...."Jesus began his mission by announcing the dawn of a new age, a new humanity unified in the love of God and committed to the reign of God. He challenged the social pattern of exclusivity and sought to replace it with the values of compassion and mercy. His inner oneness with God became manifest on the level of community, where he sought to overcome divisions by giving priority to men and women as coequal in God’s reign and by empowering the poor, lowly, and marginalized...He lived from this wholeness by going “all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing people from every kind of disease and sickness” (Mt 4: 23). He constantly challenged others to see, to awaken to the presence of God, and to be part of an undivided whole, the kingdom (or “kin-dom”) of God, where Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and female are invited as equals to the divine banquet. Jesus internalized the Torah so that obedience to God was not dutifully following the law but the human heart centered in God. He challenged those who claimed to see but were blinded by their own ambitions and addiction to power, leading them to “bind up heavy loads and put them on the shoulders of men and women” (Mt 23: 4)."
" He chastised those who substituted legalism for charity, looked down on others, or separated themselves from others as if they were superior (see Lk 18: 9–11). Instead, he ate with outcasts and sinners (Mk 2: 15) and accepted those declared untouchable as friends, revealing God’s merciful love. The Gospels consistently show Jesus’s outreach to the economically poor and oppressed; to those who were diseased, disabled, or possessed; and to society’s outcasts, including prostitutes, tax collectors, and other public sinners. Over and over again in the Gospels we see Jesus criticized by those who burdened the poor and defenseless and who wielded power over others: “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Mt 21: 31). He reached out to everyone and invited each person into a new relatedness with God and neighbor, challenging the powerful and raising up the poor. ..."
" His Jewish renewal program transcended the Greek cosmos and ushered in a new cosmos, a new order of life centered in the wellspring of divine love; a new cosmic family, a new household of relationships where the members are mothers, sisters, and brothers. Interestingly, Edwards notes, “Fathers are not mentioned and the disciples are instructed: ‘Call no one on earth your father’ (Mt 23: 8–12). With a God who was Abba, there was apparently no place in the new community for the role of the patriarchal father.” 6 This radically new community under God is like a new Big Bang, a new whole that requires a new level of consciousness and participation. In Jesus we see not only a new direction but a new catholicity...."
About the Author: Sister Ilia Delio:
The bestselling author of The Unbearable Wholeness of Being introduces a new paradigm for being Catholic:Catholicity, destined to become as familiar in this century as the word Catholic was in the 2nd century. Catholicity is a conscious awareness of how everything —the sun, moon, stars, Kepler, Saturn, maple trees, muddy rivers, amoeba, bacteria and all peoples of the earth — form a whole. It is a dynamic quality of being which burst forth in the life of Jesus with the power to make all things new. It is now beginning to connect all the dimensions of life: religion, spirituality, the sciences, art, culture, and society. Sr. Ilia fully describes this unitive principle which is being expressed by Pope Francis and emerging in the lives of sincere seekers everywhere. Making All Things New is at once an important stand-alone work and the first volume in a new series unveiling the reality of catholicity and wholeness under the guidance of Sr. Ilia Delio.
Ilia Delio, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Washington, D.C., holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. She served as Director of the Catholic Studies Program and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. A native of Newark, NJ, Delio earned doctorates in pharmacology from the New Jersey Medical School/School of Biomedical Sciences and in historical theology from Fordham University, NY. She received a prestigious Templeton Course in Science and Religion award. She lectures widely and is author of 16 books including Christ in Evolution, Care for Creation, The Emergent Christ, and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being all Catholic Press Assocation Book Award Winners. She is also editor of From Teilhard to Omega: Co-creating an Unfinished Universe (Orbis 2014).
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