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Never Doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world.

 Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!!!!!!!!!

 

Sunday, March 7, 2010AD

Third Sunday of Lent

 

God beyond …

      Few scenes in the Hebrew Bible have been imagined more than God’s call to Moses to climb Mount Sinai and to experience God’s Presence as well as God’s challenge to Moses  to liberate the Hebrew slaves from oppression in Egypt. Somehow, Moses experienced the Divine Presence and Challenge and all human life was radically affected. Even today. Even Now!

        One of the groups who caught the innuendo of the story was the Southern slaveholders in the nineteenth century.  It was a felony to teach a Black slave to read in the Old South.  The fear was that the slaves would read (and understand, between the lines) what God was saying, viz., nobody should enslave or oppress others. The slaveholders were loathe to quote St Paul (who had written that in Christ there is no slave or free) but eager to quote the Apostle to the Gentiles with the realistic admonition in the ancient world (that Paul thought was about to end anyhow) that slaves should obey their masters.  That line was quoted frequently.

        However, the story has many aspects to it.  The big question for St Thomas Aquinas and countless others was the Self-Naming of God, in Exodus 3.14, “I AM WHO AM”. What’s up with that?

The two possibilities that grab many people are simply “God of Life” or else, “I am who am I and I cannot be named, so don’t bother.” One speaks of God somehow logically; the other speaks of God somehow mythically. These are two of countless others. Even a change in tense from present to future is permissible in ancient Hebrew that did not have written vowels. 

        More and more, people are recovering the sense of Mystery, viz., something that is infinitely knowable and unknowable at the same time. God can be known, but always remains unknown.  Within our Catholic tradition, it is apophatic knowledge.  It is described by King David in Psalm 46, ‘Be still and know that I am God now.”  

        A meditation on the Sacred Name might go as follows.  God, greater; God, nearer; God beyond me; God within me; God beyond words; God beyond God; Let go, let God; Let God be God; God beyond me; God within me.” Then try to practice silence and try to think not a thought. You will think thoughts because every human has what is called by Eastern religions “the Monkey mind”. Try to return to the word “God”.  Our children are mastering this in religious education.  There is no reason to think that adults cannot receive the gift of apophatic prayer. Great Catholic thinkers, like St Thomas Aquinas, the Little Flower, and  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta  were familiar with this type of prayer and felt that it was available to every human person.  This availability is known as “grace”.

        As part of your Lenten regimen, now only 26 days left, try to slow down, sit in solitude and silence, either here in church or anyplace and remind yourself that you are always in the Divine Presence of the God of Life, Who cannot be named.  

        Practicing apophatic prayer is like children practicing for sport or a music instrument or a play. We recall the other adage, “Practice makes better”, not perfect, only God is perfect.    

        Prayer would necessarily ease all our aches and pains.  The Galileans mowed down by Pilate in today’s Gospel as well as the workmen in Jerusalem killed in the mishap, the victims of the earthquakes in Haiti or Chile, all need to recall basic mythic language.  We remember that in every human life, there is sadness, trouble, failures, absurdities, rejection and disappointment.  These things are all bad thing.  However, we recall that bad things happen and they are part of life.  Then, we remember that life is the greatest subsuming God.  Then we remember that our God is always Present and always beyond our thoughts.  God remains always faithful.

        Slaves on the Underground Railroad during the years before the War Between the States would not have risked all if they did not trust in God’s Promise and Vision at the time of the call of Moses.  They remembered God’s Words in Psalm 117, the shortest chapter in the entire Bible.  ‘Praise God, all you nations, glorify God all you people; steadfast is God’s kindness to us and God’s fidelity endures forever.”  Allow God to speak in the Silence about it.  030710AD jfq    

 

 

Sunday, February 28, 2010AD

Second Sunday of Lent

 

The  Mystery beyond the Mystery

            When Catholics use the word “mystery”, it does not mean the same thing that “mystery” means to others. People think “whodunit” or copout with inability to respond without mystifying language.  Catholics understand “Mystery” to mean something that is ultimately knowable and unknowable at the same time.  Mystery is paradox. Life is full of paradoxes. Indeed, life itself is a mystery, as Madonna sang back in 1989.  Ergo, God is a Mystery.  Ultimately, you are a Mystery too, especially to youself.  As Hermann Hesse wrote in many years ago. “The greatest mystery each of us has to transcend or fathom is oneself.”

            Always, on the Second Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of the Transfiguration, wherein Peter, James and John get a glimpse of Christ Jesus in His resurrected state.  Whatever happened that day, Jesus had gone up to the mountaintop to pray.  St Luke is known as the “Evangelist of Prayer”.  Before anything monumental in the life of Christ Jesus is about to happen, Jesus goes to pray in solitude in advance. He does this before He begins His public life, before He elected the 12 and gave His great Sermon in Luke 6, in the Garden before Good Friday and finally on the Cross.  Jesus was into prayer bigtime.  Perhaps, He wants us to be as well.

            When Jesus went to pray, in some cases, spending the entire night in prayer to God, what type of prayer did He say?  We know that Jesus could read, yet it doesn’t say that He brought any biblical scrolls with Him, nor the Jewish version of Rosary beads. 

            In all probability, like many Jews of His time, Jesus would have memorized many prayers.  We imitate Him this Lent as we try to get Psalm 23 down this Lent as a community. 

            However, chances are that Jesus was big into contemplative prayer, viz., prayer without words.  Prayer in which we remain as silent as possible and let God speak to us in the Silence.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “God speaks to us in the silence of my minds and hearts.  Our job is to slow down and listen to the silence. Then, we translate what we heard by the way we treat others, especially the poor.” One hundred years earlier, the Little Flower, now a Doctor of the Church said, “God is always at home in me; I am usually the one who is out to lunch.”

            All the major religions of the world, both East and West, have a contemplative tradition.  Some call it the highest form of prayer when one slows down and shuts down and let God speak to us in the Great Silence. 

            However, Americans frequently find silence as something pathological.  We owe this to our Puritan ancestors who taught us that the idle mind was the devil’s workshop.”  As a result, “it was early to bed, early to rise” …. and you know the rest.

            Priest-psychiatrist wrote about this as early as 1992, “There is a reason that more people do not find the silence and listen to the Inner Voice. They are afraid to do so. The truth is that, in our culture, we fear the Silence precisely because something from within might speak to us.  Therefore, we prefer the noise and fear Silence because in that silence, the unconscious might make its presence felt.  This consciousness might contain all that we have been repressing and denying about ourselves. It is impossible to listen to the small, still voice within without coming to terms with the unconscious.” It is not for nothing that children have an easier time with contemplation than most adults. Are adults afraid of what the Silence might say to us?

            The greatest Catholic theologian, Fr Karl Rahner, whose birthday and anniversary we celebrate this month spoke of Gratia non Creata, Uncreated Grace.  He said that this was the immanent and permeating Divine Presence in all.  Fr Rahner understood Gratia non Creata as another name for the immanent and premeating Presnce that Christians call the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit lives in all; all live in the Spirit.  While God is ultimately a Mystery, both knowable and unknowable simultaneously, transcending all Reality, God is also immanent, present in all.  Maybe that was what Jesus was tapping into when He went up to pray before big events in His life.  Maybe, He wants up to do the same. Recall the distinction made several weeks ago.  If you listen to Jesus, you become a disciple.  If you don’t, then you remain in the crowd. Which is it going to be? 

            How do we respond? As mentioned last weekend, treat youself to a twenty minute sit in God’s Presence in our church or any church.  Plan to learn Psalm 23 and use it as the handy prayer tool that your ancestors have done for the past 3000 years.  There is a reason why the Psalm has perdured.  Find out the reason.

            Join Jesus on the mountaintop (or in our parish church or anywhere).  Let God speak to you in the silence. Peter, James and John heard God say to them, “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” We probably will hear a reasonable facsimile thereof. What do we do next?   022810AD  jfq                     

 

Sunday February 21, 2010AD

First Sunday of Lent

 

He Knows How It Gets

Each Lent, we recall that Jesus was like us in all things but sin, as we hear the account of Jesus’ temptation at the start of His public life.

This year, we hear St Luke’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Ergo, Jesus was baptized by John and proclaimed as God’s Son.  He then went off to the wilderness to figure out the implications of what He has to do.

            The number “40” is a number that is “charged” biblically.  It usually refers to a period of testing and/or teaching in the Scriptures.  Obviously, in this case, St. Luke speaks of the test of Jesus at the start of His public life.  Next, after this section of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins in the synagogue in Nazareth announcing  “the Spirit has anointed (christened) Him to preach Good News to the poor.”

            The triple temptation which Jesus  experienced had to do with the nature of the ministry which He was undertaking.  What the devil confronted Jesus with was the temptation to prove Himself in other ways besides the way which God the Father had pre-ordained.  The God of Life willed that “it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to die and then, to rise again” to save us.

            The devil tries to dissuade the Messiah from this course of action.  First, the tempter suggests that Jesus proves that He is the Messiah through magic tricks.  “Turn these stones into bread.”  Next, the devil suggests that Jesus tries to establish Himself as a political Messiah.  In return, the devil will give Him all the power and the glory of kingdoms if Jesus worships Him.  An interesting insight is that the nations of the world are, indeed, Satan’s to give!  St. Augustine of Hippo had a field day with that idea in the De Civitate Dei.)  Finally, the devil suggests to Jesus that Jesus test God by jumping off the parapet of the Jerusalem Temple.

            To each of the temptations hurled at Him, Jesus responds with quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy.  This fifth book of the Torah stresses the love and gratitude of the individual Israelite for the Presence of Yahweh with the Chosen People.  Yahweh is with the individual and with the community, but always on God’s terms and never on ours.  There is a divine necessity (which Christians call “the Cross”) within every human experience and a Divine Presence as well. Quoting Deuteronomy, Jesus is within His Jewish religious tradition in resisting temptation to go another route.

            Interestingly, the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, was succumbing to the serpent’s temptation to go another route and to “be like God.”  They were not content with God’s plan for them and they preferred the tempter’s alternative.  Chaos, dysfunction and sin set in our world, as a result.  Our modern world still suffers the effects of that decision.

            Psychologists say that there are three basic childhood needs that we carry with us through life.  We are drawn to security, esteem and control. As we mature, we still strive for these things.  All is fine if we obey God’s rules!

            However, many go off the deep end.  We rely in “golden calves” which we believe will provide us for the absolute security, esteem and control beginning to obsess us. The god that we worship is EGO, viz., Easing God Out.

            Psychologist Erich Fromm commented  “evil deeds to harden hearts, good deeds tends to soften it, to make it more alive.  The more a person’s heart hardens, the less freedom does that person  have to change, the more is that person is determined by previous action.”  Jewish thought speaks of the Yetzer rasa (the evil urge) existing in the human heart.

The evil urge goes all the back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the temptation scene in Genesis. Therein, the temptation was “You too can be like God”. You can, in essence, control and name reality, even in changing basic rules.  The Tempter approaches them and all their children (that’s us, folks) in subtle ways, sly and suggestive ways that challenge God’s plan for us.  We are called to live religious lives (basically linked up with the Transcendent that permeates all reality). This means our relationships with God, others, particularly the poor among us, and the ecology in which we live.  (The word “religion” is based etymologically on the Latin, ligere – to bind together and re – again.),        

            It is curious to notice as well that just as Jesus began His public life with the triple temptation in the Gospel, so also, in Luke’s Gospel, the “last temptation of Christ” is also three-fold.  As Jesus was dying, He is tempted three times to “save Yourself”.  The leaders, the soldiers and the criminal on the other cross who did the Devil’s work by tempting Jesus to short-circuit Yahweh’s Divine Plan.

            Jesus’ final response to the Devil’s temptation were the words of Psalm 31 on His lips.  “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.”  He died, God’s obedient, humble Son, the elder brother of our human family, a person of faith and hope who said “Yes” to the Divine Necessity of the Cross.

            We can only ask Jesus to give us a Share in His Spirit so that each of us in obedience and humility and solidarity with others say “Yes” to God’s Plan for each of us.  Jesus does not require the impossible of His disciples.  He asks us to live and die as He did.  As Gabriel told our Blessed Mother, “Nothing is impossible with God.”  We always ask God to give us the strength to resist temptation and always offer our “Yes” to God. 022110 AD jfq

 

Sunday, February 14, 2010AD

6th Sunday in Greentime

 

Where Are You Listening Now?

        On this last Sunday before we enter the Lenten Season, we hear this weekend the beginning of the commissioning address of Jesus to His newly form group of 12 as well as other disciples who listen to His words.  In addition, St Luke tells that Jesus was also addressing the crowd NOW as well. From what vantage point are you listening NOW?

            Catholics are familiar with much of what Jesus says today because it is similar to what Jesus says in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.  (There are more Beatitudes in St Matthew; St Luke adds a series of Woes to balance the Beatitudes.) Familiar, but different.

            Recall that the language which St Luke uses today, viz., the poor, is language that is used throughout the Scriptures.  In today’s reading, Jesus is clearly referring the material poor, downcast and mournful because of their condition.  It is not that Jesus is glorifying their poverty.  Rather, he is stating that God is conscious of it, that time is on the side of the poor and that the poor have a headstart to God. 

            Recall also that Anawim YHWH were a group within Judaism (as well as the earliest Jesus Movement) of men and women who understood and lived that no matter things seemed to appear God was running the show.  They, with God’s Help, bore the pains of life (although they tried alleviating them as much as they could). They made leaps of faith into God by surrendering, letting go and trusting the Holy Mystery Who permeated them. 

            The rich young man, notwithstanding, (wealth was his particular problem apparently) there is no evidence that the Jesus Movement, from the days of earliest Christian house-churches, expected that all the members of the movement were to surrender their goods to the community.  The story that St Luke himself presents later on in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles presents the Jerusalem community living that way, not as a demand, but as a choice. (This opinion was cogently presented several years by NY Catholic theologian, Fr Raymond Brown.)  Later on, when the Jerusalem Community experienced hard times, we are told several times that the outlying communities provided for their needs. (Modern examples of the same are your recent generosity to our sisters and brothers in Swaziland and in Haiti as well as your regular food contributions to the Food Pantry in P-ville as well as others area pantries).

            Recently, one theologian suggested that the composition of the hearers of Jesus’ Word could change.  If one accepted the Centrality of God, as proclaimed by Christ Jesus, then that person would be a disciple.  If one were to reject the Centrality of God (and make power, prestige, possessions their security), then that person was part of the crowd.  The thing to remember is all of us (depending on circumstances and our response to the Gift of Faith) can move back and forth between the two groups.  When we trust God, we are the disciples; when we trust other things, then we are the crowd.

            The basic question becomes “What (or Who) is your ultimate security?” Recently, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke to a crowd of business leaders on Wall Street at the Stock Exchange.  He said to them that somehow, the System (with its profit and loss categories) had taken over much of Western civilization.  He said that frequently, the morality of business decisions depended how profitable the bottom line would be. He was not shown the door because so many agreed that he was naming reality.

            Rather than impose his own interpretation on the System, Archbp Williams  highlighted the idea that structures have a moral life of their own.  He basically agreed with Jeremiah, Popes John Paul II and Benedict, and Jesus that “socio-economic structures effect people and come under the scrutiny of the Gospel.” As Pope John Paul put it, “There are no moral free zones!”     

            Jim Wallis suggests that men and women of good faith need to develop a “new normal” in response to the Recession of 2008.  The “system”, the “market” “conventional wisdom” (call it what you want!) did not take the Paschal Mystery into account in economic foresight.  Even in elementary school, Catholic students learned, early on, that everything is the process we know as “the Paschal Mystery”.  All life goes through the process of ascent, descent and transformation.  All things do pass, even economies. One thing that people realize that we cannot and will not go back to the way we were.   New message emerge,  “We are still confronted with the fact that three billion people (virtually half of God’s children on the planet) still live in less than two dollars a day. That service to your neighbor and the common good is more rewarding and fulfilling than the endless pursuit of individual gain.   New questions emerge, “Do we want our children’s values shaped by the market and its advertising?”  New spins on old Gospels emerge, “One factor that had a significant impact upon the behavior (of the cast in the Good Samaritan parable ) was whether or not they were in a hurry.”

            As Archbishop Rowan stated on Wall Street recently, Jesus did not suggest any specific socio-economic system. Jesus challenges His audience (then and now) with where we hear Jesus’ Beatitudes and Woes.  If you hear God’s Word now and act upon it, you are a disciple. If you hear Jesus and still rely ultimately on other things (Golden Calves), you remain in the crowds.  Where do you stand now?  021410AD jfq    

 

Sunday, Feb 7, 2010AD

Fifth Sunday in Green

 

God Ever Greater, yet Nearer

            Catholics try to stress that God is always living in us and we are all living in God.  (If God is omnipotent, it’s logical, isn’t it?) Still, there are times when we feel the Divine Presence in powerful, haunting ways.  They can be both joyful and/or stressful.  Divine Presence resonates in our lives.  Many years ago, sociologist, Rev Andrew Greeley wrote that most people had 5 or 6 powerful religious experiences in their lives, and that is all that most people need to nourish a lifetime of faith.

            We hear about two powerful religious experiences today in our first reading and in our Gospel, viz., the experience of Isaiah (at his initial call to prophecy) and or St Peter (after the great catch of fish). Neither Isaiah nor St Peter was ever the same again.

            The experience of Transcendence goes back as our ancestors lived in this world.  At least, 100,000 years ago, our ancestors demonstrated their intuition that the human person was different.  Archaeologists still discover evidence of religion in burial procedures, tools left behind, the use of fire early on, and the development of human communication. All indicate that humans are different in our awareness.  Archaeologists and anthropologists tell us today about 10,000 years ago, around 8,000BC, occurred the Agricultural Revolution, with its implications to the present day.  As later theologians said, humans always intuited that we were the poets of the universe. 

            About 100 years ago, a German theologian, Rudolf Otto, described this orientation to Something Greater, yet Nearer, in human experience.  Using Latin, Otto described that Something as Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans (the Mystery Tremendous and Fascinating). 

            Again, we need the clarification of terms.  Mysterium, in this sense, means “something knowable, yet unknowable, at the very same time”, something that cannot be experienced totally.  Tremendum means  awesome, something beyond our control.  Fascinans means alluring, something overwhelmingly appealing.   

            Now more than ever, that Something challenges and invites us.  The desire for this Something goes on and on.  There are at aleast three reasons for this. 1) The call to Transcendence is in infinite.  2) The human quest for knowledge, love and freedom is insatiable. We can never know, love and be loved, or be free enough. 3) We continue to change as people.  Our cultures hopefully evolve (or sadly, sometimes, devolve).

            There is much discussion these days about theism, atheism, agnosticism, deism, etc. Usually, most of these discussions are strawmen, because they dissect people’s ideas, not the Something generating these ideas.

            The term “theism” is a general term which basically means, “God, as you (personally or culturally)  understand God.”

There is always a proviso that we avoid “idolization” of the term “God”. What might work for you might not work for someone else.  Don’t blame them, if they don’t agree with you.

            With this is mind, it is important for Catholics (and others as well) to remember that while the human mind and heart are oriented to Transcendence, God is bigger than human comprehension.  As a result, we try to remember that no expression for God can be taken absolutely literally.  For these reasons, humble believers say, “God has many Names”.  (Our Islamic brothers and sisters speak of the 1,000 Names of Allah.)        

            Catholics believe that God has planted this Holy Longing for Transcendence in our minds and hearts.  St Thomas Aquinas called “obediential potency”, the potential to hear God’s call and respond in humble obedience.

In the twentieth century, Fr Karl Rahner speaks of the “supernatural existential”, viz., the call to transcendence in which we live and move and have our being, both within and beyond us.

            In our Scriptures today, there is no doubt that both Isaiah and St Peter had profound experiences of the Mysterium . Note that the reaction of both to their awareness of the Divine Presence and Divine Calling is their unworthiness to respond.  Isaiah calls himself, “a man of unclean lips” and St Peter tells Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”  Both realize that they are “out of their league”, yet both respond to the alluring call that is made to them.

            The Divine Presence can be felt in a variety of settings.  It is always on God’s initative; we don’t trigger it ourselves.  Isaiah was in the temple in Jerusalem praying when had his experience.  St Peter was at work, fishing. 

            There is no reason to think that God changes God’s modus operandi in dealing with us, the unlikely, the unworthys and the unknowns of this world.  In different days, people spoke of “Red Martyrdom”, when, in a Promethean show of strength, we do one great thing for God.  In other days, people spoke of “White Martyrdom”, we stoically sacrifice ourselves for a noble mission. In our own time, people speak of “Green Martyrdom”, when, in humility and obedience to God’s constant call to us (sometimes, though not always, powerfully felt), we say yes to God in our doing what seems so trivial and mundane and unimportant.

            God is ever greater, ever nearer, even in the everyday routine of my life.  Slow down, in solitude and silence frequently and let God be God.  Isaiah did. Jesus did, St Peter did. We  will be in good company.  020710AD jfq               

 

 

Sunday, January 31, 2010AD

Fourth Sunday in Green

 

Jeremiah, Jesus and Friends

            This weekend, we hear the conclusion of Jesus’ opening address in the synagogue of His hometown of Nazareth. Last weekend, He got off to a good start because He spoke of God’s compassion for all people.  He did all right until He pushed the envelope by making the statement that God cared about everyone, even those whom the Nazareth folks had written off.

            All of a sudden, the mood changed.  The crowd turned on Jesus and planned to hurl Him off the cliff.  God spared Him.

            Several key themes make their appearance here.  First, as we said last week, Catholics believe that God is always with us.  Still, there are special times in which we become conscious of God’s Presence in our lives.  St Luke stresses these moments through the words, today (semeron) and now (nuun).  For example, Jesus said “Today, this Scripture reading is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Do you believe Me or not?    

            St Luke describes Jesus as the consummate Jewish prophet-martyr. Jesus speaks, then and now, what God wants to be said. On Good Friday, it brought the prophet-martyr to the Cross. We hear a hint of what is to come today when Jesus’ townfolks try to hurl Him over the cliff.  What Jesus said that turned the audience off was that the God of the Jews loved everyone desiring their salvation, even those outside Jewish parameters. Sometimes, prophets become martyrs when their audience don’t like what they hear. 

Jeremiah survived his career, just barely, but not all others have been as lucky. Jeremiah challenged his audience 1) YHWH’s tender love is infinite; 2) YHWH expected to have that tender love reciprocated by right relationships; 3) YHWH would have to somehow practice tough love to straighten out the situation.  4) YHWH had a version of what the Catholic Catechism today calls “structural sin”, viz., the evil that human institution can perpetrate against innocent victims. Just as individuals bear “the law of built-in punishment” for their actions, a similar kind of “karma must govern institutions”.  Therefore, Jeremiah made his famous statement, that people should not feel false confidence by saying “This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord.”  Behave as God wants you to behave.  Not all his hearers agreed with him.  

            This weekend, we commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi, who tried to bring non-violent change to India.  So many of his one liners still speak poignantly 60 years later. 1) “As humans, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the false myth of the atomic age – as in the ability to remake ourselves.”  2) Cooperation, not competition, is the law of the human species ultimately”.  3)  “Be the change you want in the world.”

            Please God, the line of prophetic figures might continue today when people like Jim Wallis come along.  His new book, Rediscovering Values – on Wall Street, on Main Street and Your Street, ( NY: Howard Books, 2010) has something about prophecy about it.  It might deserve a read.  It is in the tradition of God’s Politics and The Great Awakening.  The book contains many insights about a Judaeo-Christian response to the Great Recession which began in the Fall, 2008.

