{"id":19598,"date":"2020-12-11T09:34:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19598"},"modified":"2020-12-11T09:46:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:46:54","slug":"becoming-icons-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19598","title":{"rendered":"Becoming Icons of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/becoming-icons-of-christ-2020-12-11\/\"><strong>Becoming Icons of Christ<\/strong><\/a><br><strong>Friday, December 11, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Cm0YiBMmv4c\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>What is it that grasps and impels these men and women to push beyond conventional boundaries and so delight us, ultimately, with new creative spaces? Wisdom\u2014God\u2019s Playmate, the Feminine Principle of the Godhead\u2014is at work, ever delighting in birthing new possibilities and inviting open hearts to rise up and respond to visions and dreams by enfleshing them.&nbsp;<\/em>\u2014Edwina Gateley<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896\u20131985) was a Russian baroness who lived the Gospel \u201cwithout compromise.\u201d She gave up all she had and began Friendship House in Toronto,&nbsp;<\/em>\u201ca storefront center for the works of mercy, where the hungry were fed and the homeless were welcomed.\u201d [1]&nbsp;<em>Robert Ellsberg writes that Catherine\u2019s formation of the Friendship House in Harlem, New York in 1937 emerged out of a deep conviction of the sins of racism and segregation. In 1947 she also established Madonna House<\/em><em>,&nbsp;<\/em>\u201cwhich became a place of prayer and retreat. . . . Through Madonna House and the communities it inspired around the world, Catherine promoted the two principles by which she lived\u2014a commitment to the social apostolate in the world and the need to root such a commitment in a life of prayer and the spirit of Christ [<em>i.e., action and contemplation<\/em>]. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In her own words, Catherine describes how we give birth to Christ:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christians are called to become icons of Christ, to reflect him. But we are called to even more than that.&nbsp;<em>Ikon&nbsp;<\/em>is the Greek word for \u201cimage of God.\u201d We are called to incarnate Christ in our lives, to clothe our lives with him, so that people can see him in us, touch him in us, recognize him in us. . . . [3]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have to begin to love one another in the fullest sense of Christ\u2019s teaching. But to do so we must pray. . . . The immense problems of war, of social injustice, of the thousand and one ills that beset our world, these can be solved only if we begin to love one another. When people begin to see, love, respect, and reverence Christ in the eyes of another, then they will change, and society will change also. [4]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard here: To paraphrase the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260\u20131327), \u201cWe are all meant to give birth to God.\u201d [5] As a man who has taken a vow of celibacy, I will never know what it is like to physically give birth, nor have I ever held the hand of a woman I love in labor\u2014neither sister nor friend. However, I have experienced the birth of Christ in the world many times throughout my life\u2014in big ways and small, sometimes through grand gestures, but more often through simple acts of patience, love, and mercy. To incarnate the Christ is to live out the Gospel with our lives, as faithfully and fearlessly as a woman in labor who holds nothing back in order to bring new life into the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"286\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-11-at-9.46.12-AM-500x286.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-11-at-9.46.12-AM-500x286.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-11-at-9.46.12-AM-300x172.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-11-at-9.46.12-AM-768x439.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-11-at-9.46.12-AM.png 1850w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Becoming Icons of ChristFriday, December 11, 2020 What is it that grasps and impels these men and women to push beyond conventional boundaries and so delight us, ultimately, with new creative spaces? Wisdom\u2014God\u2019s Playmate, the Feminine Principle of the Godhead\u2014is at work, ever delighting in birthing new possibilities and inviting open hearts to rise up [&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\/19598"}],"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=19598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19603,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19598\/revisions\/19603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}