Saturday, March 26, 2016

ACCEPTED BY HIM 

John 8:6-8 Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time…

            A wise man once said that a truly intelligent person is one who has learned to be happy with himself. The secret of self-acceptance, often hidden from the wise and clever, the Ph.D.’s and power brokers of this world, is the way of integrity born of fidelity to the dream. When we are comfortable with ourselves, a new-found freedom blossoms. Am I free? If not, why not?

“When we accept ourselves for what we are, we cease to hunger for power or the acceptance of others because our self-intimacy reinforces our inner sense of security. We are no longer preoccupied with being powerful or popular. We no longer fear criticism or contradiction because we accept the reality of human limitations. Integrated, we are no longer plagued with the desire to please others because simply being true to ourselves brings lasting inner peace.”

The risk-taking disciple who dares to listen to his feelings, rather than to the voice of authority or to the majority, may quickly discover that his inner echoes do not resonate with the vox populi. He finds this is unnerving to himself and disturbing to the palace guard.

The risk-takers, who listen to the Spirit speaking through their feelings are ready to chance something, fully aware that the history of Christian spirituality is not one of obedient conformity, however much some people prefer to view it that way. Rather, as Francis, Dominic, Ignatius and others saw, it is a history of fidelity to the dream, writing the gospel afresh for one’s own generation, and imaginative response to the needs of the Church.


A Stranger to Self-Hatred: A Glimpse of Jesus by Brennan Manning, pgs.103-105.   

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