comprised of all who are made holy by the\nSpirit of God.\u201d [1] She writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a physical\nand biological sense, interrelationship is not an appendage to the natural\norder but its very lifeblood. Everything is connected to everything else, and\nit all flourishes or withers together. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Together the living form with the dead one community of memory and hope, a holy people touched with the fire of the Spirit, summoned to go forth as companions bringing the face of divine compassion into everyday life and the great struggles of history, wrestling with evil, and delighting even now when fragments of justice, peace, and healing gain however small a foothold. When they are seen together with the whole natural world as a dynamic, sacred community of the most amazing richness and complexity, then the symbol of the communion of saints reaches its fullness as a symbol of effective presence and action of Holy Wisdom herself. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"271\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-8-500x271.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19910\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-8-500x271.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-8-300x162.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-8-768x416.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-8.png 1946w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What some call \u201climinal space\u201d or threshold space (in Latin, limen means a threshold) is a very good phrase for those special times, events, and places that open us up to the sacred. It seems we need special (sacred) days to open us up to all days being special and sacred. This has always been [&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\/19907"}],"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=19907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19911,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19907\/revisions\/19911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}