Weekly Reflection 033003AD

Sunday, March 30, 2003AD

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Nicodemus – 2003 AD

Nicodemus appears only in the Gospel of John three times. However, his appearances come at crucial places: Jn 3. 1 – 21 (whence today’s Gospel); Jn 7. 40 – 52; Jn 19. 37 – 42. As a result, his name is well known among Catholics.

In today’s Gospel excerpt from Jn 3, we hear some of the principal terms of John’s theology, such as the following: 1)“Unless a person is born again, he shall see the Kingdom of God.” 2) The wind (Spirit) blows where it wills; we know not whence it comes and whither it goes. 3) God so loved the world that God gave the Only begotten Son. 4) The Son of Man must be lifted up. In addition, John tells us that Nicodemus, with Joseph of Arimathea, buried Jesus. The ironic question is “Was Nicodemus a disciple of Jesus?” At a recent biblical discussion, a group of Catholics had a prolonged serious discussion on the question. At the end of the discussion, all agreed that we really cannot tell.

In another curious citation in Jn 12, the Evangelist chides the “many, even among the authorities, believed in Jesus, but …they did not acknowledge it openly in order not to be expelled from the synagogue. They preferred human praise to the glory of God. (Was this a dig at Nicodemus types? As someone said, Jesus in John’s Gospel requires a yes or no from would be disciples. Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, gives us the strength to say “Yes” to Jesus. Every time we do so, we are born again and again and again.

However, we are not certain how Nicodemus responded to Jesus’ question. Instead of saying Yes unequivocally, did Nicodemus temporize or waffle with a Nes (tentative yes) or a Yo (tentative no)?

Is John challenging the Nicodemus in me to temporize or waffle in my response to Jesus? All of us probably hedge our bets when it comes to faith, early and often. Am I readily identifiable as a Disciple of Jesus or do I, at times, obfuscate my faith? Do I make an effort to live with one eye on conventional wisdom and the other on the Gospel of Jesus? As Pilate told the crowd on Good Friday, “Look at the Man”, do we see the God-man Whose Presence in our lives has the most radical implications?

Our contemporary culture challenges us to buy into the Original Lie (Who Needs God?). It stresses individual rights at the expense of the group. It measures human worth by what one has, rather than what one is. It makes us numb at times to the real problems that others face, close and far away. It values efficiency and speed more than morality. It measures material success as a sign of salvation.

The figure of Nicodemus challenges us to answer ourselves if we see God made human in Jesus Christ and if we see the Mystery of Christ Crucified as the basis of life. With the Help of the Paraclete, may any ambivalence of Nicodemus be banished from us!! 033003 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 032303AD

Sunday, March 23, 2003AD

Third Sunday of Lent

Minority Reports, Then &Now

St Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians offer some Christian teaching to followers of Jesus in what strikes us as archaic and/or bizarre situations. Still, there is a strange relevance to his words in which we are reminded that the more things change, the more they remain the same. His message is as operative, Catholics believe, in the 21^st as in the 1^st century.

Then and now, some demand signs and others demand wisdom. Then and now, Paul’s message is the same, “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others, Christ the Power and Wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

More and more, our world resembles the world of the first Christians. Catholic values are on the fringes of modern conventional wisdom. Many tolerate us at best, with a certain amusement. Others harass us because Catholic values are so out of step with much of Western civilization.

In his efforts to keep the Gospel of Christ Crucified, viz., the Paschal Mystery, in colloquial focus, Pope John Paul published his magnum opus, Evangelium Vitae, the Gospel of Life, on March 25, 1995 AD. This anniversary week, the Pope’s update of the Gospel has a sad relevance.

The encyclical is based on 4 scriptural quotations. 1) “The Voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground.” 2) “I came that they may have life.” 3) “You shall not kill”. 4) “You did it to Me.”

The Pope teaches us that whenever the Transcendent (God) is eclipsed, the human person will become eclipsed. Whenever the human person is eclipsed, the Transcendent (God) is eclipsed.

Violence and technology have become strange bedfellows. As the Pope reminds us in another place, just because we can do something does not mean that we should.

The Pope broadened horizons. The Pope teaches that every taking of human life is a death in the human family and that every taking of a human life is an act of fratricide.

He reminds us that Catholics are to follow a Consistent Life Ethic, that all human life is sacred (even Iraqi civilians??). He asks us to be a New Culture of Life, part of a coalition to proclaim that God is God and we are not. In this New Moment, humans are capable of undoing what God has been doing since the beginning. Whether it is through weaponry, pollution, nuclear energy unchecked, high tech cannibalism (aka stem cell research), we can undo what God has in mind. The Original Lie remains, “You can be like God.” Jesus, St Paul and the Pope tell us, “Don’t believe it.”

