I am reading a book called Setting God Free by Fr Sean O’Laoire, an Irish Catholic priest who is spiritual director to a community of lay people in California called Companions on the Journey. He is a beautiful soul; a radical, imaginative, intelligent and compassionate man who is deeply respected by many people across many spiritual traditions.

Sean began his spiritual journey as a child in County Cork, Ireland, and was deeply influenced by his kind hearted Catholic grandmother whom he describes as a genuine mystic who lived comfortably between this world and the divine realm. His grandfather was a druid who was deeply embedded in the mysticism of his tradition. The influence of two deeply spiritual grandparents in his early life and living in a Gaelic speaking community, immersed him in the earthiness of Celtic Spirituality.

In the 1960s Sean studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood. His studies consisted of pure mathematics and physics followed by several years of academic philosophy, scripture and theology. He spent many years working in Africa as a priest after his ordination. During his time in Africa he became knowledgeable of the local ancient wisdom and spiritual traditions of the people whom he served. He later went to the United State where he studied for a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology and became a clinical psychologist. His study of mathematics, theology, philosophy, spirituality, transpersonal psychology and many other disciplines, informs his ongoing spiritual inquiry and development. His aim is to contribute to the development of a spirituality that is enriching and transformative to the evolution of global human consciousness.  

Sean has lost favor with the institutional Roman Catholic Church, and so now is ministering independently from the institutional Church. He has a very broad and encompassing cosmology which seeks to free people from unwholesome, oppressive and discriminatory anthropomorphisms of God that create separation and division. Sean in his book, Setting God Free talks about an experience whilst ministering at a Catholic parish in Palo Alto, California in the 1980s, which deeply influenced his decision to carefully examine and retool his religious cosmology. He had a close friend, a Jewish woman called Arlen who decided to bring her mother to Mass to meet Sean in person. Arlen’s mother was a survivor of the Holocaust and had lost many family members in an Easter Pogrom. The Gospel of the day at the Mass attended by Arlen and her mother caused him to feel profound discomfort. It was the story from John’s Gospel of Pilate absolving himself of the blood of Jesus, and in which John records the “Jews” as saying, “His blood be upon us and upon our children”. The ramifications of this anti-Semitic passage, and how it was used by the post Constantinian Church to orchestrate persecutions against the Jewish people, landed deeply with him. This was a turning point in Sean’s spiritual journey that changed everything. He believes that creating a god in our own image, rather than seeking the God in whose image we are made, is something that needs to change if God is to mean anything purposeful for human conscious evolution.

Sean’s book spoke deeply to me about how religion, when it becomes self-referential, institutionalized and concerned with its own image, becomes something that doesn’t serve humanity’s journey of conscious evolution. I believe that this evolution is importantly something that must be rooted in the human heart, in a spaciousness of deep compassion, love and service to others. Sean O’Laoire makes a very important observation:

“God is nothing like the religion has made out to be –especially the jealous, irascible, patriarchal, genocidal god of the world’s greatest monotheistic religions”

In the theistic religious traditions throughout history, divinity has been the object of egoic patriarchal projections creating a caricature of God. These traditions have often been unfriendly towards the lives, liberties and bodies of both women and children. Within the Christian Church patriarchally informed projections about God have created an ecclesiology that bolsters systemic clerical power and privilege over others. It has privileged a patriarchal ecclesiology over and above an organic ecclesiology that draws upon the diverse gifts, wisdom, experience and insights of the whole people of God. The term people of God only became a meaningful concept within the Catholic Church in the 1960s during the Second Vatican Council.

The notion of God as the divine feminine (i.e., the goddess or divine mother) has been ignored by institutionalized theistic religion in favour of a muscular, militaria, patriarchal God who most often sides with male clerical, authoritarian, and even, military, power. Even now, in these days of liberation, feminist, black liberation and creation centred theologies, the idea of God as a tender, strong and protective mother – akin to the Buddhist image of the compassionate and protective Tara emancipating her children from suffering oppression and fear – is rarely a reference point for theology or liturgy. Sophia, as feminine divine wisdom, is also an underrepresented image of divinity in ecclesiastical language. Most often the notion of a male god who speaks through a patriarchal system of authority, and who is exclusively called, Father, is the most privileged image of the divine.

I would suggest that each one of us would do well to take governance over our own personal cosmology, ecclesiology and spirituality. Be discerning of ecclesiastical patriarchs, grandiose gurus, authoritative teachers and dynamic evangelists who claim that their way is the best way. There is one divine ocean that flows into many wells. You and I are one of those wells. The true teacher is within you. Good spiritual teachers will always point you towards your inner teacher. Your mind when immersed in the tender place of your heart, quietly listening for divine wisdom, is a good space to discern for the whisperings of divinity.

Namaste brothers and sisters 

References:

Setting God Free: Moving Beyond the Caricature We’ve Created in Our Own Image, 2021, by Sean O’Laoire, Apocryphille Press US.

Interview by Evan McDermod of Fr Sean O’Laoire, Setting God Free, YouTube, December 2022 Seán ÓLaoire – Setting God Free (Podcast Interview) – YouTube

The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation  – 1 Nov. 2018 by Miranda Macpherson, Sounds True Press

New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, New Directions Paperbook, 1091) Paperback – Illustrated, 13 Nov. 2007