Inner authority (which I always describe as the power to “author” life in others) does not have to do with transmutation of forms and order and title, and the changing of power roles, but the transmutation of our very substance. This is the needed “transubstantiation.” For this reason, I cannot give up on Jesus. He’s such an easy one to believe and follow and love. He uses everything to help, heal, and change people.
The genius of Jesus’ ministry is that he uses tragedy, suffering, betrayal, and death itself, not to wound us but in fact to bring us to God. So there are no dead ends for Jesus. Everything can be transmuted and everything can be used. EVERYTHING!
Failure itself is the raw material of salvation…
Richard Rohr, from The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered
Talking with a friend recently I happened to remark that what I miss in any other faith is Jesus. I may have put it in an unhelpfully offhand way, but it is true. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, and without him it’s hard to imagine how we could ever be set free, truly free (John 14:6; 8:32). He is the everlasting mercy of God (Jude 1:21), and the healer of all who will turn to him… nothing whatever will be able to keep us from his love (Romans 8:35ff), as the martyrs (all those who suffer and die for their faith) show us daily, still.
[Title from Andy’s Park’s song of the same name]
1 comment:
Jesus, yes, you are right. Which may explain why some of what is coming out of the Vatican these days seems so very far from Jesus' Good News...
So far that we layfolks wonder how we can bring Him back in their news.
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