Weekly Reflection 092803AD

Sunday, September 28, 2003AD

26^th Sunday in Greentime

A Grand Tradition

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”. 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.”

James and our bishops are part of a grand tradition. As USA Catholics, let’s keep the tradition alive!! 092803 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 092103AD

Sunday, September 21, 2003AD

25^th Sunday in Greentime

The Son of Man

in the Hands of Men

Whatever reception it receives when it is released on Ash Wednesday, 2004 AD, Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ will be remembered. Armonk Catholics think of the Passion of Christ and our part in it weekly. Each Friday morning, at 8.15 AM, the Armonk Church prays Lauds, the Morning Praise of the Church. They recite Psalm 51, the Miserere Mei , “Have Mercy on me”. At the celebration of the Eucharist immediately after, Armonk Catholics remember to think of the death of the Lord on the first Good Friday as we call to mind our sins. We pray the Confiteor usually and are urged to do penance most Fridays of the year in reparation for our sins, personal, corporate and structural.

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus makes the second, the starkest of His three Passion predictions. “The Son of Man will be handed over to men”. Biblical scholars think that maybe this is the basic prediction that Jesus made. The other predictions seem to be augmented predictions after the fact.

There is a clever play on words in Jesus’ Word today. Only Jesus uses the expression “Son of Man” as a self-identification in the Gospels. The following nuances of “Son of Man” appear: 1) The coming Son of Man in judgment, as predicted by Daniel, 2) the subject of the Passion Predictions. The Son of Man, the Final Judge, according to the prophet, Daniel, therefore, is the One to be handed over to men. Something went wrong with God’s Plan.

Believers feel that human arrogance, hinted at,in story form,in the temptation of Adam, “to be like God”, led to sin. Humans did not follow God’s game plan. We adjusted it to personal and group preferences, usually to our benefit. Do we still sometimes?

Jesus had something in mind during His ministry of inaugurating the Kingdom of God. Whatever “system” that Jesus wanted to see has not materialized yet in either Europe or the Western Hemisphere. Yet, believers feel that God’s system is here even now, but not yet.

Then and now, two views of reality frequently clash. We know the view of reality as “conventional wisdom” the “system”, the “bottom line”. We know Jesus’ view of reality as “the Kingdom of God.”

Sometimes, the stakes are so high that life becomes expendable and troublemakers can be checked. The first reading today speaks of the inner thoughts of the “wicked”. “Let us beset the just one because he is obnoxious to us; he sets us against our doings…..Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”
Jesus says Himself, “The Son of Man is to handed over to men and they will kill Him.” The system, combining conventional wisdom and political power saw, Jesus and His System as a threat. He had to go. What do we think? 092103 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 091403AD

Sunday, September 14, 2003AD

Feast of the Holy Cross

Carmen Christi

No, it is not necessarily a woman’s name, but it could be. Actually, it refers to our second reading this weekend as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross.

According to an ancient legend, St Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who legalized Christianity in 312 AD discovered the true Cross on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 612 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius recovered the relic of the cross, seized by Persians on this date.

Recently, Constantine is named in the novel, Da Vinci Code as the one who legislated the divinity of Jesus Christ at the Council of Nicea in 325!!

Evidently, the author of the book forgot (at best) several biblical quotations which belie the storyline of his novel. Our 2nd reading today, the “Carmen Christi”, viz., the Song of Christ” was one thing that he omitted or distorted somehow in his story.

Biblical scholars comment on the lofty terminology that is used by St Paul in the letter to the Philippians, whence it is excerpted, written around 55 AD. Paul is quoting a hymn that they had already learned! (50 AD??) Not on the radio or Internet, either.

Now, Jesus relinquished the “form of God”. Is this a reference to Adam who was tempted to be like God? Jesus empties Himself to take the “form of a servant or slave”. Is this a reference to either the Suffering Servant (from Isaiah) or merely the human condition (whether we admit it or not, we are not our own masters.) Jesus submitted to the humiliation of death on the cross and is exalted by YHWH and given the Name (Kyrios) “Lord” above every name. All proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. St Paul jumped the gun on Dan Brown’s Constantine by 270 years!! Get facts correct if you sell 2 million copies.

For further verification of this, consult Beyond Faith by Elaine Pagels in the Top Ten non-fiction. She attributes the assembly of the Christian Bible (aka New Testament) with the several references to the divinity of Christ around c. 200 AD.

Not to lose track of the message of the Carmen Christi is that we are called to live in Christ Jesus with the same attitude one to the other. St Paul cites that Christians should be humble and obedient, as was Jesus Christ, in Whom we are now baptized.

The word “humility” is derived from the Latin word, humus , earth, soil. Humility reminds us that, indeed, we are dust and unto dust we shall return. If that doesn’t humble you, whatever else could? St Paul does not want us to be morbid, but to be honest and realistic.

The word “obedience” us derived from the Latin words ob , because of, & audire , to listen. Obedience reminds us to listen to the voice of conscience, mediated through the Word of God Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. St Paul wants us to behave in a Christian (i.e., totally human) fashion. With God’s Help, how are we doing? 091403 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 090703AD

Sunday, September 7, 2009AD

23^rd Sunday in Greentime

Blessed and/orBottom Line?

Wednesday, we commemorate the “call within the call” experienced by Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 1946 as well as her entrance in heaven in 1997. Next month, she will be named Blessed Mother Teresa by Pope John Paul II. (Many wonder why bother spending the money since people felt that she was a saint even before she died.)

Her “call within the call” came as she sat on a train in Darjeeling, India in 1946. She described her call as her feeling that God “wanted me to be poor with the poor and to love (God) in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.” She received permission to establish a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity.

She was powerfully graced by Jesus’ last parable in Matt 25.31- 46, The Last Judgment, in which the King self-identified with those in need. What St James said last Sunday and today in our second reading inspired her as well. “True religion is dealing with the widow and orphan as well as showing no partiality to rich or poor.” She said that the area of God’s concern was wider than Calcutta. She told many who wanted to join her there that they did not need to go to India. She said, “Find your own Calcutta.” She said it was important to see anyone who is in need, someone unlovable, unwanted or rejected. “You can save and love only one at a time.”

She said several times that she had no problem seeing destructive poverty in other places beside India. In fact, she said that economic poverty was quite obvious in the USA in ghetto sections of inner cities. (She echoed what the USA bishops had said, in 1986, “In some urban areas in the USA, a ‘third world’ existed already.”) She also said that the fact that so many affluent Westerners (Americans included) seemed to be unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives. She said that perhaps the reason is that God is not a big part of Western civilization, no matter how much we protest to the contrary.

Finally, she said that she saw a propensity to violence in American society. In the presence of assorted Washington politicos, Mother Teresa said that if a society tolerates murder of unborn children, then other forms of violence become endemic.

Many would disregard her as a dreamer, an idealist. In their opinion, she had not gotten to the bottom line. Maybe, she understood more clearly what our readings tell us today. Jesus Christ not only opens the ears of the deaf-mute in the Gospel today; He can continue to open our ears as well to hear that God has a different angle or view of reality!! Recall how the biblical word nabi, prophet, derives from someone on a hill or mesa who views to those below a different view of the horizon. With faith in Jesus as Lord, Mother Teresa’s view of reality varied from that of the “system”, the “bottom line”, “conventional wisdom”. The bottom line for her was focused through the Gospel lenses of Jesus Christ. She opted for God’s bottom line instead. How about us? 090703 AD jfq