Category Archives: Peace and Justice

The Real Paul

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We are booked on a cruise next August from Istanbul to Athens. The first stop is Ephesus. We will be in or near a lot of the geographical territory that was transversed by the Apostle Paul.

I am one who has always had a difficult time with Paul. Some of his teachings about wives and slaves being submissive and his condemnation of homosexuality are difficult to deal with in the twenty-first century. A book, The First Paul, by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg gave me a whole new appreciation for Paul.

It was only after a retreat with John Dear over ten years ago that I started to get the Good News. Jesus was not some saccharine religious figure who came to offer God a sacrifice for original sin. What God would send his son as a sacrifice for sin?

It is evident that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who died because he opposed the Roman Empire and the priestly class in Israel. Jesus came to proclaim the Kin-don—a new world order based on justice, truth, mercy, compassion and love.

I never really saw Paul as much more than an itinerant preacher who talked a lot about sins of the flesh and ended up founding the Christian church. But Paul was much more. Like Jesus, Paul was always a Jew. He saw himself, like Jesus, as a reformer of Judaism once he has encountered the Messiah on the road to Damascus. Paul too opposed the Roman Empire and the values of that empire. He opposed the priestly perversions of Judaism. Continue reading →

No to Budget Cuts for Human Needs

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Yesterday, I participated in a Webinar on “The Deficit Deal Explained.” It was sponsored by the Coalition on Human Needs and Community Action Partnership, both advocates for the vulnerable among us. Ample resources plus an audio of the webinar can be found at http://www.chn.org/save4all/index.html.

I had several impressions. First, the so-called budget deal merely kicked the can down the road. Secondly, I am even more fearful that the budget cuts will severely affect the most vulnerable among us. Congress seems to be hell-bent to give even more tax protection the rich and wealthy, especially those who contribute to their campaign coffers. The military-industrial-congressional complex is on a roll and multinationals are in the driver’s seat. [Historical note: Eisenhower decided to cut the “congressional” tab out of the speech. He should have left it in.] Continue reading →

I Am Joseph Your Brother

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TVA Lake Chatuge Hayesville, NC

[Note: I will be inserting pictures, mostly of nature, into this and future posts. I hope they will help us reconnect with the Cosmic Christ. Click on the pictures to enlarge on another screen.]

For me, one of the most poignant lines in the Old Testament is Joseph’s. “I am Joseph your brother.” “I am Joseph your brother.” Put in the context of jealously, death plots, and Benjamin’s saving tactic of selling Joseph to caravaneers, this is the story of story of forgiveness that foreshadows Jesus’ forgiveness of his executioners and, ultimately, his disciples.

The Risen Christ greeted his brothers and sisters—yes, his sisters—the faithful women who stood by him when the guys headed for cover—with the greatest words of forgiveness, “Peace be with you.” “Peace be with you.” Just as Joseph did not go into a tirade about how his brothers had treated him, Jesus did not berate the cowardly and betraying disciples who abandoned him in his greatest moment of need. Continue reading →

Putting away our Strange Gods

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The Beauty of God's Creation

“Now, therefore, put away the strange gods that are among you
and turn your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.” (Joshua 24)

When I first read this passage from Joshua, I was distracted by all the tribal implications of what Joshua was doing—commanding allegiance to the God who, as the Israelites believed, had selected them from all the peoples on the earth. I was thinking of how tribal monotheism has accounted for so much murder, conquest and mayhem in our world as it evolved during the agricultural era. It was during the agricultural era that land became the god—land, possessions, title deeds, armies to protect possessions, and warfare over land. And as I write this I think back to Francis of Assisi who told the bishop, “If we have possessions, we will have to have weapons to protect them.” Continue reading →

The Cosmic Christ

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Bald Eagle Alaska

The question, if God is not up there and out there, where is God?—has led me to a study of modern science and astronomy. As I sat in the planetarium and looked at the images of the expanding universe on the domed ceiling, I was enthralled with the expansiveness of the universe—billions of galaxies like our each with billions of stars, supernovas exploding and bringing forth new stars from dying stars. Life-death-resurrection in the warp and woof of the creation story. Wow!!!! This view of the universe moves us far beyond the domed cosmology of the biblical milieu. God is not out there above the heavens sitting on his throne. Where then is God? Who is God?

Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, Rupert Sheldrake, Albert Einstein, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, John Haught, Ilio Delio and countless others offer a different cosmology. It is a cosmology based on the ever- evolving universe which flared forth from the Creator at the very instant of the Big Bang approximately 14 billion years ago. Creation is not a static, one-time event that happened long ago. Creation today continues to flare forth as an expression the love of the Creator. The incarnation of Jesus the Christ is part of the flaring forth of the Divine Love which drives the universe.

It is time we stopped paying lip service to incarnation. God became flesh, sarx, matter. God became matter. Karl Rahner, among others, believes that there is not much difference between matter and spirit. Spirit is matter evolved to higher levels of consciousness. The Greek word sarx means matter.

What does it mean to say and really believe that God became matter? It means that Jesus the Christ, God become matter, is at the heart of the flaring forth of cosmos. The Risen Jesus is the Cosmic Christ. Living in us as our deepest reality, the Cosmic Christ propels us forth to become that which we already are. The Cosmic Christ is also the Omega Point calling us forth to our true selves—God became matter so that matter might become divine. Matter, the divine Mater, brings us forth and calls us forth to new life, to ever-evolving consciousness of our intimate relationship to the Creator God who is Love Incarnate.

I am particularly intrigues with Sheldrake’s concept of morphogenic (morphic) fields. Sheldrake is trying to account for the fact that there is something beyond matter, beyond sarx, which accounts for the form things take as they evolve over time. One poignant example is the titmouse bird. These birds “learned” how to unseal the bottles of milk left on doorsteps by dairymen. The war interrupted door-to-door deliveries of milk. When deliveries resumed, guess what? A new generation to birds (the original milk sippers had passed on) picked up on the behavior and broke seals and sipped milk. Morphic resonance accounts for the memory which drives evolution to higher levels.

As the cosmos evolves in an evolutionary mode, morphic fields remember the past and adapt to the future. In Matthew 13:53 Jesus says “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” Morphic fields bring forth the old and the new from the storeroom of the Creator.

I am beginning to see how the theory of morphic resonance affects different holons. One such holon would be healing ministry within a church or the church. Healing ministry is a morhpic field. It creates an evolving field of relationships and beliefs and expectations. When people gather to pray over each other, a powerful resonance emerges. In spite of evil, sickness, war and human destruction, the universe bends toward justice—right relationships. God wants us to have life and to have everything we need. Morphic fields can generate wholeness, wellness, and healing.

From all this another powerful concept emerges? Cosmic life is patterned relationships, often chaotic but somehow ordered. Sub-atomic particles do not follow the same rules as atomic particles. Or, do they? The research continues. The important point to me is that the cosmos thrives on relationships. The biosphere is southeastern Alaska is but one dramatic example of this. King Salmon, the Celtic symbol of wisdom, is the focal point of the book, Salmon in the Trees. The trees and insects nurture the salmon after they spawn.  By the way, did you know that the salmon dies after spawning? Death bringing forth new life! Growing and maturing, the salmon race down the waterways to find their ocean home. Nurtured by the ocean, especially nitrogen indigenous to the ocean, the salmon return home to the same stream (morphic resonance at work). The eagles, the bears, the otters and other creatures await their return. It is a glorious salmon feast. The eaters are fattened for the winter. The dead and decaying salmon infiltrate the earth and streams. Animal droppings carry the remains of the salmon farther into the rain forest. Salmon is truly in the trees!

Then I discovered that only about 4% of the universe is visible matter. The remaining 96% is either dark matter or dark energy. Visible matter is but the tip of the iceberg with regard to what is really there. What dark matter and dark energy lies beyond every visible star? Is the dark energy which drives the evolution of the cosmos the Creator within matter?

