Weekly Reflection 122803AD

Sunday, Dec 28, 2003AD

Feast of the Holy Family

Happy B-Day to Whom?

For several reasons, we moved our Christmas crèche to a new locale immediately in front of the Armonk Cross on Cox Avenue. First, happily, Cox Ave is now, more than ever, a major bypass from Main St in Armonk, as our population continues to grow. Second, the illumination on Cox Ave is more adequate than the traditional site inside our campus. Finally, while the crèche appears brilliant, the Crucified Jesus peers atop the creche as a reminder of why Christ was born.

Many Names are bestowed upon the Newborn. Matthew calls Him Emmanuel (God with us). Luke calls Him Savior, Christ and Lord. John calls Him the Word become flesh.

Earlier, in the Hebrew Bible, the prophet First Isaiah spoke of Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. Second Isaiah called Him Suffering Servant.

Throughout two millennia, Catholics have rejoiced and responded to the symbol of the birth of this Child. We know that our imagination is never able to exhaust what the Coming of Jesus Christ means.

However, we must always be on guard to prevent the saccherinization of Christmas by focusing on beautiful imagery alone. Hence, both on Cox Avenue as well as in our Church, the figure of Christ Crucified dominates behind the creche. The birth of this Child demands a response to the total Gift of Jesus Christ. We never forget that His Gift brought Him to the cross.

Therefore, stakes are high. On Dec 26, we celebrate St Stephen’s Day, the Proto-martyr, who died, like Jesus, forgiving his murderers. On Dec 27, we celebrate St John’s Day, the Fourth Evangelist, who teaches us that God is Love and the person who abides in love abides in God and God in that person. He also teaches us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. On Dec 28, we commemorate the Holy Innocents, the silent helpless slain by the Herods of the world, then and now. (Pope John Paul speaks of the very young, the very unborn, the very poor, the very sick, the very old, the very marginalized in this category.) On Dec 29, we commemorate the murder of St Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, during Vespers in the Cathedral by forces of Catholic King, Henry II. (The issue at stake, by the way, with Becket and Henry II was the position that clergy should be accorded by both church and state!!!)

Catholics focus on the Incarnation as our central doctrine, viz., that God became human. What implications are there for Catholic attitudes on issues that face us today? The One called the Prince of Peace died on the cross, rejected by church and state. Stephen and Thomas Becket challenged Temple (church) and state, respectively. The Innocents were discarded as a threat by Herod. All of this, because God became human. What implications are there for us at the beginning of this year? We put the creche in its proper venue. 122803AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 122103AD

Sunday, December 21, 2003AD

^th Sunday of Advent

Maria -- Mater et Magistra

A few years ago, a made-for TV movie, entitled “Mary” appeared on television. The producer of the movie was 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 her Son’s 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 depicts Mary’s telling Jesus the story of the Good Samaritan as a bedtime story. She comments on the story to the effect 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) Mary would have shown her belief in the dignity of the human person. All of us are created in the image and likeness of God, with no exceptions.

2) She would have shown her belief in the primacy of family and community as the non-violent socializing force for good that should be stressed whenever.

3) She would have shown her belief that humans are born with many rights and responsibilities. We stress our rights; we should stress our responsibilities in response to these rights.

4) She would have shown her belief that God loves all people, but has a bias for the bottom. Today, folks call it the preferential option for the poor.

5) She would have shown that workers (at that time, probably 95% + of the population) have the right to be treated humanely with a decent wage.

6) She would have shown her 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) She would have shown to her Son,that she respected the environment and see it as part of the heritage to be passed on to future generations.

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 such talk of a Kingdom of the God of Life.

Fr John Meier, a NY Archdiocesan priest teaching in Notre Dame, is in the process of writing a fourth volume of A Marginal Jew. In Vol 1, he wrote that whoever it was in Jesus’ family that gave the names to his kinsmen was probably quite a Jewish nationalist. The names James, Joseph, Simon and Judas (MK 6.3) were all political names. Names, then and now, can tell us a lot about family values. 122103AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 121403AD

Sunday Dec 12, 2003AD

Third Sunday of Advent

Gaudete Sunday

Rejoice?? Yes, Rejoice!!

St Paul had three children. One child was the Church in Galatia. (This was an overachieving child.) One child was the Church in Corinth. (This was a laid back and dilettante child.) One child was the Church in Philippi. (This was a happy, well adjusted child, who still could do a bit better.)

While parents should never play favorites, it was the Church in Philippi that Paul seems to have enjoyed the most. St Paul understood that they were not perfect because no one is perfect. However, hopeful that God will energize them even more, he commends them for their efforts at living in Christ Jesus.

It is helpful to remember that when Paul wrote his letters, he expected that they would be read to the community at worship. (Possibly, these followers of Jesus met on Saturday evening and shared their common meal together and then, celebrated the Lord’s Supper afterward with the decorum that their Corinthian sisters and brothers lacked.) As a result, St Paul’s words were directed at all the hearers, not just some of them. Distinctions between clergy, religious and laity were not delineated as they were in the later Church. Everyone was expected to hear and to implement Paul’s suggestions at improvement in living in Christ.

This makes the challenge, “Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice!”, rather difficult for ordinary folks like us to swallow. However, we need to remember that Christians exist in a new nexus of relationships. We live in Christ Jesus. We are the Body of Christ in space and time. Whatever we do, we should be doing in Christ Jesus. If we live in Christ Jesus, then, it makes sense to believe that we have the mindset of Christ and the faith of Christ. Jesus rejoiced in God’s Presence in Him.

As a result, St Paul directs these words to you and me today. His methodology was to establish a beachhead of small Christian communities in prominent cities. He really believed that Spirit-filled Christians could change the world if they lived lives characterized by the obedience of faith .

The stakes were high. When St Paul proclaimed Jesus is Lord , he implied that Jesus is the measure that we use to make decisions about how we are to live and act in our world. The question of a few years ago becomes for Catholics “What is Jesus doing (WIJD) in and through and with me and us?”

He states to Armonk Catholics, “Christ lives in us; we live in Christ. Christ lives through us; we live through Christ. Christ lives with us; we live with Christ.” He would hope that we take our relationship in and through and with Christ seriously. If Christ Jesus rejoiced always, then, in Christ Jesus, we can as well.

Paul’s methodology was to get small groups of Christians to live authentic lives patterned on Jesus Christ. How well do we measure on the rejoicing part ? 121403AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 120703AD

Sunday, December 7, 2003AD

Second Sunday of Advent

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 religious figures and the “Word of the Lord (that) came to John in the wilderness.”

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 Big Lie and realigning ourselves on the Way that God wants us to travel. He wants us to welcome the One Who is to follow. John offers the opportunity 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 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.

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 want to associate.

This tendency to distinguish in group and out group can be sadly coupled with a propensity to violence and vengeance that the Book of Genesis presented in the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4. Those with whom we do not identify might tend, in our opinions, to be less human.

If we have recognize anything of ourselves in the three observations of the sociologists, then we need to “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 because people close to us

(9-11-01) have been victimized by the vengeful violence of others.

The System (the Human City, named by St Augustine) has created a dysfunctional system that so many buy into and idolize. We need another System, Jesus’ System, the City of God. John the Baptist was Jesus’ advance man out in the Jordan.

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? 120703AD jfq