In a prophetic fashion, he stresses three moral lessons that men and women of good will from whatever religious background might observe. 1) Relationships matter (on a big and a small scale).  Einstein’s theory is applicable universally.  Nothing can be understood in its entirety unless it is understood in relationship to everything else. The notion of autonomy is a fallacy of Western intellectual hubris. 2) Social sins also matter. (Here Wallis speaks in the train of thought that began as early as Jeremiah, whence our first reading this weekend through to Popes John Paul and Benedict. 3) Our own immediate good is ultimately tied up with the common good.     

            He speaks of a “seventh generation mindset”, making decisions today with a view that they will effect our children seven generations hence.  Our parish community has discussed this very concept on several occasions.

An interesting feature of the book is the use of sidebars which stress salient points in the text that deserve special emphasis.  One may not agree with them all, but they are certainly conversation starters for with civil people. Several examples bring points home more easily.  “The God of the Bible seems not to mind prosperity -- if it is shared.” (p. 82) “Ultimately, the common good is our own good, and the best thing for all of us is the right thing for the least of us.” (p. 94) “What is good for our neighbor is not just the right thing but is usually a good thing for us as well. (p. 131)   “A calendar is a moral document.” (p.171)

Finally, he concludes with 20 moral exercises that individuals, families, groups, communities can reflect upon together in a clarification of values. For example, (# 16 Watch and Pray):  Exercise the regular habit (and teach your children to do it too) of communicating with political representatives.

We conclude this month of new beginnings, as we reflect on prophets, then and now, Jeremiah, Gandhi, John Paul, Benedict, Jim Wallis, and Jesus Himself. Maybe, pick up a copy of Rediscovering Values as another way to make New Year’s resolutions. 013110AD jfq  

 

Sunday, January 24, 2010AD

Third Sunday in Green

 

                Now, Hear This, Theophilus

            For most of this upcoming liturgical year on Sundays, we hear excerpts from the Third Gospel, attributed to St Luke.  (During the 50 days of Easter, we hear excerpts as well from the Acts of the Apostles, composed as Volume 2 of a two work opus, known today as Luke-Acts.  The 52 chapters of Luke-Acts sweep from the Annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah in Luke 1 to the arrival of the Good News, the Gospel, by St Paul in the Eternal City of Roma, at the ends of the earth. Acts 28.  Much ground is covered by the brilliant, inspired trained, yet anonymous,  Greek speaker, known to us as St Luke. 

            Both Volume One, viz., the Gospel of St Luke, as well as Volume Two, the Acts of the Apostles, were addressed to an individual known as Theophilus.  Who was this individual?  In all probability, he was a Greek speaking Gentile who attended Jewish synagogues, but did not become Jewish himself.  (We know from a variety of sources that there were sizable numbers of Gentiles who did worship in the synagogue without becoming Jewish themselves.  Jewish worshippers referred to their Gentile visitors weekly as the “God-fearers”.  These were men and women attracted to Judaism’s coherent ethics and worldview in which the human person was created in the image and likeness of God.  In addition, many of these God-fearers were scandalized by the potpourri of the various pagan religions of the time.  These non Jews sensed something special about Judaism.  However, they did not become Jews because of the obligation to observe so much of the Jewish rituals, such as circumcision and Kosher observance.  They could (and did) worship from afar. Scripture scholars tell us that many of the first Gentile Christians came exactly from this group.

            The consensus is that Theophilus was an affluent Greek speaker who was interested in becoming a member of the Jesus Movement (also known as ha Derek, the Way.) He might very well have been the patron who financed the two-fold literary efforts of St Luke.  As a result, in accordance with literary custom, the author dedicated the opus to his literary patron.

            There might have been several questions about the Jesus Movement that St Luke was trying to answer for the prospective new Christian.  1) Why did not more of Jesus’ Jewish kinsfolk not become Christian themselves?  2) How could the Jewish Messiah be the universal Savior of all the human family? 3) Why should anyone follow the Way of a crucified Roman criminal? Did that make followers of the Jesus Movement suspect as well? 4) What connection was there anymore between the Jewish Temple (destroyed by the time that the Gospel was written) and the Way of God, professed by the Jesus Movement in the house churches and Jewish synagogues around the Mediterrean?

5) What were the basic premises of the Jesus Movement that needed to be clarified for Theophilus and others like him?

            However, there is a meditation that anybody, then or now, could make as a result of the name of the putative literary patron.  The name Theophilus is a Greek derivative of two Greek words, 1) Theos – God; 2) philus – lover of.  The name Theophilus means simply “one who loves God.” 

            Questions abound.  Was this the literary patron’s actual name? Was it a new name that he assumed if and when he became a baptized member of the Jesus Movement, similar to a Confirmation name today?

Was it simply a nickname for any member of the Jesus Movement, then and now? Could it possibly be a nickname for everyone of us who claims to be a follower of the Way of Jesus Christ in the Jesus Movement?                       

If, indeed, it is a nickname for all of us, how does the inspired Gospel writer encourage us to show God our love (and commitment)?  Is it simply to say, as many do, “I believe in God and in Jesus Christ”?  As Pope Benedict wrote in Jesus of Nazareth a few years back, is it the same as saying more radically or basically, “I believe God and Jesus Christ.” 

            One of the most salient characteristics of the message that Luke is sending to Theophilus is the usage of the words “today” (semeron) and “now” (nuun).  It is that Luke is telling Theophilus (then and now) that whenever we are challenged by God’s message in Jesus Christ, we face a moment of decision.  We show our assent in faith through  living the Way of the Jesus Movement.  Some of the difficult adjustments that obviously Luke feels that Theophilus, then and now,  have to accept include our realization that God is constantly part of our lives.  Still, there are special times when we experience God’s Presence in a “Now” or a “Today” that is unique.  This critical moment becomes a time of decision whether we believe God and Jesus Christ in the everyday realities of our lives.  God is the Presence in which we live every “Now”.  Special situations whenever bring the Divine Indwelling home to us in every “today” and every “now”.  102410AD jfq  

 

Sunday, January 17, 2010AD

Second Sunday in Green

 

Coffee Brewing in the Attic

            Several years ago, there were a variety of motion pictures about wedding preparations.  Steve Martin and Diane Keaton played the parents of the bride in one release about twenty years ago.  Bride’s fathers were told to buy (NOT RENT) the video and watch it and study it.  They could save thousands. 

            One sad subtle point was that the actual wedding liturgy itself took about 30 seconds in the movie, featuring the de rigeux doddering, old “out of it” minister. Or was he a Catholic priest?

            However, who or what was “out of it?” Sadly, it becomes apparent that many (although not all) couples usually do not have the time or energy to think about the significance of marriage in Christ Jesus.  The unspoken drive is “Don’t talk to me about the rest of my married life; I am too busy planning for my wedding.”

            The Gospel of the Wedding Feast of Cana comes up as part of a triad from the early days of Christianity.  When our Christian ancestors spoke of the Epiphany of the Lord, they referred to three manifestations or appearances of the Lord Jesus: 1) the epiphany to the Visitors from our Gentile ancestors; 2) the baptism of Jesus by John; 3) the first of Jesus’ signs, the wedding feast of Cana. 

             The Lord Jesus manifests Himself to us in a variety of ways.  (Some of them are known only to Him because we miss them.)  Our relationship with Christ Jesus can take a variety of levels.  1) We can maintain an acquaintance with Him as we tip our hats to Him as we gather on the Lord’s Day. 2) We can maintain a familiarity with Him through a variety of built-in techniques into the course of each day.  Than Christ Jesus for the gift of each new day.  (It is only when you get older that you realize that each day is God’s “Present”.  Say a prayer the first and last thing in each day; thank God for the gift of food at each meal. (Not everyone is so fortunate as we.  Think of those in Haiti this morning after the earthquake.)  Don’t forget attendance weekly at the Sunday Eucharist.  Everyone finds out that no matter what they tell you, religion is not a luxury item.  The “System” has a way to ease Transcendence, Infinity and the Presence of God in your daily life.  Yet, the Lord Jesus is Present in every moment, or He is Present in no moments. The choice is yours.

            Finally, and most important, in silence and solitude and in slowing down and in simplicity, we let God speaks in our minds and hearts in the intimacy of silent prayer. Do yourself the favor and find the time each day, no matter what.

            This week, the world heard of the death of Miep Gees, whose family hid Ann Frank and her family in the Secret Annexe in their attic in WWII Amsterdam. It was this lady who saved the Diary of Anne Frank, one of the great works that emanated from WWII.  She tended to be very humble and un-assuming about what her family had done for the group hidden for years in their attic. Her comment was simply, ‘This is what any person would have done.” Still, when one considers that her family’s hiding of the Jews in the attic was actually a life-threatening action for themselves.  They were breaking the laws of the German occupation of Holland after 1940. They did God’s work as defenders of the Silent,Helpless (in their attic) at high personal risk.(No dumb chicken soup books there!)

            The One Whose manifestation or epiphany that we celebrate today is the One Who teaches us that He came for personal and social transformation.  (Get people to “snap out of it’ and “smell God’s coffee” in a critical mass and the culture will change.)  Transform the culture and individuals will change. As Venerable Dorothy Day’s associate, Peter Maurin, said, “A Catholic’s job is to help create a society where it is easier for people to be good.” 

            We reflect this weekend both on Swaziland, as our parish helps in mission efforts there, and Haiti, as our entire world helps in mission efforts. Christ Jesus is in each now; each now is in Christ Jesus.  Catholic theologians say now that Christ Jesus is the glue, the Blueprint, the DNA of the entire universe.  Whatever that exactly means, the human mind may not totally grasp.  However, if we stick to Mother Earth, the “garden planet of the solar system”, if not the entire universe, Christ Jesus, the glue, the blueprint, the DNA of our world is present as the Forcefield,  “in Which we live, and move and have our being “(pace, St Luke)

            Make a New Year’s Resolution to think early and often in the day about the Christ Presence in your life each moment, whether you realize it or not.  To the person of faith, Christ Jesus is in every scenario.  Whether it was Amsterdam in 1943, Swaziland or Haiti in 2010AD, where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found. Bring that home and realize that the Spirit of Christ Jesus is present in all.  The more we realize this, through God’s Grace, the more we say with the waiters in today’s Gospel. “(God) saves the best wine until now.” Enjoy the rest of the wedding!!!!  011710AD jfq      

 

Sunday, January 10, 2009AD

Baptism of the Lord

 

Speaking of Baptism…..

           That Jesus was baptized by John at the start of His public life is one of the indisputable facts of His Life.  (Others include the cleansing of the temple, the many meals which He shared with a variety of folks, the multiplication of the loaves and fish, His exorcisms, most of His parables, His proclamation of the Kingdom of God, His arrest and execution and God’s followup.)

            Why Jesus would submit to baptism by John which was a call to repentance has challenged biblical scholars and believers for a long time.  His solidarity with the Chosen People called to repentance seems to have been His motivation. Folks back then (and still today) thought as a corporate group than as individuals

            Still, this weekend when we recall Jesus’ baptism, we might think of our own baptismal promises, confirmed later on and renewed each year at Easter.  We do so as we recall that we are all still God’s “works in progress”. We are individuals within a group.  

            The Community of the Beloved Disciple (those addressed in the 4th Gospel as the three letters of John) was expected to believe in the one true God, the God of Life and the One Whom God sent, our Lord Jesus Christ. They were expected to love one another as Jesus loved them, selflessly and sacrificially.

            As the 21st century Community of the Beloved Disciple, we should ask for God’s Help in, at least trying to be people of tolerance with one another.  We should ask for God’s Help in, at least trying to be people of patience with those who get on our nerves. We should ask for God’s Help trying to be sympathetic for others whose lives are less than human and to whom Jesus would ask that we never turn a deaf ear. 

            In addition, we should ask for God’s Help in at least trying to be forgiving of injuries (real or imagined) perpetrated against us.  Many people prefer to stew over injuries and almost get a perverse sense of self-righteousness in the process. They are those who say that Americans have made an art form out of feeling sorry for ourselves; we revel in “pity parties”. (Jesus might suggest that we consider the fact that each of us needs to be forgiven as well for injuries that we have perpetrated against others ourselves. Think about it.)

            In addition, we are called to love as the Son of God made man has loved us.  Our Community of the Beloved Disciple is challenged to recall our belief that one who says that he or she loves God and hates his or her neighbor is a liar.  Our Community is challenged to recall the following:  1) our God is the God of Life, the God Who is Love, and  2) persons who abide in love abide in God and God in them. Thank God, we are still “works in progress”. God is not finished with us yet.

            Third, we are people who are called, with God’s Help, to try to surrender to the Mystery of the God with two hands.  The one hand deals with us generously and lavishly; the other hand allows us to experience the dark side of life, the mystery of the Cross, the Paschal Mystery. Difficult moments might be the principal ways in which God draws us near.

            In summary, Jesus asks us to live each “now” of our life with the constant realization of the “Galilee Principle” of the Divine Indwelling and the Deep Incarnation, viz., God lives in us and we live in God “now”.  Jesus asks us to trust that all reality (that includes the lives of each of us) is cruciform, viz., all is constantly ascending, descending and being transformed). Jesus asks us to anticipate the Surprising Promise of God to be faithfully and lovingly with us and in us in ways that we cannot imagine (on days good and not so good).        

            All of this in one way or another entails our baptismal promises always.  We ask Jesus for the strength to fulfill our baptismal promises (confirmed later on) to find a deeper humanity along the way. 011010AD jfq               

 

 

Never Doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world.

 Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!!!!!!!!!

 

Sunday, January 3, 2010AD

The Epiphany of the Lord

 

Sooner, rather than Later

            Sadly, the Feast of the Epiphany has undergone a sad decline in many cultures in the recent past.  True, in many places, January 6 remains a bigger day than December  25!  However, in conventional wisdom, most American Catholics feel almost a letdown the day after December 25. Christmas has come and gone.  Many Christmas lights went off right after Christmas, when they should be burning.

We continue to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas (until January 6) or the 40 days of Christmas (until February 2, the Presentation of the Lord in the temple). In many places, the manger remains up until Feb 2!!

The great theme of the Christmas Season is that the Jewish Messiah is the Universal Savior of all people. This wholistic view of Christ Jesus is manifest in three celebrations, in close proximity, viz., the Feast of Christ the King (of all, not some), the Epiphany (the Gentiles come to worship), the Presentation (where Jesus is proclaimed a revealing light to the Gentiles and the  glory of His people, Israel.)    God cares for all; Christ cares for all; in Christ Jesus, each of us should care for all as well.  Teach the kids!

St Matthew tells us in the Gospel today that the Magi brought three gifts to the Christ Child.  Since they are our Catholic ancestors, in imitation of them, each of us can bring 3 gifts as well to Christ Jesus, the Universal Savior.

25 years ago, the American bishops suggested that each Catholic give a good shot at three attitudinal changes that we can try to make in Christ Jesus. Make them as serious Catholic New Year’s Resolutions for your children.

 1) Ask for the Help in realizing that we are living in a new moment in world history.  Think about, among other priorities, the problems of energy conservation and global warming and their impact on your children.            

2) Ask for the Help to be consistent in defending life wherever anybody, anything, any institution usurps God’s right to take away the gift that only God can live.  As Cardinal O’Connor taught us, “Be pro-life on every issue!”  Think of the logic.  Think of its impact on your children’s world in the future.         

3) Ask for the Help to practice disarmament in our hearts, in our words and in our actions. As EF Schuhmacher, the Catholic economist-theologian in England, said, “Whether the world acknowledges that Jesus is Lord, sooner or later the world would have to acknowledge that Jesus has the only viable plan to a peaceful world.”  Rev Martin Luther King said famously, “The human race has to choose between non-violence and non-existence.” The non-violence of the Sermon on the Mount and the vision of God’s New World Order (aka the Kingdom of God) is the only way that our human family can survive.  (Recall that Pope Benedict told us New Year’s Day in 2008AD, that “the individual family has an impact on the global family; the global family has an impact on the individual family.” Try it out on your children.

After the Christmas ’68, Apollo flight around the moon, astronaut, Mike Collins said, “I really believe that if the leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. Think of how an Earth-view from 100,000 miles could be invaluable in getting people to work out joint solutions by causing them to realize that the planet we share unites us in a way far more basic and far more important than  difference in skin, color, religion or economic systems.  The earth appears fragile above all else.”

Humble people realize that while we can know more and more about things, we need to remember that there is more and more that we do not know.  They try to remember and behave that all reality is relational. Somehow or another, everything exists relationally to everything else. We hope in Christ Jesus that our relationships with one another are life-giving and love-giving. The Creator’s job description is to give life and to bring unity to all that lives.  That is the job description of the Creator’s children (that’s us!) as well.  God’s Will (will) be done, whether we follow it or thwart it ourselves.  That is one of the meanings of Jesus’ death and Resurrection.  Blessed Julian of Norwich said that God allowed the worst thing in the world to happen (the death of Christ Jesus) so that the best thing in the world could happen (the Resurrection) and did so in the very same Event!  Nothing is wasted by our Creative God of Life and Love.

There are three reactions to the appearance of the star of Bethlehem today and now.  First, we can be like the folks in Jerusalem who knew the prophecy but did not follow the star.  Second, we can be like King Herod who planned to extinguish the One Whose birth the star proclaimed.  Third, we can be like the Magi who followed the star to Bethlehem and found the One God sent.  Wise men (and women) still follow the star today.

Today’s Gospel is fraught with symbols that speak to us in many ways. One thing is clear.  God’s plan is to create and to unify in Christ Jesus. We can help or hinder the process.  We won’t stop it.  Make three resolutions for the sake of your children.    010310AD jfq

                   

Sunday, December 27, 2009AD

Holy Family Sunday

 

The Light of Christmas

            Many years ago, Julie Andrews sang about how “the hills are alive with the sound of music.”  We paraphrase her words “The (Byram) Hills are alive with the sound of music (and  the Light of Christmas.”

            However, as beautiful as our area is as we proclaim the birth of the Messiah, we can paraphrase again in a prayer, “The (Byram) Hills are alive with Spirit of Christmas.” How can we give greater meaning to these words?

            Really, really try with the Help of Jesus during the days of Christmas leading into the New Year of the Lord, 2010, to adopt in your personal dealings with one another an alternate worldview, the alternate consciousness, the alternate universe of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Try to subscribe to the values of the Kingdom proclaimed by the Newborn.  In personal dealings with family, friends and neighbors, do the best you can (with Jesus’ Help) to be one who tries to build an immediate God- centered world freer of violence, cruelty, hunger, injustice and inequality.  Try to believe and behave that, indeed, Christ Jesus is in you and you are in Christ Jesus.  St Paul and St John teach us this throughout the years.  If we did take the Presence of Christ seriously within our deepest DNA, then, it becomes easier to, at least, try to share and implement Jesus’ alternate worldview in our dealings with others.

            In the world in which we live, the alternate Worldview or Universe offered by Jesus is a refreshing and vivifying antidote.  Our Western culture (on both sides of the Atlantic) has been characterized as narcissistic (so self-centred that concern for others becomes an impossibility) as pragmatic (so goal-oriented that whatever works becomes a moral guideline) and as frenetic (so driven by a pursuit of things that the pursuit of Transcendence becomes a waste of time and energy).  It is impossible, on one’s own, to respond to a basic human question, “What are you really seeking?          

            The Prince of Peace offers advice (and Energy, viz., the Holy Spirit) to implement this alternate reality.  1) He teaches us that God is always with us, on good days as well as days not so good. (Hard to believe, but since each day is a gift from God (which is why we call it the Present), there can be no such thing as a bad day.  2) He teaches us that tough things do happen (and a middle-class lifestyle cannot prevent it totally), but that Everything works for the good for those who love God.  He teaches us that God (not Ego or We-go) is the Centre of the Universe.  There is no need to be a control freak because God is in control and God is a God of Life, a God of Mystery (both knowable and unknowable at the same time), a God of Reality, and a God of Love, the God of Now. 3) He teaches us that our life is not about us, but that we are about Life and death and Life in Christ forever.  Words cannot describe it, but the believer intuits the Truth. The Paschal Mystery of death and re-birth permeates our existence and the very existence of the Universe.

            During Advent, good people basically expressed, in many ways, the fact that they could not slow down and pay attention to the Coming of Christ now and in the future.  In essence, our frenetic pace is saying, “Don’t bother me right now with God-talk, I am too busy getting ready for Christmas.” However, just as it is always Advent, a season of waiting for the Lord because we pray, “Maranatha” (Come Lord, Jesus,) so also it is always Christmas because we celebrate  “Emmanuel” , (God is with us now (in Christ Jesus.)) Our Christmas carol sadly becomes, “O Come, All ye Breatheless.”

            In essence, all people live in what is called liminal space, threshold space. We are always in an in-between time. Transcendence is always present. However, it is only when one adverts to Transcendence that one experiences that Transcendence.  Christians are the ones who are supposed to realize that such is the case and demonstrate our realization in our religious behavior. (In this case, religion reverts to its etymological root, re- ligere – to bind together.)  We try to make a coherent view or reality out of our basic attitude to life.        

            In a sense it is most appropriate that we consider the in-between nature, the both – and nature, the paradoxical relationship between Advent and Christmas.  Christ is always coming, but Christ is already here.  As we near a new calendar year, it is fitting that we designate the custom of affixing the initials A.D. to dating correspondence and checks, etc.  (Recall that A.D. means “Anno Domini”, Year of the Lord (Jesus)). If you want it or not, it is always a Year of the Lord Jesus. 

            If we truly believed and acted on THE Divine Indwelling as well as Jesus’ Three Noble Truths, then, it becomes easier for us to adopt His alternate Reality or Worldview or Universe.  Then, it becomes easier to implement in a small immediate way a world freer of violence, hunger, cruelty, injustice and inequality. Try it and see.  The Light and Spirit of Christmas will shine in Byram Hills and maybe, a wider world as well.    122709AD jfq

 

Sunday, December 20, 2009AD

Fourth Sunday of Advent

(Sunday of the Virgin Birth)

 

Maria -- Mater et Magistra

          Several years ago, a made-for TV movie, entitled “Mary” appeared on Sunday night  television.  The producer of the movie was the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, mother-in-law of the Governor of California!! It was a fine movie, but it did not receive the praise that it deserved.

            The movie depicts Jesus’ life, told through a mother’s perspective, her reminiscing about Her Son. Indeed, the Mother of Jesus must have reminisced a great deal.  Like all mothers, she collected happy and sad memories.

            For example, the movie depicted Mary’s telling Jesus the story of the Good Samaritan as a bedtime story.  Mary comments on the story to Jesus that a Samaritan, characterized by most people, as an outsider, is the one who responds to the mugging victim when the victim’s own landsmen, the priest and Levite, pass him by for fear of violation of ritual purification prescriptions.

            “Values are caught, not taught”. What values would Jesus pick up from Mary and His foster father, St Joseph?

            1) Jesus would have caught Mary’s belief in the dignity of the human person.  All of us are created in the image and likeness of God, with no exceptions. 

            2) Jesus would have caught Mary’s belief in the primacy of family and community as the non-violent socializing force for good that should be stressed whenever.

            3) Jesus would have caught Mary’s belief that humans are born both with rights and responsibilities.  We stress our rights; we should stress our responsibilities in response to these rights. 

            4) Jesus would have caught Mary’s belief that God loves all people, but has a bias for the bottom.  Today, folks call it the preferential option for the poor.

            5) Jesus would have caught Mary’s belief that workers (at that time, probably 95% + of the population were tenent farmers)  have the right to be treated humanely with a decent wage.

