Week of 2/27-3/4/2023: Truth, Justice & Recovering the Sacred

February 27, 2023. Jesus on Truth, Passion, and Speaking Truth to Power
In this meditation, Matthew addresses a reader who thought that “calling people bad names” is not something that Jesus would have done. This was said in light of recent daily meditations regarding the lies promulgated by Fox News and those in positions of power there. Matthew responds by giving one potent example of how Jesus did chastise those who behaved in less-than-godly ways. For instance, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus holds nothing back in a tirade against the scribes and Pharisees. He ends with Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape being condemned to hell? Matthew reminds us that prophets (including us) are required to speak up in the face of injustice. Like Jesus, we can learn to speak Truth with passion and power.

February 28, 2023. Mystics Speaking Truth to Power: Sister Dorothy Stang
Matthew shares the first part of a short speech he gave at the commemoration of Sister Dorothy Stang’s martyrdom at the hands of evil forces of greed at work in the Amazon rainforest. He shared that he’d once had a powerful dream. In it he was told that “There is only one thing wrong with the human species today.”  Matthew was all ears. The answer was this: “You have forgotten the sense of the Sacred.” This message was echoed by eco-prophet Thomas Berry when he taught :It has been said, ‘We will not save what we do not love.’ It is also true that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred…. Eventually, only our sense of the sacred will save us. Sister Dorothy Stang was one who saw the sacred and the Divine in both the people and the ecosystem of the Amazon.

March 1, 2023. Saved by a Sense of the Sacred: Sister Dorothy Stang, Part II
In this DM, Matthew shares beautiful wisdom from mystics and prophets and activists like Sr. Dorothy Stang. For instance, Aquinas said: The most excellent thing in the universe is not the human.  The most excellent thing in the universe is the universe itself.  And all creatures are here to serve the universe. Meanwhile, Thomas Berry said: We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being.  Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.

March 2, 2023. Sister Dorothy and Recovering the Sacred, Part III
Matthew continues to share the talk he gave at an event honoring Sister Dorothy Stang. He mentions Rabbi Heschel who defines wonder as the “act in which the mind confronts the universe.”  The rabbi informs us time and time again that “awe is the beginning of wisdom.” Matthew says, “We challenge evil with a sense of the Sacred, and the joy that follows from that expands the heart.” Sr. Dorothy understood this. Matthew tells us that she was a joyful person. And serious. And strong. And concerned. And caring. She drank deeply of the sacred in the forest and among the pastoral projects with the people she worked with, built schools with, stood with. Sr. Dorothy was a beautiful example of how we can all embrace the sacred and stand up for what is right and true.

March 3, 2023. Another Mystic, Thomas Aquinas, Speaking Out on Truth
Returning once again to the trial against Fox News and the lies that it perpetuated, we explore the power of Truth. Thomas Aquinas said “the proper objects of the heart are truth and justice.” Author/activist bell hooks said “The heart of justice is truth telling.” Finally, Aquinas encourages us by saying “every truth without exception—and whoever may utter it—is from the Holy Spirit.” May we all recommit to sacred Truth.

March 4, 2023. The Cosmic Christ–Us–on “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”
In this meditation, we explore some of the great “I Am” statements in the scriptures: I am the light of the world, I am the Living Bread, I am the Vine, I am the Door, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the Resurrection and the Life, and I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. About the latter, Matthew teaches us that “the Way” was a reference to the church, but not so much the institution as a pathway to Truth and Life.

Banner image: Light, Truth, and the Sacred. Photo by Patrick on Unsplash

Recommended Reading

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.