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- Sunday November 20: Awaken in Christ’s Body
To Practice
- Reread these passages aloud in the manner of lectio divina, allowing the sensations and vibrations to penetrate your heart. What is revealed for your journey now?
- Practice waking up in Christ’s body this week. Gaze with love at your hands, your feet, your face. Awaken as the Beloved. Once you have a glimpse of this with yourself, practice this gazing with others.
You may wish to read the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-nov20
“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.”
I find this line very helpful – it expresses something I accept theoretically but don’t always live into – the immensity of Christ, the all inclusiveness of Christ.
I remember as a child going to communion and thinking that when the Eucharistic minister said “The Body of Christ,” she was naming the host. Then one day, I was struck to the core when I realize “Oh no, she is naming me.” It took a third movement for me to realize she was naming herself, the host, me, the birds I heard singing, the annoying person I had recently been critiquing in my mind, and on and on and on.
Thank you Carolyn, I had not seen a lifted host and “The Body of Christ” as “…she is naming me”.
Thank you Pamela and team for Symeon in Sunday’s email. Practising really gazing at and seeing my hands etc as Christ’s body is profound. I have intellectually understood and tried to live Symeon’s “we wake up in Christ’s body” and Teresa of Avila’s, “Christ has no body now but yours” as God in this world through me, through all of us, but actually focussing in this way is a visceral experience for which I am deeply grateful.
Sending much gratitude for all you do for us ??
can feel Christ in me, not so much in my messy life in which unconscious forces are revealing themselves, seemingly non stop, but in gracefilled moments. Yesterday, I walked into a clothing store and wondered aloud to a clerk about the amazing pallette the display served up. I told her about Henry, my late art teacher, and how the last time we were together, he was pointing out a landscape in the distance with layers of colors from front to back, cooling as they receded. The colors in the store as they were arranged were like that. The clerk beamed and told me she designed the whole store her self and arranged everything that was for sale. Christ showed up big time.
The other times are like the other night, when I was on my way to my neighbor’s house (bringing dinner). I don’t register God’s presence so much in the gift, although the neighbors were beside themselves with joy. It was the blowing snow from a blizzard we were in. I stood in wonderment. Such a thing I have never seen! Little tufts of snow rushing past, diamonds shining forth in the greyness. Wow. I am in my third day of trying to recreate this on paper.
When I first read the post, I couldn’t see how Christ manifested in me at all, because of recent negative interactions. Then it came to me that for me to maintain awareness of my faults and the roots of them going way back into childhood, is my way of being the crucified Christ.
Right now, I look out at the St. Lawrence River and Brockville across. Bright pink sky at the horizon, blue above and pink and blue water! Holy moly! Christ outdoing Christself!
These words have kept me focused through the struggles of this week: “We awaken in Christ’s body as Christ awakens our bodies, Christ awakens as the Beloved, in every part of my body.”
“Now is the time to awaken, to clear the lens….”. The way the phrase is written, initially propelled me in the sink hole of “I have to do this”; finally day 5 ,rising from the murky muck, I knew, I know in the marrow of my bones: my part is to show up, be open and receive my awakenings, the clearing of my lens...consent is taking on new dimensions….Christ awakens our bodies each morning from the first moment of consciousness…. as I let welcome flow from my inmost being – with gratitude. I am grateful that Christ kairos timing wraps around my struggling in minutes, the days of chronos living.
Sunday November 20: Awaken in Christ’s Body
I have spent so much of my life avoiding our suppressing pain and woundedness. Father Keating’s words resonate deeply: “The contemplative journey is the most responsible of all responses to God because so much depends on it…It’s basically a total acceptance of the human condition in all its ramifications, including its desperate woundedness.” Consider what courage is garnered worldwide to sit in centering prayer, twice a day, day in and out. Looking on not only our desperate woundedness, and that of humankind, entrusting to God’s presence and action. Co-healing with God humanity’s wounds past, present and to come. Thank you for your work in prayer that heals the world’s woundedness. <3 linda
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