            6) Jesus would have caught Mary’s  belief that there is a solidarity that must be lived with all our sisters and brothers. (That is what we all are in God’s eyes!) 

            7) Jesus would have caught Mary’s respect for the environment and see it as part of the heritage to be passed on to future generations. (She would have been following events in Copenhagen.)

All this would have raised hackles of a system that did not see things just that way.   Someone might even end up crucified as a subversive of the Pax Romana because of talk of a Kingdom of the God of Life.

            Both Joseph  and Mary must have taught Jesus about the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures.  They naturally recalled the basic principle, stressed in every Catholic baptismal liturgy.  “Parents are the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith and hope.  May they be the best of teachers, bearing witness to their faith and hope by what they say and do in Christ Jesus Our Lord.”  Mary must have been a great mother and teacher (Mater et Magistra). Look how her Son turned out.

Even now, Jewish people tend to think communally.   They thought in terms of the family, clan, tribe, rather than nation-state. (We are finding out today the hard way that many in the Mid East still do.) Nevertheless, the prophet Micah offers God’s challenge to each individual Jew, “Do the right, love the good and walk humbly with your God each day.” (Mi 6.8) We cannot make the world perfect, only God can do that. Still, we can make our own worlds better.  And we will be held responsible for what we do or do not do.

        Today, Micah’s idea of personal responsibility gets qualified despite the fact that we praise our “rugged individualism” as a cultural value.  1) We offer excuses of nature and/or nurture factors in why we really are not responsible for things. 2) We buy into the bigness of “structural sin”.  Since large institutions get away with so much, why can’t I? 3) We are affected by the Mainsream-syndrome, dominated by mass media –driven materialism and middle class values.  Why change?

Today, Micah proclaims that YHWH is faithful and that from  Bethlehem (the least), the town of David, would come a leader to shepherd the people.  We believe that the leader did appear.  We celebrate his mother and his foster father this weekend.  They did a great job teaching the Christ Child through their efforts to do the right, love the good and walk humbly with YHWH each day.  With God’s Help, let us drive to do the same with our children and family during this Christmas Season during which we celebrate the Christ Quantum as God’s constant irreversible breakthrough. God happens, God is born in the strangest places, (aka the Galilee Principle),  closer than we know. Venite adoremus!!!!  122009ADjfq           


 

 

Sunday, December 13, 2009AD

Advent Sunday, III

(Gaudete Sunday)

 

Not Quite the Kook!!

 

            Once again, St John the Baptist (aka Jack the Dipper) challenges audiences, then and now. He  continues his role as the “Warm-up Act” or the Precursor (Forerunner) of the Main Event, our Messiah.

            It is important to recall that the Baptist was preparing not for the birth of a baby. (Jesus was born thirty years before this Gospel scene.) It was an adult Christ that he anticipated.

            The Dipper has been described as an apocalyptic, viz., “fire and brimstone” preacher who used strong language to confront his audience. It is no small thing to call people a brood of vipers.  Recall, as well, that the hearers were the folks who bothered to go to the banks of the Jordan to hear this counter-cultural figure. Most (then and now??) said, “Don’t complicate my life with your Godtalk! I’m too busy with important things. What did the Baptist think of those who couldn’t be bothered making the journey to be told to snap out of it, to smell God’s coffee and to get a (new) life (style). His response, should he have heard their laments might have been, “Whether you like it or not, God is coming.”

Yet, his challenges are rather simple.  Or are they?  He tells the crowds to share with one another, whether it is an new jacket or extra food. It is just the Golden Rule in concrete circumstances.  If one needed extra clothing or food, one hopes that another with extra would share. Yet, sadly, folks have to be reminded of that 2,000 years after the Baptist made his pitch. Thank God, so many in Armonk respond so wonderfully and generously.John’s message was about a re-adjustment in basic thoughts and attitudes, as a non-negotiable.  John’s message was about an ethical adjustment in one’s behavior, if one’s priorities had become dysfunctional and/or aberrant when the name of the game becomes security, popularity and control at all costs.

John’s message is that God cares much about what is happening in the world and is about to take definitive action to ameliorate our addictions, compulsions, enmeshments through the arrival of Someone Who would clean up the mess that began in the Garden of Eden with the sin of arrogance committed by our first parents. 

Imagine falling for the temptation that “you, too, can be like God”. 

That was, in essence, the sin of the System, viz., to control reality to one’s advantage.  The System feels that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. The System feels that anyone who is reasonable would want to live in the System that we set up and that there is something wrong with someone who would challenge the System.  Because the System controls reality, it feels that it can change the rules to benefit the System.  Should someone disagree, then something needs to be done.  (This is what happened to John, Jesus and countless others since, then and now.)   Adam and Eve still live in many ways in their descendents, when you think of it!!                  It is the challenges hurled at the soldiers and the tax collectors that scripture scholars have focused special attention.  The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who wrote later in the first century, that King Herod had John arrested because “others were listening to John’s message.”  Some conjecture that John was winning hearers among the soldiery and the tax collaborators who propped up Herod’s oppressive system of institutional violence.  What would have happened if his agents of institutional terrorism (mercenary soldiers) and his tax farmers who cheated people realized the errors of their ways?  The Baptist might have had more listeners than we imagined.

            Today, the Baptist might challenge a compulsed society.  Several years ago, Ann Wilson Shafe, a sociologist, wrote a book entitled, When Society Becomes an Addict. She wrote that Western civilization had become addicted to the “System”. We know that things are not the way they should be. We know deep down in our minds and hearts, that a world in which 2% of people own 50% of the land in the world that something is wrong.  We know that billions of people do not have proper diet or medical care.  We know that something is happening to our very environment that by 2040AD, Arctic ice may disappear each summer.  Small island nations are3 pleading their cause in Copenhagen this weekend because they wonder of the future of their nations. We know that war is obsolete as an apt means of conflict resolution and yet, we tolerate sending other people’s children and parents to risk death for questionable causes. 

            The Baptist’s cry might have shaken up a few more folks than we thought.  John’s comments on Herod’s unusual marital arrangements notwithstanding, more might have been going on than we realize. Maybe, more snapped out of it then, smelled God’s coffee and got a new life style. 

With God’s Help, in Christ Jesus’ alternate universe, the World Order of the God of Life, Jesus’ lenses, Christ consciousness, the Kingdom, others still can do so.  Imagine!!          121309AD jfq 

 

Sunday, Dec 6, 2009AD

Advent Sunday, II

 

He’s Back!!

            Jack the Dipper is back at the River Jordan.  We meet John the Baptist on these Sundays of Advent as we continue, with God’s Help, to prepare the Way for the Lord.

            He should generate now, as then, a lightning rod of response. However, we tame such religious figures because  the “Word of the Lord  came to John in the wilderness.” Such as John force us to face ourselves if we listen to them.

          He was a challenge then and should remain a challenge now.  He did not go to Rome or Jerusalem to proclaim his message of metanoia , viz., snapping out of the Systemic Big Lie and realigning ourselves on the Way that God wants us to travel.  He wants us to welcome the One Who follows.  John offers the chance to see that we need to snap out of it, to be realigned and to live as God wants.

            Sociologists have said that human behavior is mimetic. We don’t want to be left out of the crowd.  We accept almost unquestioningly the conventional wisdom of culture.  We allow others to determine who and/or what is important and/or desirable and unimportant and/or undesirable. Hence, if we participate in a culture that accepts unchallenged what is fed to it because everyone else does as well, then, the sociologists are correct. Indeed, we become “sheeple.”

            In addition, sociologists tell us that human tend to be conscious of “in crowd/out crowd.”  With whom do we not identify?  Do we use ethnicity, race, religion, socio-economic class as determinants of those with whom we  associate or emulate.

            This tendency to distinguish “in crowd” and “out crowd” can be sadly coupled with a propensity to violence and vengeance , presented in the Cain and Abel story.  Those with whom we do not identify might tend, perhaps, to be less human. We might treat them differently than others. 

            If we have recognize anything of ourselves in the three observations of the sociologists, then we need to listen to Jack the Dipper and “snap out of it.”  1) We do not have to go along with conventional wisdom.  2) Our particular cultural story collapses into the Human Story. 3) We need to stop the downward spiral of violence. (events, this past week, sadly notwithstanding!!) 

            The System (the “City of Man”, named by St Augustine) has created a dysfunctional system that so many buy into and idolize.  Many years ago, sociologist, Anne Wilson Shafe, wrote a book, “When Society Becomes an Addict.”As one can gather from its title, the book never became a best seller. She warned that the System had become addicted to the System.  We half-sense that we cannot keep living as we live forever (be it economically, environmentally or energy-wise.). However, most folks feel that we cannot make adequate adjustments.  Also, most folks ask “Why should we do so when our behavioral changes would be merely a drop in the bucket?” 

The Baby Jesus would grow into the serious and challenging adult who asks, “What does it profit a person if one gains the whole world and suffers the loss of one’s soul in the process?” In the words of Robert DiNiro, Armonk culture might ask, “Jesus, are You talking to me?”

We need God’s System, Jesus’ System, God’s City, a “Kingdom of God – consciousness”. God is triumphant – even now, but not yet.  John the Baptist was Jesus’ advance man out in the Jordan. Each of us needs to say, repeatedly, in the words of Archbishop Dolan, “I need a Savior”.  We need to repeat, “There is only one God and it ain’t me or us!!”   

            It is an invitation to snap out of a dysfunctional worldview into a worldview endorsed by the Creator of the Universe and the Creator’s Son Incarnate.  However, there is a vital first step introduced by St John the Baptist in Luke’s Gospel.  Into human history, calculable by imperial and religious dates, John’s call to snap out of it is predicated on our acceptance of the fact that we even need to snap out of it.  How can we snap out of a dysfunctional worldview when we don’t even realize that we live in one? Christ came in history; someday, He will come in majesty.  Even now, everyday, He comes in Mystery. The only difficulty is that some many good people get caught up in the ratrace of the System. Sadly, the big question becomes “What am I getting for Christmas?”, not “how can I respond to God’s daily call to transcendence?”  One theologian recently said, “Sadly, our longing for things is a mask for our longing for God.” The return of Jack the Dipper is a necessary wake-up call.  120609AD jfq                         

 

Sunday November 29, 2009AD

First Sunday of Advent

 

Think and Thank and Think Again

            A New York theologian, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, is a professor at Fordham. She has represented the Catholic Church in different dialogues with religious traditions throughout the years.  Several years ago, she spoke to the USA Catholic Bishops and suggested to them that they consider the possibility of adding something to our church calendar to celebrate the gift of creation, God’s primordial revelation.  Her proposal did not meet with success. Perhaps, we can take her suggestion informally this particular weekend, bracketed by Thanksgiving Day and the First Sunday of Advent.     

       We speak now of a “Common Creation Story”, viz., most seem to accept the fact that the universe had a beginning. (Both astrophysics and the Book of Genesis agree with that reality.) We might think of the universe, focusing particularly on our wonderful “garden planet”, as a basic reason for which to say thanks to the Creator. We bring the religious dimension directly into our TXG when we recall that St Paul wrote 2,000 years ago, that Christ is the pattern of creation. 

(Traditionally, TXG Day has been a day in which we tended to concentrate on the blessings that God bestows upon us (not all of us, though, as we need to be reminded of periodically)  here in the USA. There is no reason why we cannot broaden our base, not stopping  at national boundaries.  The entire world is God’s gift to us.  Why not focus on the gift of the planet this TXG weekend?)

            A few years ago, a Saudi Arabian astronaut was aboard the space shuttle going to the orbiting space station. He commented that in his wonder at the planet from the space shuttle, the first day he was taken with the vision of Saudi Arabia from space.  The third day, he was taken with the vision of his continent.  On the fifth day, he was taken with the vision of the entire Earth. 

            Most of us will probably not have the opportunity to view the planet from space.  Still, peering out the window of a flight over the Atlantic or Pacific doesn’t hurt either.  We are the first generation in history to have such views of the world that have been there for thousands of years.  As Psalm 19 proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord; the sky proclaims its Builder’s craft. One day to the next conveys the message; one night to the next imparts the knowledge.” 

            Several years ago, Fr Thomas Berry, stirred up a mini-controversy when he said that people raised in an urban environment were deprived of a realistic view of the universe.  He cited the fact that people in cities could not look up into the heavens at night to realize how truly vast the universe is.  The interference of artificial lighting in cities hinders the process.  On the contrary, those who lived in more rural settings had a natural advantage on appreciating the vastness and the wonder of the universe. 

Jesus’ words in the Gospel today take on an even deeper meaning, “The powers of the heavens will be shaken.”  As a result, Jesus urges us,“ Be vigilant at all times.”

Maybe, the fact that we do not wonder sufficiently at the universe contributes to the fact that there is so much waste in the world as we live today.  In our common life in the world today, we might remember the formula, EARTH > environment, economics, energy.   Fr Berry said it is common sense to remember, as a rule of thumb, “Trees do not need us; however, we need trees.” 

            In 1983, our USA Catholic Bishops coined a new expression that has caught on among conscientious Catholics and others. They spoke of the new moment in human history. What they meant in 1983 was that since 1965, approximately, the two superpowers of the times, the USA and the USSR, had the capacity to wage MAD, viz., Mutually Assured Destruction.  They said, “People today are capable of undoing (on this planet) what has been doing for the past 4 billion years in the creation of the earth.” In the 26 years which have elapsed since they spoke those prophetic words, the new moment has expanded to the impact of environmental pollution.  Who thought that, for example, cutting down the rainforest in Brazil could affect our weather all over the world?  As Father Berry also said, “In 1912, there were 1 million autos in the world.  In 2000, there are over a billion. When did the automobile become an environmental, energy and/ or economic problem? What about when China and India get on the road as well in greater numbers?

          Following Sister Elizabeth Johnson’s suggestion, maybe we can focus this TXG weekend on giving thanx for the wonder of Creation (look up into the skies in awe), with the author of Psalm 19,  the particular beauty of the “garden planet” of  the solar system, if not the universe, our own nation and the bounty in our own lives.  At the same time, give thanx in  wonder. However, remember Jesus warning when we think of the waste that our complacency can be causing without even realizing it. 112909AD jfq     

 

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Here ends our Church Year, 2009AD

 

November 22, 2009AD

Christ the King

 

God Is The Story

            Our daily Mass community gathers daily from Monday through Friday to get the day off to a good start.   Daily, we offer  the entire community as an opportunity to enhance our weekly gathering on the Lord’s Day.  Daily Mass provides time to worship our Creator and Sustainer in a less formal, regimented way.  Try to join us when you can.  Several of the younger members of the community join us periodically and we are always glad when you are here. (Because of concern for the three E’s, viz., economy, ecology and energy, we are gathered in the Ladychapel, adjacent to the Religious Education Complex.) 

            We try with God’s Help to focus on Vatican’s emphasis upon the People of God and the tripartite call to all Christians to be priestly, prophetic and pastoral. Our daily community tries to respond to the call of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), called by Blessed John XXIII and Pope Paul VI.  We stress the three principles of Vatican II through an adherence to aggiornamiento (bringing up to date) and convivienza (enjoying God’s Presence) and resourcement (getting back to recover our apostolic roots). 

            One of the steps that our daily community tries to do is to restore the three biblical languages  of Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek.  The biblical languages are already represented in the use of words such as Amen (Hebrew for “So be it”.); Alleluia (Hebrew for “Praise, the God of Life” ; Kyrie eleison (Greek for “Lord, have mercy”).

            Our daily community tries to learn the Sign of the Cross in Greek, citing Mtt 28.19.  We say it at the beginning and the end of the Mass. It was not impossible and practice  helps.

            One of the perqs of our resourcement in Greek is to remind our daily community that we come into an awareness of the Divine Presence always in us in a real way by our change of language. It becomes an exercise in reminding ourselves of the Reality of God in Which we live, and move and have our being, every moment of our life. The Greek Sign of the Cross is a reminder of a different, a Catholic view of reality that is wholistically applicable every moment of our lives.

            Humans live in three domes of reality.  The first dome of reality is “My World”.  We try to answer the question, “Who am I?”  We focus on “my story”, a legitimate effort to live a private, small life as we search for significance  through power, prestige and possessions. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with the effort so long as we follow the rules. Pope John Paul II said, “there are no moral free zones.”  The temptation here becomes egoism, viz., “I am the center of the universe. (There is something wrong with you for your not realizing it.)” 

            The second dome of reality is “Our World”.  We focus on “our story.” We try to answer the question, “Who are we?” We try to find our place in the universe through our group identities and loyalties that expand our self-identification. Our identity markers become our ethnicity, our race, our religion, our group identities.  Once more, there is nothing wrong with the effort so long as we follow the rules. Again, Pope John Paul’s caveat kicks in. “There are no moral free zones.” The temptation here  becomes cultural narcissism, viz., “We are the center of the universe (There is something wrong with you if you are not like us.)”

            Most people, however, move back and forth between these two domes. Most do not realize that there is a third dome. 

            The third dome of reality is “the Universe”, viz., God’s world, Reality “THE STORY”.  We try to answer the question, “What is the reality of which I and we are parts?” We try to find our place in the universe through our recognition of and immersion in a process that is always operative, both in the life of the universe and in your place in the universe.

            What are the truths that Christ Jesus assures us through His life, death and resurrection?  1) Certainly, God is still creating the universe and still creating you as part of the universe.  God is not finished with the universe and God is not finished with you.  2) Certainly, God has engaged the universe in the process of ascent, descent and transformation. Scientifically, the process is named “the conservation of energy or of matter, viz., nothing is lost in the universe.  God is still creating the universe and still creating you as part of the universe.  Theologically, the process is called “the Paschal Mystery.” Christ Jesus lived and died and experienced the transformation of Resurrection.  Catholic Christians believe that Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn or pattern of creation and the firstborn of the dead, as we sing in Paul’s hymn in Colossians.  Catholics believe that Christ Jesus lives in each of us and that each of us lives in Christ Jesus.  What happens in Him, happens in the universe and happens in me.

            After 3,200 years, Judaeo-Christians still puzzle over the Sacred Name revealed to Moses when Moses was called to his vocation. What does YHWH mean?  There are so many translations that nobody knows for sure.  However, we know that the Sacred Name is related to the Hebrew verb to be, to live, to become, to exist.  Here, we try to wonder at the Sacred Name by translating it in a variety of ways,God of Life, God beyond space and time, yet God here and now, God of Love.  Words can never capture the full meaning. 

            That is why it is useful that our daily community reminds ourselves of the Divine Reality, the Big Picture, the Great I AM, “in Which we live and move and have our being,” when we gather for daily Mass.  By a shift of language, we recall that we live in a reality that ultimately is Mystery, something infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable, AT THE VERY SAME TIME.

            On this concluding Sunday in our Church year, ask yourself how much God has drawn you more clearly in Dome Three Consciousness.  As we move into the future, remember the process.  All the more reason to give thanx this Thursday and always!!!!  112209AD jfq 

 

 

Sunday, November 15, 2009AD

33rd Sunday in Green

 

Did Jesus Say That?

         Catholic biblical theologians have been writing about the historical Jesus with gusto and perspicacity for several years.  Father John Meier has published 4 volumes so far of A Marginal Jew, a search for the “Jesus of history”, the bruta facta of His life.  

        One of the determining criterion used by Father Meier, a New York priest teaching at Notre Dame, is used by other biblical theologians as well.  It is known as the “criterion of embarrassment”, viz., deeds and/or sayings of Jesus that would not be made up later on because such deeds and/or sayings were embarrassing to Christians celebrating His death and Resurrection. 

        A prime example of this appears at the conclusion of our Gospel today.  “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  No New Testament author and/or community would have added such a statement in which the Lord professed not to know something about in the emerging Jesus Tradition. Yet, He spoke that day  unaware of about the future.

        The time in which Jesus lived and died and rose was turbulent.  Later, in the same first century, the time in which St Mark wrote his gospel was also a turbulent time.  The Jews had revolted against Roman oppression in the early 60’s and word was out that a huge invading army was on its way or had arrived outside the walls of Jerusalem. The Jesus Movement had undergone a savage persecution in Roma, after the great fire of July, 64 AD. In addition, three pivotal leaders of the Jesus Movement had met their death in Christ in the 60’s, viz., Peter and Paul in Roma and James, the relative of Jesus, the head of the Jerusalem Church. Also, in one year, Rome had seen three Emperors, Nero, Otho and Galba.  

        With all that had befallen them, the Jesus Movement had to ask, “How much longer can this go on? Is there any end in sight?” Many think that St Mark penned his inspired words to strengthen communities in strife.  Recall how we have heard on several past Sundays the “Doctrine of the Cross Revealed.”  Jesus tells His followers, then and now, that no one said that the Jesus Movement and the faith it involves it would be easy.  The Cross confronts every human person in some shape or form at some time.  There is no escape. (It is known as the universal Paschal Mystery.)  

        Still, there is the possibility of transformation. As St Paul asserts so strongly in the Romans 8, passim,  written about 57 AD, to folks on whom the roof was going to collapse 7 years later in the persecution after the great fire in Rome, July 64AD, “I consider the sufferings of the present nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in us…We know that all things work for good for those who love God…For I am convinced that neither death nor life…nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

        How humbling and consoling it is for us today as we realize that we don’t have all the answers.  (Sometimes, the more arrogant among need to be reminded as well that we don’t even know how to formulate the questions.) In its ancient days, the Israelites thought that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was literally the center of the universe.  Later, others came to think that the earth was the center of the universe.  Still, later, others came to think that the sun is the center of the universe.  Now we realize that our solar system is just a small part of a vaster cosmos that is still in the process of cosmogenesis.  (Some still need to make the transition from all of this that we, humans, are not the center of the universe. Rather, the Creating, Redeeming and Vivifying God revealed in Jesus Christ is the Driving Force or Center of the Universe.

        Many years ago, German Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, asked the question, “What would happen to the human race if the word “God” were eliminated in human language?” (In many ways, atheism has tried to do this with its debunking of theism, viz., anthropomorphic ways of describing God (usually, to one’s own satisfaction and in one’s own likeness).

        Rahner’s conclusion was that eventually, humans would have to come with a new word to describe what we mean by “God”. In the late-1960’s, a movement grew called the “God is Dead Movement”.  In response to the movement, a book appeared, “God Is Not Quite Dead Yet.” The book said that the drive to Transcendence built into human consciousness, which is oriented to an insatiable  thirst for both knowledge and love is something that cannot be denied for long by everyone.  Rahner called it the existential drive to transcendence.  Traditionally, this is the idea of Grace, available to all.  You cannot deny its reality for long.  Nature will not be ignored!       

        Even if Jesus admitted that He did not know the day or the hour, He teaches all Roman Christians (and Armonk Christians as well) to hang on tight and always trust in God. He did. With His Help, we can too.                      111509AD jfq           

 

Sunday, November 8, 2009AD

32nd Sunday in Greentime

 

What’s a Lepta?

            One of the most famous vignettes in Jesus’ life is our Gospel this weekend as we hear the story of the Widow’s Mite. The familiarity of the story belies its controversial interpretations even after twenty centuries. 

            St Mark juxtaposed two incidents today when he speaks of the widows in close proximity to one another.  Jesus berates those who thrive on the offerings of widows and then, Jesus salutes the widow’s act of faith.  Jesus’ negative assessment of religious functionaries is a challenge to all religious leaders then and now, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, Islamic et al.

The actions that Jesus highlighted were their parading around in long robes, their taking the best seats at functions and their devouring the houses of widows.  Jesus has taken the gloves off on this one.  As an outsider, He challenges the religious institution on its own turf, viz., the temple.

