Center for Action and Contemplation Richard Rohr’s Meditation

Printed on June 29, 2025

Image credit and inspiration: Sushil Nash, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, United Kingdom, Unsplash. The fist is a simple but mighty symbol of resistance, solidarity, and unity in the face of oppression and injustice. An innate desire for the liberation of the oppressed also results in the unexpected liberation of the oppressor

Hearing Another Story

Father Richard Rohr explains how the Gospels impart a message of liberation, particularly for people pushed to the margins of society: 

The vast majority of people throughout history have been poor, oppressed, or in some way “on the margins.” They would have read history in terms of a need for change, but most of history has been written and interpreted from the side of the winners. The unique exception is the revelation called the Bible, which is an alternative history from the side of the often enslaved and oppressed people of ancient Israel, culminating in the scapegoat figure of Jesus himself. 

In the Gospels, the poor, people with disabilities, tax collectors, sinners, and outsiders tend to follow Jesus. It’s those on the inside and the top—the Roman occupiers, the chief priests and their conspirators—who crucify him. Shouldn’t that tell us something significant about perspective? Every viewpoint is a view from a point. We must be able to critique any winner’s perspective if we are to see a fuller truth. 

Liberation theology—which focuses on freeing people from religious, political, social, and economic oppression—is often dismissed by official Christianity. Perhaps that’s not surprising when we consider who interpreted the Scriptures for the last seventeen hundred years. The empowered clerical class enforced their own perspective instead of that of the marginalized, who first received the message with such excitement and hope. Once Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire (after 313 CE), we largely stopped reading the Bible from the side of the poor and the oppressed. We read it from the side of the political establishment and the usually comfortable priesthood instead of from the side of people hungry for justice and truth. Shifting our priorities to make room for the powerless instead of accommodating the powerful is the only way to detach religion from its common marriage to power, money, and self-importance. 

When Scripture is read through the eyes of vulnerability—what Catholics call the “preferential option for the poor” or the “bias from the bottom”—it will always be liberating and transformative. Scripture will not be used to oppress or impress. The question is no longer, “How can I maintain the status quo?” (which often happens to benefit me), but “How can we all grow and change together?” We would have no top to protect, and the so-called “bottom” becomes the place of education, real change, and transformation for all. 

The bottom is where we have no privilege to prove or protect but much to seek and become. Jesus called such people “blessed” (Matthew 5:3). Dorothy Day said much the same: “The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop; you do not have much to lose.” From that place, where few would choose to be, we can be used as instruments of transformation and liberation for the rest of the world. 

Song for Reflection: You Raise Me Up (link), sung by Josh Groban; Songwriters: Rolf U. Lovland / Brendan Graham; lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Ab, Peermusic (uk) Ltd., Peermusic Musikverlag G.m.b.h., Peermusic, Peermusic (uk) Ltd.

When I am down and, oh, my soul, so weary

When troubles come and my heart burdened be

Then I am still and wait here in the silence

Until You come and sit awhile with me

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas

I am strong when I am on Your shoulders

You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas

I am strong when I am on Your shoulders

You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up (up) so I can stand on mountains (stand on mountains)

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas (stormy seas)

I am strong (I am strong) when I am on Your shoulders (ooh)

You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up (up) so I can stand on mountains (stand on mountains)

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas (stormy seas)

I am strong when I am on Your shoulders

You raise me up to more than I can be

You raise me up to more than I can be