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April 14, 2025: Rabbi Heschel & Hildegard of Bingen on Darkish Nights & Holiness
Reflecting on the darkish night time of the soul that our nation and world is enmeshed in, it may be useful to learn the knowledge of the mystics. Rabbi Heschel stated: The Biblical reply to evil isn’t the nice however the holy. It’s an try to boost people to a better degree of existence, the place humanity isn’t alone when confronted with evil. Mitzvah is one method to expertise the holy. Mitzvah is “a prayer within the type of a deed.” In the meantime, Hildegard of Bingen evokes with phrases, work, and music. One former pupil wrote to Matthew after his latest DM about certainly one of Hildegard’s portray: “Right here is the one sentence which will certainly change my life once more ceaselessly: ‘They develop into different Christs, different anointed mountains of God.’”
April 15, 2025: Two Good Items on Passover & Palm Sunday within the “Secular” Press
Matthew exults in two substantive articles within the secular press on two of our most holy days. One was written by Jennifer Rubin who, out of conscience, stop the Washington Put up lately. It was titled: “Lively Empathy is life-changing: A phrase about ‘the stranger.’” * She says that the “central message” of Passover is empathy. She cites the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you recognize the center of a stranger: You have been strangers within the land of Egypt.” (Ex. 23:9) On the Christian facet, Episcopal priest Andrew Thayer tells us that “Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession.”** Whereas Caesar dominated with coercion, domination, and the specter of violence, Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey was fairly the alternative. The cry “Hosanna!” meant “Save us!” (from imperial rule).
April 16, 2025: The Warfare Towards Empathy (within the Names of Trump & Christ)
Empathy isn’t solely the central message of Passover, it’s integral to Christianity as properly. Jesus taught: “Be compassionate as your Creator in heaven is compassionate.” In distinction, we have now this latest article within the Guardian: “Detest thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian proper are waging conflict on empathy.”*** Creator Julia Carrie Wong underscores how “Trump’s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. However an unholy alliance seeks to solid empathy as a parasitic plague.” The purpose of the rightwing motion in opposition to empathy is to squash “our capability to acknowledge and reply to struggling” and is “a flashing pink mild warning of fascist intent.” Amongst different issues, it makes room for mass deportation with out due course of. In response to Susan Lanzone, writer of Empathy: A Historical past, “The disparagement of empathy is…a deliberate effort to arrange a permission construction to dehumanize others.”****
April 17, 2025: America Beware: Opus Dei Is Again within the Information Once more
Reflecting on empathy and the dearth thereof within the present administration, we discover that 43 Argentinian girls are suing Opus Dei. They declare they “turned like a slave.” One lady stated that on the age of 12, her mother and father introduced her to Opus Dei, hoping she might escape the cycle of poverty. As an alternative, Opus Dei gave her a schedule “that detailed each process for each minute of her day.” She stated, “They handled me like a slave with none capability to assume or act or do.” Ladies have been anticipated to cook dinner and clear 12 hours a day with none pay. At 16, they got a cilice to put on 2 hours a day as “penance for his or her sins” and a whip to flagellate themselves throughout prayer.***** What makes this story particularly related is that Venture 2025 was overseen by Kevin Roberts, a detailed ally of Opus Dei (together with Leonard Leo who nearly single handedly created our present Supreme Court docket).
April 18, 2025: Good Friday, 2025
The crucifixion is an archetype about empires who torture and kill those that dare to problem these in energy with various views of society. Folks present in Jesus and his truth-telling a hope that energized them. His parables supplied an invite to kind one’s personal conscience. These in positions of energy discovered this a menace, and they also silenced him (or so that they thought). Fortuitously, his story and his teachings dwell on. The experiences of Awe (the sacred) and the Terrible (evil) run parallel in our lives. Hildegard is one one that paints each the ecstasy of the Divine and the horrors of evil. Good Friday is an invite to not shrink from evil however to acknowledge it and battle it.
April 29, 2025: Easter 2025: Resurrection of the Physique, Physique Politic, Mom Earth?
One of many extra fascinating reflections on resurrection comes from Otto Rank, a Jewish psychologist, who says that the resurrection was the “best revolutionary thought” in human historical past as a result of it democratized immortality. Resurrection is for all of us. Rank believes the concern of demise has impacted human historical past profoundly. Humankind’s seek for immortality performs out
within the creation of pyramids, dynasties, empires, and so forth. We nonetheless have the potential of resurrecting each democracy and the human race, to not point out the Earth herself. Could we rise to the event!
* Jennifer Rubin, “Lively Empathy is life-changing: A phrase about ‘the stranger.’” The Contrarian, April 14, 2025
** Andrew Thayer, “Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession.” The New York Instances / Opinion, April 13 2025.
***Julia Carrie Wong, “Detest thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian proper are waging conflict on empathy,” The Guardian, April 8, 2025.
****Susan Lanzone, Empathy: A Historical past. Yale College Press, 2018.
*****Harriet Barber, “‘I turned like a slave’: why 43 girls are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina.” The Guardian, April 14, 2025
Banner picture: Dawn on an Easter morning at a cemetery in Pt. Nice, PA. (The solar rose after the dawn service was full and everybody had wandered off.) Picture by Cynthia Greb. Used with permission.
Really useful Studying
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the that means and apply of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the longer term that guarantees private, social, and international therapeutic, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, main the way in which towards a gentler and extra ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate exercise.
“Effectively price our deepest consideration…Places compassion into its correct focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of many best feminine artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Custom. On the age of 42, she started to have visions; these have been captured as 36 illuminations–24 of that are recorded on this e book alongside together with her commentaries on them.
“If one individual deserves credit score for the good Hildegard renaissance in our time, it’s Matthew Fox.” – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, writer of Sacred Voices.
In what could also be thought-about essentially the most complete define of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the style by which the spirit of Christ resurrects when it comes to the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the younger, the rebirth of efficient types of worship—all of those mirroring the continuing blessings of Mom Earth and the restoration of Eros, the female facet of the Divine.
“The eighth surprise of the world…convincing proof that our Western non secular custom does certainly have the depth of creativeness to reinvent its religion.” — Brian Swimme, writer of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This e book is a traditional.” Thomas Berry, writer of The Nice Work and The Dream of the Earth.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
As Matthew Fox notes, when an growing older Albert Einstein was requested if he had any regrets, he replied, “I want I had learn extra of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics characterize a wide-ranging sampling of those readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no religion. The visionaries quoted vary from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in disaster, and we want street maps that may floor us in knowledge, encourage us to motion, and assist us collect our skills in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary e book does simply that. Matthew Fox takes among the most profound non secular teachings of the West and interprets them into sensible each day mediations. Research and apply these teachings. Take what’s on this e book and educate it to the youth as a result of the brand new technology can’t afford to undergo the spirit and moral illiteracy of the previous.” — Adam Bucko, non secular activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Basis for Homeless Youth.
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had at all times shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and concern. Nevertheless, given right now’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this e book using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this e book with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For instant entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white pictures, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for instant obtain.
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