Institutional religion, like adult life, has two phases, viz., 1) making its mark and  2) making leaps of faith in the Holy Mystery (that Catholics call God.)  Recent biblical criticism stresses the fact that, by and large, most of the various strains of pluralistic Judaism at the time of Jesus might have been painted with broad strokes that were not totally fair.

First of all, there is a debate over whether the story of the widow’s mite is an actual event in the last week of Jesus’ life or a parable that Jesus told the last week of His life in the Temple. If it were, indeed, an actual event, Jesus was making an observation that was quite obvious.  The worshipers at the Temple, indeed, contributed to its upkeep by their donations.  However, the insight of Jesus challenges much, then as well as now, of conventional religious wisdom.  As a matter of fact, the generosity of the affluent comes out of their affluence and as a result, in terms of finances, the widow’s two lepta, amounting to a quarter of one cent is literally “a drop in the bucket.”

However, there are those who see the story of the widow’s mite as a parable that Jesus told in the temple. (Even in both non- Jewish Jewish folklore, there were stories of a similar drift.  The almsgiving of the poor are more valuable, qualitatively, then the almsgiving of the affluent. )

Whether the vignette describes an actual incident or a parable that Jesus told, the stress in the story is the same. In a radical (basic) way, the widow’s action denotes three characteristics of disciples, First, she had received the gift of poverty in spirit. She knew that, ultimately, everything was based on God’s Presence in our lives.  (How about us?)  One may not see it as such, but that was the bottom line, if we are  honest with ourselves.  Second, she viewed her life as a totality ultimately under God’s Sovereign Sway. (How about us?)  Third, her offering was an act of faith that even though she had nothing, she believed that God would take care of her. (How about us?)

The widow demonstrates poverty in spirit, viz., what Jesus spoke about last Sunday in the First Beatitude.  “Blessed is that person who acknowledges, when all is said and done, with God’s Help, that God is the Centre of that person’s life because that person is moving in the right direction.” She believed that ultimately everything is based on God’s Presence in our lives.

750 years ago, St Thomas Aquinas spoke of the principle of causality.  God ultimately is the First Cause of all things. God is the Reason why all things exist.  However, God, the First Cause, works frequently (if not usually) through secondary causes. Our world does not see God’s Hand at work in the vicissitudes of life; still, it is God’s Presence both in and beyond us at work.  Somehow, the widow intuited this in faith. Using the biblical notion, the widow would be a member of the Anavim YHWH (the Poor Ones of YHWH); she felt that God would provide for her.

However, the picture had changed by the time that St Mark wrote His Gospel, around the year 70AD.  The temple that the widow was supporting had recently been destroyed by the marauding Roman army.  In effect, St Mark knew what Jesus might have intuited.  The Temple was not going to last. A few days later that week, on Good Friday, St Mark tells us that the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  God was with God’s People, including the widow, in a new way. Whatever happened the widow, the fact that the story has been preserved means that God, indeed, vindicated the widow and all who acknowledge God, with God’s Help, as the Centre of their lives.  She and they are moving in the right direction.  Are we included in their ranks?  110809AD jfq      

             

November 1, 2009AD

All Saints Day

 

What Does Poor in Spirit Mean?

       Last evening, October 31st (aka Halloween)  begins our Catholic month of Remember. From now, until after Thanksgiving, we remember the Christian harvest as we recall the dead in Christ (particularly today and tomorrow), as well as God’s blessings to us here and now on TXG Day) as well as our anticipation, even now but not yet, of God’s final victory over what oppresses us on Christ the King Sunday at the end of the month.

            Today’s festival of All Saints Day originally began as a Christian adaptation of an old Celtic festival on Nov 1, known as Samhain (pronounced Sow-in, go figure!! Traditional European folk religion believed that the gates of heaven were only opened once a year, viz., on Samhain, the onset of winter in Celtic countries.

On this Celtic New Year’s Eve, all those who had died entered into heaven on this one festival when the gates of heaven were opened annually.

            In the eighth century, the traditional Celtic festival was Christianized as an opportunity to commemorate all those who had died in Christ, putting up the good fight. It is a splendid time to call to mind all those whom we have known and loved and whom we commend to YHWH today and always. 

            We hear once again today the Beatitudes as our Gospel reading.  It is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Mtt 5-7).  It has been said that the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit because the Kingdom of God is theirs, ”  is the key to the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are the key to the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is the key to the Gospel of St Matthew. 

       However, the word “poor” is a turnoff in colloquial English. Who would want to be poor under any circumstances?  What does “poor in spirit” mean to complicate the matter?

            The words that Jesus might have used when He spoke of the poor were varied.  One word anav means material poverty.  A second word that could have been used was dal, which means “bent over or stooped” (with the burden of poverty.  Either word would not have been very attractive things to which a blessing was attached.  However, Jesus wants us to consider Himself as the Guarantor of the promise.   

            Jesus’ insight is simply that ultimately when one honestly considers one’s life, everything in life is a gift to us or predicated on a gift to us.  Even, when one gets very serious about one’s existence, each and every moment of our life is a gift to us.  Nobody consulted us on our desire to come into this world. Nobody should consult is on our desire to leave this world.  Not only are the moments of birth and death sacred moments in which God’s Presence can be felt. So also when one reflects on  the incomprehensible, indefinable, ineffable dimensions of our lives each and every second of our life, we become cognizant of the Divine Immanence (Presence) and Transcendence of our lives. 

            Everything that happens between conception and death is a gift when one reflects upon it.  One’s response can only be cosmic awe, humility and honest realization that, indeed, all is gift or based on a gift.  We are, indeed, poor when we realize that all is a gift.  Whether we are affluent or not (in the material sense), in God’s purview, God’s daughters and sons are all poor.  All we have are God’s gifts.

            In addition, just as we stand before God with empty hands, we have taken God’s gifts for granted or as entitlements.  Before long, we abuse the gifts and find ourselves not only with empty hands, but with dirty hands as well.

            What Jesus means in the first Beatitude is that, with God’s Help, when we have a healthy self-assessment, then we have accepted the gift of poverty in spirit.  We know our human condition and our place in God’s universe.  God energizes us to live in the consciousness that Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, even now, but not yet. 

            Years ago, one young theologian at Stepinac summed up the first Beatitude in colloquial English, “Blessed is that person, who acknowledges, with God’s Help, that God is the Center of that person’s life because that person is traveling on the right track.” There is a consolation in the realization of another student that one does not have to be a ten in everything to be loved by God.  Quoting the words of the prophet Micah, thank God, so many of those whose memory we call to mind today and throughout the month of “Remember”,  all those tried, with God’s Help, to do the right, to love the good and to walk humbly in the Divine Presence each “now” of their lives.

            They touched our lives when they were with us.  According to the ancient Celts (and many of their descendents), they still touch our lives.  We don’t see them as we did before; they still impact and inspire our lives as they live on in our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus.  Happy Samhain! Happy All Saints Day! Its implications are deeper than most think.     110109AD jfq 

            

Sunday, October 25, 2009AD

31st  Sunday in Greentime

 

I Want to See…

Again and/or Above

            We conclude this morning the portion of St Mark’s Gospel known as Mark’s Manual for Men (and Women).  The culture in which Dark, Stark, Laconic Mark first appeared was clearly a male-dominated one. (Some say, despite the advances of women today, our culture is still male-dominated.)

            Our culture tends to face problems as fix-able, understandable, and/or controllable.  That is, of course, what we should do.  However, we need to be reminded that the Paschal Mystery of “surrender, let go and trust the Holy Mystery” is at the very heart of all creation. Everything is in process.

            This section of St Mark’s Mighty Message began in the curious scene where Jesus had to heal the blind man in two stages.  First, the man saw something, but people looked like walking trees.  Then, after a second try, then, the man is healed.  Not for nothing, the next scene is St Peter’s profession of faith in which St Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah, but then, misses the boat when Jesus speaks of the necessity of the Paschal Mystery, viz., death and Resurrection.  Then, Jesus called St Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.  Your way of thinking is the (fallen) human way, not the Way of God.” Jesus begins serious teaching not only with St Peter, but with the 12 and with all of us as well.

            Recall some of the strange things that Jesus says that do not click with the mores of Western Civilization. Recall Jesus’ saying, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of one’s soul in the process?  Whoever would find his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel will find it.”

Recall, for example, His words,    “leaders of the Gentiles lord it over their followers…The greatest among us must serve and not be served.”  Figures in church and state need to factor these values into their styles.  Do they? Do we?

            Finally, today, St Mark brackets his Mighty Message with the healing of Bartimaeus.  This time, the process of healing takes one step. 

When Jesus asked Bartimaeus what he wanted, he answered, “Anablepso!” (This one word can mean, “I want to see” or “I want to see again” or “I want to see the things above” or “I want to see (reality) clearly.”)

Bartimaeus’ request is granted.  St Mark tells us that he followed Jesus up the road to Jerusalem (as His disciple). Can we say the same about ourselves?  Are we following Jesus on our way to Jerusalem in our experience of the Paschal Mystery of death and transformation in Christ Jesus?

Focussing on the request of Bartimaeus, let us consider how his request might be a re-stating of a question that every mature Catholic adult, indeed, every mature human person, might pose.  We all want to see.  We all want to see clearly.  We all want to see reality as it really is.  We live in a culture that is strictly in its early adulthood.  We want to make our mark in the world.  We want to build our tower and take the world by storm.  We want to fix, understand and control as much as we can.  (Again, there is no problem with any of this so  long as we remember Pope John Paul’s words, “There are no moral free zones – for either individuals or institution.  Everything stands under the scrutiny of the Gospel.”  However, most people experience the “walk in the woods” when we “lose sight” of what is happening.  There are times of blindness in the lives of each of us.  Please God, when we emerge from our walk in the woods, then, we have a different vision of what life is all about.  It is all right to maintain our earlier worldview; still, there is need for behavior and attitude modification when we realize that we cannot, fix, understand and control everything. Someone is in charge of the process.  The second stage of adult life brings us to the realization that no matter what, we have to let go and let God.  Control ultimately is an illusion.  As one theologian said recently, “ we need to build up our aerobic muscle of surrendering, letting go, and trusting the Holy Mystery that permeates all reality and yet transcends all reality at the same time. 

After he met Jesus, Bartimaeus began the second half of his life by following up to Jerusalem.  It would not be easy when he got there in the company of Jesus, but he saw where he was going and would have experienced Holy Week personally in the company of the One Who is called “The Light of the World.”   Bartimaeus asked to see; he got more than he imagined. He “let go and let God.”        

            One of the conclusions that we can gather from Dark Stark and Laconic Mark’s Mighty(and Scary) Message is that somehow, Western civilization has tempered the implications of the message so much that most people assume that whatever Jesus is talking about doesn’t apply in my situation.  It was St Peter’s mistake, as well as the 12’s, as well as James and John’s mistake last Sunday,  that precipitated Marks’s Manual when the 12 got the Messiahship of Jesus correctly, but they misunderstood what  following  Jesus on the road to Jerusalem (the place of destiny) meant for all. Sadly, do many of us, for one reason or another, fail to grasp the implications of the Gospel as well? Jesus is my Lord and Savior. So, now what?  The Way does get bumpy at times, but let us try to follow the Master.  Trust Jesus on this one! It’s the biggie!!   102509AD jfq     

 

Sunday October 18, 2009AD

Thirtieth Sunday in Greentime

 

In One Ear and Out the Other???

            The middle portion of St Mark’s Gospel from which we have had several excerpts in the past weeks focuses on His Jesus needs to clarify the meaning of His impending death and Resurrection for His disciples. Three times now, Jesus tells us what is in store for Him (and His disciples) upon the arrival in the Holy City. Each time, when He does so, His followers just did not hear what He was saying.  We can tell this by their questions immediately His passion predictions which are off base.

The essence of the Gospel is that descent and transformation is the reality of all life.  Nothing remains; everything is transformed by a “God Who  gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist.” (Rom 4.17) Basically, for adult Catholics, we are all called by the vicissitudes of life at one point or another to make leaps of faith, to surrender and let go and trust the Holy Mystery of God at work throughout the universe.

Immediately after Jesus makes this solemn and serious statement, James and John, two of His closest followers, ask Him if they can sit at Jesus’ right and left in His Kingdom. What’s up with that? They did not hear what Jesus just said.  Do we?

To respond to the numbskull Zebedee boys, Jesus teaches a profound message that many would prefer not to hear.  “You know that those who are recognized as rules over the Gentiles lord it over them.  Their great ones make their authority felt. But it shall not be so among you.”

              Many would see the fourth century as a critical time in Church History.  On Oct 28, 313AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan legalizing the Jesus Movement. (At that time, followers of Jesus probably numbered about 10% of  the population. )  The church came out of the catacombs and entered the basilicas.  Some say that was good; others would disagree. Historians and theologians speak of the “Constantinian Compromise”, in which Christianity became the lapdog of the Empire and frequently failed to address legitimate Gospel needs, because good Catholics were always good Romans and good Romans were always good Catholics.  However, what if the Gospel challenged something Rome was doing. What then?

            Such a thing happened later in the Fourth Century, but the situation was even more complicated.  In 395AD, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion, in another edict called All the People . Now, whether you liked it or not, Christianity became the official religion.  Theodosius’ action was not in the interest of Christianity because he planned to use Christianity as a unifier for him within the Empire.  Not good! Not good!( Jews were exempt from this edict, but nobody else was. )

            Forced conversions in religions were a frequent practice at many times throughout the years.  Recall the forced conversion of so many aboriginal native Americans during the days of European expansion.  Even in the 21st century, we still live with the effects of such a mentality when you think about it.  

 On the surface, Theodosius posed as a Christian Emperor and claimed to be acting in the interests of religion.  However, what happened to the integrity of the Gospel of Jesus (especially when a statement like today’s Gospel proclaims that Christian community have different worldviews or interpretation of reality than the “System”.  Now, Christianity became the System.  Do you see the problem?

It was not long before serious problems arose.  The city of Thessalonica in northern Greece (to which St Paul wrote his letter) had staged some kind of a tax revolt against Theodosius.  In retaliation, Theodosius massacred much of the town’s population, so that other folks might not get the same idea. How would that have impacted the Roman Catholic soldiers who were told to implement such a brutal order? How would a good Roman Catholic today react?

The response came from St Ambrose of Milan who was a leading Bishop at the time.  He demanded and Theodosius capitulated that the Emperor do public penance for the atrocity that he had perpetrated.

Somehow, Jesus’ message to James and John about what power is for a Christian got lost on the Emperor Theodosius who made Jesus’ religion the mandatory state religion of his realm.  No matter how one interpreted Roman history, one thing for certain is that it was not the Kingdom of God.

Theodosius heard what he wanted to hear.  Just as James and John heard what they wanted to hear. Just as each and everyone of us hear what we want to hear as well. As one theologian said, “We are all Cafeteria Catholics when you think about it.”

All religion challenges its adherents to authenticity in our religious responses.  None of us has a perfectly clear conscience on that issue. 

Jesus challenged the System then in a variety of ways.  Good Friday was the result.  Throughout the centuries, it has been a modus operandi of many governments to suggest that good citizenship goes hand in hand with religious observance. Religion can be used to be a check on the moral conscience of individuals because institutional religion tends not to rock the boat to protect itself.  Sadly, many go along for the ride.  Recall the by and large lack of response of Christian churches (both Catholic and Protestant) to Hitler, Nazism and the Third Reich?    

Then and now, the System can play religion for its own ends. Then and now, individuals can play the System for one’s own ends; sadly, then and now, religion can play the System for its own ends.  All the more reason for each of us to hear the Gospel again and again – maybe for the first time.

James and John needed to get it clear; Theodosius needed to get it clear; we all need to get it clear.  Sometimes the message of the Gospel does not fit usual contours.  The problem is not with the Gospel, but with our hearing it correctly.     101809AD jfq

 

Sunday, October 11, 2009AD

28th Sunday in Greentime

 

Peter Pan Meets Jesus

       We concluded last weekend’s Gospel with the story of Jesus’ blessing the children. Notice in the Gospel last week that Jesus did not teach the children; there is no evidence that Jesus ever taught children in His ministry.  He taught Grown up’s; He taught them a Grown-Up Gospel.  He still tries to do so.

            In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets the rich, young man, who observed the commandments. This individual had four plusses going for him from the get go.  1) He was a male in a male dominated culture. 2) He had wealth.  3) He was young.  4) He kept the commandments.  Yet, something was lacking.

            Jesus suggested to him that maybe, all was not what it seemed. Jesus struck a bad note with the rich, young man, who observed the Commandments when He suggested that more was at work in the man’s heart.  He could not surrender his wealth to follow Jesus.

            (It is important to note that Jesus does not make this demand of every disciple.  No doubt that he did with this individual.  However, there is not general surrender of wealth when one became a member of the Jesus Movement with the exception of the group of the group in Jerusalem that St Luke describes in the Acts of the Apostles, known as the Anawim YHWH (the poor people of God). This was the exception, not the rule.

            Psychologists tell us that adults go through two distinct stages of adult life. The first stage is making one’s mark, taking the world by storm, building one’s tower.  This is fine so long as one follows the rules.  (We Catholics call the rules “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” as we recall Pope John Paul’s caveat, “There are no moral freezones for individuals and/or groups. Nothing lies outside the scrutiny of the Gospel.”)

            The rich young man kept the Law and followed the rules.  He did not kill anyone; he did not commit adultery; he did not steal or did not lie or cheat; he honored his parents.  Not for nothing, everyone is expected to do these things.

            However, what happens to everyone somewhere through life is that we need to cope with our mid-life crises. Hindu traditions call our  response to these crises, “a walk in the woods”.  How we emerge from the woods, viz., how we process the crisis the crisis determines the second half of our lives.

            For most of us, our mid-life crisis involves our experience (maybe, seriously for the first time) that life is more than taking the world by storm. We experience, sometimes brutally, the left hand of God, when we experience the painful side of life, usually in some type of crisis affecting us physically, psychologically, economically, emotionally.

How does religion help us when we experience the sickness, accidents, old age, disappointments that are built into human life.  Sadly, too many, hopefully not the rich young man who kept the Law, get angry at God and ask the questions, What did I do to deserve this? Why me? I lived a good life, so what is going on here? We can become angry, bewildered and depressed.   

            This is the time in a person’s life when we feel in our lives that no matter what things seem to be, we are not in control.  Someone or something else is.  Jesus found this out on Good Friday; we find it out in our own Good Fridays. 

            Followers of Jesus need to realize that the Cross of Christ is the ultimate symbol which guides our lives.  It is the symbol of the surrender that all people have to make, whether we want to do so or not. It is the symbol of surrendering, letting go and trust the Unfathomable Presence of God in our lives every moment.  (Apparently, the rich young man who kept the Commandments had somehow made his wealth his ultimate security.  In those days, perhaps, when he experienced downers in his life he could have taken a cruise to Crete or another Greek isle to ease his pain.)

            Our Catholic ancestors have always seen the Cross of Christ as our central symbol (Cf. 1 Cor 1-4).  The Franciscan Tradition has always maintained “Crux probat omnia” (The Cross determines all things.) St Catherine of Genoa said that if there had been any other way to save us, Jesus would have jumped at it.  Blessed Juliana of Norwich said that God allowed the worst thing to happen (the death of God’s Son Incarnate) to allow the best thing to happen (the Resurrection of the Body). Blessed John Duns Scotus said that the reason why Christ died for us is to convince us how much God loved us. Would the rich young man who kept the Law say, “Yes, I believe” to those insights? Do we?

            Modern Catholics get insight as well from modern believers based on faith and learning from other ways of learning. Ergo, modern science teaches “conservation of matter and energy”.  Nothing is wasted in the universe.  God makes use of all things.  “God is in all things; all things are in God.”-- even the pains of life.  As one American Catholic theologian puts it, “Everything rises or falls in your life with the Cross of Jesus Christ.” Another says, “The ultimate reality in your life is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.”

            Could the rich young man who kept the Law buy into that?  Apparently, he needed to let go of his wealth.  However, he didn’t.  Maybe, he came around later on.  What is our reaction when Jesus calls us to let go of something which we feel is an absolute in our own lives? (We live in an addicted culture, so conventional wisdom will not help our response.)  As well, how do we begin to prepare our children here and now for the day when Jesus calls them to leave something behind and follow Him?  101109AD jfq

 

 

Sunday, October 4, 2009AD

27th Sunday in Green

 

St Francis Now More than Ever

            Recently, a group of our parishioners visited the tomb of St Francis in Assisi, Italy.  They offered Mass for the intentions of all the Community of St Patrick that day.  As others have said as well, “Assisi is a holy place!”

            Among the places visited was the little house that St Francis had built in the midst of the leper colony at the foot of the hill on which Assisi was located.  St Francis built the house among the lepers as a reminder that God at home and is housed everywhere.  (Around the house, one of the largest churches in the world has been constructed.) 

            Atop the hill, St Francis’ ancestral house has been converted into a church.  Outside the Church is a mural dedicated to his parents, Pietro and Pica Bernadone. While his relationship with his parents were rocky, there was no doubt that they raised an admirable son.  Some have said that nobody caught the message of the Gospel better than their son, Giovanni Bernadone (his baptismal name).

            The man of Assisi was born into a middle class family in a rising city-state in the year 1182.  Pietro Bernadone was a haberdasher, who catered to other middle class families in the city.  His son, Giovanni, had an affinity for clothing made with French cloth in French fashion.  The affinity was such that Giovanni’s nickname was Francesco, viz., ‘Frenchy”.

            How ironic when the young man did “his walk in the woods” to realize that his life was not just about marking his mark in the world. Sadly, in a dramatic, symbolic action, which he later regretted because of the hurt that he inflicted on his father, the saint took off the clothing that his father’s wealth had provided and clothed himself  in a tattered gray robe. 

            Later, in life, St Francis said that the tattered clothing he wore on the outside was indicative of the tatters that he was on the inside, a reminder of how much he was in need of God’s tailoring.  Indeed, how much we all are in need of such repair work.

            Interestingly, most people in our community are familiar with the cadences of the Prayer attributed to St Francis. Most intuit that with God’s Help, we can be instruments, channels of God’s healing somehow. In one noted effort, St Francis spent two days with the nephew of Saladin, the Saracen leader.  He even shared meals on the banks of the Nile with the Sultan because the Sultan took Francis as a representative of what Catholics could be.   

            However, Armonk (and other) Catholics (and other Christians) have become sensitized to the fact that St Francis was 800 years ahead of his time in proclaiming the relatedness of all creation, when he composed the Canticle of the Sun.  (The song in English that we sing is “All Creatures of our God and King”.)

            The inter-connectedness of all reality was channeled through the grace that St Francis received when he came to appreciate what the Christian Doctrine of the Incarnation was proclaiming.  The Creator became one with and in the creation and the permeation of the Creator with and in all creation makes all reality sacred (and connected).  Catholics speak today of the Christ Quantum, God’s Incarnate Presence in the universe, rubs off on and impacts all that is. 

            These days when we realize that the Universe is possibly 13.7 billion years old, so vast that the human mind cannot begin to comprehend, so relational and connected that actually nothing exists autonomously (no matter what appearance it has) and so filled with an orientation that has yet to be achieved, that all we can ultimately do is to adore and to participate in the Mystery of the Incarnation.

            Each of us and all of us are part of God’s divine plan of the universe.  Each of us has a role that uniquely only we can fulfill. Yet, what to do? What to do? Three responses to the Holy Mystery’s permeation of reality have been offered in relatively recent times.  Albert Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, that nothing can be understood completely unless it is understood in relationship to everything else. Therefore, it is important to realize that everything we do has an impact on everything else. St Therese spoke of her “Little Way”.  She saw that while she was not going to change the world in a cloistered monastery in France, still, every little action that she performed on an impact on God’s Plan for the Universe.  Finally, in the twentieth century, the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke of the “eschatological proviso”, nobody can do everything to make the world a better place, but everybody can do something (and should) with God’s Help.

