Tweet
This probably isn't the right BBS for this post, but it's something that I thought I should share with many people.
Richard Francis Xavier "Brennan" Manning passed away yesterday, 2 weeks shy of his 79th birthday. He's a Franciscan Priest, United States Marine, and an accomplished writer.
In this day and age of Christian Extremists committing atrocities in the "Name of God" and exploiting His Word in any way that would benefit them, Father Manning's teachings always helped remind me what it was that Jesus Christ actually taught.
From The Raggamuffin Gospel
From 'The Furious Longing of God'
From 'Abba's Child'
Some additional favorites
One of his sermons
God Loves You As You Are, Not As You Should Be
R.I.P. Father Manning
April 27, 1934 – April 12, 2013
Richard Francis Xavier "Brennan" Manning passed away yesterday, 2 weeks shy of his 79th birthday. He's a Franciscan Priest, United States Marine, and an accomplished writer.
In this day and age of Christian Extremists committing atrocities in the "Name of God" and exploiting His Word in any way that would benefit them, Father Manning's teachings always helped remind me what it was that Jesus Christ actually taught.
From The Raggamuffin Gospel
“The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion.”
“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
“The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'
'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.”
“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
“The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'
'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.”
“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.”
“To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”
“Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.”
“As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.”
“Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.”
“As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.”
“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
"The biggest single mistake that we American Christians fall into is an attitude, a mindset, that says "If I change, then God will love me.""
"The biggest single mistake that we American Christians fall into is an attitude, a mindset, that says "If I change, then God will love me.""
God Loves You As You Are, Not As You Should Be
R.I.P. Father Manning
April 27, 1934 – April 12, 2013
Comment