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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

12/09/2024

As the results of the election ripple out, learn the deeper stakes involved. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. 

A martial religion of “predominate masculine energy” ruled in the 11^th century, but Mary represented “the assertion of the supremacy of love over force” with the Gothic reality of the 12^th and 13^th centuries. She represented “boundless sympathy” and “not even the weakest human frailty could fear to approach her.” 

As Adams puts it, she represented the Buddhist sense of compassion, “the first of all virtues.” 

She represented a new civilization which included a whole new creation of education, when the university movement in the cities displaced the monastic hold on education in the countryside. And 

A carved-wood depiction of Mary — unusual in that here, the infant Jesus is directly facing her, rather than towards the viewer, and both appear completely adoring of each other. Location unknown. Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash. 

“university” originally meant a place to go to find one’s place in the universe. (Not just one’s place in a man-made work world, which is what it has come to mean during the modern era.)

The Virgin of the twelfth and thirteenth century had not only the powers of Eve and Demeter and Venus; she was also the mistress of all the arts and sciences, was afraid of none of them, and did nothing, ever, to stunt any of them...She was Queen by divine right and compassion and understanding, not by law and formula. She was “the practice of the true balance of powers, with the individual always tilting the balance.”     

Highlights from the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris on December 7th, 2024. Video by CBS Sunday Morning. You can also watch the replay of the entire opening ceremony HERE.

She was a “personal presence” and a “saving grace” [and] the personal equation at the heart of law and justice.” She gave birth to “fresh creations of order.”* 

The very word “cathedral” derives from the word for throne (as does the Goddess Isis, the original Black Madonna). So another aspect to

Notre Dame Cathedrals is that they honor the Goddess who sits ruling a city (or a country) with compassion and justice for the poor, not for the rich. And for the celebration of life. (Again, anthropocentric and patriarchal religion have reduced the “throne” in the cathedral to a place where a bishop sits, but that leaves out the cosmos and the divine feminine that are so central to the deeper meaning of cathedra.) 

Such a building offers a fine reminder for our time of a new cosmology, a cosmogenesis story of how our Earth and our species made the 13.8-billion-year journey to be here.

And to be grateful for being here. Which is religion’s task, to spread the thanks. As Thomas Aquinas (who was in Paris at the time the rose windows were being installed in Notre Dame cathedral) put it: “Religion is supreme thankfulness or gratitude.” And that is what the Sabbath is about, he says: giving thanks and first and foremost for creation. 

The South Rose Window in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Photo by jmvnoos in Paris on Flickr.

It seems the Divine Feminine might have something needed and necessary to say to our times. Maybe the resurrection of Notre Dame de Paris might assist us in taking in that wisdom. If we choose to listen.   

* Cited in R.P. Blackmur, Henry Adams: A Leading Critic’s Account of a Great American Figure, pp. 177, 189f., 182-184, 203, 206f. 

See Matthew Fox, “The Green Man and the Black Madonna: Sacred Marriage of Nature” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine,” pp. 231-242. 

And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 41-44.

Banner image: Progress being made on the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris in 2021, viewed from the river Seine. Photo by cjbphotos1 on Flickr.

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Queries for Contemplation

What issues of our perilous times do you see the archetype of Mary, the Divine Feminine and the resurrection of Notre Dame de Paris addressing for us?

Recommended Reading

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature,  to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God

The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times

A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action. Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.

For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 

To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 

To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.

Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages

The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478  
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Join Matthew Fox for an on-site and online Advent Retreat titled “A Great Coming: Creation Spirituality and the Renewal of Religion, Humanity and Holy Mother Earth,” hosted by Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles. Saturday, 12/14, 9 AM -5 PM; Sunday, 12/15, 9-11 AM. 
Register HERE.

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