            In 1990, Pope John Paul II spoke about the fact that if we do not handle our relationship with the Creator correctly, it will be reflected in our relationship with God’s creation.  In reverse, if we do not handle our relationship with God’s creation correctly, it will be reflected in our relationship with our Creator.  Everything is inter-related.

            If in fact, the world faces such serious problems that the environment has become the poor man knocking at our door for many different reasons.  Some of the problems include the following: global warming, holes in the ozone membrane surrounding the earth, de-forestation resulting in an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, soil depletion, air pollution, poisoned sources of potable water, wasteful fishing in the oceans, the threat of weaponry, both conventional and unconventional, wielded by nation-states and other power blocs. 

            Since everything, indeed, is connected, it is appropriate that the patron of the USA Catholic Peace Movement is also the Patron of the USA Catholic Environmental Movement.  The author of Make Me a Channel of Your Peace is the same as the author of All Creatures of our God and King.  That is no accident.

            The Christ Quantum rubbed off on Giovanni Bernadone.  While his tattered clothing reflected his tattered interior, even impressing the Sultan, it also proclaimed that God was doing the mending through Christ Jesus. The Christ Quantum continues to rub off on any of us as well who sing and mean the words of the hymns attributed to the son of Pietro and Pica Bernadone.  Despite it all, his parents did a great job.  Please God, all parents will try to do the same.  100409AD jfq        

                 

Sunday, Sep 27, 2009AD

26th Sunday in Greentime

 

A Grand Tradition Continues

            Every three years, we hear from the Letter of James. It is the letter that Martin Luther frowned upon when he called it ‘the epistle of straw”. Many would disagree with Luther about this because James presents some insights on ethical monotheism, Christian style, that believers can grasp.  (Ethical monotheism is the moral behavior prompted by belief in one God.)

            He addresses the distinctions made between the well to do and the poor.  He addresses the injustices which are routinely perpetrated against the poor by the system.  He addresses inadequate wages for back-breaking labor for tenant farmers, most of the population in the Holy Land then.

            Since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum , in 1891, Catholic socio-economic teachings have been called “one of the best-kept of our secrets.” Since then, the Vatican II, various Popes, conferences of bishops throughout the world have contributed to the development of Catholic Social Tradition.

            Once, a monk named Dorotheos described what came to be known as the “Circle”. He imagined a circle where GOD is the focal point in the middle.  We start off life on the circumference, the perimeter.  Our job is to be drawn close to the Focal Point, God.  However, the close we are drawn (by the Spirit) to the Focal Point, the closer we are drawn to others in the circle as well.  In reverse, the closer we are drawn to others in the circle, the closer we are drawn to the Focal Point.

            John Cardinal O’Connor spoke many times about the concomitant connection between social justice and true religion.  He said, “The Catholic Church cannot not be compassionate”.  (As a corollary, each catholic cannot not be compassionate.) Jesus’ commitment as the Incarnate God commits His disciples as well to ethical monotheism.

            The American bishops repeated the Cardinal’s statement in their Salt and Light , published in 1998.  They wrote, “The values of the Church’s social teaching must not be treated as tangential or optional.  They must be a core part of teaching and formation (of all Catholics). Without our social teaching, schools, catechetical programs and adult formation programs (for all Catholics) would be an offering of incomplete presentation of our Catholic tradition.  This would fall short of our mission and would be a serious loss for those in religious formation. (viz, all of us)  They also wrote, “The Church’s social teaching is a rich treasure of wisdom about building a just society and living lives of holiness amidst the challenges of  society.  It offers moral principles and coherent values badly needed in our time.  In this time of widespread violence and diminished respect for human life and dignity in our country and around the world, the Gospel of Life and the biblical call to justice need to be proclaimed and shared with new clarity, urgency and energy.”

            On June 29, 2009AD, The Feast of Sts Peter and Paul, Pope Benedict issued Caritas in Veritate, Compassion in Truth.  Remember. At least a few of the items that the Pope wants us to consider.  Recall the differential between stockholders and stakeholders in assessing the how just a system or corporation.  Recall the contrast between the principle of subsidiarity (Less is better when solving problems.) and solidarity (Some problems are so big that entities larger than nation-states need to address them. (The question of the environment, indeed, is at the forefront of United Nations discussions just now, with both the USA and China and other nations facing reality.) )  The Golden Rule (as universal global ethic) needs to be accepted and lived on both a personal and corporate level.  Pope Benedict suggests that the human family must try to embrace a win-win scenario for the good of the present and future generation.  He reminds us that the Golden Rule (mediated for Christians with the command to love God and love neighbor in Mtt 22) is meant for us to abide by in our micro-relationships (with our families and friends) and in our macro-relationships (with all our global family).  Finally, Pope Benedict asks us to think of the human person as a relational being.  We find our identity through our relationships with God, with one another and with the world.

            James and our bishops and Pope Benedict  are part of a grand tradition. As USA Catholics, let’s keep the tradition alive!!           092709 AD           jfq  

                

                                                Sunday, September 20, 2009AD

25th Sunday in Greentime

 

What Next in the World?

            The middle portion of St Mark’s Gospel, viz.  Mk 8.27 – 10.52 has been called “Mark’s Message to Males.” The message, propelled by the Spirit into the male dominated society in the first century, needs to be heeded today by both males and females.

            In a variety of ways, St Mark teaches males (and females) that we are not controllers of our destiny.  1) The dark side of life confronts all, rich and poor alike.  (The rich can avert it longer.) 2) The dark side of life is tough and tough things are part of life. 3) LIFE IS THE GREATEST GOOD. Somehow, God can be found in the pains, sorrows and troubles we all experience at times.  

            All our human family is in the same boat. All males (and females) have to learn that we are all “connected empathetically” with others. Dominant culture does not stress this, although it says that it does. St Mark tells us that “rugged individualism”, which had been peddled as a positive, is a negative value.    

            St James speaks today of selfishness and greed as a cause of wars, both personal and structural.  With God’s Help, all of us need to work on that sad reality in our lives.  Jesus also tells us today, that whoever is concerned about and receives the least in the society, receives Christ Jesus and the One Who sent Him. How different than what conventional wisdom (aka the System) teaches!            Several theologians speak now of the Great Convergence, viz., when some people get their acts together and realize that our world cannot survive the way we are going.  We need a new idea or paradigm.  

            Ironically, the new idea that we need is the Old Idea contained in the Gospel of Jesus.  Some need to hear it again for the first time and then, share it with their children.

            Ten years ago, Canadian theologian, Fr Ron Rolheiser, wrote a blockbuster book in 1999, entitled, The Holy Longing .  So many of the major religions proclaim some form of a Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Fr Rolheiser said that we can use the Golden Rule to begin, as Disciples of Jesus, to live as part of God’s and Eve’s one Global Family.  1) Treat all with equal dignity. 2) Behave as if God intended the earth for all persons equally. 3) Remember that the right to private property is not absolute and must be subordinated to the common good. (Pope John Paul also stressed that point several times.) 4) No persons or groups should have surpluses if others lack basic necessities. 5) We are obliged morally to come to the aid of those in need. It is a high road to God and human fulfillment.  6) No economic laws transcend the moral scrutiny of the Golden Rule. (Pope John Paul said “no moral freezones”.7) The earth is not just a stage on which humans play.  The ecology is a creature of God, having basic rights.

            Pope Benedict urges, “Today’s international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise. Old models are disappearing, but promising new ones are taking shape on the horizon. Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for business is that they are almost always answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their social value….Today’s international capital market offers great freedom of action.  Yet there is also increasing awareness of the need for greater social responsibility on the part of business. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment.  The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it, we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations, and toward humanity as a whole.”  

            We listen to the morning news and ask ourselves, “What next?” It will be more of the same unless we listen to Jesus and His Gospel. 

            Aboriginal peoples in North America used to make decisions as a group using as a standard, “How will this decision affect our grandchildren seven generations hence?” Parents and grandparents of today might ask the same question as they teach their children now. Decisions today affect outcomes tomorrow.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, Henry Ford famously remarked, “History is bunk.” Sadly, too many of his mindset, then and now, have agreed with him.  Jesus, St James and St Mark and Pope Benedict have different ideas. Who will teach the children?  092009AD jfq 

 

Sunday, Sep 13, 2009AD

24th Sunday in Greentime

 

Jesus, James and Benedict

 

Recently, National Geographic did a special on a project that it undertook to show the connectedness of the human family throughout the world. It focused on the Long Island City section of Queens County, in NYC, because Queens is one of the most ethnically and racially diverse counties in the USA, if not the world. Very interesting results came up as a result of genetic testing through a swab on the inside of a person’s mouth.  Diversity seems to be the norm. We have wandered far and wide over thousands of generations apparently and our diversity is actually becoming a grand re-union on the streets of Long Island City.

            Pope John Paul wrote in the Gospel of Life, Evangelium Vitae, back in 1995, that, in answer to Cain’s defiant question of God in the fourth chapter of Genesis, “Yes. As a matter of fact, you are your brother’s keeper!” Throughout the millennia of the Judaeo-Christian Tradition, prophetic men and women have tried, again and again, to stress the point.

            This weekend, we focus on the very ancient Letter of St James, probably older than any of the four written Gospels, as well as Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Compassion in Truth, of June 29, 2009AD.   Both a very ancient inspired biblical writing and a recent reflection on God’s Word in the Scripture point us in the same direction as we strive to become more authentic followers of Jesus in the twenty-first century.  In words that challenge believers in the first and the twenty-first century, St James asks the question, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has not food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?”

            Pope Benedict reflects on Jesus and St James’ question in his encyclical in light of the ongoing global economic crisis.  His reflections are very challenging and it is incumbent on NY Catholics to be aware of insights that Pope Benedict offers. One obvious given at the start of the papal letter is the observation that the current economic crisis facing the entire world highlights in a big way that relational nature of life.  In constant response to new implications of the Gospel that Catholics might not have perceived before, ring the words of Blessed John XXIII, “We know more now.”   

            One point of agreement that most major religions of the world have come to agree is a universal golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” Pope Benedict asks us to think of ourselves and as people relationally.  We achieve our personhood in a big way through our relationships with others.  (As Albert Einstein said, “Nothing can be understood completely unless it is understood in terms of  its relationships with everything else.”) 

            Traditional Judaeo-Christian religion has always stressed living in proper relationship with the Transcendent God and with our neighbor (and now we are learning, with our environment.)  If something is askew in one of those relationships, invariably it will affect our other relationships. 

            Pope Benedict asks us always to think not of our ourselves in our relationships but to think of all people, viz., our sisters and brothers in the same way. A long order, it will be impossible to do so.  However, it urges us not o come up with facile solutions or excuses for the state of the world as we find it today.

            An interesting challenge that emerges from the Pope’s letter is his distinction between the terms “shareholders” and “stakeholders” in business on the global scene. Certainly, hard to implement, but nevertheless, it is an important concept for the future.  Obviously, a “stockholder” is one who has financial interest in a business and reaping the financial rewards is much the name of the game.  However, the term “stockholder” yields to a broader term, “stakeholder”.  These would be made up of the people who produce and/or harvest the raw material that is used in production. It would also include the people who do the production and then, those who market the produce to the public. It would also include the consumer of the product.  Finally, it would also include the children and grandchildren of all the people involved through the effect on the environment in the future by what is consumed here and now.  (If one were to add the connection that we are, indeed, all in the human project together (as sisters and brothers!), we realize that we are both a small world and an inter-related one as well. 

            In addition, Pope Benedict aswks us to juxtapose two traditional Catholic moral principles in arriving at a more just world scene.  One the one hand, the principle of subsidiarity has always spoken of the need and advisibility of handling problems on a local level, as much as possible.  However, the principle of subsidiarity is balanced by the Catholic principle of solidarity.  We are all in this process of human living together.  We are finding that governments might be too large to handle local problems and at the same time, too small to handle global ones.  As a result, the Pope suggests that new ways of facing global (family problems) evolve through a system similar to the United Nations.        

            Pope Benedict asks us to focus both on our micro-relationships, with our families and our friends and close neighbors, and on our macro-relationships, with our wide human family.  He asks us to envision the Golden Rule as a rule of thumb.  He asks our human family to think about working, with God’s Help, to generate a “win-win scenario” for all our human family, particularly the one who has nothing to wear and no food for the day. May American Catholics try to do so with a spirit of justice, solidarity, compassion and civility during days that challenge us all.  091309AD jfq

    

Sunday, Sep 6, 2009AD

23rd Sunday in Green

 

James Has a Point to Stress!

 

During this month, our second reading on Sunday will be excerpts from the Letter of St James.  As mentioned last week, this letter has come into the fore recently for many reasons.  Probably dated in the early 60’s AD, before the earliest Gospel (St Mark, c.70AD) was written, the inspired author gives us a picture of a Jewish-based Christian community which considered itself a “synagogue”. While the group was an early example of the Jesus Movement, the group had lots of flaws about which the inspired author was concerned. Some still have relevance in the Jesus Movement. The problem addressed in our reading this morning was favoritism in gatherings of the Jesus Movement synagogue.  Surprised we are to hear this at such an early date. Recall St Paul’s baptismal hymn, “in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slaves or free, male or female.  All are one in Christ Jesus.” How could a Christian group misread the obvious so soon?  (St Paul’s hymn is dated approximately 8-9 years earlier, in c. 55AD)  After all, Jesus fed everyone who gathered for his outdoor gatherings and did not discriminate between classes. (That was, indeed, one of the problems that people had with Jesus’ strategy.)  God cares about all God’s children.           

Who are we, contemporary Christians, to look askance at our Christian ancestors? In many ways, people have said that we might do the same thing in many ways, some subtle, some, not so subtle. A commentator made the point that, up until recently, some Churches discriminated between Black and White folks, so that poor and rich could have been understood as Black and White.

            St James stresses, “Show no partiality!” Yet, again and again, Christians have been challenged that that is exactly what we do in so many ways, many of which we do subconsciously. 

            Indeed, in his historic “Sermon on the Mound” at Yankee Stadium in Oct, 1979, Pope John Paul said that in our world today the rich represent countries (the First and Second Worlds then, now the Northern Hemisphere nations) and the poor represent the Third World (the underdeveloped nations throughout the world). God loves all, but God has a special concern for those less fortunate than others.  So should God’s daughters and sons! (These days, we call the traditional notion, the Preferential Option for the Poor.)

            In addition, in 1986, the USA Catholic Bishops cautioned that a Third World was already developing in American cities.  They referred to what was called White Flight then.

            Recently, Pope Benedict wrote in his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, that we need to understand the connection between so many issues that confront us.  Pope Benedict said that rather than think of the human person as a monad, we should self-define as relational (with God, with one another, with our environment.  We are to be understood neither as the economic ones, nor the sociological ones, nor the psychological ones, nor the political ones.  Rather, we should understand that we are relational ones.  All of us connected with everyone and everything else, including our environment.  This is the way we should face common problems.  Jesus has been proclaiming that in essence for 2000 years already.  However, as Blessed John put it, “we know more now!!”

            On this Labor Day weekend, when we are sensitized once again that people, rightly or wrongly, have different views of reality than we, we could offer the following prayer:

God of Justice,

You call us to feel deeply the hurts and hopes of your people, and to look deeply at the root causes of poverty and injustice.

We are called to see first, and then, to understand. We are called to try to understand first, and then to act.

As people of faith, we live in the hope of what the world can be, while struggling to understand the causes for what the world is.

Help us to see, judge and act, starting today that we may help transform the world.

In the Name of Christ Jesus, we pray.

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Sunday, August 30, 2009AD

22nd Sunday in Greentime

 

Letters of Straw (Not!!!)

            Martin Luther had a problem with the letter of St James from which we will hear five excerpts in the next few weeks.  He felt that the words in the letter, “Faith without works is dead”, contradicted St Paul’s teaching about salvation’s coming through faith alone in Christ Jesus. He referred to the Letter of St James as a “letter of straw.” The consensus begged to differ with Luther on that one. 

            The letter of St James has been part of the Catholic Bible from the beginning.  In our own time, it has come into a new prominence for several reasons. First, it is the most socially and economically focused document in the Christian Scriptures.  Second, it probably comes from a date (c.65AD) that places it after St Paul wrote his letters (50’s) and before St Mark put inspired pen to scroll with the composition of the First Gospel, c. 70AD. Third, the author was probably a disciple of James, the “blood relative” of the Lord (on Mary’s side, of course). James himself was murdered in 62AD in a pogrom in Jerusalem against the Jesus Movement, mentioned by Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.  Fr Raymond Brown wrote that since Jesus was a descendent of David, a blood relative of Jesus would have been as well. Therefore, James’ blood connection somehow with Jesus as well as with King David, would have given him an ascendancy in the Jesus Movement after St Peter left Jerusalem for other venues.  Fourth, the letter represents a very traditional Jewish Christian vision that came to be integrated into the positions of Sts Peter and Paul.  In fact, the document is so Jewish in thought that there are only a few references to Christ Jesus in the letter. This paucity of references has caused some Scripture scholars to wonder if the letter were, in fact, a Jewish teaching that was Christianized by the references to JC!

            In our reading today, one can see what might have caused Luther some agida, but still it clearly can be reconciled with St Paul’s thought of the gift of faith and salvation in Christ Jesus. It is true that St James says, “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. Religion …is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world (“caught up in the system???”).”  However, St James clearly sees that faith is a gift from God in the preceding verse, “Humbly welcome the Word that has been planted in you.” This is the “biblical theological passive,” viz., the unnamed One who does the planting is God.”             

            Twenty years ago, in 1986, the USA Conference of Catholic Bishops published, Economic Justice for All. Sadly, it was a largely unread document that went unnoticed by most. On its twentieth-third anniversary, several of its thoughts take on an even greater significance in light of the growing social and economic problems that we face in our nation and throughout the world.  Catholics need to acknowledge that Jesus is not only their personal Lord, but that He is our political Lord as well.  Jesus is Lord, the first Christian creed, challenges Caesar and the Empire about Who really was running the show.  The bishops broached this when they wrote the following in a less complicated time, “The pursuit of economic justice takes believers into the public arena, testing the policies of government by the principles of Catholic teaching.  We ask you to become more informed and active citizens…to advance the common good. We are called to shape a constituency of conscience, measuring every policy by how it touches the least, the lost and the left-out among us.  With questions such as adequate health care insurance for all and immigration reform that is just and compassionate, both the letters of St James as well as the US bishops in 1986 are hardly to be described as “letters of straw”.

During these days, as our nation which earnestly says, “God bless America”, may we always try to remember God’s call to justice, God’s call to compassion and God’s call to civility in our discussions.  How do we respond to St James and the US Bishops? 

Pope Benedict, in his new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) reminds us that Catholics must always link up the concept of solidarity (we are all in this together) with the concept of subsidiarty (we try on the lower level to solve problems, then we work our way up.) He tells us to recall the human person in his or her entirety as well as all human persons.  How will you teach your children to respond to the call to authentic globalization with their life choices? 

There is a strange irony that we are thus challenged by Jesus’ blood relative and our bishops and the Pope as we near Labor Day weekend. If we live in a vacuum, we might react one way.  If we live in the Christ Quantum, we react differently. 083009AD jfq    

 

Sunday, August 23, 2009AD

21st Sunday in Greentime

 

Where Would We Go?

            We end the section of John’s Gospel known as the Sermon on the Bread of Life.  Jesus refers to Himself as the Bread, the Sustenance, the Mainstay of our existence.  Jesus self-refers as the total package. Whatever we need to live totally human lives, Jesus provides for us in a myriad of ways. 

            The sermon is in two parts.  The main part of the sermon speaks of Jesus per se as what we need to sustain a totally human life. (Last week’s Gospel seems to be a later addition which addresses Jesus as our Bread of Life in the Eucharist.)

            Today’s conclusion tells us of the reaction of many to Jesus’ difficult words.  They ask, “Who can accept it?”  Jesus’ comeback speaks of the gift of faith.  Faith in Jesus is a gift and faith is granted by (the) Father.

            The challenge in the question is simply this, “Do you believe in Jesus? or “do you believe Jesus?” Interestingly, today, and probably always since the first century, there have been people who believe in Jesus.  Politicians and others currying favor frequently protest their faith in Jesus as Lord.  However, Jesus was not asking people to worship Him.  Rather, He asks people to follow Him.  This raises a more delicate question, viz., do we practice what He preaches? As Jesus Himself says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who calls Me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom, but only those who do the will of My Father.”  (Matt 7.21)

Curiously, sixty years ago, Thomas Merton, before his becoming a monk at Gethsemane, pondered his position on World War II. 1) Jesus was non-violent; 2) Merton wanted to be a follower of Jesus, viz., one who believed Jesus; 3) He (Merton), therefore, had to be non-violent as well.  In Merton’s mind, it was a logical position. In addition, he was troubled by his philosophical realization that young German counterparts of his, drafted into Hitler’s Army of the Third Reich, were just as much sons of God and brothers of Christ Jesus as he (Merton) himself was. He resolved that were he drafted, he would be a conscientious objector to the point of being a stretcher bearer on the battlefield.            

Peter speaks up when Jesus asks the 12 if they were going to return to their former ways and abandon discipleship and no longer accompany (walk behind) Him. Peter speaks in the name of all gifted with faith in Jesus as he answers the Master, “To whom shall we go?” …We are convinced that (Jesus is) the Holy One of God “. Because of God’s “Amazing Grace”, Thomas Merton would have said, “Amen, brother” to St Peter’s graced affirmation.  Jesus does not want worshippers; He wants followers, disciples.

            For many reasons, Catholic believers take a beating in the contemporary world. Catholics believe that faith in Jesus is worth the grief.  Yes, we echo Peter’s words when we ask where would we go? Who knows our story better than Jesus? Who knows the truth better?  Yet, sadly, how many Catholics come to treat our faith like a luxury item.  Even more, sadly do we so frequently fail to condition our children to lives of following Jesus by the evaporation of faith in our own lives?

            350 years ago, in France, Catholic mathematician, Blaise Pascal, combined a brilliant left brain with a gifted right brain filled with the Power of religious experience. His objective skills in math were not diminished by the gift of faith.  Rather, God’s gifts enhanced one another. 

            He proposed what is known as “Pascal’s Wager”, viz., it is wiser to (believe and) behave as if there is a God than to behave as if there were no God.

            He also spoke of the depths of the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. He said that the “heart (gifted by faith in Jesus) has reasons (to believe) that the human mind cannot understand.”

            Not all his contemporaries shared Pascal’s gifted synthesis of left brain objectivity and right brain openness to faith in Jesus.  First, the Enlightenment in Europe and North America proclaimed Deism.  Yes, there is a God, but God is the Divine Watchmaker.  God did such a good job that the world runs on its own.  The Deists did not deign to include a providential God in our journey through life.  Eventually, a fusion of Deism with the American stress upon the individual led to a de facto secular humanism, when we do good things whether or not there is a God.  Next, this devolves into a practical atheism.  Who cares if there is a God or not?  Then, this devolves further into what Pope John Paul calls “the eclipse of God and the eclipse of the human person”. (Might we add eclipse of the environment, God’s primordial revelation?)  We witness this each day. “Lord, to Whom would we go?”  The road without You leads nowhere.                     082609AD jfq              

 

Sunday, August 16, 2009AD

Twentieth Sunday in Greentime

 

What Are  We Eating?

