{"id":18729,"date":"2020-04-10T09:53:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18729"},"modified":"2020-04-10T09:53:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:53:32","slug":"reality-initiating-us-part-two-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18729","title":{"rendered":"Reality Initiating Us: Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H6dEm7SGxPM\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lesson Five: Nothing Can Come Between Us&nbsp;<\/strong><br>Friday, April 10, 2020&nbsp;<br><em>Good Friday&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-mtrez-ulluljtiy-r\/\">Click here to watch a special video or listen to the audio<\/a>&nbsp;of Richard Rohr introducing Holy Week and this week&#8217;s Daily Meditation theme on &#8220;Reality Initiating Us,&#8221; addressing our current global crisis as a collective initiation experience which we are all undergoing.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is true that you are going to die,&nbsp;and yet&nbsp;\u201cI am certain of this, neither death nor life, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, not any height nor depth, nor any created thing can ever come between us and the love of God\u201d&nbsp;(Romans 8:38-39).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Good Friday, we lament Jesus\u2019 death while living in hope that death does not have the last word on our destiny.&nbsp;We are born with a longing, desire, and deep hope that this thing called life could somehow last forever. It is a premonition from something eternal that is already within us. Some would call it the soul.&nbsp;Christians&nbsp;would call it the indwelling presence of God. It is God&nbsp;within us that makes us desire&nbsp;and seek&nbsp;God.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, we are going to die, but we have already been given a kind of inner guarantee and promise right now that death is not final\u2014and it takes the form of love. Deep in the heart and psyche, love, both human and divine, connotes something eternal and gratuitous, and it does so in a deeply mysterious and compelling way.&nbsp;We are seeing this now in simple acts of love in this time of crisis, such as people volunteering to make masks and deliver food, or people cheering hospital workers arriving for their shift.&nbsp;&nbsp;Isn\u2019t it amazing how a small act of love or gratitude can&nbsp;imprint&nbsp;a deeper knowing on our&nbsp;soul?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The crucifixion of&nbsp;Jesus&nbsp;is the preeminent example of God\u2019s love reaching out to us. It is at the same moment the worst and best thing in human history.&nbsp;The Franciscans, led by John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), even&nbsp;claimed that&nbsp;instead of a \u201cnecessary sacrifice,\u201d&nbsp;the cross was a freely&nbsp;chosen&nbsp;revelation of Total Love on God\u2019s part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In so doing, they&nbsp;reversed the engines of almost all world religion up to that point, which assumed that&nbsp;we&nbsp;had to spill blood to get to a distant and demanding God. On the cross, the Franciscans believed, God was \u201cspilling blood\u201d to reach out to us! This is a sea change in consciousness. The cross, instead of being a transaction, was seen as a dramatic demonstration of God\u2019s outpouring love, meant to utterly shock the heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&nbsp;believe that&nbsp;the cross is an image for our own time, and every time:&nbsp;we are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering.&nbsp;Amidst the devastating spread of COVID-19, the cross&nbsp;beckons&nbsp;us to what we would call \u201cgrief work,\u201d holding the mystery of pain,&nbsp;looking right at it, and learning from it.&nbsp;With softened hearts, God leads us to an&nbsp;uncanny and newfound compassion and understanding.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gateway to Action &amp; Contemplation:<\/strong><br><em>What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Prayer for Our Community:<\/strong><br><em>O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other\u2019s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts\u2019 longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lesson Five: Nothing Can Come Between Us&nbsp;Friday, April 10, 2020&nbsp;Good Friday&nbsp; Click here to watch a special video or listen to the audio&nbsp;of Richard Rohr introducing Holy Week and this week&#8217;s Daily Meditation theme on &#8220;Reality Initiating Us,&#8221; addressing our current global crisis as a collective initiation experience which we are all undergoing.&nbsp; It is [&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":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18730,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18729\/revisions\/18730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}