BOOK OF THE MONTH: WONDROUS ENCOUNTERS BY RICHARD ROHR

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Rohr Lent coverThis month on The Contemplative Writer, we’re reading Wondrous Encounters. Richard Rohr is leading us through a series of Scripture meditations for Lent.

Rohr’s meditation for the fourth Sunday of Lent (which is this Sunday) is about blindness, light, and seeing. First, Rohr diagnoses the human condition:

Because humans cannot see their own truth very well, they do not read reality very well either. We all have our tragic flaws and blind spots. Humans always need more “light” or enlightenment about themselves and about the endless mystery of God.

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Good news! The Gospel of John speaks into this condition. In John 9, Jesus heals a man born blind. Rohr makes the following observations (along with others) about this Gospel reading:

The “man born blind” is the archetype for all of us at the beginning of life’s journey.

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Spirituality is about seeing. Sin is about blindness, or as Saint Gregory of Nyssa will say, “Sin is always a refusal to grow.”

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The one who knows little, learns much (what we call “beginner’s mind”) and those who have all their answers already, learn nothing.

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Scripture Readings

“I do not know whether [Jesus] is a sinner or not, I only know this much, I was once blind, and now I see.” — John 9:25

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“I came into the world to divide it, to make the sightless see and to reveal to those who think they see it all that they are blind.” — John 9:39

May we all learn to see a little better this Lenten season.

Read Wondrous Encounters here.

 

BOOK OF THE MONTH: WONDROUS ENCOUNTERS BY RICHARD ROHR

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Rohr Lent coverOur Book of the Month is Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent by Richard Rohr. In this meditative book, Rohr takes us through the Lenten season with a meditation and Scripture for each day.

One of the meditations for the second (full) week in Lent is entitled “Good Mirroring and Bad Mirroring.” In this meditation, Rohr talks about humans knowing themselves through the gaze of others.

A good parent, like God, naturally blesses the child through their receptive and affirming face. It is the eternal blessing to the children of Israel, “May Yahweh let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May Yahweh uncover her face to you and bring you peace!” (Numbers 6:25).

In the reading for the day from the Gospel of Luke, Rohr writes, we see this divine mirroring at work:

Receive God’s compassion, and you will be able to be compassionate . . . Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Give and it shall be given to you. Jesus describes a perfect reciprocity between what we have received or not received and how we will give or not give.

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Once you know that you are inside Trinitarian Love, you are connected to an infinite Source, and one is never sure who is doing the giving and who is doing the receiving. It is all Flow and Outpouring. It is you and yet it is God. Thus Jesus ends this Gospel by a wonderful image of overflowing abundance.

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Gospel Reading:

Full measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap, because the measure you measure out with will be measured back to you. – Luke 6:38

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May God’s overflowing abundance be yours this season.

Read Wondrous Encounters here.

 

BOOK OF THE MONTH: PREPARING FOR JESUS BY WALTER WANGERIN, JR.

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week 3: A Christ-absorbed Advent

Wangering cover 2This month, we’re reading Preparing for Jesus, an Advent devotional by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

“Prepare” is a word we hear a lot this time of year. We’re preparing for Christmas, preparing our homes, preparing a feast, preparing for company — all kinds of preparations. Somewhere in there we’re also, hopefully, preparing for the coming of Jesus.

Wangerin writes on what it means to prepare by reflecting on John the Baptist, who burst out of the wilderness crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” John announces the Advent of Jesus’ public ministry and also a second Advent, the return of Christ which is yet to come.

As John, who cried Prepare to Israel, was the messenger of that first appearing [of Jesus], so John is the messenger now of the reappearing, the Second Coming of Christ!

 

Still, still he cries: Prepare!

 

Are we listening?

 

Do we, who are busy preparing for Christmas, parties and presents and decorations and food and church programs—and visitors—do we prepare with equal fervor for the visitation of the Lord?