            The Jesus Movement in Ephesus,  the recipients of our second reading today, were men and women who walked a fine line,  living in Christ Jesus. On the one hand, they wanted to be good neighbors because, then, they would live peaceful lives and win further followers to the Faith.  On the other hand, they knew that living in Christ Jesus sometimes would make them walk to a different drumbeat as they tried to implement the values of Jesus’ New World Order in their lives.  This might cause eyebrows and blood pressures to be raised by non-Christian neighbors.

            We know that St Paul’s “audio-visual communities” known as Churches sometimes caused good folks to wonder.  What was all this talk about “in Christ Jesus there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus?”

            Some of their pagan fellow citizens might legitimately have wondered about a group of men and women who met regularly on a Saturday evening or early Sunday morning in memory of a leader that had been crucified by a Roman governor for claiming to be “King of the Jews”. Their motto was “Jesus is Lord”. All good citizens, then and now, knew that Caesar was Lord.  One cannot have two Lords. They also believed that this Lord, Christ Jesus, was present in their gatherings.  Strange, isn’t it? In addition, what was it with their values that were so different that people would legitimately comment, “See how they love one another”. Finally, they might  also have wondered about the charge of cannibalism that circulated among their detractors.  They eat Someone’s Body and drink Someone’s Blood.  What’s up with that?

            How can anyone attempt to explain adequately the meaning of our Eucharist?  When Jesus focuses specifically on His Gift of the Eucharist, as He does today in our Gospel, words fail us.  Still, with God’s Help, we try to fathom the Mystery, viz., the infinitely knowable and unknowable Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 

            In 107AD, St Ignatius of Antioch decribed the Eucharist as the “Medicine of Immortality”.  In 202 AD, St Irenaeus said that our union with Christ Jesus in the Eucharist was such that a Christian never had to fear death, because ”the God of Life would not  allow our bodies, dwelling places or tabernacles of the Eucharistic Lord to be condemned to oblivion”.  In the twentieth century, Mohandas Gandhi, who believed in Christ Jesus but never was baptized because he was scandalized by how so many baptized people were nonchalant and blasé about our faith.  Still, he said that ”if God wanted to be united with humanity, the most marvelous solution would be to become humanity’s food.”  Also, in the twentieth century, CP Schulz of Peanuts fame said, paraphrasing St Augustine’s thought, “You are what you eat.”  We are and become the Body of Christ when we eat the Body of Christ.  As St Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Tantum Ergo, “Faith believes nor questions how.”  

            Science confirms what Catholics suspected all along, viz., God is still creating the Universe, still creating me as a child of the universe. (Even now, the stardust from the Perseus Meteorite phenomenon these past few days provide stardust for our salads in our diet.) As members of the Jesus Movement, each of us and all of us should realize the ineffable truth: God is still creating me; God is still blessing me with lots of good things; we are still taking God’s blessings for granted and/or misusing them; God is still sending Christ Jesus into our incarnate lives; God is still forgiving us in Christ Jesus; God is still challenging us to proclaim in word and deed that we are not special, but sent to let everyone know that everyone is special 

            In their efforts to be good neighbors who tried, with God’s Help, to edify others as well as sharing the Vision of Christ Jesus, the Church, the Jesus Movement at Ephesus and at New York, tries to gather and refocus that Vision weekly.  

            The term  “Viatecum, viz. food for the journey” was understood as the final Holy Communion of a person’s life.  It is just as appropriate to use the term for one’s First Holy Communion.  Each Catholic is always on a journey. We are missioned to let everyone else know that everyone of them is on a journey also. We need food for the journey throughout its days.  (The difference is that Catholics are supposed to believe and act thusly, in that consciousness to rub off on others.)

As Blaise Pascal said in the seventeenth century, “The heart (not the head, folks!) has reasons to believe that the mind cannot understand.” The impact of Jesus, our Eucharistic Bread of Life, makes its Presence felt in the strangest ways.  As one saint said in the nineteenth century, “when you are in communion with Jesus, it is always springtime.” Let us rejoice!!!  Let us never take the Eucharist for granted.  The stakes have always been too high. Too high for us, right now, but not yet.  Too high for your children, even now, but not yet.    081609AD jfq            

             

 

Sunday, August 9, 2009AD

19th Sunday in Greentime

 

What Does God Want of Us?

            The Christian community at Ephesus (to whom St Paul addresses the second reading today) was like our Catholic community in New York in many ways. We want to be good neighbors and live in harmony with others.  However, Catholic ethics and values frequently differ from the ethics and values of conventional wisdom.  We face the dilemma A) by caving in to convention or B) by daring to be different in Christ Jesus.

            Today, St Paul tells us to do the best we can to edify others as “audio-visual communities” in the midst of a world that needs the alternative vision, the worldview that we call life in Christ Jesus. 

            St Paul tries to balance two good things.  1) Catholics should be good neighbors. 2) However, Catholics should never compromise our values caught from the vibrational field known as the Christ Quantum.( If we think the same way as “they” (whoever they are??) do, we might be “sheeple”.)   We are effected by and we effect every person with whom we have contact.  Christ Jesus (our Bread of Life) has effected us in our meetings with Him in community, in Word and in Sacrament, particularly the Eucharist. (In addition, there are myriad other ways in which Christ Jesus has met us in ways that we will never know!) In essence, Christ Jesus has rubbed off on us. This month, Jesus Self-refers as the Bread of Life.  As Charley Brown said famously, “We are what we eat.”  (He borrowed the line from St Augustine 1600 years ago!)  Is this clear in us?

            St Paul urges us to be imitators of God.  There are six pathologies that he warns us to avoid in the dysfunctional world in which we live.  All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed (which only God can do for us and has done already if we accept the Spirit) from you, along with all malice. God knows how much all people need to be liberated from the hostilities that fester in the minds and hearts of so much in Western culture! “Hate-triots” do this; hopefully, the Jesus Movement does not!! 

            What St Paul offers as an alternative lifestyle is certainly something that would not make the newspapers or talk shows or entertainment shows. St Paul tells the Ephesians (and us), “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”        There are those who use the traditional seven deadly sins as causes of the violence and greed that infests our world today.  Think about how somehow, the temptation to anger, envy, sloth, lust, gluttony, avarice (aka the obsessive desire for more and arrogance (aka pride) have caused in so many ways the sad state of much of the world.  (The Sufi tradition of Islam add two more deadly sins, viz., self-deceit and fear.) 

Imagining the immediate world that I inhabit daily, St Paul might seem to be talking through his turban.  But, just considering the possibility that God does enable me to try to make an effort at a time in imitating God  seriously, is a great place to begin. (Today, our Jesus Movement salutes Bl Franz Jager, who died on August 9, 1943 because he publicly said that a good Catholic could not fight in Hitler’s Army.  He literally had his head handed to him.)

Enough of the Christian community in Ephesus must have done what St Paul asked of them because that community survived until the present day.  They did become the vibrant Christian audio-visual community that tried to be good neighbors but walked to the drumbeat of the Christ Quantum.  St Paul and an imploding world challenges New York Catholics to try, with God’s help, to be the audio-visual community that God needs in the capital of the world.  Will we go along with conventional wisdom, when “they” tell us what we are thinking or should be thinking,  as so many sadly do, or will we try to live in love as Christ loved us?   080909AD jfq               

Sunday, August 2, 2009AD

Eighteenth Sunday in Greentime

 

Pass the Bread…

            For the next several Sundays, our regular recitation of St Mark’s Gospel is interrupted by an interlude from the sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel.  The chapter is known as the Sermon on the Bread of Life. Catholics automatically think of the chapter as primarily a meditation of the Eucharist as the Bread of Life.  It is that, in part, at the very conclusion of the sermon (which verses, we hear in a few Sunday’s time). 

            The intro to the sermon at large is the concluding line of today’s Gospel. Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life, whoever comes to Me will never hunger, whoever believes in Me will never thirst.”

            The language which Jesus spoke was Aramaic, a cognate of Hebrew.  The word for “bread” in the original would have been lehem. The name of the town of Jesus’ birth  was Beth-lehem, viz., House of Bread.

          However, Hebrew and Aramaic were very concrete, visual languages in the days of Jesus. As a result, a word might have multiple meanings.  Such was the case for the word that Jesus used in the original.  Lehem can also mean other things.  It can mean food, in general. It can mean sustenance, whatever keeps us going.  It also can mean simply money, the means that we use to purchase our bread, our food, our sustenance. 

            In colloquial English today, we have the adage that “bread is the staff of life”. It is understood as the basic sustenance of one’s diet.  (One would not relish a diet of bread and water.  However, when we are sick, frequently our diet becomes “toast and tea”, basic mainstays that nourish and hydrate us.

            Later on, in the sermon, in John 6.51-58 (which we hear as our Sunday Gospel on August 16, in a fortnight), Jesus is, indeed, focusing on the His Real Presence in the Eucharist.  However, the wider meaning of lehem is operative this week and next in our Gospel proclamation.  Jesus is for those who believe (in) Him their bread, their food, their sustenance in a variety of ways. He sustains us in the Words that He proclaims to us; He sustains us in the sacraments (including, especially, the Eucharist); He sustains us in our relationship with Him as the Head of the (Mystical) Body of Christ, of Which each and every one of us is a cell, containing His DNA (the Holy Spirit!); He sustains us in prayer, whether verbal or non-verbal, individual or liturgical; He sustains us in the silence of our minds and hearts in ways that we do not even perceive. (The great transcendent pray-ers of our Christian tradition have averred that Christ Jesus is present in the silence and solitude and slowing down of the Christian. Many theologians of the last century, including the great Karl Rahner, as well as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) have stated time and time again that the individual human has built into his or her humanity the call of the Transcendent.  Sadly, our culture and its hawkers have played down such a “holy longing” by pandering to our appeal for things that we can possess and have, rather than the response in Holy Awe (the Fear of the Lord) that Catholics consistently misunderstand (possibly because we fear what this Holy Awe will uncover and reveal to us about ourselves.)

            Theologians have commented that many have troubles with the term “Bread of Life”.  Ironically, the trouble is not with the meaning of the word “bread” once it is clarified.  Rather, the trouble arises over what do we really mean by the word “life”.  If we seriously come to Jesus in the many ways in which He offers Himself to us, we won’t be hungry or thirsty.  More important, He will help to clarify what life is really all about.  He teaches us to live the Paschal Mystery (of ascent, descent and transformation) in Him, with Him and through Him. (You are already, even if you don’t know it!) He teaches us to believe in God (His God) and in Him the One whom God sent.  He teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves (more than a slogan for a card carrying member of the Jesus Movement).  He practices what He preaches by a life of outpouring service and sacrifice for His own. That’s us, even now.  How do we respond to His offer to be our Bread of Life, if we allow Him to make it?  080209AD jfq   

                              

Sunday, July 26, 2009AD

17th Sunday in Greentime

 

Feeding 5,000 Then and Now

            According to biblical critical techniques, the presence of a story or saying in several different sources lends even greater reliability to that story.  Such is the case with the multiplication of the loaves and fish.  This Gospel appears in all four Gospel; it even appears twice in the Gospel of Mark!  It is a pivotal story.

            Theories abound on the origins of the story.  Clearly, while there are Eucharistic overtones here, other realities in the ministry of Jesus are present as well.  (Our first reading today speaks of the prophet Elisha’s multiplying loaves for 100 and this story is be operative here as well.)

            Some feel that Jesus’ table fellowship with anyone who would eat with Him was His most radical demonstration of the “Coming of the Kingdom of God.”  He ate with sinners and tax collectors; He ate with officials of Judaism; He ate with single women, viz., Martha and Mary.  Today, He eats at a “picnic” that He hosted in the wilderness near the Sea of Tiberias just before Passover.  The sociological term that is used is “commensality”, “with-at table”.

            Some feel that, even during the Public Ministry of Jesus, there were two types of communal meals. 1) The bread and wine meal evolved, via the Last Supper, into the Eucharist. 2) The bread and fish (potluck) meal focused upon the communal sharing of food and the distribution of the extras so nothing was wasted. This ritual meal existed in Corinth in 55 AD.

            What makes this innocent enough scenario explosive to conventional wisdom of Jesus’ time was that dining was only done in the presence of one’s intimates, one’s family and closest friends. Next, since the venue was the wilderness, people could not observe dietary and ritual prescriptions.  This was offensive to prevalent religious sensitivities.

            However, Jesus might have been crossing other lines as well.  In the earliest accounts of the feeding in St Mark, the Evangelist tells us that 5,000 men were there; John tells us that 5,000 people.  A crowd of 5,000 people would trouble public authorities; a crowd of 5,000 men would really trouble authorities. Pontius Pilate was not big on crowds, as we know from other stories.  More, John tells us that “they wanted to make Jesus king, so he ran off and hid Himself.” Pilate had to say to himself, “King? They wanted to make him a king.  What’s up with that?” 

            St John tells us that the boy had 5 barley loaves and 2 fish; the number “7” hints at divinity. The loaves were barley, which was the bread of the poor person.  These folks lived in a subsistence economy. One could not fault poor people for looking for free food in such an environment.

            The story of an idyllic scene for us is charged with different meaning for other audiences. Whatever happened that day, Jesus clearly challenged both the religious and political systems.  The bottom line was that 5,000 hungry folks were fed. Jesus wants none of us to hunger.                

            As two ladies in the area commented recently, “the poor don’t get the summer off.”

Thank God, the people of our Jesus Movement here at St Patrick’s, for the most part, try to remember the poor every Sundays as a biblical “thank offering” of food as they enter the Eucharist each week. Sadly, a distinct few do not do so (for whatever reason, God knows!). Sadly, again, so many do not attend Mass (here, at least) during the summer.  During the school year, one cannot top their generosity, but what about God and the poor during July and August? See the connection in ethical monotheism?

            An elderly lady in the area (who lost quite a little bit of money in the recent economic downturn, but still remembers the reality) teaches her children and grandchildren by working volunteer turkey dinners on TXG Day and Christmas at shelters. She tells them, “All have to get out and do something, not just talk about it.” As modern theologians say, “Don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk.”

            Every Sunday is a Food First Sunday, but the summer is traditionally a thin time. What do you teach your children to do as the “5000 hungry scenario” continues in global proportions daily, without taking the summer off?   072609 AD jfq    

 

Sunday, July 19, 2009AD

16th Sunday in Greentime

 

To Rest a While, but….

            Jesus was not a work-aholic like St Paul, as St Mark recounts the Gospel today.  Jesus urged His followers to come apart and rest awhile. “Everyone needs a break sometimes”, as the song goes. There was an urgency to proclaim the need to snap out of the dream (of the System) and get back to basics, but don’t burn out your batteries.

            A catchword-phrase here at St Patrick’s

for many years has been “God comes first.”  We accent that usually in the springtime, with the phrase, “even on summer Sundays.”  Recalling the given in childhood psychology, “values are caught, not taught.” What is important to parents become quite apparent to children early on. We augment our annual catchphrase, “God comes first, even on summer Sundays” with the words from the liturgy of baptism for the blessing of the Dad, “(The Dad) and his wife will be the first teachers of the child in the ways of faith and hope. Let them be the best of teachers, bearing witness to their faith and hope by what they say and do in Christ Jesus.” Do we always see that borne by cultural patterns in our immediate world today?

            Recently, a memorial Mass was offered here on a Sunday morning for a 14 years old boy who died in 1977 of leukemia.  His family gather yearly to commemorate His going home to God at such a young age.  His parents commented on the absence of many younger families here at Mass that Sunday. Someone said in response, “They are all away this summer.” Maybe!

            The Hindu tradition speaks of 4 distinct stages in human living.  1) First all humans experience roots and wings, viz., childhood and education and nurturing by family.  2) Next comes early adulthood when the challenge to young adults is to “build your tower, make your mark and take the world by storm.  However, as Catholics, we do the best we can to follow the Gospel of Jesus in the process.  As Pope John Paul said many times, “there are no moral freezones for ethical behavior.”  The third stage is the walk in the woods, when we realize that life is more than building a tower.  It is the realization that there is something more.  We usually associate the “walk in the woods” with a crisis within one’s family, one’s world or one’s self.  We ask ourselves the question poignantly put by singer, Miss Peggy Lee, many, many years ago, “Is that all there is to life?” What does life all mean? 4) We hopefully will enter the fourth stage, the (w)holistic fool, when we learn that authentic human living involves learning how to bear the pains of life (which will come), to make leaps of faith and ultimately, to surrender, let go and trust the Holy Mystery that is constantly staring us in the face and yet, we are usually moving too frantically to think about.

            Our culture experiences these stages as a group.  Most sociologists would say that our American culture is still in early adulthood. (Compare Chinese or Japanese or Hindu or most European cultures.) Is this not reflected in the fact that much American culture worships youth and avoids the idea of getting old? As a result, the goal of American culture is the goal of early adulthood for individuals, viz., build your tower, make your mark and take  the world by storm.  As Mel Brooks said many years ago, “It’s good to be the king.”

            Still, individuals, one and all, someday have to take the walk through the woods.   We experience the painful mysteries of life, the sorrows, the tragedies, the failures, the accidents, the reversals, the disappointments of life over which we have no control.  We are driven to fix, to understand and to control our reality and that it is all right if you follow Jesus’ guidelines. Eventually, you can’t then.  When you emerge from your walk in the woods, as a result, you end up either pathetic, angry or wise.

            Jesus and His Movement want you to end up a wise human.  He wants you to learn that no matter what happens, good or not so good, the Paschal Mystery of ascent, descent and transformation is always in process in your life and in the very life of the universe. We can plug into the reality of the Paschal Mystery in all stages of life in Christ Jesus. This is not a luxury item for anybody!!

            It is one thing for young adult Catholics to plug into connection with the Paschal Mystery when they want.  They might feel that they do not need the encouragement of Catholic community and Word and Sacrament all the time, only when desirable.  (For many, religion becomes a luxury item, something one uses when one feels.)

            However, values are caught, not taught.  What happens with the youngsters influenced by their parents’ preferences?  Do children get the idea that religion is something we do on a Sunday “when we don’t have something important to do” (quoting a confirmation candidate here in a petition letter to the parish a few years ago? Are some children deprived of an authentic human inculturation process inadvertently by parent’s downplaying the importance of an ongoing Catholic connection on the Lord’s Day throughout the year? 

            Our visitor last weekend whose son died of leukemia when he was fourteen noticed the dearth of young families (at the 10.30 Mass!!) She said that she wanted to think that in the fourteen years that God had given them their son, she hoped that they had introduced him to the fact that God is with us on days good and not so good as well, on the joyful, sorrowful and glorious days of life. What about the children today and their parents?

            In baptism and confirmation, we become disciples (students) and apostles (ambassadors) for Jesus.  During the remaining days of the summer, bring up the subject of God’s coming first, even on a summer Sunday, when you meet up with relatives, friends and neighbors, no matter where. 

            Jesus was not a work-aholic and does not want His followers to be fanatics.  We all need to rest a while.  However, the Third Commandment (Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day) stresses that God comes first, even, and most especially, on a summer Sunday.  Little children need to be reminded by word and example.   071909AD jfq       

          

Sunday, July 12, 2009AD

Fifteenth Sunday in Greentime

 

Neuralgic Nabi’s

            About three hours from here, up I-95 North, our neighbors in Rhode Island are debating about changing the official name of their state.  The smallest state, ironically, has the longest name, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  The name goes back to the days of the settlement by the English following 1636.  The founder of the “Providence Plantation” was Roger Williams, who has been called both an “irrepressible democrat” and/or a “kook”.  He might be called a “nabi”, the Hebrew word for “prophet”, one through whom God speaks.

            Prophets, then and now, can be neuralgic, offensive to pious ears.  They frequently provoke indignation and fury.  Roger Williams found that out.  In our Scriptures today, so did Amos of Tekoa and Jesus of Nazareth.  Amos was told to “hit the road” after he denounced Israelite idolatry linked to economic and social injustice.  Yet, Israel kept his writings because they knew he was on to something.  We all know what  happened  to Jesus of Nazareth, when He arrived in Jerusalem.  In more modern times, we know what happened to Mohandas Gandhi, much of whose teaching was based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mtt 5-7, read it sometime because it was written with you in mind!) and what happened to Martin Luther King and Archbishop Oscar Romero and countless others.

            In the long run, Roger Williams got off easily. He came to Massachusetts, in 1635. Because of his religious background, (he studied at Cambridge in England), he became the minister of a Puritan Church in Salem.  He had a problem with the idea of a “Zion on a Hill”, viz., the Puritans were going to build a theocracy, a commonwealth based on how God wanted it to be (They knew God’s Will; you didn’t.) Within a year, he was told to get out of Massachusetts for several reasons. 1)  He felt that church and state should be separated. 2) He felt that a civil government could not enforce religious laws.  (There had been a fine levied by the colony of people who did not attend the Puritan Church. 3) Going for the jugular, he said that the land belonged to the Indians, not King Charles I, who was divvying it up for his friends to make money. Pious ears were offended. As someone wrote recently, “in a community of religious fanatics, the outspoken Williams became the guy who all the other Puritans wished would lighten up on religion.”

            Williams walked in the winter to what is now Providence, RI, 160 miles up I-95. He got the permission to live there from the Narragansett Indians and no money was exchanged in the process.  Later on, when the whites and Indians were involved in Indian Wars, Indian women were acting as babysitters for the children of settlers in Providence.

            However, Williams was no bleeding heart.  He felt that anyone who disagreed with him would end up in hell. However, he felt that there should be such a thing as “soul-liberty”.  He felt that one had the right to believe what he or she wanted. As a result, Providence tolerated Jews, Quakers, even Catholics!  He felt that they would get theirs ultimately from God, but live and let live here and now. (It was a primitive expression of what became the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, 1791, 160 years later!)  In 1965, at Vatican Council II, the Catholic Church officially endorsed “freedom of conscience”, based primarily on the thought of Rev John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit.

            Roger Williams lived to a ripe,old age.  Other nabi’s were not so lucky.  As Archbishop Dolan, and others, put it, the job of the nabi is “To comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”  Not always do people like to hear a critique based on God’s point of view.  The etymology of the Hebrew word “nabi” seems to be “someone standing on a mountain, who sees reality from a different angle, viz., God’s slant or angle.

            All Catholics, through baptism, become “cells” in the Body of Christ.  His DNA, the Holy Spirit, lives in each of us.  As a result, we share in the mission of Jesus Christ in this world.  As St Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no hands but yours.” More recently, Teilhard de Chardin said, based on St Paul’s concept of the Body of Christ, that “Each of us is Christ in space and time.”  As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “Each of us is called to do something beautiful for God.”  As Blessed John XXIII and Vatican II taught, “Each of us shares at baptism and throughout life in Christ, a universal call to holiness.”

            USA Catholics have been challenged to live (w)holistic ,“catholic” lives. The word “catholic” is based on two Greek words, kata – according to and (w)holos  -- entirety.  “Catholic”  means imbuing total human living in Gospel thinking, things affecting the group.  Recently, we have been hearing more and more about some basic principles of Catholic thought that should permeate how we behave economically, socially, politically, globally with one another and with our environment.  They include many familiar ideas such as “absolute value of human life, the consistent life ethic, the seamless garment theory”, as well as the preferential option for the poor (everyone counts with God, not just some), as well as the reality of the universal process of ascent, descent, transformation that nobody escapes.

            Some actively reject the message as those who persecuted the prophets such as Amos, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Jesus of Nazareth.  (Maybe, Roger Williams who lived to talk about it.)

