Brother David Steindl-Rast on Sin & Love

I appreciate how Brother David teaches that at the heart of sin is alienation. Even post post modern persons often find ourselves alienated from nature, others, community, and even our self; our body, emotions, shadow,  the best person we could be, and true and pure Love. This alienation can cast us into a deep and dark hell constructed of our own clever and prideful intellect. Even here we can trust that God, who is ever present and almighty Love, is there in the midst of our suffering to heal us and give us a resurrected life. God is there to for give to us the love we have always so desperately needed.

As we emerge from hell this does not mean that we are now so special that we are immune to pain. It means that we can humbly use our pain as a divine motivation to join in a community and help ease the suffering of others. I pray that this might be expressed in even a small way by our community gathering for the Integral Spiritual Experience on love.

The Catholic way was the way of my childhood. Stephen Levine has found that the faith of our childhood never departs from our heart. I wish that as a child I could have had a catechism teacher more like Brother David. Let us pray that his wisdom and compassion is absorbed by the Catholic teachers of the millions of Catholic students today.