{"id":20709,"date":"2021-10-28T10:29:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T14:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20709"},"modified":"2021-10-28T10:32:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T14:32:54","slug":"20709","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20709","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sn--xVRqEEg\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Beginning as \u201cBeloved\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And a voice came out of the heavens: \u201cYou are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.\u201d \u2014<\/em>Mark 1:11<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In a homily on the Feast of Jesus\u2019 Baptism, Fr. Richard Rohr describes the powerful nature of being named a beloved child of God.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can\u2019t start a spiritual journey on a negative foundation. If we just seek God out of fear or guilt or shame (which is often the legacy of original sin), we won\u2019t go very far. If we start negative, we stay negative. We have to begin positive\u2014by a wonderful experience, by something that\u2019s larger than life, by something that dips us into the depths of our own being. That\u2019s what the word baptism means, \u201cto be dipped into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus is thirty years old when his baptism happens. According to Mark\u2019s Gospel,&nbsp;<em>he hasn\u2019t said a single thing up to now.<\/em>&nbsp;Until we know we\u2019re a beloved son or beloved daughter or even just beloved, we don\u2019t have anything to say. We\u2019re so filled with self-doubt that we have no good news for the world. In his baptism, Jesus was dipped in the unifying mystery of life and death and love. That\u2019s where it all begins\u2014even for him! The unique Son of God had to hear it with his own ears and then he couldn\u2019t be stopped. Then he has plenty to say for the next three years, because he has finally found his own soul, his own identity, and his own life\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After fourteen years as a chaplain in the Albuquerque jails, I am convinced that the reason people make great mistakes is because they have never heard what Jesus heard on the day of his baptism. They never heard another human voice, much less a voice from heaven, say to them, \u201cYou are a beloved son. You are a beloved daughter and in you I am well pleased.\u201d If we\u2019ve never had anyone believe in us, take delight in us, affirm us, call us beloved, we don\u2019t have anywhere to begin. There\u2019s nothing exciting and wonderful to start with, so we spend our whole lives trying to say those words to ourselves: \u201cI\u2019m okay, I\u2019m wonderful, I\u2019m great.\u201d But we don\u2019t really believe it. The word has to come from someone greater than us. That\u2019s really a parent\u2019s primary job\u2014to communicate to their child that they are a beloved, eternally-existing child of God. Our jails are filled to over-flowing with people who never heard this foundational message\u2014and sadly, so is much of our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only purpose of the gospel, and even religion, is to communicate that one and eternal truth. Once we have that straight, nothing can stop us and no one can take it away from us, because it is given only, always, and everywhere by God\u2014for those who will accept it freely. My only job and any preacher\u2019s job is to try to replicate and resound that eternal message of God that initiates everything good on this earth\u2014You are beloved children of God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"340\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-7-500x340.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20711\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-7-500x340.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-7-300x204.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-7-768x522.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-7.png 1838w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beginning as \u201cBeloved\u201d And a voice came out of the heavens: \u201cYou are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.\u201d \u2014Mark 1:11 In a homily on the Feast of Jesus\u2019 Baptism, Fr. Richard Rohr describes the powerful nature of being named a beloved child of God.&nbsp; We can\u2019t start a spiritual journey on [&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\/20709"}],"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=20709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20713,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709\/revisions\/20713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}