He bears us on his shoulders…….With tenderness he restores our daily joy……..God loves us first, beyond each person’s faults and failings…… the attraction of his love. (EG 3, 44). Pope Francis holds that you cannot change the way God is in love with you, that his love flows all around you, and through you, and in you, and as you. You cannot lessen the divine love that is already and always, no matter what, wrapped […]
( From last week ‘I looked up a bit of history about Church development and so on and I came across quotations saying: “There are many theologies within the Catholic Church” – I should have known that of course and I did in a sense – but I didn’t know, say, that St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas who lived around the same time had quite different theologies and yet they are both famous for […]
The title for this is “Theology is a Love Story” and it is not easy to read theology as a love story because so often in our experiences theology is not always that relevant to life. Let me just mention how I came to this title – “Theology is a Love Story”. It was on Easter Bank Holiday of 2018 and I was struggling with this particular episode and this particular topic. How to write […]
Creating a world in need of development, God in some way sought to limit himself in such a way that many of the things we think of as evils, dangers or sources of suffering, are in reality part of the pains of childbirth which he uses to draw us into the act of cooperation with the Creator. God is intimately present to each being, without impinging on the autonomy of his creature and this give […]
(An Extract from Daniel’s teaching in Episode 4 of An Astonishing Secret video course.) These sentences are pretty packed with meaning and they need to be unpacked so I just hope you can listen to them with the ‘ear of your heart’. Remember them when you can during the day, that’s how they become part of our consciousness. Listen, now, with the ear of your heart to this paragraph: ‘God became human so that humans […]
From Episode 4 of the Astonishing Secret Videos This episode offers many examples, once again, of what we could call ‘the sacramental vision’. That’s one word for this while incarnational approach. Or the ‘Catholic imagination’ is another old name for what we are doing in this course. They are all ways of interpreting the incarnation. So one little story may help us again to again to get the feel for what we are doing when […]
‘Incarnation means that each human person has been taken up into the very heart of God, into a boundless love that ennobles each human being, conferring on them an infinite divinity. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us, and we love the human family which dwells there with its tragedies and aspirations.’ Evangelii Gaudium 178 As this book began, so it ends, with the meditative reflection of Rhineland Mystic Mechtild of […]
Whenever we encounter another person in love, we learn something new about God. Whenever our eyes are opened to acknowledge the other, we grow in the knowledge of God, opening up spiritual horizons, taking us beyond our limited spiritual constructs. (Evangelii Gaudium 272) Pope Francis is making a bold statement about the power of love and the divine nature of every person. To learn something about God we must experience human loving. And in loving […]
Once we equate God with life itself a transformation takes place in the way we believe. Once we remove everything that separates divinity and humanity, heaven and earth, grace and nature, then we begin to truly and freely live and move in another milieu. Once we use the same name for the Gracious Mystery and Mother of all becoming, and the primal energy of creation and ongoing evolution, our faith cannot ever be the same […]
From Horizons of Hope Ruah – the breath of God. Pope Francis prayed that we may have a big heart, open to God. May this blessed openness set you free to surrender your future to the powerful RUAH of the Holy Spirit. May you stay strong and persevering, courageous and whole-hearted in your commitment to this vision. May your love be always stronger than your fear, your light always stronger than the shadows that will […]
‘St Francis invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants to us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. Beyond the language of mathematics and biology he takes us to the heart of what it is to be human … just as happens when we fall in love with someone … [Laudate Si 12]’ It is more than information, the Pope is saying regarding St […]
Our Popes have used the phrase ‘One God, many religions, many theologies.’ Let us look at some examples of how faith is presented from two familiar but contrasting theologies: A Sin/Redemption or a Theology of Creation – a theology of nature and grace Image of God In the story of Sin/Redemption God is seen as a distant, watchful, controlling and punishing father. He allows Bad things to happen, babies die disasters destroy people and possessions […]
‘Love changes everything’. Your heart must surrender to love before your life is transformed. It is the experience of unconditional love that empowers you and blesses what you do. Pope Francis says: ‘God loves us first beyond each person’s faults of failings. . . We are drawn by the attraction of his (Jesus) life.’ Pope Francis Pope Francis is talking here about the unconditional love of God – how do I understand this more deeply? A […]
(expansive thoughts for the start of a new year!) Your life will change when you begin to believe that God is not ‘out there’ anymore, that God is the unconditional love that lives intimately within your heart, and in the heart of the world. Your deepest and true self somehow already knows the astonishing secret that will now be gradually revealed. Be prepared to let go of the fearful, doctrinal teaching that many of us […]
An Astonishing Secret :- Once we equate God with life itself a transformation takes place in the way we believe. Once we remove everything that separates divinity and humanity, heaven and earth, grace and nature, then we begin to truly and freely live and move in another milieu. Once we use the same name for the Gracious Mystery and Mother of all becoming, and the primal energy of creation and ongoing evolution, our faith cannot […]