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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Thirty-seven

Wounded Healers

God Uses Everything
Monday, September 14, 2020
Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

The genius of Jesus’ ministry is that he embraces tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself to bring us to God. There are no dead ends. Everything can be transmuted, and everything can be used. Everything.

It seems that everybody wants to take easy sides. It’s so consoling for the ego to have an answer; to be sure that my position is the final and only true answer. Yet, as Paul says, on the cross Jesus becomes the sin and the problem. He identifies with the wound, the pain, and the suffering (2 Corinthians 5:21). He does not stand apart from it but enters into it. What a paradox, what a mystery!

Jesus tells Peter, “Peter, you must be sifted like wheat. And once you have recovered, then you, in your turn, can strengthen your companions” (Luke 22:31–32). Until there has been a journey through suffering, I don’t believe that we have true healing authority. We don’t have the ability to lead anybody anyplace new unless we have walked it ourselves to some degree. In general, we can only lead people on the spiritual journey as far as we ourselves have gone. We simply can’t talk about it beyond that. That’s why the best thing we can do for people is to stay on the journey ourselves. We transform people to the degree we have been transformed. When we can somehow be compassion, not just talk about compassion; when we can be healed and not just talk about healing, then we are, as Henri Nouwen said so well, “wounded healers,” but not before.

It always comes through the wounding. What we do when faced with our deepest wounds determines whether there is authentic spirituality at work or not. If we seek to blame other people, accuse, attack, or even explain and make perfect, logical sense out of our wounds, there will be no further spiritual journey. But if, when the wounding happens, we find the grace and the freedom to somehow see that it’s not just a wound, but a sacred wound, then the journey progresses. Then we set out to find ourselves, to find the truth, and to find God.

It’s all about what each of us does with the wound. If we ourselves have never walked through some kind of suffering, whether betrayal, abandonment, rejection, divorce, loss of job, struggles with sexuality, we probably will give people “head” answers. We don’t touch or heal their hearts because our own have not been transformed. I don’t think it’s any accident that in most of Jesus’ healings, he physically touches people. He’s showing that healing cannot be done through the head, through explanations, theories and theologies, or quick, “logical” conclusions. It must somehow be a communication of life and love energy, held even at the cellular level.

Gateway to Action & Contemplation:
What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?

Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.

Listen to Fr. Richard read the prayer.

Story from Our Community:
My life went from forty-seven years of striving for constant perfection to crashing in the very setting that I thought defined me: on a stage, giving a presentation to hundreds of people. For decades, presenting and "putting on a show" was where I found my identity. Until that foundation was so unexpectedly and brilliantly pulled right out from under my feet. It began a two-year descent into deep depression and physical illness. It was the beginning of disorder. With the help of these daily emails, there has been a true seeing of this [separate, false] self that was created, and is now being seen for the illusion it is. [These daily meditations] have quite literally changed my life. —Missy M.

Share your own story with us.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005), MP3 download.

Image credit: Resurrection of Lazarus (detail), circa 12th‒13th century, Athens.

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News from the CAC

Applications for the Living School for Action and Contemplation extended!

Are you ready to come alive in service of the world? The Living School is an immersive experience, going deep to the roots of faith to nurture a generative and compassionate life. Our faculty—Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, Barbara Holmes, and Richard Rohr—guide students through a formation experience rooted in a Christian lineage of contemplative practice, rigorous study, and meaningful engagement. The two-year program includes online course work and four gatherings in New Mexico (those gatherings may be virtual depending on the status of COVID-19). Applications are available for purchase until Sept. 23 and must be completed by Sept. 30.

Soularize 2020: The Masculine Path to Healing

October 15-18, 2020

Join Fr. Richard and Illuman for Soularize 2020 online!

For many men the wounding of their souls is not generally recognized until midlife. Unresolved grief, internalized shame and guilt, loneliness, personal family traumas, intergenerational issues, and societal pressures keep many men from moving beyond disorder and into reorder. The wounds of individuals lead to larger wounds in society, which further wound individuals in a negative feedback loop.

Illuman, a nonprofit organization with global allies committed to supporting men who are seeking to deepen their spiritual lives, offers a pathway through. What began as a series of retreats and workshops led by Richard Rohr, Illuman is about men transforming men, working together through order, disorder, and reorder. Drawing from Fr. Richard's teaching and the ancient tools of nature, ritual, image, storytelling, and council, men become healing agents for themselves, each other, and the world. Learn more and register for the virtual conference at illuman.org/soularize2020/.

The CAC is hiring!

We are currently seeking a CRM Product Manager — a senior Salesforce professional to lead the continued investment in our Salesforce implementation and the larger integrated ecosystem. As part of a coordinated Digital Product Team, this person will help empower the CAC staff to utilize Salesforce for maximum possible impact and effectiveness in their job. Know someone who might be interested? Apply today or help us spread the word!

Explore the Mystics on Instagram

Follow @CACradicalgrace on Instagram to learn about the life and teachings of mystics like Teresa of Avila, Symeon the New Theologian, Clare of Assisi and more. Visit our Mystics Highlight to discover what led these contemplatives into mystical union with the Divine, and the challenges that transformed them into wounded healers—from disapproving families to exile by the Church. Then, explore 5-10 minute practices inspired by each mystic in our Instagram feed, like learning to see the beauty in suffering from Teresa of Avila to sacred reading with the words of Howard Thurman.

Action & Contemplation

2020 Daily Meditations Theme

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. —Micah 6:8

Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. If we pray but don’t act justly, our faith won’t bear fruit. And without contemplation, activists burn out and even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good. In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital.

In this year’s Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us learn the dance of action and contemplation. Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Click the video to learn more about the theme and to find reflections you may have missed.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: Being wounded, suffering, and dying are the quickest and most sure paths to truly living. —Richard Rohr