            Others offer passive aggressive responses.  Many make excuses that prophets do not live in the real world, with the bottom line. (See where it got us, folks.) Others make excuses leading to an evaporation of faith.  Examples include 1) Jesus cannot be for real.  2) I cannot do what Jesus expects of me, just little old me. That’s up to the religious. 3) That does not sound like the Jesus that I have created in my image and likeness. Sound familiar?    071209AD jfq         

 

Sunday, July 5, 2009AD

Fourteenth Sunday in Greentime

Someday We’ll See!!

We hear many speeches yearly this weekend as we celebrate Independence Day. We are reminded of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The principles that all are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to attain these rights, governments are instituted, etc.etc. are well known and noble.  However, has our track record matched the theory?  An alternate view of history has been developed, viz., Her-story.  As the adage goes, history is written by the winners. Her-story is the history written by other categories.

An appropriate case in point is the curiosity that today we observe the Abolition of slavery here in NY, in 1825!!!!!! (49 years after the Declaration of Independence!) To pass such a law, the NY State Legislature (NB -- please get your act together in 2009!!) needed to correct something that actually existed in our colony, later our state in the years before and after 1776.

Yes, there was slavery here in New York and it caused problems.  Most of the slaves in colonial NY were in the NYC area, but some slaves existed up this way as well.  Colonial NY history shows us that slaves were not happy campers either.  (Why should they have been?)

In colonial NY, the eighteenth century before 1776, there were two major incidents involving slaves in NYC.  In 1712, there was a slave revolt that was beaten down brutally and cruelly as an example to other NY slaves not to repeat such actions.  In 1741, there was a brutalization of slaves in NYC after a suspicious fire occurred in the city.  (In that case, as well, Papists, that’s us, folks, were dragged into it as co-conspirators with the slaves.) That slavery had to be abolished in NY 49 years after the Declaration of Independence had to mean that slavery existed after American separation from England.  Did Blacks come under the noble principles of Thomas Jefferson’s (a slaveholder) lofty principles?

In early America, the foreign slave trade was outlawed after 1808.  The development of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 put an end to thought that slavery would wither away and die in the new republic.  In 1833, through the work of abolitionists in England such as William Wilburforce, slavery was abolished in the British Empire.  In 1862, the Czar abolished slavery in Russia.  The USA did not abolish slavery officially in December, 1865, with the Thirteenth Amendment! (The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, was an effort to keep England and France from recognizing the Confederate States in rebellion.)

However, this weekend also represents the anniversary of the Draft Riots in NYC in 1863.  It was probably the largest urban disorder in American history.  Occurring throughout the city, but particularly in the area around the United Nations, Irish immigrants and poor white Protestants were reacting to the Draft Act, in which the boys of wealthy families could be exempt from the draft if their family paid $300. (Did you see the Gangs of New York a few years ago?) Some feel that the injustice continues in more subtle ways today.

Jesus lived in a world in which slavery was taken as a given.  Jesus and His greatest public relations man, St Paul, never advocated the abolition of slavery in practice in the message of the Coming of the Kingdom.  Still, seeds were sown when the slogans of the movement became “Your Will be done”; “The Kingdom of God is among us”; “Jesus is Lord”.

Sooner or later, honest Christians would read into the Gospel where its thrust was headed. Most Christians tolerated slavery and, indeed, some “Christian” slaveholders found justification for it in the Christian Scriptures.  For example, “slaves, be obedient to your masters.” It is a sad commentary on Church history that the drive to abolish slavery arose from the seriousness of the Quakers reading into the Gospel and other persecuted groups in Europe as well as the theory in the French Revolution of  Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (and Sorority).

Now in the 21st century, Catholics find the institution of slavery as something hard to imagine.  How could our Catholic ancestors have tolerated such a situation?  Well, the System did tolerate it and the Church was immersed in the System.  Using a principle of Blessed John XXIII,  “we know more now.”

The prophet Ezekiel named reality in the first reading today.  People do not like to have the System critiqued.  At this early point in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, He met rejection from the spectrum of much of the Jewish religious establishment  (from the Herodians to the Pharisses in Mk 3.6), some of His own family, his local village (today’s Gospel) and later His own followers, led by St Peter. Soon, Pontius Pilate handed Jesus over to death as a political prisoner, a challenger to the System, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Many feel that Pilate was not the dupe that frequently he is portrayed in the Gospels.  Rather, Pilate might have read between the lines of what Jesus was really all about. Do we read between the lines as well?

It took 1800 years before the drive to abolish slavery took off seriously in Christendom “a Christian world”.  Now, Catholics would not even consider the possibility of slavery as legitimate.  In essence, the implications of the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, were left untouched by the System (baptized, so to speak, in the Fourth Century.)

How long will it take before Catholics (and other Christians) come to see the further implications of the Gospel.  Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and honestly answer the question whether or not Jesus calls all His followers (that’s us, folks) to lives of non-violence. It took 1800 years to get it on slavery. When will the day come when Catholics will ask themselves  how their Catholic ancestors have failed to see the non-violence of the Gospel? When further in the future when Catholics will ask how their ancestors (Catholics, today) tolerated sins against the dignity of the human person, such as abortion, euthanasia, torture, the death penalty and war?

Will the prophet Jesus of Nazareth be welcomed in our hearts and minds when we read more honestly and clearly between the lines of what He is really saying?  Pilate apparently got the gist early on and reacted to it.  The System still does react to it.  How do we react?   070509AD jfq    

            

June 28, 2009AD

Thirteenth Sunday in Greentime

 

It’s Not about the Money!!

            All major religious groups have bills to be paid.  Heating, maintenance, upkeep – the list goes on and on. Cynics say that organized religion is a business.  Honest people know differently.

            The three major “religions of the  Book”, viz., Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have, as basic tenets of their faith, the obligation to take care of the less fortunate in their midst. The modern term is “ethical monotheism”.  If there is one God, then all are God’s daughters and sons and siblings of one another. When one of our sibs is in trouble, God is concerned and we better be concerned as well.

            The Jesus Movement within the first 25 years of the New Testament faced the problem of the poor in their midst.  Fr Raymond Brown said back in the 1970’s  that there may have been a group of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who apparently might have pooled their resources for the communal use of goods. These folks, Fr Brown speculates, might have been called the “Anawim YHWH”, a group of Jewish Christians who literally surrendered their material wealth to the good of the community! 

            However, we know that this was not the common practice.  It was not expected that all would surrender all to the group.  That this is the case is testified to by our second reading from 2 Cor 8,  The Jesus Movement in Greece was passing their turbans around for a collection for the “needy in Jerusalem”, Anawim YHWH that Brown posits.    

            Jewish Christians strove for Yaqat, the “one-ness”, of the Jesus Movement in Palestine.  (St Luke testifies to this throughout the Acts of the Apostles.)  In Greek the word that Greek speakers of the Jesus Movement would have used was koinonia, solidarity.

            St Paul was very committed to the symbolic value of what was called “the Great Collection.” As a sign of one-ness or solidarity, the collection was seen by St Paul as a means of unification of the Jesus Movement, both at home in Palestine or throughout the port cities around the Meditterrean, if they spoke Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, the biblical languages.

            St Paul had promised the leaders of the Jerusalem Jesus Movement that he would make every effort to collect funds for the poor in Jerusalem.  Recall that there were at least three distinct groups in the Jesus Movement in the outlying areas.  1) There were Jews living away from Palestine. 2) There were Gentiles, non Jews who attended Jewish synagogues in the outlying areas because they were attracted to the values and ethics of Jewish ethical monotheism. (NB— It was the second group from which many new Christians emerged in the Jesus Movement.) 3) There were Gentiles who turned from the various pagan religions to the Jesus Movement.  New members of the Jesus Movement in the outlying areas were included now in the Yaqat, the koinonia of the worldwide Jesus Movement.

            It is interesting that the drive to Yaqat or Koinonia in Christ Jesus continues under different terms today.  Our US Catholic Church sponsors Catholic Relief Services from problems throughout the world.  Within the USA, we maintain Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Within the Archdiocese of NY, we maintain Catholic Charities.  Within our parish, we support many efforts at Yaqat, the koinonia in a variety of ways.  For almost twenty years now, our Teen LIFE Group has led many of our creative and vanguard projects, from the girls training school in India to a variety of local causes. The FIAT initative of Project Embrace recently completed Food for Hope with neighboring food pantries in both NY and Greenwich.  Our parish has supported for a long time the Ecumenical Food Pantry in Pleasantville.  Our parish maintains our weekly Food First Program, viz, where we bring food to church as a form of “pew rent” where we emulate the custom of our Christian ancestors in the house churches to bring offerings for the poor as a sign of gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist.  This summer, we focus on foodstuffs beginning with the letter “P”, parmalat, peanut butter, pasta, pinto beans, whatever.   Finally, we offer scholarships for needy students in our parish community who are unable to afford tuition in our religious education  program. In Christ Jesus, the Jesus Movement in St Patrick’s in Armonk tries to keep the tradition alive!!

            Our second reading today challenges an idea that has permeated some Christian circles.  All Christians are not expected to surrender everything to the poor! (This was the model for some in the Jerusalem Jesus Movement, the Anawim YHWH, but it was not the model for all.) 1) Rather, there was meant to be a sharing with those in need.  “Not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality, your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that they may be equality.” 2) Gospel living presumes in the first century as well as the twenty-first century, that power, prestige and possessions are not ends in themselves.  Rather, God’s gifts make demands upon all.  Our lives are centered in God in Christ Jesus.  May our Jesus Movement here at St Patrick’s always reflect basic Gospel values.                          062809AD  jfq 

      

Sunday June 21, 2009AD

12th Sunday in Greentime

 

Hardly Ordinary

The Third Millenium is going quickly. We are fast approaching the end of its first decade.  Where did the last several years go?

            Each year, the Church makes a tremendous linguistic blunder by talking about the various “Sundays in ordinary Time”. While we are not focusing attention on Advent-Christmas-Epiphany in the beginning of winter or on Lent-Easter-Pentecost in the late winter-early spring, other times are hardly ordinary.

            What the liturgical calendar means is “time marked by ordinal numbers”. It is meant to correlate the readings and prayers for each Sunday when we do not focus on specific aspects of the salvation Christ wins for us.

            Seen this way, we should refer to the 10th, 11th, 12th, etc. Sundays in Ordinal Time.  Why not name the Sunday in a more intelligible and appropriate way? As Pope John Paul II taught, “Every Sunday is Easter Sunday”. Every Sunday, we celebrate the Easter victory of Christ Jesus for all of creation.

            You and I live in the Third Millenium of the New Testament.  This is hardly “ordinary time”.  At the very least, it is “Extraordinary Time.” In Ireland and England, for example, the time is called “Greentime” because green is the color of hope and growth.

Also, every year is a ‘Year of the Lord”.  “AD” means Anno Domini, viz., the Year of the Lord, (Jesus).  

Why not begin writing the letters AD after the year each time that you write the date?  This way, you constantly remind yourself (and others) that Christ Jesus is the Center of History, certainly the Center of your history.  It is a silent and subtle form of evangelization. Not just the year 2009, rather it is 2009AD  (in the Year of the Lord Jesus.)

Just as every Sunday or week is extraordinary, so also, every year is extraordinary. It is a Year of the Lord (Jesus)!

Around here we speak of “reflexive religious moments”.  While every moment is a religious moment because God is calling is into existence to Life, Love and Light, we do not always have the time to be returning the compliment constantly.

Therefore, it is incumbent on us to build in specific moments of “reflexive religion”.  These are moments when not only is God dwelling in us, but we are dwelling in God as well.  Examples of these moments, remember, include a quick morning prayer, a quick evening prayer, grace before meals.  Impress your kids!!

Another prime time for “reflexive religion” is our weekly gathering for the Sunday Eucharist.  The parish (our para-oikia) is our other home, a family home of all our families.

We bolster one another’s faith and hope by our gathering as church.  To do so makes every Sunday “Extraordinary” and every year a “Year of the Lord.”

But that is only the start.  Weekly attendance at Sunday Mass is an act of acquaintance with God and the community in Christ Jesus.  Acquaintance with many should lead to familiarity with those with whom we are closer. Familiarity with God and the community in Christ Jesus might take shape during the week with a daily Mass once in a while (bring the kids!!) , a little time for Bible reading with serious Christian resources (usually not available on cable TV) or personal readings of Catholic tradition of the past or present.

Still, there is an even crucial level to “reflexive religion”.  Each person, no matter age or vocation, needs to respond the God’s invitation to each of us to intimacy, slowing down in solitude and silence to be present to the Presence of the Lord in you each moment.  Australian theologians refer to the deep incarnation, viz., God is present in all reality, therefore, God exists in you (and you exist in God).  As Blaise Pascal, devout Catholic mathematician 350 years ago, said, “If each person could slow down and sit still quietly for 20 minutes each day and be present to God, then peace would come into the world (at least of that person’s life)!  

As the haunting figures of God and Job confront us in our first reading today, we are reminded of crucial quotes in the epic work. In the midst of a middle class life, Job was confronted with severe trials.  When challenged to turn his back on God in anger, Job made several remarkable statements. 1) We accept good things from God, should we not accept the bad as well? 2) Naked came I forth from my mother’s womb and naked shall I return. 3) The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of YHWH. Job had to have responded to the call to intimacy with God to make such statements.  He spent his 20 minutes a day in intimacy with God.     

Each person will face days when confront the same challenges as Job.  Do we accept God’s regimen to prepare for such by answering God’s call to intimacy with each? Our culture has lost a sense of the eternal in the temporal, the infinite in the finite, the sacred in the secular, the mystery in our history. The scene in Armonk needs people like you (desperately) to remind us what is really important, even and most especially on a summer Sunday.  God comes first!! Restoring each Sunday to its proper focus can do much to help us re-interpret the rest of the week and year and our lives.      062109AD  jfq     

 

Sunday June 14, 2009AD

Corpus Christi

 

God’s Twentieth Century Surprise

            We celebrate the memory of Pope John XXIII, who died on June 3, 1963.  If you were around then, you recall the short time of his ministry. You still live with the effects of his Spirit-filled Petrine Ministry.

            (In St Peter’s Basilica, by far, the two most visited sites are the tomb of St Peter under the main altar and the tomb of Pope John, off to the side.)  Many of our St Patrick’s pilgrims to the Eternal City stopped to pray there for a while in February. There is a reason for the popularity of Pope John’s tomb.

            In the papal election of 1958, the Cardinals thought that an interim Pope would be best because they felt that no suitable successor to Pope Pius XII was available. They deliberately elected the 77 year old Patriarch of Venice as an interim.

            What an interim he was!! In his four and a half year  ministry, Pope John responded to the call of the Holy Spirit for an ecumenical council to bring aggiorniamento, an updating of the Catholic Church.  He wanted to open the windows of the Church to the world recovering from World War II.  In addition, he tried to mediate the Cold War between the USA and the USSR with his great encyclical, Pacem in Terris. 

His death was mourned by people all over the world. He is still remembered today.

            One of the practical changes brought about by the Holy Spirit in Vatican II was the reform of the liturgy of the Eucharist.  Today as we celebrate Corpus Christi, we gather with a reformed and renewed sense.  We are a welcomed and welcoming  people who listen to the Word of God and worship at the Table of the Lord.  We are renewed by the Spirit as witnesses to Jesus the rest of the 167 hours of the week ahead.  We commit ourselves to welfare of others, not ourselves only.

            We strive, with God’s Help, to share the Body of Christ so that we become the Body of Christ.  We are all called and we convene or come together. We come as a community, not as individuals.  We try to commit more and more, with God’s Help, to the Christic view of reality proclaimed by Jesus. We are companions on the Way for one another. We are committed to a catholic (wholistic) worldview.  We are concerned with the complete person (body, mind, soul and spirit) both of our neighbor as well as ourselves and we care about all creation. Everything is connected, relational.

            Pope John’s deathbed message in June, 1963 said in part, “Now more than ever, certainly more than in the past centuries, our intentions (as a Church) is to serve people as such and not only Catholics; to defend above all and everywhere the rights of the human person and not only of the Catholic Church; it is not the Gospel that changes; it is we who begin to understand it better…The moment has arrived when we must recognize the signs of the times, seize the opportunity and look far abroad.”

            The Holy Spirit used the wonderful days of the short ministry of Blessed John and the years of Vatican II to help us understand more clearly that our Catholic faith is deeply incarnational. (We live in God and God lives in us.) Our life as a Church is historical, sociological and sacramental. We truly believe that God works in the ordinary events of life, through people, through water, through water and wine, through the oils of anointing, through the written Word of God of Scripture.                

The Holy Spirit sent Pope John into our world in 1958 to unleash again the evolutionary process that had begun in the upper room on Pentecost morning, 30 AD.  We pray that our church heed the signs of the times once more and make the aggiornamentos necessary to thrive anew.

            Another buzzword that came into vogue during the days of preparation for Vatican II was the French word, resourcement,  viz., going back to our apostolic roots in the sense of looking to the Apostolic Churches of the New Testament for an idea of what our Christian ancestors had in mind. How do we replicate what the first generations of Christians saw their mission in an authentic modern fashion, in accordance with the authentic Traditions of the Church?  (There were more than a few who said that the concept of resourcement might have been the most radical of the trends at Vatican II. (“Back to one’s roots” is the etymology of the word “radical”)) . 

            Finally, Vatican Council II picked up Blessed John’s Farewell Address by teaching  us that our understanding of our Christian faith is still in development.  For example, in earlier days, Christians took the notion of slavery as a given.  In Vatican II, we understand that our God wishes nobody to be in slavery to anyone else.  Our understanding of the Deposit of Faith is progressive, evolving.  When asked about the fact that such a basic question as slavery was re-interpreted, Blessed John’s response was, “We know more now.”  

            The Holy Spirit surprised us then and will continue to do so.  As 1 Peter told us throughout Easter, through baptism, we became a “Chosen Race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart.”  St Paul quoted the lyrics of a baptismal hymn in Gal 3.28, “In Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.  All are one in Christ Jesus.”  In the midst of this period of purgation which we experience as a church, we pray that the Spirit raise up leaders to prepare us for the future, as we reflect on Peter and Paul’s words, as well as the words of their successors, such as Blessed John, Pope Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council.  Even now, we see happy changes came not after Vatican Council II, but before and during its meetings as well.       061409AD jfq         

           

Sunday, June 7, 2009AD

Trinity Sunday

 

You Can’t Make This Up!!

 

            800 years ago, St Bonaventure said, “Everything is a thumbprint or a footprint of God”.  Believers, now as ever, look at the beauty of creation, at dawn or at any time, to experience what is called “God’s primordial revelation.”  Each day and the wonders that it brings is God’s Present to us; hence, we call it “The Present.” (Don’t forget to say thanks to God each morning for the Present.  It is only when you get older that your realize what a gift each day is.)

            800 years ago, as well, Meister Eckhardt, a German Dominican theologian, used three simple images to serve as metaphors for the Mystery of the Holy Trinity Whom we celebrate today.  1) The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father in return; the Love between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 2) The Father enjoys the Son; the Son enjoys the Father; the enjoyment between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 3) The Father dances with the Son; the Son dances with the Father; the Dance of the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit.

            The image of the Dancing Trinity, surprisingly, is an ancient one in Church History.  The Greek Fathers of the Church spoke of the Trinity as a Perichoresis , viz., a dancing around. (Do you see the etymology of the word “chorus” in the Greek term?)

            From our earliest days, we have learned that each person is created in the image and likeness of God.  Our catechisms taught us that our ability to know and to love was our divine likeness.  While maintaining the same teaching, another spin on the words of Genesis 1 interprets the biblical quote from divine to human.  1) If the three persons of the Trinity are all equal, then, every human person is equal to one another. 2) If the three persons of the Trinity are relational, then, every human person thrives in relationship.  3) If ultimately, the three Persons of the Trinity are incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively), then every human person is ultimately incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively, even by oneself!)

            Fr Karl Rahner said that most Christians live our lives without any reference to the Trinity.  Skeptics have made jest of it throughout the years. 

            However, these days, in Catholic Quantum theology, we remember that the cosmos, the macro-universe appears to be in an orbital relationship. (The Hubble Telescope has been done over and, please God, will provide data from the farthest reaches of the universe, which is still expanding!)  Then, too, we recall that the atom, the micro-universe, is in orbital relationship as well.  High tech microscopes hint that we will never be able to get to the smallest particle of matter.  (One German physicist-theologian said in the last century that we can only measure what is measurable.  We need to admit that there are some realities by which we live that ultimately are beyond left-brain, logical, critical thinking.)

The mystery of what is “way out there and what is way in here” mirrors the Mystery of all reality, of which the very Mystery of “little old you and me” are a part”. Our Catholic thought has always taught that God is relational. Now, we see that not only humanity (the pinnacle of God’s creation) thrives in relationship, so also does reality in its outermost and innermost dimensions. God thrives in us and we thrive in God.

            Everyone remembers the vignette of St Augustine’s realizing that it would be easier to pour the Mediterrean Sea into a hole on the beach than to grasp the Mystery of God, One in Three.  Still, following St Bonaventure and Meister Eckhardt and Karl Rahner and St Augustine, as well as St Patrick with his shamrock, we rejoice and live in the Holy Mystery because the Holy Mystery rejoices and lives in us. It is good to belong to God.     060709AD jfq                      

             

Sunday, May 31, 2009AD

Pentecost Sunday

 

Pentecost 2009AD

            We conclude the Lenten-Easter-Pentecost cycle today.  The slogan for Ash Wednesday is “Remember that you are dust and unto dust, you shall return.”  The slogan for Lent is “snap out of it and believe in the Gospel.” The slogan for Easter is “Jesus is Lord”.  The slogan for Pentecost is “Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father sent Me, so I send you.”

            Can we focus on the Spirit today?  The word for spirit in Hebrew is ruach  (and it is a feminine noun). The word for spirit in Greek is pneuma (and it is a neuter noun). This is important because Hebrew and Greek are the two biblical languages. The word for spirit in Latin (not a biblical language) is spiritus (and this can be a masculine or feminine noun) 

Each year, we urge the Community to wear red clothing to Mass on Pentecost as a visual reminder that, like it or not, if we acclaim Jesus as Lord, we live with a different view of reality.  Jesus and His Gospel is our absolute.   Those filled with Holy Spirit are to live His Gospel as best we can in Christ Jesus. Sometimes, such living puts us “out of sync” with the System by which most  people live. The goal of the System frequently is self-preservation of the Status Quo.  This can involve violence, dishonesty, greed and arrogance.   

In imitation of Christ, we recall that after His crucifixion, the Risen One opted not to get even with His institutional murderers.  He offers the opportunity to follow in Christ His example.  On the one hand, we can transmit violence, returning injury for injury in a downward spiral of violence that can cause the world some day to implode. However, in imitation of Christ, we can transform violence.  We can remember that whether we care to admit or not, we are all brothers and sisters and that God is the Father of all, not some. A tough vocation, Jesus asks us, at least, to acknowledge that His way is the Way to go. 

            St Paul had a special strategy to implement the Gospel of Christ in the world.  He established small communities over a two year period in pivotal cities in the Roman world.  He believed in faith that a group of 20-30 or so people who tried to live authentic lives in Christ Jesus in large urban centers could change the world.  While he writes, “Jesus is Lord”, he adds in another place, “Faith comes through hearing.”  Today, he might add, “Sometimes actions in Christ Jesus speak louder than words.

            It is clear from the development of the letters of St Paul within the Christian Bible that Christian living was quite distinctive and noteworthy.  Christians had a different starting point and it showed in how they lived their lives.

