The Universal Christ
Summary: Sunday, December 2-Friday, December 7, 2018
What if we’ve missed the point of who Christ is, what Christ is, and where Christ is? I believe that a Christian is simply one who has learned to see Christ everywhere. (Sunday)
All matter reveals Spirit, and Spirit needs matter to “show itself”! “The Second Coming of Christ” happens whenever and wherever we allow this to be utterly true for us. (Monday)
In the beginning was the Blueprint, and the Blueprint was with God, and the Blueprint was God. . . . And all things came to be through this inner plan. The inner reality of God became manifest in the outer world as the Cosmic or Eternal Christ. (Tuesday)
The Christ who comes forth from the Trinity is both the Alpha and the Omega point of all history. This metaphysical and cosmic statement gives the whole universe meaning, direction, and goal! (Wednesday)
The Universal Christ permeates all creation including us. We are all the image and likeness of God. (Thursday)
Collectively, we’re moving toward the Omega point; but every time you and I hate, fear, compete, attack, judge, separate—thus avoiding the necessary letting go—we are resisting the full flow of Love, the energy which is driving the universe forward. (Friday)
Practice: Opening Our Eyes
My friend and fellow Franciscan, Sister Ilia Delio, unpacks what the Christ mystery means and how we might practice seeing Christ everywhere.
So does everyone have to become Christian to know the Christ? Absolutely not; Christ is more than Jesus. Christ is the communion of divine personal love expressed in every created form of reality—every star, leaf, bird, fish, tree, rabbit and every human person. Everything is christified because everything expresses divine love incarnate. However, Jesus Christ is the “thisness” of God (“God is like this and this is God”) so what Jesus is by nature everything else is by grace (divine love). We are not God but every single person is born out of the love of God, expresses this love in [their] unique personal form and has the capacity to be united with God. . . . Because Jesus is the Christ, every human is already reconciled with every other human in the mystery of divine [love] so that Christ is more than Jesus alone; Christ is the whole reality bound in a union of love.
We cannot know this mystery of Christ as a doctrine or an idea; it is the root reality of all existence. Hence we must travel inward, into the interior depth of the soul where the field of divine love is expressed in the “thisness” of our own, particular lives. Each of us is a little word of the Word of God, a mini-incarnation of divine love. The journey inward requires surrender to this mystery in our lives and this means letting go of our control buttons. It means dying to the untethered selves that occupy us daily; it means embracing the sufferings of our lives, from the little sufferings to the big ones; it means allowing God’s grace to heal us, hold us and empower us for life. It means entering into darkness, the unknowns of our lives, and learning to trust the darkness, for the tenderness of divine love is already there. It means [being] willing to sacrifice all that we have for all that we can become in the power of God’s love; and finally it means to let God’s love heal us of the opposing tensions within us. No one can see God and live and thus we must surrender our partial lives to become whole in the love of God. When we can say with full voice, “you are the God of my heart, my God and my portion forever” [Psalm 73:26] then we can open our eyes to see that the Christ in me is the Christ in you. We are indeed One in love.
Reference:
Ilia Delio, “A Reply to Richard Rohr on the Cosmic Christ,” October 16, 2017, https://www.omegacenter.info/reply-to-richard-rohr-cosmic-christ/.
For Further Study:
Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution (Orbis Books: 2008)
Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (Orbis Books: 2013)
Richard Rohr, Christ, Cosmology, & Consciousness: A Reframing of How We See (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), MP3 download
Richard Rohr, The Cosmic Christ (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2009), CD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent Books: March 5, 2019; Now available for pre-order!)