I go back to Thomas Merton who read the mystics right—all is one. We are all in intimate relationship to one another, ourselves, God. Yet, we live in a fractured world where divisions, hate, murder and state-mandated murder—war—are the fare of the day. We thrill to the glory of the cosmos to wake up to senseless mass-murder in Norway.

The Cosmic Christ within us and ahead of us as the Omega Point of the cosmos has shown us a new morphic pattern. The Kin-dom of God shows us what is possible, what our true potential rally is. We are called to go beyond the evil in the evil in the cosmos and to strive to become sons and daughters of the Cosmic Christ is calling us forth in Love.

I will continue my musings and searchings as I thrill at the wonder in the everyday cosmos. I apologize if I have misrepresented any of the teachings of the new cosmologists.  I will walk reverently on the earth knowing that she is my mater, the matter I come from, the stardust I am. I rest peacefully in the Creator who is incarnate in me and in us as the Spirit of the Risen Cosmic Christ. Julian of Norwich tells me that all is well and all will be well. God is incarnate in God’s creation bringing forth the hope of resurrected life.

Being Present to the Presence

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I am regretting my past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Teacher was speaking: “My name is I AM.” The Teacher paused. I waited. The Teacher continued, “When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WAS.

When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WILL BE.

When you live in the moment, it is not hard. I am HERE. My name is I AM.

Helen Mallicoat

In the reading from Exodus, God delivers the people from slavery and oppression in Egypt. In the present moment they are encamped but they idealize the past and fear their future fate. They cry out against Moses and God. “Did you bring us all the way out here so Pharaoh’s soldiers could bury us in the desert?  What’s wrong with being buried in the fleshpots of Egypt?” Continue reading →

Present to the Presence

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We have been blessed this week to have Sister Kathleen Deignan, CND, as the presenter for our annual parish mission. Sister Kathleen is a teacher of theology at Iona College, a stellar Merton scholar, a psalmist and accomplished composer, and the newly elected president of the International Thomas Merton Society.

Sister Kathleen has focused the mission on our relationship with the Creator. Creation is the first revelation of the Godhead. She has taught us through lecture and song how to be present to the Presence which is God manifest in creation through the Cosmic Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are to be present to the Presence as Creation groans and struggles toward the Omega Point—completion in the Cosmic Christ. The Cosmic Christ is fully incarnate—present—in every element of creation. We are all coming forth from the stardust which flares forth from the Creator at every moment. The Cosmic Christ is also up ahead calling us to be what we are—people created in the very image and likeness of God. The Cosmic Christ is present in the depths of our souls propelling us toward that which we are meant to be. The Cosmic Christ is ahead of us and, in Merton’s words, calling us to become our true selves. Merton was fond of saying that Christ became human so that we might become divine. Here the new cosmology meets the new theology. Continue reading →

The Impact of 1968 on The Church

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[I had signed up for a class in the Institute for Continuing Learning at nearby Young Harris College; however, with other commitments that have emerged, I will not be able to attend. I prepared the following to share with the professor and the class.]

The Impact of 1968 on the Roman Catholic Church

J. Patrick Mahon

Matthew Fox in his book, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s  Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church And How It can Be Saved, clearly delineates the events of 1968 which were to have  a lasting impact on the world and on the Roman catholic Church:

The year 1968 was a tumultuous one around the globe. In the United States two assassinations roiled the country—the of the Reverend Dr. martin Luther King, Jr. in April, which set off riots all through urban America, and then the shooting of Senator Robert RF. Kennedy  on the day of his presidential primary victory in California. The war raged in Vietnam, and so did students marching in opposition to it in Europe as well as the United states. In the spring of 1968, student rioters in Paris dug up stones on the Boulevard Saint Michel and used them as weapons to hurl at the police. Tear gas was everywhere. Students created barriers from felled trees and cars to defend themselves from the police. With strikes freezing public transportation, gasoline stations, grocery stores, and more shut down; businesses closed and the student uprising brought down the government of Charles de Gaulle. I was there. I lived through the powerful dynamics of it all.

