Jesus’ relatively short human life…both modelled and consecrated the eye of the needle that each one of us must personally pass through in order to accomplish “the one thing necessary” here, according to his teaching: to die to self….Our only truly essential human task here, Jesus teaches, is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood. His mission was to show us how to do this.
The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault, p.106.
Weekly Pause & Ponder
God is …the ground and source of the world. God is not a being in whom we should believe, but the breath of life in every being that exists. God is not a possibility within reality, but reality itself. To say yes to God is simply to trust reality; it is to acknowledge that reality is good. This sounds simple, but it is not easy. It means affirming the basic trustworthiness of things in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Faith in God is nothing more or less than this.
Sallie McFague. Life Abundant, p.127.
Weekly Pause & Ponder
The mercy of God does not come and go, granted to some and refused to others. Why? Because it is unconditional – always there, underlying everything. It is literally the force that holds everything in existence, the gravitational field in which we live and move and have our being.
Cynthia Bourgeault. Mystical Hope, p. 25
Weekly Pause & Ponder
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need, is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by this present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
Thomas Merton. www.google.ca
Weekly Pause & Ponder
What comes first in this world …is not “being” but “the union which produces this being.”… Reality is woven through layers of bondedness. Cosmic life is intrinsically relational. Nothing is itself taken alone. Reality is “being with another,” in a way open to more union and more being I exist in order that I may give of myself, for it is in giving that I am myself. Cosmic life is intrinsically communal. Being is first a “we” before it can become an “I”….The universe is thoroughly relational and in the framework of love.
The Unbearable Wholeness of Being by Ilia Delio, p.45