Paul’s small Christian community in Corinth constituted a few hundred people at best. Jesus’ and Paul’s and John Paul’s message reaches a larger audience. Let us think about their words today more than ever. 032303 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 031603AD

Sunday, March 16, 2003AD

Third Sunday of Lent

Two Fathers, Two Sons

We hear one of the starkest and strangest stories in the Bible in the “Testing of Abraham.” 1)What is going on in this story? 2)How could God do such a thing? 3)Can God be trusted?

YHWH, the God of Life, is the HEAVY today with the demand that Isaac, Abraham’s son, his only son, the son that he loves be sacrificed as a sign of Abraham’s absolute commitment to this God Who promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. However, Isaac is the only son. Still, Abraham went and prepared to obey God.

The story is meant to be interpreted on several levels. First, it appeared in written form around 950 BC when the Torah started to take written shape. The neighbors of Israel frequently engaged in human sacrifice. Indeed, in the worship of Baal, the fertility god of the Canaanites, there might even have been a liturgy of sacrifice of a firstborn male to ensure further fertility for the family. In essence, one meaning of the story is the clear statement that YHWH, the God of Life, does not require human sacrifice of any human person. In its stead, Israel sacrificed animals, sheep and goats, whose blood was seen as a proper substitute for human blood. (Interestingly, today, animal rights’ activists would probably maintain a constant protest outside the Jerusalem Temple, were it still standing!)

YHWH, the God of Life, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, even put an end to sacrificing the blood of anyone or anything in doing exactly what God appeared to be doing with Abraham. Only, this time, God does allow the sacrificial death of God’s Son on Good Friday. However, in so doing, Jesus brings an end to all primal religion which requires the shedding of life-giving blood. Jesus’ Blood was shed once and for all. No longer is any bloodshed necessary!

Perhaps, our first two questions in the opening paragraph might have gotten tentative answers. However, the third question, “Can God be trusted?” still haunts us as a test of our faith. On good days, it is easy to believe. However, no matter how hard we try, the paschal mystery, the reality of the ecstasy and agony of life, borne and transformed by the death of Jesus Christ, in Whose Victory we share in baptism, is still a struggle for us.

God tested father Abraham’s faith, but stayed his hand when Abraham, the man of faith, was willing to trust God. God the Father, nevertheless, was willing to do the same with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as a sign to us that God trusts us so much that God would let His own Son die for our sins.

Can God be trusted? Again, on good days, it is easy to say “yes, indeed! However, not every day is good! God asks some difficult things of us at times and asks that we ask for the faith of Abraham and Jesus Christ to say yes to God as we experience the agonies and ecstasies of life each day. In Jesus’ Name we pray for faith in the God of Life, no matter what. 031603 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 030203AD

Sunday, March 2, 2003AD

First Sunday of Lent

JC’s Reference Letter

A martyrology is a history of those who have made the ultimate act of witness to Jesus Christ with their lives. Author Robert Royal recently wrote a martyrology of twentieth century Christians who lost their lives for the faith in the message of Jesus. Martyrs lived and died in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Martyrs during WWII included many who died for their commitment to Jesus Christ. Names such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Titus Bradsma, Franz Jaegerstetter, St Edith Stein and St Maximilian Kolbe are just a few. When we call to mind the martyrs of the twentieth century, the list is long.

One of the little known martyrs for Jesus was a young German priest, Engelmar Unzeitig, ordained two weeks before WWII began on Sept 1, 1939. He died in Dachau on March 2, 1945, one day after his 34^th birthday.

St Paul speaks today of the letter of recommendation that the Christians of Corinth were for him.

Apparently, early Christian missionaries were vying with one another for prominence by bringing reference letters with them to Christian communities that they had not yet visited. Some chided Paul because he did not present letters of references when he moved to new places.

His response was that his mission efforts spoke for themselves. His communities were his references.

However, people were not all was always as they should be. His Corinthian Christians, for example, had a mixed record in terms of their living the Gospel. In Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians, he criticized what needed to be criticized and praised what was praiseworthy. Paul wanted his communities to do the best they could in and through and with Christ Jesus.

In the world of the twenty-first century, we live increasingly in a secular universe, viz., conventional wisdom does not refer to the Transcendent in its view of reality. Since there is, in the opinion of many, no Absolute or Sacred Referent, then, the natural result is a world of “control freaks”, people trying to control the reality of which we are all a part.

Fr Richard Rohr speaks of what he calls the “Original Lie”, the way that Adam and Eve were successfully tempted in the Garden of Eden. They were tempted to act in disobedience and arrogance so that they could be “as God”. Amazingly, individuals and nations still succumb to the same Original Lie in the world now.

It is an amazing reality check when we think of Christian people who were willing to die for Values generated by Christianity long ago in a time in history not so long ago!

As St Paul saluted his Corinthian Christians and we call to mind the martyrs of the 20^th century, may we never succumb to the Original Lie. May we be a letter of recommendation for Jesus Christ as we try to live our lives humbly, obediently, compassionately, hopefully each day. 030203 AD jfq