Do you believe the Kingdom of God is within you?

[Galnextdoor]

Have you ever read Nostra Aetate?

1. From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

Yes, I have read this before, but it is not encouraging Catholics to go out and search for “new” truths for them to adopt into the Catholic Church. It is basically saying that if you are in dialogue with people of other faiths you should acknowledge the truths that have been revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. This way you can develop a common bond and perhaps eventually bring them into the Catholic fold. In doing so, we should never forget that the Catholics have “the way, the Truth, and the Life.” That is the point of this document.

If the person you were posting to was a Buddhist, I would say “way to go” now tell about how the Catholics do it. However, the person you were posting to was Catholic, and perhaps confused about how some people are trying to adopt Buddhist practices into the Catholic church. The Catholic Church has the Way, the Truth and the Life. It does not need to adopt beliefs or practices from other churches or religions.

 

[Galnextdoor]

I’ve seen these accusations before and they’re unfounded.

I also talked with Trappists who knew and were friends with Thomas Merton and most of the accusations were due to misunderstanding.

Anyway, you don’t like Thomas Merton ? Fine, there are plenty of other spiritual writers.

However, I would suggest that you refrain from trashing him in this forum. For the information you’re presenting is hearsay and has been found to he lacking in accuracy.

God Bless
Jim

Did you read the article I posted a link to? It quoted someone who was close to him in his last days. It also quoted someone who wrote a Catechism at the request of Pope Paul VI. I am not trying to trash him. I think that his search into Eastern Mysticism led him astray in his last years. This is listed in every biographical article that I have found on him. He was seeing a psychiatrist. However, you say you are the expert because you talked to some people who knew him so everything that has been written about him must be wrong, including excerpts from his diary.

I could post numerous links if you were actually interested, but I see that you are not.

However, Thomas Merton pertains to this thread only in the fact that he was known for trying to mix Eastern Mysticism practices with Catholicism, something that the Church condemns. If you don’t want to accept that fact, that is fine with me. Anyone else can just google and read about him to know what I am talking about.

 

[grannymh]

If so, is it easy to explain?

Is the Kingdom of God a place we might go to after death (Heaven).

Is it both?

This daily mediation does make one think deeply about what it means to follow the teachings of Jesus :

Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it.

Where is it, then? Author Jim Marion’s wonderfully insightful and contemporary suggestion is that the Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. [1] It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place.

Full mediation :

cac.org/the-kingdom-of-heaven-2017-04-11/

Because I now know everything about Thomas Merton except no one has mentioned what tooth paste he uses…Just for fun, here is a very interesting part of the Meditation Link.

"So what do we take it to be? Biblical scholars have debated this question for almost as long as there have been biblical scholars. Many Christians, particularly those of a more evangelical persuasion, assume that the Kingdom of Heaven means the place you go when you die—if you’ve been “saved.” But the problem with this interpretation is that Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it."

My current question is – Should we first pray the Our Father?

 

[Michael_Mayo]

You are getting pretty cheeky there, Granny. I think, like so much in The Kingdom of God, there are many levels of meaning to so many terms and phrases.

Condition of the heart, future utopia, heavenly realm, state for consciousness, in our midst and yet far beyond us, at hand and yet so far away, defying definition…blessed be the Kingdom! “Thy Kingdom come.” Perhaps even non Christian religions have seen a glimps of it, heretics ans sinners. It is not our call. I am content to let God be God and the Kingdom be the Kingdom, both beyond my little mind and understanding. One thing I know, the more I let go of what I think I have, the more I receive. Blessed be God.

 

[grannymh]

From the initial article:
"Where is it, then? Author Jim Marion’s wonderfully insightful and contemporary suggestion is that the Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place.

“Marion suggests specifically that the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus’ way of describing a state we would nowadays call “nondual consciousness” or “unitive consciousness.” The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. These are indeed Jesus’ two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does.”

I have no problem with the Kingdom as a state of consciousness. We experience all things through one state of consciousness or another.

To get a more complete picture of the “Kingdom” which Jesus refers to – What are your comments on the “Lord’s Prayer” – the Our Father?

Is there a possible “contradiction” as hinted in the meditation linked in post 1?

 

[Michael_Mayo]

To get a more complete picture of the “Kingdom” which Jesus refers to – What are your comments on the “Lord’s Prayer” – the Our Father?

Is there a possible “contradiction” as hinted in the meditation linked in post 1?

Contradiction or paradox?

“Thy Kingdom come…they will be done…”

In some ways it is here already, in the Church as some have said, in the lives of faithful people, their moral life and their private prayer life, in the state of consciousness some live. But in some other ways it is far off. Where there is abortion, abuse, discrimination, war and sin the Kingdom is pushed.