            St Paul saw a Christian vocation as a democratic call to all to live in Christ Jesus every moment of our lives.  The Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962-1965, offered a new name to an old Catholic reality. The universal call to holiness, re-affirmed by Vatican II, is a reminder to us of what the Pentecost experience described in Acts and in John 20 (John’s original Easter chapter).  We need to be reminded that, within our Catholic tradition, all, not some are called to live the Gospel and not just in Church.   There are not meant to be super-Catholics.

            All of us are called to live our lives in Christ’s Spirit, 60-60-24-7-365.  All of us are called to be engaged seriously and responsibly in the dialogue with our culture.  As an ancient Roman Christian writer said to Diognetus, “Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body.” Just as a human body needs an animating principle, we are called to be animators of society.  Sadly, too often, we sit back and let others run the show.   

            Our red clothing today mirrors our baptism in the Holy Spirit. With God’s Help, may we answer the call! Not just in the church does Jesus need us, but He needs us engaged actively and intelligently in an outside arena that needs the insight of the Gospel of Life very much now more than ever.  Followers of Jesus, a secular culture (even when they throw in a “God bless America” now and then to make themselves sound Christian) needs us just as the human body needs a soul. Just as the human body needs an animating principle each and every moment, so also does the world in which we live need the Animating Principle (aka the Holy Spirit) unleashed in all the Jesus Movement throughout our lives, not merely on a Sunday morning when we gather to renew our acquaintance with the Lord. It is an ongoing, never-ending process that the Holy Spirit has been in each of us and all of us everyday.  Impress your kids.  Keep in touch every Sunday; more importantly, keep in touch everyday!! 053109AD jfq

 

Sunday, May 24, 2009AD

Seventh Sunday of Easter

 

What If?

          Today, three words dominate our second reading. 1 John tells us, “God is Love and the person who remains in love remains in God and God in that person”.  The three words are God, Love and remain. How are they applicable to the everyday life of a Catholic?

            What do we mean by the word “God”? What do we mean by “Love”? What do we “to remain in Love and in God” mean?

            Blessed Juliana of Norwich wrote back in the thirteenth century that while most Catholics could handle the idea that God was almighty and that God was omniscient, most could not fathom that God is Love.  She asked how differently we might behave if we believed St John’s words.

            Certainly, Jesus wants us to be a community that celebrates God as Love as we deal with one another.  Our community, however, is structured and sometimes, perhaps, structures become obstacles, if not ends, in themselves.  Down through history, structured communities, church and state, have sometimes idolized the very structures meant to guarantee the communal life. In the process Catholics might obfuscat the Gospel that God is Love.

            During the Fifty Days of Easter, we hear daily of our ancestors within the Jesus Movement who tried to live this Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles, our first reading at Mass.  As we see, these folks were not perfect, but they lived with and in the insight that the Christ Quantum made a difference in their lives every moment.  They gathered regularly to celebrate and to bolster one another in the Reality that God is Love.

          Eventually, the Jesus Movement runs the risk of the mechanization of institutionalization.  As long as the Vision remains focused on Jesus and His Gospel, there is little or no problem.  However, when the Vision gets dimmed or blurred, troubles arise.

Hundreds of years ago, Blessed Juliana of Norwich said that in Western Christianity, people just did not always behave as if we really believed that God is Love.

            We always need to remember that each person has deeply embedded in his or her brain the reptilian brain. There is the tendency, when provoked, to adopt a fight or flight kneejerk reaction to the provocation. In reptilian terms, if one opts to fight, it could be a fight to the kill.

            In an effort to limit the extent to which redress for injury could be addressed, it was the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi that enacted the principle of Lex Talionis, the principle of “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth” that later became part of the Mosaic Law.  This was not to encourage getting even for injury, but limiting the amount of satisfaction that could be enacted.

            With the development of honor-shame codes in the Meditterean world, the principle of code duello came into effect.  What is one to do when one’s honor is attacked.  (This Code Duello was in effect in Louisiana after it was admitted to the USA in the early 19th century.)

            Found in ancient religions, including the Mosaic Law of Israel was the Silver Rule, “Do not do to others what you would not want done to you.” A step further was the positive reversal into the Golden Rule in the Mosaic Law, “Do unto others as you would have done to you.”  There are people today in this New Moment of Human History who say that the Golden Rule is the minimum of a global ethic that all people and cultures and nations can subscribe to if they are acting in good faith!!!)   

            Jesus goes one step further in the Sermon on the Mount when He tells us to practice non-violence in our dealings with one another.  (Honest people know that He did, indeed, do so, despite the fact that Christendom said that He did not mean it the way it sounds.)

            Building upon the Sermon on the Mount and the Gospel that God is Love, Christians try to subscribe to a Third Way.  This is an honest and constructive engagement with others with whom Christians disagree with the hope of a win-win situation for all sides. Jim Wallis speaks of this in the Great Awakening.

            EF Schuhmacher also wrote that humanity was heading to a Great Convergence, a point of insight that whether people became believers or not in Jesus, that His Gospel, particularly the Sermon on the Mount and the Christian teaching that God is Love, is the only viable way in which the world can survive.

            Around the same time, Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell articulated what they called their Manifesto in 1955, also endorsed by Pope Pius XII in Christmas of that year. “In the complex world of today, we must always remember our common humanity and forget everything else when facing conflicts.” 

            It was the unbaptized follower of Jesus, Mohandas Gandhi, who summed up much of what trajectory of the Gospel of Jesus in his teaching of ahimsa , never doing harm to another person  (Actually, Gandhi attributed his learning that teaching to his wife!)

            A member of St Patrick’s Jesus Movement adds the Armonk Corollary to this.   A new Golden Rule,  is “Alleviate any human suffering where we can through compassion.”      

            Through the Paraclete Spirit of Christ Jesus, we can come a long way from the feral reptilian brain.  Do individuals and nations want to do so?  052409AD jfq

 

Sunday, May 17, 2009AD

Sixth Sunday of Easter

 

The Blindness of Mr Bumble

            In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, there is an ironic and poignant scene in which Oliver dares to ask Mr Bumble at the Orphanage for more soup. Mr Bumble in his righteous indignation gets very upset.  Behind his head are the words from 1 John, “God is Love”.

            One of the last descriptions that conventional wisdom would offer as a trait of God is God is Love. Whoever God is, the One in Whom we (claim to) trust, most of us might demonstrate the fine art of “hedging our bets.”  God may be love, but I will do my best to fend for myself. God might be Love, but God is unpredictable.

            Jesus Who knows well that God is Love tells us to love one another as (God has) loved us.  In fact, in St John’s Gospel, Jesus  gives us a simple job description as His disciples, viz., “believe in the God of Life and the One Whom God sent” and “love one another”.

          Bracketing his love commandment at the Last Supper, Jesus, as ever, practices what He preaches.  He never asks us to do what He Himself has not done for us.

            He had washed the feet of His disciples as a selfless act (pouring Himself out) for His own and of service of others. Recall His words in Mark 10.35, ”The Son of Man came to serve, not to be served, and to give His Life in ransom for the many”.

            Next, He gave His Life in sacrifice for us, “Greater love than this no one has, that he would lay down His life for his friends.” While most of us are not called to lay down our lives literally for one another, we do so in lives of selflessness, sacrifice and service for our families, our communities.

            Sadly, in colloquial American English, the word “love” has collapsed in usage as have the words “nice” or “interesting”.  In the biblical language, Greek, there were at least 4 different words used for “love”.  “When I “love” Italian food,” the word is “sorge.” When I “love “my neighbor, the word is “philia” When I love significant others, the word is “eros”. When I love without counting the cost, the word is “agape”.

            The word used by the Fourth Evangelist is the word “agape”.  It is the love based on the longing for relationship, but the willingness to live for the other within the relationship.  It is a mode of life in which the relationship (and the people therein) become primary. Simply put, it is not what can this relationship do for me; rather, it is what I can do for this relationship.

            In the past, some have characterized the three major religions, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, as three variations of dressing up the American Dream with religious language. Religion becomes, for some, something we do for an hour on a weekend because it is what Americans do.

What incarnational Catholicism aims for is the realization that the drive to philia and eros and agape built into the human psyche is the saturation of all life with the attitude that God is always with us and we are always with God. Whenever we live our lives with and for others, God is present and active. (Recall the mantra mentioned in the past, “God is a verb”.) 

            American culture has been described as superficial. (Recall that the theory that the entire culture might have Attention Deficit Dysorder.)  Our culture has been described as hedonistic. (The good life is the name of the game for many.) As a group, we have a propensity to showiness. (For many, success is having more than most people.)

            Sadly, with our built-in Holy Longing, when we have an abundance, we feel a sense of entitlement.  When we don’t get what we want, we feel cheated and revert to our abundance to get even more. Where is the sacrifice, selflessness, service associated with Jesus’ call to love (agape) one another as I have loved you?   Life in Christ Jesus is not co-terminus with the American Dream.

            Mr Bumble must have heard the words, “God is Love” many times. He certainly heard them every Easter when he went to church.  Still, did he understand the words? He knew the words, but did he know the words? (In the biblical sense, “to know” is to be intimately united with the known.)

            The school of the Fourth Evangelist tells us that God is Love, that Jesus Christ Whom the God of Love has sent into the world has given us the great commandment to love one another as He loved us.  He shows how, with the help of the Paraclete-Spirit, to live with faith in the God of Love and Life in selflessness, service, and sacrifice for others. 

            Did Mr Bumble get the Message?  Does the system today get the Message?  Do we all get the Message?  Do we try, with God’s Help, try to live the Message?          051709AD   jfq     

 

Sunday May 10, 2009AD

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Cling to the Vine

            St Paul wrote of the Church as the Body of Christ, a privileged term for Catholics throughout two millennia.  In addition to St Paul’s imagery, Avery Cardinal Dulles commented that many American Catholics identify, as well, St John’s image of the “Vine and Branches” as a powerful one in understanding our relationship with Jesus and with one another.  Indeed, three principal ways of understanding American Catholics should see ourselves as the “Body of Christ”, “the Little Flock of the Good Shepherd” (last Sunday!!) and “the Vine and the Branches.” (The three images are vivid ways for our self-understanding as an individual in the Christian community. You are a cell in which the DNA of Christ Jesus dwells since Baptism into the Body of Christ; you are a sheep in the Little Flock; you are a branch on the Vine of the Body of Christ.)

            If we were asked how the branches cling to the vine, most would say immediately that it was a twofold response.  First, we are to try with the aid of the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) to obey the great love commandment of John’s Gospel, “Love one another as I  have loved you”  And how has Jesus loved us?  He did so through service and sacrifice and selflessness for others. 

            Second, we cling to the Vine through prayer, community, the Scriptures and the sacraments, particularly Baptism and the Eucharist.   There are, also, myriad other ways in which Jesus helps us to cling to Him. 

            Let us focus on the image of pruning that Jesus speaks to us today. Some would take the term “pruning” and understand it as the de-stabilizing, disorienting suffering that we all have to endure at one point or another in our lives.  Suffering strips away the false concept that we are ultimately in control of our lives.  Whether it is through disappointment, job loss, family problems, sickness, accidents, impending old age in a youth-oriented society, as well as death of loved ones, periodically,  we get shaken up to realize that our grasp of security is tenuous and illusory.

            It is at such times that we realize that we have no place to turn but to Jesus. He assures us that as we cling to the Vine, Which He is, that He and God the Father are in control, more intimately involved in our lives than we are. He asks each of us to make a leap of faith as we bear our pain, that, in the Spirit, He asks us to surrender, let go and trust the Paschal Mystery.  

            Traditional cultures teach young people that life is more than they are.  Life does not revolve around the young.  Living in extended, multi-generational families made that reality easier to understand. We are a part of a greater scenario in which we play a significant, but not central part. It is a humbling and a humanizing experience to realize that the universe does not revolve around oneself.  We all have to learn the lesson.  However, we all do not learn it at the same age.

            Karl Rahner, probably the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20th century, wrote that the Paschal Mystery (the process of ascent, descent and transformation that all creation experiences in Christ Jesus) should teach all of us a sense of “pessimistic realism”.  Tough things happen in life; tough things are a part of life; life is the greatest gift of all.  

            Teilhard de Chardin, last century, spoke of the negative diminishments of life, what Catholics call today as the “cross”. The Fourth Evangelist hints that Jesus’ reference to the “pruning of the branches” means how the Word of Jesus helps us to endure the “cross” as the coming of age of a mature person within a Catholic framework.

            Traditional Catholic theology teaches that every human person is offered actual grace, viz., the call of the Infinite within his or her individual life, to Which the person responds (or not!!!) However, God offers actual grace to each of us, even if it is within the “ego-destabilization process” of pruning, viz., the call to surrender, let go and trust the Holy Mystery at work in your life and in the universe.    

            American Catholics grasp easily the threefold images of the “Body of Christ”, “Little Flock of the Good Shepherd” and “the Vine and the Branches”.  However, the Paraclete does it, may we always cling to the Vine of Jesus Christ. Teach your kids.  It is even more important than playing baseball.  051009AD  jfq              

                               

Sunday, May 3, 2009AD

4th Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

 

Whose Voice Do We Hear?

            This Sunday, Catholics hear the voice of the Good Shepherd who tells us that “(His) sheep hear his voice”. How well do we hear His voice these days when people of various ideologies are frequently citing their religiosity as a sign of their deep faith?

            Today, May 3, we commemorate the 26st anniversary of the US Catholic Bishops’ letter, The Challenge of Peace, authored in part by John Cardinal O’Connor (whose 9th anniversary  we commemorate on the same day).  Three new terms become part of Catholic vocabulary with this bishops’ letter. 

1)  We are asked to be consistent in our human life opinions as we are pro-life on every human life issue.  As we were reminded at Cardinal O’Connor’s funeral, “He taught us to be pro-life on all issues and not some issues.” He taught us to follow the seamless garment theory of the sanctity of all human life.  

2) We were asked to practice an on-going conversion, known as disarmament of the human heart, a new name for an old Catholic axiom. With God’s Help, we try to live the Sermon on the Mount, the forgotten call to non-violence that Jesus makes in His summary sermon.  We recognize that, with God’s Help, that we try to adapt the practice of non-violent behavior in the hope to become non-violent.

 3) We are asked to realize that we live in a new moment in human history.  We have the capacity to undo what the God of Life has been doing since the beginning.  We can literally alter God’s plan for creation through manipulation of weaponry, nuclear energy, stem cell research and eugenic reproduction.  The world has changed since Hiroshima.  We need to snap out of illusions.  We need to evaluate the present time with the new reality with an entirely new attitude. (Cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, # 80.)

 No doubt, there were always be weirdoes (of the right and the left) who feel their way is the only way.  Some of the weirdoes even  operate out of a “God wills it” attitude, viz., (usually God agrees with them and disagrees with everyone who disagrees with them.  Smart God!!

 However, on the contrary, not so long ago, a English Catholic economist, EF Schuhmacher, spoke of the need  and the eventual arrival of the Great Convergence.   This will happen when men and women of good will become a critical mass, change agents, channels, catalysts for serious change in the way that world looks at itself. He opined that whether or not people ever become baptized followers of Jesus, even those who claim that they only respect Him (while not accepting Him as the Absolute Savior) will see that His programmatic is the viable to human survival in the new moment of human history. As the Crucified and Risen One still teaches us things that now make more sense than ever. 1) We are children of God; we are all children of Eve; we are all family. 2) We share a common home (which we have abused and now which is talking back to us!!)  3) We need new ways to settle conflicts now peacefully that  we have developed weapons of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD)  4) We need to remember our common humanity and forget all the rest when trying to settle such disputes.  5) We need never to stop asking the question about the lives of others less fortunate than we, “Is all that fair?” 6) We need to impress our kids by taking seriously the call of Jesus the Good Shepherd  (echoed by John Cardinal O’Connor  in the Challenge of Peace) and EF Schuhmacher in the Great Convergence and  Jim Wallis  in the Great Awakening to hear the Voice of the Good Shepherd and practice what we preach.  Actions speak louder than words.

            We are hearing these days about the flu cases throughout the world. We are now aware of the negative effects of globalization on the world economy, although the poor throughout the world learned that lesson a long time ago. When Catholics go to the movies, listen to speeches, watch the news, do we participate passively or do we use our moral principles as a criterion?  One thing that we learn from quantum physics is that all reality is a relational matrix, a cosmic web, an all inclusive universal. Attitudes and actions today, on your part, even in small things, have ramifications for your children and their children. Choices today will have important ramifications for your children and grandchildren in the future as we remember that we can never hear the Creation story of Genesis with the same ears ever again.  One thing that every mature American Catholic must remember.  We live in a new moment. 050309AD    jfq                        

 

 

April 25, 2009AD

Third Sunday of Easter

 

Divine Commissioning, 2009 AD

            Today, we hear Jesus’ closing remarks in Luke’s 24, known as the Resurrection Chapter.  This chapter is a summation, a bridge chapter of what Luke wrote in his beautiful Third Gospel and a quick glimpse into what he will develop in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles (Peter and Paul).

            Luke puts into Jesus’ mouth insights about what has occurred and what is about to occur.  He provides the programmatic for the Book of Acts.

            First, Jesus tells His disciples that all that was written about Him in the Hebrew Scriptures (Torah, prophets, and the psalms) was now fulfilled. It was necessary that the Messiah had to suffer and rise on the third day. (Death and Resurrection is the pattern of all life and it was necessary that Jesus went that way for our salvation.)  All the nations of the world are called to share in the message and call to repentance and forgiveness of sins through Jesus.  He challenges His followers (in 30 AD and 2009 AD) to be witnesses of this call to a new (attitude to) life.

            We are all born into a world with set attitudes and presumptions.  We call these attitudes and presumptions “conventional wisdom” or “common sense” or “cultural values”.  Jesus challenges us to “snap out” of any attitudes and presumptions affected by the Original Lie (You can get by without God!),  pulled on our first parents, Adam and Eve. 

            Difficulties arise because of the subtlety of the Original Lie’s adaptation to conventional wisdom.  We live in a culture that pays lip service to religion.  Indeed, so many politicians gloat that we are a Christian nation.  (Islamics and Jews and atheists and even, some Christians might beg to differ.)  We say, “In God we trust.” Do we trust in God when we cannot even mention the “G-word” in public education or government?  We talk about value education.  Whose values are those which we teach? Not all values are the same!

            True, many claim that we are a Christian nation.  However, when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount, which is probably one of the closest approximations to what the historical Jesus literally said, many find very little reflected in conventional wisdom.  Where or when do we see “conventional wisdom” encouraging love of enemies, turning the other cheek or doing unto others as you would have them do unto you?             

            In Jesus’ Resurrection mandate, He tells us that we are to witness to the need of all nations (then and now) to snap out of it and realize that we are in need of repentance and forgiveness. How many of us really feel the need to repent and seek forgiveness?  We go along with the conventional wisdom and common sense that characterizes us as a culture.  In fact, as far back in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville commented on how we love to brag about our freedoms.  However, he said when someone challenged the way that Americans looked at things, most Americans in 1831 would get hostile and deeply resentful of their daring to do so. Sound familiar?

            Recently someone commented that according to the spin of the Indians in Massachusetts in 1620, the folks whom we call the Pilgrims were illegal aliens.  Before the Alamo, when Texas was a Mexican province in the 1830’s, Southern American whites were allowed entry into Texas if they were baptized Catholics (there was even an Irish priest there to baptize them to get a baptismal certificate) and they disavowed slavery (they brought “leased workers” (guess the color!)) Andrew Jackson, whose recent biography “American Lion” is a great read, claimed to be the champion of the common White man.  Read the Jackson book about his attitude to Blacks and American Indians to check it out.    

If today someone were to say that we should repent and seek forgiveness for things that we have done as a nation, such as slavery, the American Indians, manifest destiny, militarism, (to name a few), would our first reaction be resentment or would it be, “Maybe, we do need the repentance and forgiveness of sins committed by the “conventional wisdom of nice people”?  Would we even entertain the question?     

            Jesus calls His followers, then and now, to witness to the very fact that maybe, we need repentance and forgiveness.  Are we up to the challenge when conventional wisdom might not want to go there? And how would each of us response?     042609AD jfq         

 

 

 

Sunday, April 19, 2009AD

2nd Sunday of Easter

 

Doubting Thomas

            The patron saint of Missouri, the “Show Me State” makes his annual appearance in our traditional Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter.  Thomas represents those who demand empirical verification that belief in Jesus is legitimate.  When Jesus meets his demand, Thomas’ response is “My Lord and my God.” This is the highest title attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. It brackets Jn 1.14, “The Word was God.” (Recall, the author of The DaVinci Code says that Jesus was not pronounced divine until 325 AD. Funny that he got that fact wrong.)

            Many think that the incident of Doubting (Skeptical) Thomas probably represented the last account in the original Gospel of John. If such is the case, Jesus’ words to Thomas at the conclusion of the Gospel today would have originally been the last words of the Risen One in the Fourth Gospel.  “You believed, Thomas, because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  

            Is Jesus talking about us? With the Help of the Holy Spirit, indeed, He is.  However, it is not that easy.  We all experience, at times, the Left Hand of God. In our lives, there are experiences that challenge our faith in the God revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ. We all experience disappointments, rejections, absurdities, failures, troubles and setbacks in our lives.  (If you have not yet, don’t look for them; they’ll find you.)  Catholics and all Christians should be very circumspect in talking about the depth of our faith.  We all want to be strong believers.  However, sometimes the vicissitudes of life can challenge an easy faith and make our “credo’s” a little shakier.  We might be strong believers one day and, then, on difficult days, “Yo” or “Nes” believers (a la Nicodemus).  We pray for the Strength always to be firm in our faith in God. Though we have not seen, may we always believe.”

            40 years ago, Pope Benedict wrote about the difference between “believing God” and “believing in God.” The then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, “Only in a lifelong conversion, can we become aware of what it means to say, “I believe.”

            St Thomas has taken many hits over the years. Recall how we spoke of the ambivalence of Nicodemus as a disciple of Jesus.  We are never really surely where he stands as a believer. Thomas is a different kettle of fish!

            He wants his faith in Jesus to be solid and clear and well-founded.  His life was Christocentric and transparent.  After Jesus called Thomas’ demand, He would have agreed with Pope Benedict’s words.

            We distinguish three levels of Catholic faith. First, when we attend on a regular basis on the Lord’s Day, we maintain our acquaintance with Jesus.  Second, when we do something because of our acquaintance with Jesus during the week and sometimes, more than once or twice a day, then we maintain our familiarity with Jesus.  Finally, and critically, when we spend quality time in contemplation and silence and solitude, we share intimacy with Jesus.

            Many theologians have commented that unless Catholic laypeople (the people in the pews) realize that each of them has been called to intimacy with Jesus, then eventually, the familiarity and acquaintance with Jesus might possibly wither and fade away.

            There is a sad phenomenon in many Catholic lives that is called the evaporation of faith.  It is not that people rebel against Jesus or the Church.  It is rather that neither makes a big difference in their lives even if they maintain the acquaintance and/ or the familiarity of faith to the neglect of the intimacy of faith.  Faith withers when the human drive to transcendence is neglected or misguided. 

            Before the evaporation of faith reaches the critical point, its imminence might be seen in a beige Catholicism, a nice Catholicism, a conventional Catholicism, a subscription to what the Catholic version of the American dream. Will Herberg in the 1950’s wrote a pivotal sociology of USA religion, entitled Protestant, Catholic, Jew.  He concluded that the three major American religions were three expressions (with appropriate trimmings) of the values of acceptable power, possessions and prestige, in a      middle class milieu.          

            Each week, Catholics profess our faith (our belief in God) routinely as a conclusion to our Liturgy of the Word.  We rattle off very quickl