{"id":21668,"date":"2022-09-26T10:18:51","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T14:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21668"},"modified":"2022-09-26T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T14:25:28","slug":"21668","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21668","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Md9VSwTxmn8\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discovering the Little Way<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>During Richard Rohr\u2019s novitiate year of becoming a Franciscan, he discovered the writings of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux&nbsp;<\/em>(1873\u20131897)<em>. Father Richard describes Th\u00e9r\u00e8se\u2019s teaching as \u201ca spirituality of imperfection\u201d:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have often mentioned my love for Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun with minimal formal education, who in her short, hidden life of only twenty-four years captured the essence of Jesus\u2019 core teachings on love. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997 [1], which means her teaching is seen as thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. She \u201c\u2018democratized\u2019 holiness,\u201d as Brother Joseph Schmidt (1934\u20132022) said, \u201cmaking it clear that holiness is within the reach of anyone willing to do God\u2019s will in love at each successive moment as life unfolds.\u201d [2]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Th\u00e9r\u00e8se came into a nineteenth-century Catholic Church that often believed in an angry, punitive God, perfectionism, and validation by personal good behavior\u2014which is a very unstable and illusory path. In the midst of this rigid environment, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se was convinced that her message, taught to her by Jesus himself, was \u201ctotally new.\u201d [3] <strong>The gospel of radical grace had been forgotten by many Christians, so much so that Th\u00e9r\u00e8se had to call it \u201cnew.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Th\u00e9r\u00e8se called this simple, childlike path her \u201clittle way.\u201d It is a spirituality of imperfection. In a letter to priest Adolphe Roulland (1870\u20131934), she writes: \u201cPerfection seems simple to me,<strong> I see it is sufficient to recognize one\u2019s nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God\u2019s arms.\u201d<\/strong> [4] <strong>Any Christian \u201cperfection\u201d is, in fact, our ability to include, forgive, and accept our imperfection. As I\u2019ve often said, we grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it righ<\/strong>t. That might just be the central lesson of how spiritual growth happens, yet nothing in us wants to believe it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there is such a thing as human perfection, <strong>it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially in ourselves.<\/strong> What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble, \u201clittle,\u201d and earnest will find it! A \u201cperfect\u201d person ends up being one who <strong>can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than the ones who think they are totally above and beyond imperfection.<\/strong> It becomes rather obvious once we say it out loud.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Near the end of her life, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se explained her little way to her sister, and this became part of her autobiography\u00a0<em>Story of a Soul<\/em>. In contrast to the \u201cbig way\u201d of heroic perfectionism, she teaches, in essence, that <strong>as a little one \u201cwith all [her] imperfections,\u201d God\u2019s love is drawn toward her. God has to love her and help her because she is \u201ctoo small to climb the rough stairway of perfection.\u201d<\/strong> [5] With utter confidence, she \u201cbelieved herself infinitely loved by Infinite Love.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Gospel of Humility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In this talk, Richard unpacks the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9\u201314), showing how Jesus affirmed a spirituality of imperfection:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this parable, Jesus invites us to struggle with the contrast between a spirituality of perfection and what I\u2019m calling a spirituality of imperfection. Notice the beginning lines: \u201c<strong>Then he spoke this parable, to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and therefore despised others.<\/strong> \u2018Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector\u2019\u201d (Luke 18:9\u201310). Jesus, a consummate Jew, uses examples from his own culture and time. According to common definitions of the day, the Pharisees are the good guys and tax collectors are the bad guys. The tax collectors are those who have totally aligned with the Roman Empire, charging money to their own Jewish people, and giving it to the Empire. No one likes the tax collectors, and everyone looks up to the Pharisees. The Pharisees are simply religious people trying to obey the law, just like faithful Catholics or Bible-reading Protestants today. <strong>And as always, Jesus, with his nondual way of thinking, turns it all on its head.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, \u2018God, I thank you that I am not like other people. Extortioners, adulterers, or even this poor tax collector here. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess\u2019\u201d (18:11\u201312). None of us would be so foolish as to state our spiritual credit so forthrightly, but we do feel it inside. We think: \u201cI\u2019m a good person. I don\u2019t steal; I don\u2019t cheat.\u201d We\u2019ve all fashioned our positive, superior self-images on why we\u2019re right and why we\u2019re good. In contrast, \u201cThe tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast, saying \u2018God be merciful to me, a sinner.\u2019\u201d Jesus said, \u201cThis man went down to his house justified\u2014rather than the other\u201d (18:13\u201314).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This repositions the whole role of religion. Didn\u2019t most of us think that it\u2019s all a meritocracy? I certainly did! Many religious people think that it\u2019s all a merit badge system\u2014all achievement, accomplishment, performance, and perfection. The good people win and the bad people lose. <strong>Of course, once we cast anything as a win-lose scenario, the irony is that everybody loses. <\/strong>Why can\u2019t people see that competitive games are not the way to go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m convinced that <strong>Jesus\u2019 good news is that God\u2019s choice is always for the excluded one. Jesus learned this from his Jewish tradition: God always chooses the rejected son, the barren woman, the people enslaved in Egypt or exiled in Babylon. <\/strong>It\u2019s not a winner\u2019s script in the Bible\u2014<strong>it\u2019s a loser\u2019s script. It\u2019s a loser\u2019s script where, ironically, everybody wins.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"386\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-5-500x386.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21671\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-5-500x386.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-5-300x231.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-5-768x592.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/image-5.png 1644w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discovering the Little Way During Richard Rohr\u2019s novitiate year of becoming a Franciscan, he discovered the writings of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux&nbsp;(1873\u20131897). Father Richard describes Th\u00e9r\u00e8se\u2019s teaching as \u201ca spirituality of imperfection\u201d:&nbsp; I have often mentioned my love for Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun with minimal formal education, who in her short, hidden [&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\/21668"}],"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=21668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21673,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21668\/revisions\/21673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}