{"id":21789,"date":"2022-11-01T10:26:15","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T14:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21789"},"modified":"2022-11-01T10:29:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T14:29:16","slug":"21789","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21789","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WfUkEgG5rEk\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Part of One Body<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard connects the church\u2019s teaching on \u201cthe communion of saints\u201d and our ancestors:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Humans throughout history have often had a strong appreciation for and connection with their ancestors. I think the collective notion of oneness is what Christians were trying to verbalize when they made a late addition to the ancient Apostles\u2019 Creed: \u201cI believe in the communion of saints.\u201d They were offering us the idea that&nbsp;<em>the dead are at one with the living<\/em>, whether they\u2019re our direct ancestors, the saints in glory, or even the so-called souls in purgatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (1926\u20132022) wrote of experiencing a tender oneness with his mother in a dream and in nature:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, \u201cA serious misfortune of my life has arrived.\u201d I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut of my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. <strong>I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea.<\/strong> It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet . . . wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew <strong>this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents<\/strong>. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as \u201cmy\u201d feet were actually \u201cour\u201d feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard continues:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The whole thing, all of life, is one, just at different stages, all of it loved corporately by God (and, one hopes, by us). Within this worldview, we are <strong>saved not by being privately perfect, but by being \u201cpart of the body,\u201d humble links in the great chain of history.<\/strong> This view echoes the biblical concept of a covenant love that was <strong>granted to the Jewish people as a whole and never just to one individual like Abraham, Noah, or David.<\/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=\"392\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/image-500x392.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21791\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/image-500x392.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/image-300x235.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/image-768x602.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/image.png 1726w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of One Body Father Richard connects the church\u2019s teaching on \u201cthe communion of saints\u201d and our ancestors: Humans throughout history have often had a strong appreciation for and connection with their ancestors. I think the collective notion of oneness is what Christians were trying to verbalize when they made a late addition to the [&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\/21789"}],"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=21789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21793,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21789\/revisions\/21793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}