This brings us to theodicy doesn’t it? How can a good and loving God who is almighty and omnipresent coexist with evil, both moral and natural(accidents and tragedies)? When we say “Thy Kingdom come” I think we mean in our hearts and minds and world…as the article put it, our state of consciousness and the state of consciousness of the world. At least that would take care of the moral evil. We have to wait until after we die to get beyond natural evil.

 

[simpleas]

Because I now know everything about Thomas Merton except no one has mentioned what tooth paste he uses…Just for fun, here is a very interesting part of the Meditation Link.

"So what do we take it to be? Biblical scholars have debated this question for almost as long as there have been biblical scholars. Many Christians, particularly those of a more evangelical persuasion, assume that the Kingdom of Heaven means the place you go when you die—if you’ve been “saved.” But the problem with this interpretation is that Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it."

My current question is – Should we first pray the Our Father?

I don’t understand the question.

 

[simpleas]

Contradiction or paradox?

“Thy Kingdom come…they will be done…”

In some ways it is here already, in the Church as some have said, in the lives of faithful people, their moral life and their private prayer life, in the state of consciousness some live. But in some other ways it is far off. Where there is abortion, abuse, discrimination, war and sin the Kingdom is pushed.

This brings us to theodicy doesn’t it? How can a good and loving God who is almighty and omnipresent coexist with evil, both moral and natural(accidents and tragedies)? When we say “Thy Kingdom come” I think we mean in our hearts and minds and world…as the article put it, our state of consciousness and the state of consciousness of the world. At least that would take care of the moral evil. We have to wait until after we die to get beyond natural evil.

Today’s mediation reflects on some of what you question/say above :

Suffering Love
Friday, April 28, 2017

Many people rightly question how there can be a good or just God in the presence of so much evil and suffering in the world—about which “God” appears to do nothing. Exactly how is God loving and sustaining what God created? That is our constant dilemma, and without some answer you can quite reasonably become an atheist or at least an agnostic.
I believe—if I am to believe Jesus—that God is precisely suffering love.

If Jesus is the living “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and if there is this much suffering in the world, then God is in some very real way suffering. God is not watching it, but in it! Did your church ever tell you that? How else can we understand the revelation of the cross and that our central Christian image is a naked, bleeding, suffering man? Christians strangely worship a suffering God, largely without realizing it; and Christian mystics even say that there is only one cosmic suffering, and we all share in it, as Paul also seems to intuit (Colossians 1:24).

Many of the happiest and most peaceful people I know love this “crucified God” who walks with crucified people, and thus reveals and “redeems” their plight as God’s own. For them, Jesus is not observing human suffering from a distance; he is somehow in human suffering with us and for us. He includes our suffering in the co-redemption of the world, as “all creation groans in one great act of giving birth” (Romans 8:22). We “make up in our own bodies all that still has to be undergone for the sake of the Whole Body” (Colossians 1:24).

The genius of Jesus’ ministry is his revelation that God uses tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself, not to wound you but in fact to bring you to God. There are no dead ends. Everything can be transmuted and everything can be used.
On the cross, in dramatic theater, God took the worst thing, the killing of God, and made it into the best thing—the redemption of the world! If you gaze upon the mystery of the cross long enough, your dualistic mind breaks down, and you become slow to call things totally good or totally bad. You realize that God uses the bad for good and that many people who call themselves good may in fact not be so good at all. (Remember it was the governing and establishment groups of Rome and Jerusalem that killed Jesus.) At the cross you learn humility, patience, and compassion. You also learn to distinguish between “what is happening” and “what is really happening.” This is called discernment and wisdom.

Sooner or later, life is going to lead you (as it did Jesus) into the belly of the whale, into a place where you can’t fix, control, explain, or understand (usually very concrete and personal; it cannot be merely theoretical). That’s where transformation most easily and deeply happens. That’s when you’re uniquely in the hands of God because you cannot “handle” it yourself.

Suffering is the only thing strong enough to destabilize the imperial ego. It has to be led to the edge of its own resources, so it learns to call upon its Deepest Source. Some might call this the God Self, the True Self, the Christ Self, the Buddha Self, or just the soul. Life at this point is indestructible! In short, you must discover or “save” your own soul, and nothing else can compare with this discovery. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24). (See also Mark 8:36, Matthew 16:26, John 12:25.)

 

[fhansen]

Today’s mediation reflects on some of what you question/say above :

Suffering Love
Friday, April 28, 2017

Many people rightly question how there can be a good or just God in the presence of so much evil and suffering in the world—about which “God” appears to do nothing. Exactly how is God loving and sustaining what God created? That is our constant dilemma, and without some answer you can quite reasonably become an atheist or at least an agnostic.
I believe—if I am to believe Jesus—that God is precisely suffering love.

