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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Be Not Afraid” ~ a homily with Free Spirit Inclusive Catholic Community; 6/24/23; Elaine Pfaff ARCWP


 


Readings :  Rohr passage CAC “God has been trying through all of history to give away God … mind the gap … There's a space w/in us [where] God is as available to us as our breath … The Holy Spirit within us is the desire inside all of us that wants to keep connecting, relating, and communing .. It is as available as our breath.”


                   Matthew 10: 26-30 ~  Do not be afraid … There is nothing concealed which will not be

revealed … as for you, even the hairs on your head are counted.



I have a plaque at my front door with one of my favorite quotes from Carl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology.  It reads: Bidden or unbidden, God is present.  I believe that!  God is present whether or not I want God to be here …  “in our living and our dying” as our Opening Song says.  


What do we “do” with a God who insists on being as intimate as all that?  A God with whom there are no secrets … where “nothing concealed” won't be “revealed.!”  A God who is so familiar with me, that the “hairs on my head are counted!”


Well, maybe when we're afraid of being that well known, and that completely loved anyway, we operate “in the gap” that Rohr illustrates.  We make a space between us and the Holy Spirit who wants our wholeness. Growing toward wholeness will mean that I will feel it when something hurts.  Growing toward wholeness will mean that I will notice when something hurts people around me.  Growing toward wholeness will mean that I take on the response – ability to heal.


I had a dream recently revealing my fear of that healing process.  I think the dream calls me to trust this ever persistent, ever present, always-creating-me G*d !  I'm reaching for the words of Scripture that repeat “Fear Not” 365 times in the Bible.  An encouragement for each day of the year.  I'm hearing for myself Fear not that love and altruism is in its infancy.  Fear not that your aging body is the temporary receptacle of your growing soul.  Fear not that you will do greater things than I because humanity is created to become God.


Community life, such as we share in Free Spirit Inclusive Catholic Community, is the safe ground in which we can share our conscious fears and the unconscious fears that lie in our shadows.  We trust that our fears dissolve into light somehow as we present ourselves to God who is with us now as we are with one another.


Guided imagery for healing prayer: Release     


* notes on the Shadow to follow      

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