Fr. Keating’s contemplative message is essential to nurture the very heart of our Christianity, which is our intimate love relationship with Christ living within us as us.
Instead of integrating the awesome Documents of Vatican II, we still seem centered on externals and morality rather than the precious gift of our intimate interior union with Christ who is communing with us unceasingly, loving us unconditionally into existence from moment to moment. If that were not true, there would be nothing on this chair but a pile of clothes! 😀 When we are awake to our True Self, we spontaneously start behaving ourselves and become more moral.
If we are centered on our mistaken ego identity, we will continue to feel separate from Christ and each other, struggling to use externals to unite us to a Divine union we already are as God’s own Image and Likeness.
Excerpt from “Holy Communion” by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser:
St. Paul tells us that we “are” the Body of Christ. He doesn’t say that we represent Christ’s body, are a substitute for Christ’s body, or that we are Christ’s body mystically or metaphorically. None of these. Paul affirms clearly that we “are” Christ’s body, as real and as physical as is the historical Body of Jesus.
…
When St. Augustine gave communion to newly baptized Christians, he would present the consecrated Host to them and say: “Receive what you are.”