I was also receiving letters from friends in Chicago who were beaten up in Grant Park by the police at the tumultuous Democratic National Convention, which took the Democrats decades to get over and gave the 1968 election to Richard Nixon. My Dominican [Order of priests in the Church] provincial was sitting in Mayor Daly’s box at the convention while his police were beating up protestors, including my brother Dominican activists, in Grant park. Turmoil was in the air. Vietnam was an issue that split fathers from sons. But so too was education itself.

In the Catholic Church, 1968 will be remembered as the year of Pope Pail VI’s notorious encyclical that reinforced birth control prohibitions, Humanae Vitae [in spite of the fact that the majority of the papal commission voted to relax the prohibitions]. . . .

Students were protesting in Germany as well as in Berkeley, Madison and Paris.[1] Continue reading →

Matthew’s Letter to the Hierarchy

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Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2‘The pope, cardinals and bishops sit on Peter’s seat; 3therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,* and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their miters tall, their capes long and their coppa magnas lengthy. They close wealthy churches and sell off the property to pay the victims of the sex abuse they tried to cover up. 6They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the high places, churches and cathedrals, 7and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them “Your Excellency” or “Your Grace,” “Your Eminence,” or “Your Holiness.” . . .

11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Hierarchs, hear what Jesus the Christ says!!!

American Catholic Council and the Doctrine of Reception

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As I prepare for the meeting of the American Catholic Council (ACC) next weekend in Detroit. I have high hopes. I am also somewhat fearful that our expectations may not be met unless we develop strategies to continue our efforts to resurrect the promise of Vatican II.

I want to begin with a statement from a web site called The Catholic Knight (Why the militaristic title?). The author fashions himself to be a monarchist because he considers monarchy to be the most stable and viable form of governance. Praising Archbishop Vigneron of Detroit for his outright condemnation of ACC, the writer says:

These people [ACC] are the final result of a three-decade long experiment in leniency and innovation.  The so-called “Spirit of Vatican II,” which takes upon itself initiatives not called for by the Second Vatican Council, has reached it’s ultimate conclusion – SCHISM!  This schism however, does not come without a list of heresies to accompany it.  It is a list that I dare say nearly half of all baptized Catholics in the United States, who’s consciences having been dulled by three decades of poor catechesis and liturgical innovation, will most certainly find appealing.  It is a list that I fear will soon hit mainstream, and reverberate throughout this nation, pealing one parish after another away from the magisterium of the Church.

What these people in the American Catholic Council want has already been invented.  The structures they advocate already exist.  It’s called The Episcopal Church.  Likewise, once the ACC gets off the ground, it will simply be reinventing the wheel, and the results of this wheel will be identical to those found in The Episcopal Church (or TEC), namely female clergy, gay clergy, gay marriages, acceptance of abortion and birth control, as well as the embrace of Socialism in the form of “Liberation Theology.”  Some form of unification between the ACC and the TEC will likewise be inevitable, especially after those adhering to the ACC have been excommunicated from the U.S. Catholic Church.

Sadly, there is virtually a 0% chance that the ACC meeting in June will be canceled.  Though the good archbishop’s stand against the organization was strong, there was not much he could do outside of banning his own people from being a part of it, and prohibiting diocesan property from being used for it.  However, the ACC never intended to use diocesan property, and the good archbishop cannot restrict people outside his archdiocese from attending.  That’s another reason why we need a nationwide condemnation from all the U.S. Catholic Bishops before it’s too late.  Mark my words, these people will meet, and they will promote heresy.  Likewise they will grow to lead others away from the magisterium of the Church.  The only variable that exists is “how big” will their movement become.  Strong nationwide action against it now will pull a lot of wind out of their sails.  Failure to act now will only result in larger repercussions later.  For the sake of unity and orthodoxy within the U.S. Catholic Church, let us pray our bishops act quickly. (http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2010/10/archbishop-condemns-schismatic-american.html) Continue reading →