Weekly Reflection 052503AD

Sunday, May 25, 2003AD

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 is the inscription 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 may be Love, but God is elusive and unpredictable.

Jesus Who knows very well that God is Love tells us to love one another as (He has) loved us. In fact, in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus gives us simple job descriptions 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 just washed the feet of His disciples as a sign of selflessness (pouring Himself out) for His own and of service (other, self-orientation) His action resonates with His teaching in St 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.

Yet, we live in a culture that has been described as monadic (the individual only is the measure), as therapeutic (how do I get over the baggage that others foisted on me?), as scapegoating (blaming others when I am not always a happy camper, when things do not always work out my way), as vindictive (getting even), as blind (what is wrong with everyone that they all don’t love me?)

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, sacrifice for others.

Did Mr Bumble get the Message? Does conventional wisdom today get the Message? Do we all get the Message? Do we try with God’s Help try to live the Message? 052503 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 051803AD

Sunday, May 18, 2003AD

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Cling to the Vine

St Paul wrote of the Church as the Body of Christ. This image had become a privileged one among Catholics throughout the two millennia. In addition, Avery Cardinal Dulles has written that many American Catholics identify the image of the “Vine and Branches” as a powerful one in understanding our relationship with Jesus and with one another. Indeed, two principal ways of understanding American Catholics should be “the Little Flock of the Good Shepherd” and “the Vine and the Branches.”

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 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 times such as these that we realize that we have no place to turn but to Jesus and His Gospel. He assures us that as we cling to the Vine Which He is that He and God the Father are in control and more intimately involved in our lives than we are.

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.

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

American Catholics grasp easily the twofold images of the “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. 051803 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 051103AD

Sunday May 11, 2003AD

Fourth Sunday of Easter

How the Shepherd Leads Us

Psalm 23, our responsorial psalm today, reveals one of the most beloved of all images of Jesus. This imagery has appealed to believers from the beginning. Even in the catacombs in ancient Rome, Jesus was depicted as a beardless youth tending sheep.

Avery Cardinal Dulles wrote that the image of Church as the “little flock of the Good Shepherd” was particularly strong among Catholics in the USA. Jesus leads us and we hear His Voice as individuals as well as a flock. We are in relationship both with Him and with each other.

However, whence does He lead us and where are we going? We live in a world in which we understand that something is not right. It is a world of secularity. The Transcendent is out the window. It is a world of individualism. The monadic notion of the self leaves out the basic fact that humans are social animals. It is a world of consumerism. We measure a person’s value by what one has, rather than what one is. It is a world of pragmatism. We use practicality as a criterion for human relationships.

The Good Shepherd can lead us out of this dark valley. He offers us an alternate worldview which He names as the Kingdom of God. The prevalent view of reality that we accept is called “conventional wisdom” and nice people live by conventional wisdom all the time. Don’t we all? The Good Shepherd tells us not to forget the Centrality of the Transcendent. We go 100 mph, but the Mystery of God tells us that it is wise to slow down to recall that life is not about speed or success.

The Good Shepherd tells us how we got into the dark valley. Nice people have bought into the Original Lie, viz., “you really don’t need God to live an authentic life!” The Good Shepherd tells us not to buy the original lie. He remind all Catholics, “God always comes first” even when conventional wisdom and the original lie says no. Trust the Good Shepherd.

Finally, the Good Shepherd leads us out of the dark valley. He tries to correct the faulty notion of the Original Lie that you (not God) can actually control reality. We live in a middle class environment in which we are able to control much of our lives. In fact, some spend their lives trying to control that reality. You can try, but don’t expect complete success or complete happiness. The inexorable Wheel of Life spins and some spend their lives trying to control its spin. However, it is a loving God Who spins the Wheel, not you. We all learn that sooner or later. The Good Shepherd calls it the Paschal Mystery. We all experience death and Resurrection as part of the destiny that a loving God has created for all reality. Try to fight it, but ultimately, you won’t succeed. The Good Shepherd has experienced the Paschal Mystery of death and Resurrection and He leads us along the path through the dark valley to arrive at the “House of the Lord (YHWH - the God of Life) where we will dwell forever.” 051103AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 050403AD

Sunday May 4, 2003AD

Third Sunday of Easter

Divine Commissioning, 2003 AD

We hear Jesus’ closing remarks in Luke’s 24, viz., Resurrection, chapter. This chapter is a summation 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 2003 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!), originally 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 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, Americans in 1831 would get hostile and deeply resentful of the idea.

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 might need repentance and forgiveness. Are we up to the challenge when conventional wisdom might not want to go there? 050403 AD jfq