{"id":22967,"date":"2023-10-02T09:27:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T13:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22967"},"modified":"2023-10-02T09:56:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T13:56:31","slug":"22967","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22967","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Evanescence - Bring Me To Life (Lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s8ZXJ5QUYvQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\"><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Evanescence - Bring Me To Life (Official Music Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3YxaaGgTQYM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connecting to the Whole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard describes the holiness we experience through connection and healing:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Holiness reveals itself through our capacity for positive connection. The more we can make connections, and the more with which we can connect, the \u201cholier\u201d we are. God is precisely the One who connects all things, one to another. <strong>Before enlightenment or wholeness, we rank things up or down; afterward, we connect things horizontally\u2014almost automatically!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many have said most of our problems today tend to be psychological, but the solution is always spiritual. <strong>Only healthy, great religion is prepared to realign, re-heal, and reconnect all things, and reposition us inside the whole universe of things<\/strong>. Thomas Merton said the True Self should not be thought of as anything different than life itself\u2014not my little life, but the Big Life. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not going to call the True Self just \u201clife\u201d or \u201cbeing.\u201d More basically, I\u2019m going to call it \u201clove.\u201d <strong>We were made for love and love is who we are, as I believe we are metaphysically created out of the infinite love relationships that are the Trinity<\/strong> (see Genesis 1:26\u201327). There is increasing evidence that love is the basic physical structure of the universe, as revealed in all things existing in orbital, contextual, magnetic, and sexual ways. The Song of Songs (8:6) says love is as strong as death, and the flash of love is a flash of fire, a flame of YHWH. <strong>Everything can be seen as a little experience of the Big Flame. We\u2019re just a little tiny flicker of a much-larger flame that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God\u2019s very Self.<\/strong> Once we say it, it seems obvious. What else would it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On one level, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit can all be thought of as one and the same. Each of these point to something larger than the self, shared with God, and even eternal. That\u2019s what Jesus means when he speaks of \u201cgiving\u201d us the Spirit or&nbsp;<em>sharing his consciousness with us.&nbsp;<\/em>One whose soul is thus awakened has the \u201cmind of Christ\u201d (see 1 Corinthians 2:10\u201316). That doesn\u2019t mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect, although such a transformed person does see things in a much more expanded and compassionate way. Ephesians calls it a \u201cspiritual revolution of the mind\u201d (4:23)\u2014and it is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In chapter 14 of John\u2019s Gospel, Jesus calls this implanted Spirit the <strong>\u201cAdvocate\u201d (v. 16) who is \u201cwith you and in you\u201d (v. 17), makes us live with the same life that he lives (v. 19), and unites us to everything else <\/strong>(v. 18, 20). He goes on to say that this \u201cspirit of truth\u201d will \u201cteach you everything\u201d and \u201cremind you of all things\u201d (v. 26) as if we already knew this somehow. Talk about being well-equipped from a Secret Inner Source. <strong>Religion\u2019s main and final goal is to reconnect us (<em>re-ligio)&nbsp;<\/em>to the Whole, to ourselves, and to one another\u2014and thus heal us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus Is a Wholemaker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Franciscan author Ilia Delio understands Jesus as a \u201cwholemaker\u201d who gathers and heals disconnected and wounded parts of individuals and communities:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gospels open with the word<strong>&nbsp;<em>metanoia<\/em>, \u201crepent,\u201d indicating a summons to a complete change of life for both the individual and society<\/strong>. This change is not a single event but a permanent newness of life. Christianity \u2026 is more dynamic than the classical hierarchic pyramid with God at the top, humans in the middle, and plant and animal life below. The new Christian order is not about fixity of place in the hierarchy but inclusiveness within the whole concept of order itself, a&nbsp;<em>holarchy&nbsp;<\/em>[<em>a system of \u201cholons,\u201d or parts that also make up a whole, such as a seed<\/em>]. Jesus\u2019 intimate experience of God and his self-identity with the Father (\u201cThe Father and I are one,\u201d)<strong> empower him to act in the name of love by healing and reconciling all that is unloved in human persons. He gathers what is scattered, healing the sick, eating with sinners, speaking with women, dining with tax collectors and Gentiles, dealing with each person as one called into greater wholeness. <\/strong>The story of Jesus\u2019 encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4:4\u201326) shows the new religious consciousness that erupts in this man from Galilee&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his encounter with the woman at the well, Jesus broke three Jewish customs: first, he spoke to a woman; second, she was a Samaritan woman, a group the Jews traditionally despised; and third, he asked her to get him a drink of water, which would have made him ceremonially unclean from using her cup or jar. This shocked the woman at the well. But <strong>Jesus lived in unrestrained love, inwardly free from laws and customs that hindered wholeness and community.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jesus prioritizes what Delio calls a \u201clove that makes whole\u201d and heals through an ever-greater unity between God, people, and creation:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus was a <strong>\u201cwholemaker,\u201d bringing together those who were divided, separated, or left out of the whole.<\/strong> He initiated a new way of \u201ccatholicity,\u201d a gathering together of persons in love. At the end of his life he prayed: \u201cThat they will all be one, just as you and I are one\u2014as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me\u201d (John 17:21). <strong>He gathered together what was divided and confronted systems that diminished, marginalized, or excluded human persons. He challenged others not by argument or attack but out of a deep center of love.<\/strong> Jesus said, \u201cDo not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also\u201d (Matthew 5:39). Faith in Christ should move us to be loving and free, to create new wholes, and in doing so, to create a new future for the human person, for society, and for the whole earthly community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-500x454.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22971\" width=\"751\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-500x454.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-300x272.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-768x697.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image.png 1040w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 751px) 100vw, 751px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Connecting to the Whole Father Richard describes the holiness we experience through connection and healing:&nbsp; Holiness reveals itself through our capacity for positive connection. The more we can make connections, and the more with which we can connect, the \u201cholier\u201d we are. God is precisely the One who connects all things, one to another. Before [&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\/22967"}],"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=22967"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22974,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22967\/revisions\/22974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}