SUFFERING
Topic: Sound Bites
Suffering is the necessary feeling of evil. If we don’t feel evil we stand antiseptically apart from it, numb. We can’t understand evil by thinking about it. The sin of much of our world is that we stand apart from pain; we buy our way out of the pain of being human. Jesus did not numb himself or withhold from pain. Suffering is the necessary pain so that we know evil, so that we can name evil and confront it. Otherwise we somehow dance through this world and never really feel what is happening.
Brothers and sisters, the irony is not that God should feel so fiercely; it’s that his creatures feel so feebly. If there is nothing in your life to cry about, if there is nothing in your life to complain about, if there is nothing in your life to yell about, you must be out of touch. We must all feel and know the pain of humanity. The free space that God leads us into is to feel the full spectrum, from great exaltation and joy, to the pain of mourning and dying and suffering. It’s called the Paschal Mystery.
The totally free person is one who can feel all of it and not be afraid of any of it.Fr Richard Rohr, from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 209, day 218
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 10:40 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 10 March 2009 10:43 AM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 12:27 PM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
We should pray without ceasing because we cannot complete anything without God's help. - John Trithemius
Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom, by Hugh Feiss
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 12:25 PM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
Thus says the Lord God: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and do what is just and right. Cease your evictions of my people, says the Lord God.
- Ezra 45:9-9
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 12:25 PM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
In the early Christian communities, the character of the Jesus movement found expression in the abolition of social distinctions of class, religion, race, and gender. - Mary John Mananzan Quoted in Cry Freedom, by Charles Ringma
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 3:26 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, 19 July 2007 3:27 PM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. - 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 10:31 AM EDT
Topic: Sound Bites
When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, "Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, "Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." - Luke 14:8-11
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 6:41 AM EDT
