To Explore A New Paradigm For Christian Living For Laity And Religious – An Evolutionary Approach

I was overjoyed and privileged to attend Ilia’s seminar. Below I offer her thoughts and some reflections on her presentations. It was a most challenging two days and Ilia offers some refreshing and scholarly Christology.

To be a Christian is to be Christified, to make Christ alive through relationships of love, to enter into dialogue with persons of other cultures and religions, to share life with others, to “put on” Christ. To be Christian means to plunge ourselves into the world, getting involved with humanity, earth’s people, and the earth itself. Christ is relational and hence the source of community. The Spirit sent by Christ leads us to Christ and through Christ to the Father.

To live Christ is to live community; to bear Christ in one’s life is to become a source of healing for the sake of the community. Christ is the power of God among us, the fullness of the earth and of life in the universe. We humans have the potential to make Christ alive; it is what we are created for. To live the mystery of Christ is to live in the surrender of love, the poverty of being and the cave of the heart.

HOMECOMING
Come home to yourself.
Remember who you are each moment.
God is the dance, you are the dancer.
We hold a beauty within,
A sacred presence,
A dream in a mist.
We walk among shadows
Where wisdom is born.
Awaken what is asleep.
Stimulate the soul with His Word.
Find a new self divinised,
Graced always by the Trinity.
Feel the winds of change,
Calling you to peace.
Receive all you are meant to be,
In that joy, be still.
Let attentive silence grow.
In the inner strength of gentleness,
Come home to yourself.

If we can allow the Spirit to take hold of us and liberate us from our fears, anxieties, demands and desire for power and control, then we can live in the risen Christ who empowers us to build a new creation. We can look to a time when there will be one Cosmic person uniting all persons, one Cosmic humanity uniting all humanity, one Christ in whom God will be all in all.

In a world suffering from wars, famine, ecological and humanitarian crises, what does being a Christian mean? Who is Christ for us today? Has the reality of Christ become irrelevant in a universe marked by evolution? How do we effect change that leads to a more visible expression of Christ? The Spirit of God who hovered over this creation from the beginning, continues to breathe within and among us, luring us into a new creation. We are called to become mystics. Evolution is integral to a mystic’s vision. Christian mystics rest on an intense personal relationship with Jesus. To be a Christian is to be immersed in creation.

There is a spiritual potency in matter to receive the Divine Word in it.

GREAT COSMIC MOTHER
In the mirror of the river,
The Cosmic Goddess rises,
Ushering in, in her celestial light
Planetary evolution.
Weaving patterns like gossamer snow
On mountains crests and valleys,
In ancient trees her story telling.
And with her face to the sky,
In fiery ringlets, creates the sun.
An audible landscape carving out
Of the salting sea.
Sealing dreams in the stardust of our souls,
Leaving a carbon trail,
Like silver snakes in the infinite calm,
Of the sky’s radiant blackness.
Returning to herself in cosmic joy,
Each spark of cellular light,
So nothing’s lost in giving birth.
Cascades of energy fall upon the universe.
Soft echoes of her musings in
Rhythmic pulses of pure beauty’s spirit,
Awakens a universal song.
She continues her drama forever,
An unseen choreography of light.
And we are stardust, guided by
The silken threads of
Her great cloak,
Sparks of her divinity.

We discover in Jesus the entire meaning of humanity and the universe. The dynamic life of Christ empowers the universe through the human person, open to God and the movement of the universe toward integration and unity in love. The world is permeated with God’s love. The whole evolutionary creation is a “divine milieu”, pregnant with God. Evolution is the way life proceeds in the universe, not only in terms of the physical world but in the spiritual life as well. Christ is the inner meaning of the universe and its goal, the Omega point.

Christ is the symbol of our human identity and vocation which, in its acceptance and fulfillment, is the union of all created reality in the love of God. Our participation in the mystery of Christ, therefore, lies at the basis of a healing world, a world aimed towards the fullness of the Reign of God. We as Christians are called to lead the whole evolutionary movement to its fulfillment. We find our identity in God.

Christian love is the energy of evolution. We are to explore the unfolding presence of the Word incarnate in a world where the fire of Christ’s love has grown cold because we have failed to nurture Christ. How do we rekindle this power, to see Christ as the integrating centre of our lives and of a universe moving toward God?

