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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Thirty-seven

Wounded Healers

Transforming our Pain
Friday, September 18, 2020

If I were to name the Christian religion, I would probably call it “The Way of the Wound.” Jesus agrees to be the Wounded One, and we Christians are these strange believers in a wounded healer. We come to God not through our strength but through our weakness. We learn wisdom and come to God not by doing it all right but through doing it all wrong.

If you were going to create a religion, would you think of creating, as your religious image, a naked, bleeding, wounded man? It is the most unlikely image for God, the most illogical image for Omnipotence. None of us in our wildest imagination would have come up with it. It must expose a central problem of human existence, for God to come into the world in this form and in this way. Sadly, we Christians have become accustomed to the cross—perhaps we have domesticated it—and we no longer receive the shock and the scandal of all that this image of failure is saying. Being wounded, suffering, and dying are the quickest and most sure paths to truly living.

Using a scapegoat is our much-preferred method. We deny our pain, sins, and suffering and project them elsewhere. This ancient method still works so well that there is no reason to think it is going to end or change. Until we are enlightened by grace, we don’t even see it; it remains safely hidden in the unconscious where it plays itself out. Once we spot and stop the pattern, the game is over. The cross of Jesus was a mirror held up to history, so we could spot the scapegoating pattern and then stop participating in it.

Only the Great Self, the True Self, the Godself, can carry the anxiety within us. The little self can’t do it. People who don’t pray can’t live the Gospel because the self is not strong enough to hold the anxiety and the fear. If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it. Always someone else has to suffer because we don’t know how to suffer; that’s what it comes down to.

Most people are like electric wires: what comes in is what goes out. Someone calls us a name, and we call them a name back. That is, most people pass on the same energy that is given to them. Now compare an electric wire to those big, grey transformers that you see on utility poles. Dangerous current or voltage comes in, but something happens inside that grey box and what comes out is, in fact, now helpful and productive. That is exactly what Jesus does with suffering.

That is what Jesus did: he did not return the negative energy directed at him—not during his life nor when he hung on the cross. He held it inside and made it into something much better. That is how “he took away the sin of the world.” He refused to pass it on! Until the world understands that, there will be no new world.

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, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press: 2014), 78–80.

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