We Crucify One Another

On Good Friday, the core issue that defeats human history is both revealed and resolved. 

The central issue at work is the human inclination to hate, despise and kill others, instead of dying ourselves - to our own illusions and selfish love. 

Knowing this, Jesus dies “for” us, “in solidarity with us.”

Jesus’ crucified body is a picture of what humanity is doing and what God suffers with, in and through us. A picture of divine solidarity with our pain and our problems. 

Whenever you see an image of the crucified Jesus, know that it is the central message unveiled. It reveals what humanity is doing itself and to one another. 

We crucify one another. 

Humanity hates and attacks what it has every reason to love: itself, God, and the rest of creation.

None of us really knows what we are doing until the outer crucifix becomes the inner resistance to every act of human war, torture, starvation, disease, abuse, oppression, and injustice. 

On the cross, the veil between the Holy and the unholy is torn from top to bottom, the curtain of his body becomes a living opening through which we all can walk into the Holy of Holies, which on different levels is both our own soul and the very heart of God.

Nothing changed in heaven on Good Friday, but everything potentially changed on earth.

Transformative Suffering

Living with pain and suffering is inherent in the human condition. In other words, suffering is not negotiable. To be alive is to suffer. And the suffering will be transformative in our lives: it will either make us bitter and miserable, or it will make us compassionate and more alive. 

Like Jesus, we need to learn how to hold on to the pain in our lives, to be present to it, to surrender to it until we’ve learned its lessons. 

This is a great teaching moment where you have the possibility of breaking through to a deeper level of faith and consciousness. There is a greater Divine life beneath the surface of our pain.

If you can surrender and hold on to the pain of being human, God will transform you through it. And then you will be an instrument of transformation for others.

As an example of holding the pain, picture Mary standing at the foot of the cross. Standing would not be the normal posture of a Jewish woman who is supposed to wail and lament and show pain externally. She’s holding the pain instead. She is present to it, surrendered to it.

Mary is in complete solidarity with the mystery of life and death. She’s trying to say, “There’s something deeper happening here. How can I absorb it just as Jesus is absorbing it?” 

Until you find a way to be a transformer of your pain, you will pass the pain onto others.

Jesus on the cross and Mary standing by the cross are images of transformative religion. They are never transmitting the pain to others. 

They hold the suffering… until it becomes resurrection! 

That’s the core mystery. It takes our whole life to comprehend this, and then to become God’s “new creation” (Galatians 6:15). 

Unfortunately, we have the natural instinct to fix pain, to control it, or even, foolishly, to try to understand it. The ego always insists on understanding. That’s why Jesus praises a certain quality even more than love, and he calls it faith. It is the ability to stand on the threshold, until you move to a deeper level where it all eventually makes sense in God’s grace.

As Holy Week approaches, we are invited to join our sufferings to Jesus’, and be part of the process of transformation and freedom for ourselves, for our families, and for the world.

Lighting Up the World

The season of Lent is an invitation to the awakening of the Heart! Our heart for God, and our heart for one another. It is a season to renew our journey away from focus on self to a focus on the Heart that is God - and God’s Heart is in you waiting to be discovered and lived out of. 

Lent and Life is a journey of the opening up to the HEART of all hearts.

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus”

To see Jesus is to see the heart of God, to see Jesus is to see the face of Love. This loving face, this loving awareness is at the very centre of your soul.

In order for us to “see” Christ we must clear away the clutter and illusions of our small and false self. Lent’s invitation is to learn to die to this self.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.” 

“Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” 

Jesus is teaching us that the path to genuine and authentic life is the dying to self-centeredness. In biblical terms, it is the “ruler of this world” that beacons us away from the freedom of God to the slavery of self-centeredness.

“And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

The way of the Cross is the way of kenosis, of self emptying, and centering on Jesus, of seeing Jesus, the face of Love.

The way of the Cross, of our Lenten journey, is the way of the heart, of a purified and opening heart.

“I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah)

“A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me.” (Psalm 51)

Let us surrender our hearts to the Lord of Love, that we may see less of self, and more of the face of Love in every other person.

That, my friends, will light up the world.

Not even Death can Separate us from the Love of God

The Hebrew story of Moses and the lifting up of the serpent on a pole is a foreshadowing of what will be fulfilled in the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross. 

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

When we prayerfully reflect on Jesus and the power of the cross and resurrection, we come to the realization  that even death cannot separate us from Love that is God. And in this spiritual awakening, new, inclusive and eternal life opens us before us. 

The crucifixion of Jesus is not as much about “paying” a price for our sins, as it is about revealing to us that neither sin nor death can separate us from the Love of God. With this freedom we can become more aware of and live out of the Love that is Divinity within us.

To know and experience Divine Love is to know and experience eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

This verse captures the entire Gospel!

God’s Love keeps us from perishing.

To know God’s love is to be drawn into a life without end.

Lent is a season of preparation to lean more completely into the fullness of the life and love of the Resurrection.

As we enter more deeply into the mystery of the Divine Love, let us prayerfully become more intentional in inviting and drawing others into that very same life of Love. It is for the salvation of the world - one awakened soul at a time. 

False and Unhealthy Religion

One of the signs of the times today is that many people, although not interested in organized religion, are in fact “spiritual” and interested in spiritual things. 

