{"id":19574,"date":"2020-12-07T09:42:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T14:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19574"},"modified":"2020-12-07T10:29:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T15:29:54","slug":"christ-is-born-in-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19574","title":{"rendered":"Christ Is Born in Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Giving Birth to Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Christ\nIs Born in Creation<\/strong><br>\nMonday, \u202fDecember 7, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3CNqhpRycfY\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Humanity\ntoo is God\u2019s creation. But humanity alone is called to co-operate with God in\nthe creation.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Hildegard of Bingen<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For of his\nfullness we have all received, grace upon grace.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014John 1:16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nGreek word for \u201cfullness\u201d in this gospel passage is <em>pleroma<\/em>, which Paul also uses in his writings to describe a\nhistorical unfolding (see Ephesians 1:23, 3:19; Colossians 2:9\u201310). It is an\nearly hint of what we now call evolutionary development, the idea that history,\nhumanity and, yes, even God are somehow growing and coming to a divine\nfullness. What hope and meaning this gives to all life!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nhis letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes: \u201cFrom the beginning until now,\nthe entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving\nbirth\u201d (Romans 8:22). Creation did not happen at once by a flick of the divine\nhand, and it is not slowly winding down toward Armageddon or tragic Apocalypse.\nCreation is in fact a life-generating process that\u2019s still happening and\nwinding <em>up<\/em>! We now know the universe\nis still expanding\u2014and at an ever-faster rate, which means that we are a part\nof creating God\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\nSister Ilia Delio says so well,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can read the\nhistory of our 13.7-billion-year-old universe as the rising up of Divine Love\nincarnate, which bursts forth in the person of Jesus, who reveals love\u2019s urge\ntoward wholeness through reconciliation, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. Jesus\nis the love of God incarnate, the wholemaker who shows the way of evolution\ntoward unity in love. In Jesus, God breaks through and points us in a new\ndirection; not one of chance or blindness but one of ever-deepening wholeness\nin love. In Jesus, God comes to us from the future to be our future. Those who\nfollow Jesus are to become wholemakers, uniting what is scattered, creating a\ndeeper unity in love. Christian life is a commitment to love, to give birth to\nGod in one\u2019s own life and to become midwives of divinity in this evolving\ncosmos. We are to be wholemakers of love in a world of change. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ncommon Christian understanding that Jesus came to save us by a cosmic\nevacuation plan is really very individualistic, petty, and even egocentric. It\ndemands no solidarity with anything except oneself. We whittled the great Good\nNews down into what Jesus could do for us personally and privately, rather than\ncelebrating God\u2019s invitation to participate in God\u2019s universal creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of\nbelieving that Jesus came to fulfill us separately, how about trusting that we\nare here to fulfill Christ? We take our small but wonderful part in what Thomas\nMerton calls \u201cThe General Dance.\u201d [2] We are a part of this movement of an\never-growing Universal Christ that is coming to be in this \u201cone great act of\ngiving birth\u201d (Romans 8:22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Giving Birth to Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nDNA of Creation<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fDecember 6, 2020<br>\n<em>Second Sunday of Advent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We Franciscans believe that the first coming of \u201cthe\nChrist\u201d is in creation itself. The Franciscan philosopher and theologian John\nDuns Scotus (1266\u20121308), whom I studied for four years, wrote that <em>\u201cGod first wills Christ as his supreme work.\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;[1] Creation could not have been empty of\nChrist for billions of years. In other words, God\u2019s \u201cfirst idea\u201d and priority\nwas to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used in the Bible\nfor this idea was <em>Logos<\/em>&nbsp;(from Greek philosophy), which I would\ntranslate as the \u201cBlueprint\u201d or Primordial Pattern for reality. <em>The whole of creation<\/em>&nbsp;is the beloved community, the partner in the\ndivine dance. Everything is the \u201cchild of God\u201d\u2014not only Jesus. There are no\nexceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All creation\nmust in some way carry the divine DNA of the Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At\nChristmastime, most people think about the birth of the baby Jesus as the\n\u201ccoming\u201d of Christ. Yet Advent reveals more; it is about preparing ourselves\nfor the Christ to come in personal, contracted, and visible form. Only a\nperfect, trusting individual could <em>allow<\/em>&nbsp;such greatness to focus and communicate\nthrough a human body. Modeling the entire divine pattern of incarnation, Mary\nhad to trust littleness or, better said, bigness becoming littleness! Go\nimagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mary\ncould trustingly carry Jesus, because she knew how to receive spiritual\ngifts\u2014in fact, <em>the<\/em>&nbsp;spiritual gift. She offers a profound image of\nhow generativity and fruitfulness break into this world. We have much to learn\nfrom her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First,\nwe learn that we can\u2019t manage, maneuver, or manipulate spiritual energy. It is\na matter of letting go and receiving what is given freely. It is the gradual\nemptying of our attachment to our small \u201cseparate\u201d self so that there is room\nfor new conception and new birth. There must be some displacement before there\ncan be any new \u201creplacement\u201d! Mary is the archetype of such self-displacement\nand surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nis no mention of any moral worthiness, achievement, or preparedness in Mary,\nonly humble trust and surrender. She gives us all, therefore, a bottomless hope\nin our own little state. If we ourselves try to \u201cmanage\u201d God or manufacture our\nown worthiness by any performance principle whatsoever, we will never give\nbirth to the Christ, but only more of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Whenever the material and the\nspiritual coincide, there is the Christ<\/em>. Jesus fully accepted that human-divine identity and\nwalked it into history. Henceforth, the Christ \u201ccomes again\u201d whenever we are\nable to see the spiritual and the material coexisting, in any moment, in any\nevent, and in any person. All matter reveals Spirit, and Spirit needs matter to\n\u201cshow itself\u201d! What I like to call the \u201cForever Coming of Christ\u201d happens whenever\nand wherever we allow this to be utterly true for us. This is how God\ncontinually breaks into history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"242\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.27.29-AM-500x242.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19577\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.27.29-AM-500x242.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.27.29-AM-300x145.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.27.29-AM-768x371.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.27.29-AM.png 1866w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"240\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.28.33-AM-500x240.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.28.33-AM-500x240.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.28.33-AM-300x144.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.28.33-AM-768x369.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-07-at-10.28.33-AM.png 1874w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giving Birth to Christ Christ Is Born in Creation Monday, \u202fDecember 7, 2020 Humanity too is God\u2019s creation. But humanity alone is called to co-operate with God in the creation.&nbsp;\u2014Hildegard of Bingen For of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.&nbsp;\u2014John 1:16 The Greek word for \u201cfullness\u201d in this gospel passage is pleroma, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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\/19574"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19579,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19574\/revisions\/19579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}