Please see end of this email for the link to our 8pm Saturday prayers, the 10.30am Sunday Mass via Zoom, to Melchior's Sunday meditation and for other notices.
I believe that we have no real access to who we fully are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, and much more than we think we are. Only when we live and see through God’s eyes can “everything belong.” All other systems exclude, expel, punish and protect to find identity for their members in some kind of ideological perfection or purity. The contaminating element always has to be searched out, isolated and often punished. This wasted effort keeps us from the centrally important task of love and union.
St Bonaventure (1221-1274) had a very positive view of God and the world. In his philosophy and theology we have a coherent and grounded meaning that our world no longer enjoys - yet still longs for. Most people today are not sure where we come from, who we are, and where we are going; and most no longer seem to care about such questions. Some call this post-modernism.
The Cosmic Christ is the blueprint of reality, bringing all of history - from before the Big Bang to the end of time - to wholeness.
Paraphrasing Paul’s words to the Colossians (chapter 1), “God made absolute fullness reside in him.” Christ is the distillation and “corporate personality” for all of created reality, the symbolic stand-in for everything, as it were. Paul goes on to say “in Christ, everything is reconciled. God holds all things together in him.” This means there’s no ground for hating or excluding or torturing anyone, because we all belong to God, even our enemies, which is why Jesus tells us we must love them.
When God looks at us, God can only see “Christ” in us. Yet it’s hard - for us! - to be naked and vulnerable and allow ourselves to be seen so deeply. It is hard to simply receive God’s loving and all-accepting gaze. We feel unworthy and ashamed. The very essence of all faith is to trust the gaze and then complete the circuit of mutual friendship. “The eye with which I see God is the same one with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love,” as Meister Eckhart says.
When you go to your place of prayer, don’t try to think too much or manufacture feelings or sensations. Don’t worry about what words you should say or what posture you should take. It’s not about you or what you do. Simply allow Love to look at you - and trust what God sees! God just keeps looking at you and loving you centre to centre. Hinduism called this darshan, the practice of going to the temple - not to see the deity, but to allow yourself to be fully and lovingly seen. Try reversing the engines. This reversal is the triumph and victory of grace. Richard Rohr
Saturday Evening Prayers, 8pm: join us by clicking here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86170701532
Sunday Mass, 10.30am: https://zoom.us/j/828192758
Sunday Meditation with Melchior, 6pm: https://youtu.be/omxJjUnrz8o
Ask and you shall receive - Ask what you have received.
youtu.be
MOTHER TERESA SISTERS' DONATIONS: thank you for your continued support of the Mother Teresa Sisters during this time of crisis. Food and other household items can be delivered to them at: Ch de la Foret 2, 1018 Bellevaux. Please ring: 021 647 3135 on arrival to let them know you have bags for them to store. Suggested items: rice, pre-made ravioli, canned beans, canned vegetables, jam, tea, coffee, milk, eggs, pasta, vegetable oil, soap, toilet roll.
Online donations are also very much appreciated:
Missionaries of Charity, IBAN/KONTO number: CH38 09 00 00 00 174 035 795.
FR STEVE ANNIVERSARY GIFT: last chance to donate to Fr Steve's anniversary gift - and thank you SO much to everyone who has already done so. Deadline: 27 May, please put 'Fr Steve Gift' as the reference.
BCV Bank
Account No: 10-725-4
IBAN: CH08 0076 7000 K534 3156 6
Account Name: English Catholic Mission
Address: Ave de Bethusy 54, 1012 Lausanne
A Novena to the Holy Spirit from Ascension to Pentecost
This novena has been prepared by the Westminster Diocese Vocations Team to help us grow in personal holiness and to pray for a renewal of
Christian Vocation in the Church
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS NOVENAGood News From Around The World Rainbow in New YorkA stunning rainbow stretched over New York City helped lift the spirits of residents left stricken by the Coronavirus. The colourful arch appeared just hours after Gov Andrew Cuomo declared that the worst of the outbreak was 'over'.