We have a new vision of the universe, a new hope in this second axial period. We are in a new age of consciousness that signifies a new level of awareness around the globe, brought about through technology and mass communications. Today we can speak of ‘mind embedded in the physical fabric of the cosmos’. Matter alive with energy evolves to spirit. Human spirit is the cosmos come to consciousness. We are situated in a web of life. The same currents that run through our blood also run through the swirling galaxies and the myriad of life forms on this planet, a single self – transcending current of all pervading energy that brings new life out of seeming catastrophe. There is an inner pressure for spiritual transcendence.

COSMIC DANCE
The Cosmic Dance of life,
Above the mountain peaks,
Continues in a patterned
Labyrinth of universal energy.
We rise, standing tall,
Amidst the vibrant waters of new birth,
And hail the newness of it all.

Each atom embracing spiritually,
An earthen symphony forming.
Creation dawns itself again,
And earth mothers everywhere rejoice.
A miracle takes shape again
In swirling space,
As on Creations first awakening,
But today is new.
Sun meets moon in light and darkness.
Seeds dance beneath the soul.
All creatures sing their spirit song,
Everywhere honouring,
The Cosmic Dance of Life.

We are called to engage our faith with the best insights of science concerning the nature of our physical world. Can we find a fresh foothold in the immense and mobile universe of contemporary science, before science itself replaces our inherited spiritualties?  Can science give depth and richness to our sense of the great mystery of faith? Can the science of evolution open new windows of insight into the relationship between God and the universe? Evolution is an evolution of consciousness – the result of human creativity and inventiveness. We are invited to bring about a new integration of the spiritual and the material, of sacred and secular energy into a total global human energy. We live in a communal, global, ecological, and cosmic time. It is a time that encourages dialogue, community and relationship. We are a global people in search of identity and relationship. We need a Christology that speaks to our world – one awake to the cries of the world. The Christ of the Gospel must be rediscovered if he is to be relevant to the whole universe.

We need to discover the sacramentality of creation that emanates from God’s spoken Word. This Word transforms what is nothing into something that lovingly reflects the heart of God. All of creation: rocks, trees, stars, plants, animal and humans, reflect the power and wisdom of the Trinity. God shines through all creation. Creation is a mirror of God. Christ is the goal towards which the universe is moving and in whom the cosmos will find completion. The world is not blindly hurtling itself into an aimless expansion but is moved by Christ to Christ. God creates towards an end. That end as embodied in Christ points to a Christified world. The universe has a divine aim that involves the radical transformation of created realities through the unitative power of God’s love. The universe has a destiny.

We need to rediscover Christ not only as a healer of wounded humanity and of the earth itself, but Christ as the meaning and goal of the universe, the sacrament of unity in love, the one who is the integrating centre of the cosmos. We need to see the mystery of Christ with new eyes and listen to the voice of Christ in new languages. We need to experience the mystery of God’s love anew. We are the growing tip of the evolutionary process and its prime influence. What we think and how we act in the universe will influence how the goal of the universe will be attained. Our faith plays a vital role in shaping the human evolutionary consciousness. There is need for a new road in all religious traditions. We are evolving towards a new religious consciousness. We need multi-faith dialogue. We need a dialogue of life, in which we engage each other in community, in neighbourly exchange, cooperate in mutual projects, share religious practices such as prayer and contemplation and critical reflection.

The more we contemplate Christ the more we discover our identity. Spirituality is the key to penetrating the depth of divine mystery. We must let ourselves be possessed by the God of overflowing love as that love flows into the heart of creation. We must discover Christ as new life within us. We must allow ourselves to be changed to a new level of consciousness, a new level of transcendent love and a new vision of the world. We are called to be co-creators, as co-operators with God in the transformation of the universe. We are made in God’s image. We have the capacity to give birth to God in creation. Our role is to divinise the world in Jesus Christ, to Christify the world by our actions.

The Church is the place where Christ ‘amorises’ Christians through community, the sacraments, where Christian love is energised. We are called to acquire the gifts of mercy, peace, forgiveness, charity and kindness. Love has the power to transform and the power of transforming love lies within us, for each of us has the power to make present the living God.

We need a return to prayer, solitude, contemplation and scripture as the source of spiritual life. We need a penetrating insight into God as creator, as the God of hope and promise. We are called to live in creation as gift, relating to creation as brothers and sisters and treating nature with respect. We must die into love and be who we say we are. We must bear Christ within us and express the life of Christ in the world. What am I becoming? We need to:

• Rest on the future
• Trust in life
• Live to the point of tears
• Live to lose ourselves
• Recover awe and wonder
• Live in love
• Live in the moment
• Imagine, love, connect

God is within and up ahead. God is the power of the future.

(Poems are copyright.)

Ann Crowley rsm
South Central Province