 

What sort of Advent is this imminent Advent for you? If you are consumed by one more Christmas (one mere Christmas among two thousand) your Advent is fleeting, time-bound, and likely self-absorbed. Desperate preparations often indicate an anxiety about the opinions of others regarding ourselves. But if your participation in this temporal Advent truly signifies preparations for the final Advent, you are Christ-absorbed.

Read more here.

 

 

BOOK OF THE MONTH: PREPARING FOR JESUS BY WALTER WANGERIN, JR.

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Wangering cover 2Week 2: Let it be a “Yes!”

This month we’re reading Preparing for Jesus by Walter Wangerin, Jr., a wonderful Advent devotional that will help you get ready for the coming of Christ.

In his reflection for December 11, Wangerin leads us to meditate on Mary, mother of Jesus. Mary joins four women named by Matthew as ancestors of Christ. Mary enters a sisterhood that we are called to enter, too.

In the passage below, Wangerin asks us to emulate Mary’s “Yes!” to the angel that announced Christ’s coming:

Mary, mother of our Lord, I wish I could be as pure a disciple as you were even from the beginning!

 

For you were invited to join a sisterhood–with Tamar and Bath-sheba–of sorrow and human suffering, since the child of your womb would draw the hatreds and the outrages of a scoundrel world.

 

And you said, “Yes.”

 

For you were asked to serve faithfully on behalf of others, like Rahab to protect a few for the sake of the many, like Ruth to turn disappointment into joy.

 

And you said, “Yes.”

 

. . .

 

For heaven itself was swelling within you, and you were the door. Not in terrible glory would he come, this Son of the Most High God. Not in the primal blinding light, not as the shout by which God uttered the universe, nor yet with the trumpet that shall conclude it, but through your human womb, as an infant bawling and hungry. By your labor, Mary, by the fierce contractions of your uterus, eternity would enter time. The angel said, Will you be the door of the Lord into this place?

 

And you said, “Yes.”

 

. . .

 

You, the first of all the disciples of Jesus, said, “Yes.”

What would you say?

Read more here.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: PREPARING FOR JESUS BY WALTER WANGERIN, JR.

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week One: What would you say?

Wangering cover 2One of my favorite Advent devotionals is Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas, and the Kingdom by Walter Wangerin, Jr. I thought I’d share it with you this year. In this book, Wangerin offers thirty-seven reflections for the Advent and Christmas seasons.

In his meditation for December 5, Wangerin leads us to reflect on how Zecharaiah, the father of John the Baptist, reacted when God announced that Zechariah’s wife would soon bear a son. He reacted in disbelief. He did not trust God.

In Zechariah’s doubt is a question for us. For we are expecting a son, too. The Son of Man is coming to us, not just at Christmas, but at the end of time. How do we react to the Lord’s promise that he is coming soon? Wangerin writes:

Friend, unto you the Lord says, “Surely I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20).

 

And what do you say to that promise? Do you by your unconscious behavior utter doubt? Does an earthbound vision deny the possibility? Are you scared to consider an end to the world?

 

“Can’t be.”

 

“Prove it.”

 

Sadly, the sign of our mistrust shall be the doubt itself, together with all the anxieties and suspicions and loneliness which doubt engenders. And these will last until we come to trust, or else until his coming comes to pass.

 

Jesus says, “I am coming soon!”

 

And how do you respond? Oh, let it be as a bride responds to the promise of the bridegroom, adorning yourself for his return, joyfully shouting with the Spirit, “Come!” (Rev. 21:2, 9; 22:17). Then your joy, your present beauty, your complete sense of assurance and belonging–these shall be signs of the Lord’s trustworthiness and of our trust, signs of his love until he comes in glory.

 

“Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”

Read Preparing for Jesus here.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: A SPIRITUAL READER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week 4: Get Your Sparkle On

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In reading Hildegard of Bingen’s work, it becomes clear that she highly valued creation and creativity. In our final week exploring Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader, we’ll see what she says about this theme.

Two songs that Hildegard wrote tell of God as designer and animator (the titles to these songs were added by Carmen Butcher, who compiled the selections in the spiritual reader):

The First Daylight

 

You’re the Word of our Father,
the light of the first sunrise,
God’s omnipotent thought.
Before anything was made,
You saw it,
You designed it, and
You tucked Your all-seeing nature in the middle of Your sinew,
like a spinning wheel
with no beginning and no end,
still encircling everything.