If Jesus is the living “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and if there is this much suffering in the world, then God is in some very real way suffering. God is not watching it, but in it! Did your church ever tell you that? How else can we understand the revelation of the cross and that our central Christian image is a naked, bleeding, suffering man? Christians strangely worship a suffering God, largely without realizing it; and Christian mystics even say that there is only one cosmic suffering, and we all share in it, as Paul also seems to intuit (Colossians 1:24).

Many of the happiest and most peaceful people I know love this “crucified God” who walks with crucified people, and thus reveals and “redeems” their plight as God’s own. For them, Jesus is not observing human suffering from a distance; he is somehow in human suffering with us and for us. He includes our suffering in the co-redemption of the world, as “all creation groans in one great act of giving birth” (Romans 8:22). We “make up in our own bodies all that still has to be undergone for the sake of the Whole Body” (Colossians 1:24).

The genius of Jesus’ ministry is his revelation that God uses tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself, not to wound you but in fact to bring you to God. There are no dead ends. Everything can be transmuted and everything can be used.
On the cross, in dramatic theater, God took the worst thing, the killing of God, and made it into the best thing—the redemption of the world! If you gaze upon the mystery of the cross long enough, your dualistic mind breaks down, and you become slow to call things totally good or totally bad. You realize that God uses the bad for good and that many people who call themselves good may in fact not be so good at all. (Remember it was the governing and establishment groups of Rome and Jerusalem that killed Jesus.) At the cross you learn humility, patience, and compassion. You also learn to distinguish between “what is happening” and “what is really happening.” This is called discernment and wisdom.

Sooner or later, life is going to lead you (as it did Jesus) into the belly of the whale, into a place where you can’t fix, control, explain, or understand (usually very concrete and personal; it cannot be merely theoretical). That’s where transformation most easily and deeply happens. That’s when you’re uniquely in the hands of God because you cannot “handle” it yourself.

Suffering is the only thing strong enough to destabilize the imperial ego. It has to be led to the edge of its own resources, so it learns to call upon its Deepest Source. Some might call this the God Self, the True Self, the Christ Self, the Buddha Self, or just the soul. Life at this point is indestructible! In short, you must discover or “save” your own soul, and nothing else can compare with this discovery. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24). (See also Mark 8:36, Matthew 16:26, John 12:25.)

I think for the victims of this world, those who’ve suffered abuse at the hands of others, who’ve suffered in any case (which actually includes all of us to one degree or another), that the crucifix, more than the plain empty cross, can speak powerfully to their hearts about the true nature of our loving God . With and in Him, love and truth and empathy and humility reign above all else. Our God contrasts greatly with the gods of this world, or with the concept of God that we tend to gravitate towards automatically, one who’s angry, aloof, and even smug in His power and superiority. And that’s exactly how people often tend to “play God” themselves, if and when they get into positions of power. This, I believe, is a remnant of the “distorted image” that man is said to have conceived of God at the Fall. This is the lack of faith and trust in a good and wise God, one truly worthy of our heeding and loving, that Adam initiated into the world- by his jealousy it could be said. Anyway, this, the true God, is the one whom Jesus came to definitively reveal through His own words and actions, through *Himself. *

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” 1 Cor 11:26

That crucifix declares a very unique God to the world, as we finally become jaded with the alternatives.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Two powerful posts there.

“If you gaze upon the mystery of the cross long enough, your dualistic mind breaks down, and you become slow to call things totally good or totally bad. You realize that God uses the bad for good and that many people who call themselves good may in fact not be so good at all. At the cross you learn humility, patience, and compassion. You also learn to distinguish between “what is happening” and “what is really happening.” This is called discernment and wisdom.”

Recall Paul, “It is in weakness that strength reaches perfection.” 2 Corinthian 12:9

We often pray to God as “Almighty”, never as “all vulnerable”.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Prayer is communication with God, not a union with God.

THE FIFTH MANSIONS

CHAPTER I.

BEGINS TO TREAT OF THE UNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD IN PRAYER. HOW TO BE SURE THAT WE ARE NOT DECEIVED IN THIS MATTER.

