Richard Rohr – The Wisdom Way (Part Fourteen)

About this sermon

“The Wisdom Way: Scripture, Tradition, and Experience” was a week-long retreat held at the Center for Action and Contemplation for students from Fuller Seminary in April and May 2013. The week of teaching was designed with the goal of “understand[ing] scripture and tradition and experience in a critical way.” Ultimately, Father Richard Rohr and the Fuller students sought to develop a working definition of wisdom for those seeking contemplative spirituality. In this first session of day 5, Fr. Richard Rohr explains his understanding of the Cosmic Christ. He first argues that what contemporary science has learned about the nature of the universe supports the idea that “matter and spirit are . . . two sides of the same coin.” The Cosmic Christ refers not to Jesus the historical figure, but to the eternal Christ—the Divine “blueprint” that has been within all of reality from the moment of the Big Bang. Fr. Richard turns to the beginning chapters of the books of John, Ephesians, 1 John, Hebrews, and Colossians in order to illustrate their authors’ understandings that Jesus became the eternal Christ through his death and resurrection, and that redemption was never about a blood sacrifice but rather it is about recognizing the Divine nature within ourselves. He argues that “by and large, the Christian Church, except at the mystical level, has taught people to believe in Jesus; but very few of us have taught our people to believe in Christ. And that, in my opinion, is why we have such lousy earth care, sexual theology, such poor sense of social justice in the collective, in the whole, because the biggest single heresy is we individualized this whole thing.” Fr. Richard teaches that “original participation” is any spirituality that can honor the Divine in the universe even without Christian theology putting a name to it. He notes that “normally the way human beings come to this recognition of the Presence is through falling, through failure, through sin, through brokenness, through wounding.” What Fr. Richard calls “the mind of Christ,” which is what we call the Son of the Holy Trinity, is accessible to all of us as the recognition that we are both human consciousness and Divine consciousness. Ultimately, Fr. Richard concludes, “this is the Christ: whenever the spiritual and the material are seen to coexist and honored in their coexistence.” CENTER FOR ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Founded by Richard Rohr in 1987, our programs and resources are designed to help deepen prayer practice and strengthen compassionate engagement in the world. https://cac.org Subscribe: https://bit.ly/3QypRgu Learn more about Who We Are: https://bit.ly/3D8TtdU Learn more about What We Do: https://bit.ly/3qrYFGc Learn more about Richard Rohr: https://bit.ly/3ozYdmP Learn more about Contemplation: https://bit.ly/3wNojGF

Topics

• Wisdom