*****

The First Verb

 

The Holy Spirit animates
all, moves
all, roots
all, forgives
all, cleanses
all, erases
all
our past mistakes, and then
puts medicine on our wounds.
We praise this Spirit of incandescence
for awakening
and reawakening
all
creation.

*****

In her letters, Hildegard frequently reminded others of God’s creativity. To the Abbess of Bamberg, she wrote:

In the same way that the stars illuminate the sky at night, God made humanity to sparkle. We’re created for maturity. We’re made to give out light like the sun, the moon, and the stars. If a black cloud covered these, the earth and every creature in it would worry that the end had come.

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In a letter to Pope Anastasius IV, Hildegard makes a striking moral statement about creativity. She tells the pope that we must reject corruption, injustice, and evil because they are not creative. They are a form of anti-creativity:

Don’t forget that whatever God made, radiates. So listen. Before God made the world, He said to Himself, “There’s My dear Son!” and from this original Word, the world was formed. Then God said, “Be!” and all kinds of animals appeared. Our God creates, but evil is never creative. It’s nothing, merely the by-product of rebellion. Through His Son, God saved humanity, clearly rejecting immorality—stealing, stubbornness, murder, hypocrisy, and bullies.

 

That’s why you as pope must never collude with corruption. If you do, you confuse those who look to you as their leader, because, in effect, you’re saying to them, “Embrace what’s really nothing.”

*****

Read more.

For reflection:

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BOOK OF THE MONTH: HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: A SPIRITUAL READER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week 3: Bloom Abundantly
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This month, we’re dipping into Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader (compiled and translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher). The past two weeks, we looked at selections from Hildegard’s major theological work, the Scivias.

Hildegard was also a prolific correspondent. She wrote letters to rulers, other religious, and friends. These letters are full of admonition, advice, and encouragement.

In the excerpts below, Hildegard writes to Empress Irene, the wife of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Commenus. She speaks prophetic words of encouragement to the empress. Let yourself be encouraged, too:

Listen to what God’s Spirit has to say to you. In winter, God lets the tree He loves hibernate, but in Summer, He makes it bloom abundantly and protects it from every disease. This is you. Remember also that every polluted body of water is purified by the stream gushing from the rock in the East, a clean, fast-running river. Who is like this river? Those whom God grants success and honor. They’re not ruled by the poisonous North wind and its advancing evil.

*****

Turn to God. Be confident that He has touched you. Continue to give Him the burnt offerings of your heart’s openness. Sigh, and know He hears you. . . . Yes, the Living Eye watches over you. He wants you to live eternally.

*****

Read more.

For reflection:

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BOOK OF THE MONTH: HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: A SPIRITUAL READER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week Two: Hope for the Church

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Yesterday (Sept. 17) was the Feast Day of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), the Benedictine nun, abbess, and writer. All this month, we’re looking at a selection of her written works — Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader (collected and translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher).

In her theological text, the Scivias, Hildegard records a series of visions she received. I find her apocalyptic visions especially striking. They seem incredibly relevant for our time, when many people voice concerns about the future of Christianity and the Church. Listen to Hildegard’s diagnosis:

Today, the Catholic faith dithers, on a global scale. The Gospel limps its way around the world. The early Church Fathers (who wrote so well) are ignored. People are apathetic. They refuse to read and taste the nourishment in the Scriptures . . .

Does this diagnosis sound familiar? If so, take hope! Despite the dire state of affairs of the Church, its future is assured. In Hildegard’s vision, the voice of heaven says:

Everything on earth is hurrying to its end. The world’s troubles and its many disasters tell you this. But my Son’s bride, the Church, will never ever be destroyed, no matter how many times she’s assaulted. At the end of time she’ll be stronger, more beautiful, more magnificent than ever before. She’ll enjoy the sweet embraces of her Beloved. That’s what the vision you just saw means.

