I am convinced that most of the saints were religious dropouts from societies that were going nowhere. Faith called them to drop out and believe in something else. Jesus announcement of the Kingdom of God was telling us that culture as we've created it is on a track towards self-destruction and emptiness. He told us we can "Get off the train" at the next stop and re-center our lives in truth and objectivity. All we have to give up is the utterly false understanding that we have of ourselves from civil society. For some reason that liberation seems to be the most difficult thing in the world.
Finding God and losing the self-are the same thing; we don't really come to it naturally or choose it of ourselves. Faith is always God's thing. It seems to be the only way the Lord can draw us into a new viewpoint, a new point from which to view the life that is larger than life. That life is love!
Fr. Richard Rohr. >Radical Grace< Daily meditations!
Friday, April 27, 2018
Thursday, April 26, 2018
CATHOLIC RADICALS!
What is the necessary meaning of Catholic Radicals, to which we allude in our title and which we now find essential in this secular and post Christian age? First, the word itself is a clue. Radix is the Latin word for "Root." A radical is one who moves beyond the liberal and conservative branches of an institution and goes back to the fundamental questioning. The dictionary says a radical is one who goes back to the root, the source, the fundamentals. This is very different from a modernist or liberal who wants to update or accommodate to the present situation. There's a place for such reform, but that is not the primary concern of a true radical. Neither is a radical the same as a traditionalist or conservative, who usually does not go back far enough. A radical Catholic will at times look like both of these types, yet is neither of them at all.
The questions and concerns of radicals would under-cut all self-interest. ideology, and institutions. In this case, they ask: What does our humanity demand of us? What does love ask of us? What did Jesus present as essential and all-embracing? What is God doing on earth today? John Paul the ll asks such questions in his writings >Social concerns< and finds himself speaking for truly radical Catholics. Striking at the root of the tree, he does not ask us to "CHANGE". That is why the Priest and the Presidents and other men of power have thus far been unable to admit that this encyclical even exists.
Fr. Richard Rohr! >Radical Grace: Daily Meditations<
What is the necessary meaning of Catholic Radicals, to which we allude in our title and which we now find essential in this secular and post Christian age? First, the word itself is a clue. Radix is the Latin word for "Root." A radical is one who moves beyond the liberal and conservative branches of an institution and goes back to the fundamental questioning. The dictionary says a radical is one who goes back to the root, the source, the fundamentals. This is very different from a modernist or liberal who wants to update or accommodate to the present situation. There's a place for such reform, but that is not the primary concern of a true radical. Neither is a radical the same as a traditionalist or conservative, who usually does not go back far enough. A radical Catholic will at times look like both of these types, yet is neither of them at all.
The questions and concerns of radicals would under-cut all self-interest. ideology, and institutions. In this case, they ask: What does our humanity demand of us? What does love ask of us? What did Jesus present as essential and all-embracing? What is God doing on earth today? John Paul the ll asks such questions in his writings >Social concerns< and finds himself speaking for truly radical Catholics. Striking at the root of the tree, he does not ask us to "CHANGE". That is why the Priest and the Presidents and other men of power have thus far been unable to admit that this encyclical even exists.
Fr. Richard Rohr! >Radical Grace: Daily Meditations<
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