{"id":23212,"date":"2023-12-18T10:49:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T15:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23212"},"modified":"2023-12-18T11:20:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T16:20:57","slug":"23212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23212","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=\"I Surrender - Hillsong Worship\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s7jXASBWwwI?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<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Celebrating Incarnation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard Rohr describes why Christmas and celebrating the Incarnation of Jesus is foundational to Franciscan spirituality:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the<strong> first 1200 years of Christianity, the central feast or celebration was Easter,<\/strong> with the high holy days of Holy Week leading up to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. But in the thirteenth century, Francis of Assisi entered the scene. He intuited that we <strong>didn\u2019t need to wait for God to love us through the cross and resurrection. Francis believed the whole thing started with incarnate love. <\/strong>He popularized what we now take for granted as Christmas, which for many became the major Christian feast. Christmas is the Feast of the Incarnation when we <strong>celebrate God taking human form in the birth of Jesus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Francis realized that since God had become flesh\u2014taken on materiality, physicality, humanity\u2014then we <strong>didn\u2019t have to wait for Good Friday and Easter to \u201csolve the problem\u201d of human sin: the problem was solved from the beginning.<\/strong> It makes sense that Christmas became the great celebratory feast of Christians because it basically says that it\u2019s good to be human, it\u2019s good to be on this Earth, it\u2019s good to have a body, it\u2019s good to have emotions. We don\u2019t need to be ashamed of any of it! God loves matter and physicality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With that insight, it\u2019s no wonder Francis went wild over Christmas. (I do too\u2014my little house is filled with candles at Christmastime.) Francis believed that trees should be decorated with lights to show their true status as God\u2019s creations, and that\u2019s exactly what we still do eight hundred years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there\u2019s more: when we speak of Advent or preparing for Christmas, <strong>we\u2019re not just talking about waiting for the little baby Jesus to be born. That already happened two thousand years ago. In fact, we\u2019re welcoming the Universal Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Christ that is forever being born (incarnating) in the human soul and into history.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We do <strong>have to make room for such a mystery, because right now there is \u201cno room in the inn.\u201d We see things pretty much in their materiality, but we don\u2019t see the light shining through. We don\u2019t see the incarnate spirit that is hidden inside of everything material.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The early Eastern Church, which too few people in the United States and Western Europe are familiar with, made it very clear that\u00a0<strong><em>the Incarnation of Christ manifests a universal principle.\u00a0<\/em>Incarnation meant not just that God became Jesus, but that God said yes to the material universe and physicality itself. Eastern Christianity understands the mystery of incarnation in the universal sense.<\/strong> So it is always Advent because God is forever coming into the world (see John 1:9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re always waiting to see Spirit revealing itself through matter. We\u2019re always waiting for matter to become a new form in which Spirit is revealed. Whenever that happens, we\u2019re celebrating Christmas. The gifts of incarnation just keep coming! Perhaps this is&nbsp;<em>enlightenment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Saying Yes to Body and Spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard describes the incarnational faith of Mary:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and throughout the epistles, a whole new dimension of faith becomes available to those who accept it. It is a way of living in the Spirit, which some of the Hebrew prophets anticipate. The prophet Joel speaks of this most clearly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the days that follow, I will pour out my spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. In those days I will pour out my spirit even on your servants and your handmaids (Joel 3:1\u20132).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see the Spirit descending upon Jesus after his baptism in the Jordan, and we see the Spirit again filling the apostles with power on the day of Pentecost. But the very first person who incarnates this new faith was Mary of Nazareth, who said, \u201cBehold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me\u201d (Luke 1:38). It was Mary who responded with an unconditional&nbsp;<em>yes<\/em>&nbsp;to the angel\u2019s announcement that she was to give birth to the Messiah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mary is the model of the faith to which God calls all of us:\u00a0<em>a total and unreserved yes to God\u2019s request to be present in and to the world through us<\/em><\/strong>. <strong>God desires to love others unconditionally in and through us. <\/strong>Those who live with such a faith can truly be called God\u2019s instruments. <strong>God wants Light to shine through us, and so our first response to this call is simply to heed it and remain open to divine grace.<\/strong> Mary said her yes to God, and God was able to become incarnate in her. She gave birth to Christ by being so totally open to God\u2019s Spirit that the Christ child could be born. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The question then becomes for us: How do we also give birth, as Mary did?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is <strong>no mention of any moral worthiness, achievement, or preparedness in Mary, only humble trust and surrender.<\/strong> She gives us all, therefore, a bottomless hope in our own little place. <strong>If we ourselves try to \u201cmanage\u201d God or manufacture our own worthiness by any perfection or performance principle whatsoever, we will never give birth to the Christ, but only more of ourselves.<\/strong> [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Whenever the material and the spiritual coincide, there is the Christ<\/em>. Jesus fully accepted that human-divine identity and walked it into history. Henceforth, the Christ \u201ccomes again\u201d whenever we are able to see the spiritual and the material coexisting, in any moment, in any event, and in any person. <strong>All matter reveals Spirit, and Spirit needs matter to \u201cshow itself\u201d! <\/strong>What I like to call the \u201cForever Coming of Christ\u201d happens whenever and wherever we allow this to be utterly true for us. This is how God continually breaks into history. [3]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==========================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.<\/strong><strong>&#8220;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8211;&nbsp;<\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/clicks.aweber.com\/y\/ct\/?l=7brA&amp;m=hUWUZIuZM90RJVk&amp;b=q7ULCWaD3e7VTGVrd1JIBQ\"><strong>Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist and Philosopher<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everything is our teacher. &nbsp;Not just our friends and our successes, but our annoyances and our failures. &nbsp;Perhaps it is because I am approaching 40 in December, but I have been internally shifting to the things that Jung calls the &#8220;second half of life.&#8221; &nbsp;The first half is all about building our ego and sense of self, the second half is all about letting it go and learning from our failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is not easy, but it is good work to get around to doing. &nbsp;Keep growing. &nbsp;Everything is your teacher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celebrating Incarnation Richard Rohr describes why Christmas and celebrating the Incarnation of Jesus is foundational to Franciscan spirituality: In the first 1200 years of Christianity, the central feast or celebration was Easter, with the high holy days of Holy Week leading up to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. But in the thirteenth century, [&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\/23212"}],"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=23212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23216,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23212\/revisions\/23216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}