Hildegard ends this vision in her own words:

Then I looked to the East and saw the One-who-shines-so-bright-that-I-can-never-see-Him-clearly, but I was able to see that up close to His breast, He was holding something that looked like a dirty lump, the size of a human heart, decorated around the edge with gems and pearls. This is our gentle Father hugging humanity to Himself. That’s why no one can reject anyone—because the Son of the Father is God incarnate who Himself accepted the human form.

Read more.

For reflection:

Hildegard week 2

BOOK OF THE MONTH: HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: A SPIRITUAL READER

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week One: Combating self-doubt, anger, and pride

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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Benedictine nun, abbess, writer—and so much more. The medievalist Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes her as an:

“abbess/artist/cosmologist/composer/
counselor/dietitian/dramatist/epistoler/
healer/linguist/mystic/naturalist/
philosopher/poet/political consulstant/
preacher/prophet/visionary!”

Butcher collected a selection of this extraordinary medieval woman’s works in Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader. We’ll be taking a look at some of these selections this month.

Hildegard’s first major theological text, the Scivias, contains twenty-six visions that Hildegard had. She wrote them down, she said, to help others learn to praise and adore God.

In one part of this work, Hildegard writes passionately of something we all recognize: feelings of self-doubt, anger, and pride.

My self-doubt makes me miserable. I feel oppressed by all things . . . I doubt everything when I feel this way, including my salvation.

Hildegard knows these doubts and feelings are the work of the devil. Here is how she combats them:

But when God helps me remember that He created me, then—even in the middle of my depression—I tell the Devil, “I won’t give in to my fragile clay. I’ll fight you!” How? When my inner self decides to rebel against God, I’ll walk with wise patience over the marrow and blood of my body. I’ll be the lion defending himself from a snake, roaring and knocking it back into its hole. I won’t let myself give in to the Devil’s arrows.

*****

When anger tries to burn up the temple of my body, I’ll look to God’s goodness, which anger never touched. I’ll look to God whom anger never touched, and I’ll become sweeter than the breeze whose gentleness moistens the earth. I’ll look to the God of peace, because then I’ll have spiritual joy as the virtues begin to show themselves in me, strengthening me with their vibrant greenness. I’ll look to God whom anger never touched, and—because I look to Him—I’ll experience God’s calm goodness.

*****

And when hatred tries to diminish who I am, I’ll look to the kindness of God’s Son and to His pain. How will I get myself in hand? I’ll accept the thorns that give off the delicate fragrance of roses. They grew to honor the One who was faithful, and by controlling myself I’ll bring honor to my Lord.

*****

Read more.

For reflection

Hildegard week 1, version 2

BOOK OF THE MONTH: THE ILLUMINED HEART

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Week Four: The Jesus Prayer

Illumined Heart cover

This month we’ve been reading The Illumined Heart: Capture the Vibrant Faith of Ancient Christians. In this short book, Frederica Mathewes-Green explores the wisdom and practices of the early Church to guide us on our walk of faith today. Our previous posts looked at repentance and fasting. Today, we’ll examine the Jesus Prayer.

The Jesus Prayer arose in the early centuries of eastern Christianity. The prayer involves repeating a single phrase: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

Mathewes-Green explains the rationale behind this prayer:

The Jesus Prayer arose as a way to practice unceasing prayer. It offered a short and simple form that can be repeated in an unhurried way no matter what else a person is doing. Since the prayer is silent and interior, it can be kept going in all situations.

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Why ask Jesus for mercy?

We keep lapsing into ideas of self-sufficiency, or get impressed with our niceness, and so we lose our humility. Asking for mercy reminds us that we are still poor and needy, and fall short of the glory of God. Those who do not ask do not receive, because they don’t know their own need.

*****

What about when we just can’t do it?

Do not cease praying when prayer comes hard, for fear of doing it imperfectly. If you cease praying when you can’t do it right, the devil gets a victory. So keep offering a broken prayer, and remember that you are only an unworthy servant, and yet Jesus wants you.

*****

Read more.

For Reflection:

Mathewes-Green week 4