Richard Rohr | The Franciscan Path of Descent

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

Stigmatization of St. Francis (detail), 1297-1300, Giotto do Bondone, fresco,  Upper Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi, Italy.

The Franciscan Path of Descent

Letting Go as a Way of Life.      Sunday, June 7, 2015

Jesus himself exemplified and also taught us the path of descent, which Christians have often called "the way of the cross." The path downward is much more trustworthy than any path upward, which only tends to feed the ego. Like few other Christians, it was Francis of Assisi who profoundly understood that. Authentic spirituality is always on some level or in some way about letting go. Jesus said, "the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). Once we see truly what is trapping us and keeping us from freedom we should see the need to let it go. But in a consumer society most of us have had no training in that direction. Rather, more is supposed to be better. True liberation is letting go of our false self, letting go of our cultural biases, and letting go of our fear of loss and death. Freedom is letting go of wanting more and better things, and it is letting go of our need to control and manipulate God and others. It is even letting go of our need to know and our need to be right--which we only discover with maturity. We become free as we let go of our three primary energy centers: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem. [1]  Francis sought freedom in all three parts of life. Our good friend here in New Mexico, Fr. John Dear, puts it very well [2]: "Francis embodies the Gospel journey from violence to non-violence, wealth to poverty, power to powerlessness, selfishness to selfless service, pride to humility, indifference to love, cruelty to compassion, vengeance to forgiveness, revenge to reconciliation, war to peace, killing enemies to loving enemies. More than any other Christian, he epitomizes discipleship to Jesus. . . . "Francis' logic points the way toward personal, social, and global justice, and peace. If each one of us practiced Gospel simplicity, voluntary poverty, and downward mobility, like Francis, we would share the world's resources with one another, have nothing to fear from others, and live in peace with everyone." Rest of Article HERE

Powerful or powerless?

A helpful summary of how Christianity changed post-Constantine. We still struggle with the hermeneutic of power....

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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

6th c. mosaic (detail), Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes, Tabgha, Israel.

The Early Christian Church

From Bottom to Top Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The last great formal persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ended in AD 303. Ten years later, Christianity was legalized by Constantine I. After this structural change, Christianity increasingly accepted, and even defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war and money. Morality became individualized and largely sexual. The Church slowly lost its free and alternative vantage point. Texts written in the hundred years preceding 313 show it was unthinkable that a Christian would fight in the army, as the army was killing Christians. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian, and they were now killing the pagans. Before AD 313, the Church was on the bottom of society, which is the privileged vantage point for understanding the liberating power of Gospel for both the individual and for society. Overnight the Church moved from the bottom to the top, literally from the catacombs to the basilicas. The Roman basilicas were large buildings for court and other public assembly, and they became Christian worship spaces. The Christian church became the established religion of the empire and started reading the Gospel from the position of maintaining power and social order instead of experiencing the profound power of powerlessness that Jesus revealed. In a sense, Christianity almost became a different religion! This shift would be similar to reversing the first of the 12 Steps to seek powerinstead of admitting powerlessness. In this paradigm only the "winners" win, whereas the true Gospel has everyone winning. Calling this power "spiritual" and framing success as moral perfection made this position all the more seductive to the ego and all the more disguised. The failing Roman Empire needed an emperor, and Jesus was used to fill the power gap, making much of his teaching literally incomprehensible and unhearable, even by good people. The relationships of the Trinity were largely lost as the very shape of God: the Father became angry and distant, Jesus became the needed organizing principle, and for all practical and dynamic purposes the Holy Spirit was forgotten. An imperial system needs law and order and clear belonging systems more than it wants mercy or meekness or transformation. By the grace of God, saints and holy ones of every century and in every denomination and monastery still got the point, but only if they were willing to go through painful descent--which Catholics call "the way of the cross," Jesus called "the sign of Jonah," Augustine called "the paschal mystery," and the Apostles' Creed called "the descent into hell." Without these journeys there's something essential you simply don't understand about the very nature of God and the nature of your own soul. You try to read reality from the side of power instead of powerlessness, despite the fact that God has told us (through the image of the Crucified) that vulnerability and powerlessness is the way to true spiritual power. But Christians made a jeweled logo and decoration out of the cross, when it was supposed to be a shocking strategic plan, charting the inevitable path of full transformation into God.

Adapted from Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World  from a Place of Prayer, pp. 48-51; and Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 100      ARTICLE SOURCE

From Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

The Way of the Prophet by Mike Van, concept by Vivienne Close

Prophets: Self Critical Thinking

Torah, Prophets, Wisdom Sunday, February 15, 2015

The Hebrew Scriptures are divided into three major sections: the Torah, the Prophets, and the Wisdom books. Walter Brueggemann says, and I think it's pure genius, that these three sections represent the ordinary and healthy development of human consciousness in a sequential way. The Torah gave the Israelites the Law and a sense of their chosenness. For healthy development, any culture or family must follow this pattern of first providing structure, which develops identity, boundaries, and self-worth as beloved and special. The second set of books is the Jewish Prophets, and they represent the birth of critical thinking. The Prophets have clearly been the most neglected part of Scripture for both Jews and Christians, because neither showed much capacity for healthy self-criticism. You can see the rise of critical thinking in young people, but it is mostly oriented toward others instead of themselves. Parents often feel their teenagers oppose them on everything! And yet it is a necessary stage, though it often doesn't go far enough. To read the rest of the article ... Source:  Centre for Action and Contemplation

A Richard Rohr Meditation

The Infinite in the Finite 
Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Francis of Assisi knew that if you can accept that the finite manifests the infinite, and that the physical is the doorway to the spiritual (which is the foundational principle we call “incarnation”), then all you need is right here and right now—in this world. This is the way to that! Heaven includes earth. Time opens you up to the timeless, space opens you up to spacelessness, if you only recognize them as the clear doorways that they are.

There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments—and it is we alonewho desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it.

The Christ Mystery refuses to be vague or abstract, and it is always concrete and specific. When we stay with these daily apparitions, we see that everything is a revelation of the divine—from rocks to rocket ships. Our only blindness is our own lack of fascination, humility, curiosity, awe. 

The only thing needed is a willingness to surrender to the naked now which God always inhabits, where the incarnation is always taking place and always mysterious, where God in every moment is perfectly hidden and at the same time perfectly revealed. Hold that paradox together. Those who have eyes to see can allow both to be true.

Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 5-6; and How Do We Get Everything to Belong?, disc 3 (CD, MP3 download)

Source: https://cac.org/richard-rohr