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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Fifty

Self-Emptying

Less Is More
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Third Sunday of Advent

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)

Kenosis, which means “letting go” or “self-emptying,” is clearly the way of Jesus. My spiritual father Saint Francis of Assisi lived kenosis passionately, and it is key to my own teaching. I believe all great spirituality is about letting go. Yet many associate letting go with Buddhism more than with Christianity. Sadly, Christianity seems to have become more about “saving your soul” or what some now call “spiritual capitalism.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) profoundly understood this Gospel reversal. He let go of his life in the upper class and joyfully lived in solidarity with those at the bottom, especially the sick and the poor. But you and I have grown up with a capitalist and individualistic worldview, not a Gospel or Franciscan worldview. That doesn’t make us bad or entirely wrong. But it has severely limited our spiritual understanding—and Christianity’s power to transform culture and history. We tend to think that “more for me” is naturally better. South African Dominican writer Albert Nolan viewed our Western crisis of meaning with clarity:

The cultural ideal of the Western industrialized world is the self-made, self-sufficient, autonomous individual who stands by himself or herself, not needing anyone else . . . and not beholden to anyone for anything. . . . This is the ideal that people live and work for. It is their goal in life, and they will sacrifice anything to achieve it. This is how you “get a life for yourself.” This is how you discover your identity. . . .

There have been plenty of people in the past with inflated egos—kings, conquerors, and other dictators—but in the Western world today the cultivation of the ego is seen as the ideal for everyone. Individualism permeates almost everything we do. It is a basic assumption. It is like a cult. We worship the ego. [1]

In our consumer culture, even religion and spirituality have very often become a matter of addition: earning points with God, attaining enlightenment, producing moral behavior. Yet authentic spirituality is not about getting, attaining, achieving, performing, or succeeding—all of which tend to pander to the ego. It is much more about letting go—letting go of what we don’t need anyway, although we don’t know that ahead of time.

The great Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart (1260‒1328) said, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.” [2] True spiritual wisdom reveals that less is more. Jesus taught this, and the holy ones always discover it in one way or another. Think of the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, and the generations of nuns, friars, and monks who intentionally took a “vow of poverty.” I did so myself in 1965.

Sadly, like so many things that we call Christianity, we find that if we scratch right beneath the surface, it isn’t very much of Christianity; it’s just our local religious culture. Thankfully, there is a real longing today to clarify what is of Christ, what is essential Gospel, and what is historical or denominational accident.

Gateway to Action & Contemplation:
What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?

Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.

Listen to Fr. Richard read the prayer.

Story from Our Community:
I’ve been visited by cosmic joy while walking my dog down a forest trail. . . riding down a Fresno boulevard on the back of a motorcycle at night, sitting on a boulder in the midst of a rushing Smoky Mountain stream, staring into the eyes of a large grouper on a coral reef, and while sitting on the fireplace hearth staring at the twinkle lights of our Christmas tree knowing that our family would be together the next day. The feeling is a gift from God; it is brief, totally encompassing, and profound reassurance that I am one with my Creator. When we are visited by cosmic joy, fear morphs completely into love. —Sheryl M.

Share your own story with us.

[1] Albert Nolan, Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom (Orbis Books: 2006), 15, 16.

[2] Meister Eckhart, Existimo quod non sunt condignae (Sermon on Romans 8:18). Original text is “Nihil apponendo, sed subtrahendo in anima invenitur deus.”

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis, discs 1 and 2 (Sounds True: 2010), CD; and

Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1987, 2005), downloadable audiobook.

Image credit: Ajanta Caves (detail mural of the Buddha), Aurangabad, Maharashtra State, India.

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Action & Contemplation

2020 Daily Meditations Theme

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. —Micah 6:8

Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. If we pray but don’t act justly, our faith won’t bear fruit. And without contemplation, activists burn out and even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good. In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital.

In this year’s Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us learn the dance of action and contemplation. Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Click the video to learn more about the theme and to find reflections you may have missed.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: When we meditate consistently, a sense of our autonomy and private self-importance—what we think of as our “self”—falls away. Little by little, it becomes unnecessary, unimportant, and even unhelpful. The imperial “I,” the self that we likely think of as our only self, reveals itself as largely a creation of our mind. —Richard Rohr