Sunday
“Reality as communion” is the template and pattern for our entire universe, from atoms to galaxies, and certainly in human community. —Richard Rohr
Monday
Those who fall into the safety net of silence find that it is not at all a fall into individualism. True prayer or contemplation is instead a leap into commonality and community. —Richard Rohr
Tuesday
We are here to become community. We are on an odyssey with potentiality, and we know it. We have been foreordained to make humanity more humane. —Joan Chittister
Wednesday
Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. —Robin Wall Kimmerer
Thursday
We are essentially social beings, and I am only one part of the reflection of the great mystery of God. We are each of us simply one fingerprint or footprint of God. We are essentially connected with one another. The pattern of the universe is that we are one. —Richard Rohr
Friday
And you know your lives are as intricately interwoven as nerve cells in the mind of a great being. . . . Out of that vast net you cannot fall. . . . No stupidity or failure or cowardice can ever sever you from that living web. —Joanna Macy
Gathering as Community
Father Richard offers several practical ways to experience community and discover a bigger reality beyond ourselves:
Our Western culture leans toward self-sufficiency and independence, and we often need to be reminded that we are part of a greater whole and that we are not alone in our longings and efforts for peace, justice, and healing. This is one of the great gifts of what we usually mean by “church”—a gathering of people in solidarity of purpose, praying and seeking God’s presence together.
Find some way in which you can join in the life that is greater than your own. Participate in a vigil, sharing the grief and hope of your neighborhood or world. March with others to bring visibility and voice to an important issue. Make a pilgrimage to a sacred or violated site to connect your small place in time with a history and a broader meaning.
Rest in the knowledge that God’s Spirit weaves your participation as a single thread within a life-renewing pattern. You are connected to the source of Life!
Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (Albuquerque NM: CAC Publishing, 2016), 294.
Explore Further. . .
- Read Barbara Holmes on contemplation and beloved community.
- Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
- Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.
Image Credit: Perry Riddle, Lunch Hour in the Sun (detail), 1976, photograph, Illinois, public domain. Dick Rowan, California – Southern California Big Sur Coastal Area (detail), 1972, photograph, California. Flip Schulke, Inexpensive Retirement Hotels (detail), 1973, photograph, Florida, public domain. Jenna Keiper, 2022, triptych art, United States.
This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.
Image Inspiration: Humanity – we find ways to connect with each other across location, age, and space.
Prayer for our community:
God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough, because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.
