Sunday
If our God is both incarnate and implanted, both Christ and Holy Spirit, then an unfolding inner dynamism in all creation is not only certain, but also moving in a positive direction.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
God comes into the world in always-surprising ways so that the sincere seeker will always find evidence. Is sincere seeking perhaps the real meaning of walking in faith?
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.
—John Paul II
Wednesday
Just as all began (from the Big Bang, or the Word, depending on whether you are talking about physics or the New Testament) and expanded into the myriad forms that are permeated with the One, all returns to Oneness, which could be described as the cosmic Body of Christ.
—Joy Andrews Hayter
Thursday
I did not seek a new worldview; rather I went in search of truth and found love at the heart of all things. All knowledge is true knowledge—whether in the sciences or in the humanities—if it moves one to fall more deeply in love.
—Ilia Delio
Friday
Every time we are drawn to look up into the night sky and reflect on the awesome beauty of the universe, we are actually the universe reflecting on itself. And this changes everything.
—Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker
Week Forty-Nine Practice
The Christic
Inspired by her study of Carl Jung and Teilhard de Chardin, Ilia Delio wrote this poem-prayer:
The Christic
I am looking at a tree, but I see such astounding beauty and
graciousness, the tree must be You, O God,
I look at the wild weeds playing across the fields, and their
wild joyful freedom speaks to me of You, O God.
Yesterday, I saw a child crying alone on a busy corner, and
the tears were real, and I thought, you must be crying, O God.
God, you are the mystery within every leaf and grain of sand,
in every face, young and old, you are the light and beauty
of every person.
You are Love itself.
Will we ever learn our true meaning, our true identity?
Will we ever really know that we humans are created for
love?
For it is love alone that moves the sun and stars
and everything in between.
We are trying too hard to find You, but You are already here,
We are seeking life without You, but You are already within,
Our heads are in the sand, our eyes are blinded by darkness,
our minds are disoriented in our desperate search
for meaning.
Because You are not what we think You are:
You are mystery.
You are here and You are not,
You are me and You are not,
You are now and You are not,
You are what we will become.
You are the in-between mystery
The infinite potential of infinite love,
And it is not yet clear what You shall be,
For we shall become something new together.
Reference:
Ilia Delio, “The Christic,” in The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Relational Whole (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023), 259. Used with permission.
Image credit and inspiration: Greg Rakozy, Untitled (detail), 2015, photo, United States, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We stand awed by our contemplation of the cosmos and the science within it.