There are many reasons for the loss of interest in organized religion, but one of the causes is because of the history of institutional religion with its dualistic application of either/or, judgement and exclusion, who is right and who is wrong, who is in and who is out. This lifeless theology has caused so much damage over the centuries. In contrast, and we can know intuitively (and with quantum physics!), is that the Divine reality is unitive in nature, it is inclusive and non-judgemental, it is both/and. There is no outside of God!

Inherent in Lent is an invitation to clean up our spiritual houses, both personally and corporately, so that they can be lovingly inclusive with spiritual depth.

Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in John’s gospel is about a letting go of false and unhealthy religion, and entering into and living out of deeper and inclusive spirituality. 

The cleansing of the temple is about making room for God in our lives. It is about recognizing that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, and that God abides in us - in ALL of us.

Intentionally spiritual people spend their life time cleansing their inner temple and opening up to God’s larger life of Love within. 

The spiritual life is not about being morally perfect and pure. But it is about changing and opening up more and more to a larger love and life. 

As our hearts and minds grow in intentional love, we come to know more and more the truth that we actually live IN Christ, we live inside of the Divine and eternal flow of Life, we live inside of Love.

Christ is our Temple. We are Christ’s Temple.

Jesus says “I am in you, you are in me.”

The Divine Image is enthroned within the temple of our souls. Through spiritual practice and works of love, as we cleanse away the debris that is in the way of us being more fully aware of God’s image in us and others, we become the very likeness of God to the world around us.

As we continue our Lenten journey, let us  - with the help of the Holy Spirit - cleanse our spiritual houses, and allow the Love that is Christ to live more fully in us, and in our communities.

A Mountain Top Experience

The story of the Transfiguration is a story about the mountain top experience of becoming conscious of the shared life of the human and the Divine - a “resurrection” experience. 

The “mountain top” experience is to encounter a Divine Love that transforms us and wakes us up to the unitive nature of all of life, of how we can know and experience deep connection with God, each other and all of creation. 

We all have an interior mountain that we are invited to climb in order to draw nearer to the Transforming Love that is God.

Moses’ Mountain revealed God in the burning bush, and later the 10 commandments.

Elijah’s Mountain revealed God in the still, small voice.

The Apostle’s Mountain on Tabor reveals the risen nature of Christ in Jesus and in all of us.

These are mystical or inner experiences that since Pentecost, are not reserved just for the great saints, but for the whole people of God to enter into.

Notice that the living Word of God is “heard” in each of these Divine experiences:

• On Moses’ mountain he hears “I AM sent you.”
• On Elijah’s mountain he hears the still small voice.
• At the Transfiguration the Apostles hear and see Moses and Elijah (representing the Law and Prophets).

St.Augustine teaches that the Scriptures are the Mountain Tops of Israel. The Sacred Scriptures are at the heart of our Lenten journey to the Promised Land of Risen Life. 

The invitation is to learn to center on the Living Word of God in order to be consumed by the burning bush of God’s love, to hear God’s still, small voice in holy silence, to know and abide in the Risen Life and Love that is Christ.

As we are transformed in our relationship with God in Christ, we have a natural responsibility and desire to reach out to those around us trapped in darkness and despair, not knowing the transforming love of Christ.

Our Lenten pilgrimage is not just about renewing and deepening our own knowledge and experience of the Divine, it is about committing ourselves to the Church’s mission to reach out to, connect and draw others into the Promised Land of Risen Love, the eternal life of Christ revealed in Jesus our Lord. 

Struggling with our Shadow

In every liturgical year the Church brings us in the first Sunday of Lent to reflect on the Lord’s being led into the desert to struggle and be tempted. 

We are reminded of the very real humanity of Jesus. We are reminded that, like Jesus, we need to struggle in the process of knowing who we are in relation to God and one another.

Father Richard Rohr teaches that “Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with your shadow. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. It is in facing your conflicts, criticisms, and contradictions that you grow up. You actually need to have some problems, enemies, and faults! You will remain largely unconscious as a human being until issues come into your life that you cannot fix or control and something challenges you at your present level of development, forcing you to expand and deepen. It is in the struggle with our shadow self, with failure, or with wounding, that we break into higher levels of consciousness.” 

In order for us to make real progress in this inward journey of self realization, we need to take the spiritual desert seriously. Many people are afraid to be alone with themselves. That is to say, to face themselves, along with their pain and trauma. Lent is an invitation to open up to and face the inner barriers that keep us from being more fully human.

Jesus calls us individually and corporately to go into the desert with him to learn to trust God, to be present to God in the power of the Holy Spirit, and to struggle with the enemy within us.

The spiritual desert is a tough place where we learn to recognize and work with the pain and distractions that keep us from a deeper life in God, a deeper life in Love.

St.Augustine of Hippo says “we progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial…we can only grow when struggling against temptation and challenge.”

The interior life of struggling with self and more habitually centering on the Love that is Christ is something we must simply practice and do. The spiritual practices of prayer and meditation, of reading sacred scripture, of participating in intentional community, of service to the poor and those in need are foundational practices in Christian living, and can be renewed in Lent. 

Praying that during this Lent, in your silence and solitude, that more space will open up inside of you as you notice the Indwelling Presence filling you with a Love and Compassion that will change and heal the world.