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21st Century Franciscan Spirituality, 21ST CENTURY SPIRITUALITY, Contemporary approach to Franciscan Spirituality, Contemporary Spirituality, Creation Spirituality, Emerging Church, Fr. Justin Belitz OFM, Fr. Richard Rohr OFM, Matriarchal Model, Patriarchal Model, Personal Growth and Development, Relating, Relationships, Responsible Spirituality, Spirituality, Success: Full Relating, The Center For Action And Contemplation
In order to simplify as much as possible, I want to consider two basic categories of spirituality. The first is the Matriarchal (or Creation) Model and the second is the Patriarchal (or the Fall/Redemption) Model. These categories are mental constructs that help me understand relationships in my life and how I deal with them. I hope they will help you in the same way.
1. The Matriarchal (Creation) Model
The Matriarchal Model (also referred to as the Creation or Servant Model) is the one that Jesus gave us. It is an approach in which people are considered to be on an equal footing. This comparison is built on the ideal relationship of a mother and child. In this model, the mother is seen as having an equal relationship with the child. The mother sees herself as a servant whose job is to care for the child. She does not see this position as demeaning. The relationship can be truly referred to as servant leadership. The mother feels fulfilled as she serves the child. She feeds, bathes, cleans, protects, educates, and loves the child. All this gives her great happiness and fulfillment. Her intention is not to have power over the child but rather to have power with the child.
This is the unifying model that Jesus gave us and which we refer to as servant leadership. Jesus was constantly trying to help us understand this model as one that unifies. He said, “I am in my Father as you are in me and I in you.” He prayed that this unity would be a reality, “that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may be one in us.”…
This kind of relationship between God and humans, indeed with all creation, was considered radical at the time of Jesus (even today this idea is considered by many to be radical). If we are all one with God, then we must say that all human beings are intrinsically good. This approach to spirituality begins with Original Blessing – God blessing the universe, so that everything in it is considered to be good (see the Book of Genesis).
If you accept this approach to relationships, then it follows that all human beings are one with God-that we are all connected -that we share one Life Source in which we are bound into a unifying whole.
As one, we are able to experience exciting and revitalizing pleasure, able to celebrate shared power, able to celebrate shared power with the universe, able to rejoice in change that leads to a better reality, able to live in trusting relationships, and even able to experience ecstasy in unconditional love.
All of the above can be outlined in this following list of characteristics that describe the Matriarchal Model:
Matriarchal (Creation) Model
Power With
Original Blessing
Unity
Sharing
Movement
Ecstasy and Trust
Change
Cosmic Awareness
Pleasure
Universal
Dialog
Love of Life
This approach to relationships was very threatening to the patriarchy of Jewish and Roman leaders at the time of Jesus. Unconditional love for everyone, and totally equal relationships everywhere would completely destroy the power structures of both the secular and religious words of the time.
Over the past 2,000 years, the ideas of this Matriarchal Model have been kept alive by people such as Florence Nightingale, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Francis of Assisi, Therese (the Little Flower), and many others. In our own time, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dali Lama, Pope John XXIII, Pope Francis and many others believed in and supported the Matriarchal Model…
Today, the Matriarchal Model is noticeable in the Green movement. For thousands of years, the Christian world quoted Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.” The interpretation was that human beings were in charge and could do whatever they wanted with the earth. This is the Patriarchal Model at work.
In the Matriarchal Model the realization is that all of creation is one. Our task is not to control the Universe-that is impossible. Our task is to work with the Universe tower love and peace. This is the challenge that Jesus gave us in this Matriarchal (Unitive) Model. Everyone and everything has equal status: women, the poor, widows, the sick, animals, all of nature, and today we would add people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual persons, criminals, drug addicts, etc. It is this spirituality of equality that got Jesus into trouble. This spirituality is still dangerous in the 21st century.
The Matriarchal Model is a real challenge for the entire planet, but it is not an impossibility. There have been whole societies based on this model. The American Indians. for example, perceived themselves as part of the whole of Creation. They could not imagine the concept of owning land. The land was a free entity in itself, something to be cared for, not something to be owned and exploited. When American Indians hunted, it was for food, not sport. The meat was used for food, the hide for clothing or shelter, the entrails became food for other animals, and even the bones were used for tools and decoration. There was no waste.
The list below catheterizes that which describes …
The Patriarchal (Fall/Redemption) Model
Power Over
Original Sin
Division
Greed
Institution
Sin and Guilt
Status Quo
Selfish Awareness
Pain
Provincial
War
Love of Death
The Patriarchal Model has been the prevailing model in Western society for 1,700 years. For example, in business, leaders at the top tell people down below what to do. The persons at the top carry all the power and those below are considered to be servants. Those at the bottom are expected to work so that those at the top can prosper.
At the turn of the century, huge companies like Walmart generated billions of dollars in profit for those at the top. Walmart employees at the bottom, who were running the business, often had difficulty making ends meet on the salaries they received while the executives at the top were making millions every year.
In the medical field, drug companies generate enormous amounts of income, while people in need of their products must struggle to find money to purchase them. In athletics, finance, communication, and even in religion, the people at the top make huge amounts of money while the people at the bottom barely have enough on which to live.
Attached to the Patriarchal Model are these characteristics:
1. Status Quo refers to the striving to keep things as they are.
2. Greed is another part of the Patriarchal Model. A few years ago, I became aware of a church that cost $100 million. This project cost so much that 35 people in the office had to be let go. The church became a monument to the person who built it at the cost of the staff who assisted the poor and disadvantaged.
4. Dualism is also a part of the Patriarchal Model. Dualism refers to the distinctions such as right or wrong, good and evil, us and them, male and female, body and soul, etc. Dualism is a way of looking at the world, but it is not a reality. It si a perception. When we make distinctions such as us and them, we set up a system that says, “We are better, they are less.”
The distinction made in the Patriarchal Model between male and female has created similar injustices. The Patriarchal Model is a male-dominated one. Males are considered higher on the hierarchal ladder, and for millennia, women have bene forced to take, and remain in, subservient roles. Only in the very recent past has this dualism begun to change.
The Patriarch Model is not always ‘bad.” Sometimes, when used with love and compassion, it can be effective. For example, when children are growing up, parents can assume the authority of the Patriarch Model because they realize the children are without experience and knowledge and oftentimes must be protected and educated.
The Patriarch Model will work when there is someone who wants to take the position of responsibility and power and there are others who want to be lead. Mother Teresa is an example of a Patriarchal person. She had a clear mission and specific lifestyle. Anyone wanting to join her community had to fit into the guidelines she created.
The point I want to make is that one approach to spirituality is as good as the next, but the movement win the 21st century is clearly in the direction of the Matriarchal Model.
“Only someone involved in years of living and very real relationships could write so well abut the subject! Coming not from the top down, but form the bottom up, Justin Belitz offers you solid, practical spirituality at its finest.”
RICHARD ROHR, O.F.M. Center for Action and Contemplation
Success: Full Relating Workshop
(A 21st Century approach to Spirituality)
A Valentine Special
A Course in Improvement of All Relationships
with Fr. Justin Belitz, O.F.M.
The Franciscan Hermitage
3650 East 46th St, Indianapolis, In 46205
317-545-0742
Saturday and Sunday, February 17 & 18, (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) 2018
Tuesday, February 13th at 7:00 p.m. Opening Lecture (one hour) FREE and open to the public!
To register, call the Hermitage, email Lulu.
lulugk@att.net
or visit our website (where the form may be filled out) :
hermitageindy.org