1. Let us now speak of the sign which proves the prayer of union to have been genuine. As you have seen, God then deprives the soul of all its senses that He may the better imprint in it true wisdom: it neither sees, hears, nor understands anything while this state lasts, which is never more than a very brief time; 12 it appears to the soul to be much shorter than it really is. God visits the soul in a manner which prevents its doubting, on returning to itself, that it dwelt in Him and that He was within it, and so firmly is it convinced of this truth that, although years may pass before this favour recurs, the soul can never forget it nor doubt the fact, 13 setting aside the effects left by this prayer, to which I will refer later on. The conviction felt by the soul is the main point.

sacred-texts.com/chr/tic/tic13.htm

 

[Michael_Mayo]

The only book I know of that didn’t have the Imprimatur, by Thomas Merton was Zen and the Birds of Appetite.

As I was walking in a gentle rain this morning I appreciated the moment, the gentle rain, the small circles in the puddle, the wet grass, the cool air, all in that present moment without other thoughts. It was beautiful and good - period.

That to me is what Zen is all about. Every moment is sacred.

Our tradition often calls us to think about the future or repent the past. There is not so much emphasis on the present moment. That is something I think we can gain from Zen.

But here we have a Catholic Franciscan talking about God’s will in the present moment.

Living in the present moment:
youtube.com/watch?v=8LeoFWo94us

 

[grannymh]

I don’t understand the question.

My sincere apology for that.

Blessings,
granny

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[grannymh]

“. . .Thy will be done …”

“Thy will be done” is what is cleverly omitted from the meditation link.

 

[simpleas]

“. . .Thy will be done …”

“Thy will be done” is what is cleverly omitted from the meditation link.

“On Earth as it is in Heaven”.

Praying to God that thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven…

We are calling for that to happen I assume, the Kingdom starting from within the human person, so that the Kingdom can come upon the earth…?

I imagine Heaven to be nothing like this realm, but I can see the teachings of Jesus as a reality on this earth once the Kingdom has been sought.

 

[simpleas]

Two powerful posts there.

“If you gaze upon the mystery of the cross long enough, your dualistic mind breaks down, and you become slow to call things totally good or totally bad. You realize that God uses the bad for good and that many people who call themselves good may in fact not be so good at all. At the cross you learn humility, patience, and compassion. You also learn to distinguish between “what is happening” and “what is really happening.” This is called discernment and wisdom.”

Recall Paul, “It is in weakness that strength reaches perfection.” 2 Corinthian 12:9

We often pray to God as “Almighty”, never as “all vulnerable”.

I would never have thought of God as all vulnerable until reading this, even now I struggle to understand what it means…

Almighty and powerful is what I hear, Jesus on the cross I suppose is seen as vulnerable, but he is no longer vulnerable.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

I would never have thought of God as all vulnerable until reading this, even now I struggle to understand what it means…

Almighty and powerful is what I hear, Jesus on the cross I suppose is seen as vulnerable, but he is no longer vulnerable.

Is he not in those who are vulnerable and suffer?

 

[grannymh]

If so, is it easy to explain?

Is the Kingdom of God a place we might go to after death (Heaven).

Is it both?

This daily mediation does make one think deeply about what it means to follow the teachings of Jesus :

cac.org/the-kingdom-of-heaven-2017-04-11/

The description “The Kingdom of God” can be used in so many wonderful marvelous ways. When we sincerely pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, we pray that God’s will be done in our own lives. God’s will leads us to the Kingdom of the Beatific Vision. We are the only creatures who have a spiritual soul that has the power to love God as taught by the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, not by a modern prophet’s misleading metaphors.

It is so very sad that some people use God’s will as a metaphor for some kind of human state where we awaken into it. That is sowing seeds of confusion --confusion about Catholic teachings.

 

[simpleas]

Is he not in those who are vulnerable and suffer?

We say we are the body of Christ, that Jesus suffered as we suffer, but, Jesus rose from the dead, had a glorified body, and ascended into Heaven, something we believe could happen to us after death.
I don’t know, maybe I separate Jesus from humanity in that I don’t understand how he can suffer if he is at the right hand of the father in Heaven.
Yet I believe Christ is within us, guiding, protecting, loving us…the strong one who helps the weak.

 

[simpleas]

The description “The Kingdom of God” can be used in so many wonderful marvelous ways. When we sincerely pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, we pray that God’s will be done in our own lives. God’s will leads us to the Kingdom of the Beatific Vision. We are the only creatures who have a spiritual soul that has the power to love God as taught by the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, not by a modern prophet’s misleading metaphors.

It is so very sad that some people use God’s will as a metaphor for some kind of human state where we awaken into it. That is sowing seeds of confusion --confusion about Catholic teachings.

I don’t think I said that much different from what you say above, eg. God’s will be done in our own lives. When we are doing God’s will, this has affects on not just our own lives but of those people we commune with and the whole of creation. Post 97.

There is much to look into regarding the Kingdom within, spiritual renewal, etc.

Thanks all for your thoughts and concerns so far in this thread.