THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST

In this radical message of hope, Richard Rohr shows how "Jesus" + "Christ" reveal the divine wholeness at the heart of things--and what that means for every one of us

In his decades of working as a globally recognized spiritual teacher and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Father Richard Rohr has been a go-to voice for Christians and spiritual seekers looking to deepen their inner lives. Yet in all those years, Father Rohr has never written a book on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus Christ.
In this provocative and groundbreaking new work, Rohr shows how we've missed out on something crucial about Jesus. Commonly, when we talk about Jesus Christ, we focus on "Jesus" and not "Christ." But what does it mean that Jesus was Christ? Is Christ a religious honorific, or simply Jesus' last name? Or does the term tell us something more fundamental about Jesus' role in history and in our lives today?
Most compellingly, what if hidden in the name "Christ" is a life-changing understanding for all people--of any or no religion? Drawing on Christian and world history, psychology, spiritual teachers of many traditions, the Bible and contemporary cosmologists, Rohr uncovers the meaning of Jesus' role as the Christ--God's cosmic figure who is present in all of creation, available to each of us today, and present with us as we seek to make a better world. Rohr articulates what this wider understanding of Jesus means for our world, and then applies his insights in a deeply rooted experience of mindfulness, prayer and action available to everyone.

Richard Rohr, O.F.M., is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within the Franciscan way, Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (www.cac.org) in Albuquerque, where he also serves as Academic Dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including the bestsellers Falling Upward, The Naked Now, and most recently, Divine Dance.