Weekly Reflection 012504AD

Sunday, Jan 25, 2004AD

3^rd Sunday in Greentime

All in Christ and Christ in All

One of the most powerful images from St Paul is the Body of Christ. He speaks of the imagery today in our second reading and reminds us of many implications which we need to consider again and again.

In the Body of Christ, all are in Christ and Christ is in all. Christ is the DNA of the Body of Christ. As a result, members of the Body of Christ are Christ in space and time. As St Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no hands or feet, but ours.” We all have work to do in Christ.

It is not necessarily the same work. Some are spouses; some are children; some are family; some are neighbors; some are friends; some are co-workers and/or fellow students. Some are clergy; most are not.

Each of us has a specific work to fulfill in the Body of Christ. Whatever that function is, it involves something broader than our own horizons. American Catholics are the largest religious group in the largest superpower in the world today. In addition, we Catholics in New York have a special challenge to be Christ in space and time, since we live in the capital of the world. Awesome, but with Christ, all things are possible. Christ wants us to live as responsible Catholics and to represent Him with the best efforts that we can.

As we seek to live as the Body of Christ in New York, we want to listen to Christ carefully because what Christ says is not necessarily what the world says. Jesus tells us that our lives are not about us. We are centered in a Reality Greater than we are, the Mystery of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (This is the God that is so forgotten even though the word “God” appears constantly in culture.)

A New York theologian spoke recently of the “Jeroboam Principle”. Jeroboam was an Israelite who was in the front rows at liturgies. Yet, after he went to temple, he went off and did whatever he wanted. He did the religious schtick and then, lived without regard to what God expected of him. His fraud was exposed.

Let us never succumb to the “Jeroboam Principle” as members of the Body of Christ. God created you for a specific work in the creation of the Universe. Life is not about you; it is about something bigger.

In 1959, Rev Martin Luther King said, “Whatever career you may choose for yourself – doctor, lawyer, teacher – let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for human rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and helping your fellow (hu)man. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of our country and a finer world..”

Jesus would say Amen to that because that is what He has been saying to us for two thousand years now. The DNA of the Body of Christ is in all of us, enabling us to build up the Body of Christ now more than ever. 012504AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 011804AD

Sunday, January 18, 2004AD

Total Parish Catechesis

Then and Now

St Paul was involved in a similar project to ours with the Church in Corinth in the excerpt from his First Letter to them, in the spring of 54 AD.

He was interested in Total Parish Catechesis, as our Parish is today. He understood that there were 3 (not 4) cohorts of Christians around then. His letter addressed particularly the Gen X and the Baby Boomer Catholics of Corinth, the Las Vegas or Miami Beach or LA of the Roman Empire.

St Paul’s strategy was to establish a beachhead in important cities around the Mediterrean Sea. He would locate specific men and women for specific ministries. After instructing them for around two years, St Paul would hit the road and follow the same strategy in another city. He was convinced that if we were to establish a beachhead of committed Jesus Movement people in an important city, the Spirit of God would continue the process when he left.

Apparently, there were some folks who felt that the ministry assigned to him or her was superior to that of some of the other folks. St Paul wanted to nip that in the bud. This is the origin of our second reading today. Yes, there were indeed a variety of ministries, or tasks to be observed. However, the Spirit had a job for all, which was not for self-glory, but for the welfare of the community. No need to boast about any of this, according to St Paul. Everything, including life, faith and ministry is a gift. We are asked to meet the demands of that gift to help others.

St Paul’s methodology is still a useful one for the Jesus Movement here at St Patrick’s in Armonk. Our principal vocation and ministry is that within our “domestic churches”, the local church convoked at your house. Spouses minister to one another. Parents minister to their children; children minister to their parents. Catholic Family is the most radical form of neighborliness around when you think of it. Our Catholic tradition tells us, “You shall love the Lord Your God totally and your neighbor as yourself.” For Catholic families, unlike the mainstream of American conventional wisdom, the goal is not absolute security (only God does that) and keeping up with the Jones’ (The tenth commandment knocks that out when we are told, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”)

If, with God’s Help, we do the best we can to do our part in our family ministries at home, then, with God’s Help, we can influence our neighbors next door and down the street. As St Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no hands or feet but ours.”

In addition, in our parish community, whatever ministry in which we participate, hopefully, a symbiotic relationship can exist. What goes on in your house will influence what happens here; what goes on here will influence what happens at your house. Things can be different. Trust Jesus and St Paul, then and now. 011804AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 011104AD

Sunday January 11, 2004AD

Baptism of the Lord

Speaking of Baptisms

The fact 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 multiplication of the loaves and fish, His exorcisms and His proclamation of the Kingdom of God, His arrest and execution and 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.

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”.

The Community of the Beloved Disciple (those addressed in the 4^th 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 21^st 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 perpetrated against us. Many people prefer to stew over injuries and almost get a perverse sense of self-righteousness in the process. (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.

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 that 1) our God is the God of Life, the God Who is Love, and that 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.

Finally, 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.

All of this in one way or another entails our baptismal promises always. We ask Jesus for the strength to fulfill our promises and find a deeper humanity along the way. 011104AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 010404AD

Sunday January 4, 2004AD

Epiphany of the Lord

Sad, But Maybe Sadly True

In the tragic days after 9/11, many feelings surfaced in our collective consciousness. In an effort to make a dollar in a national tragedy, a country singer penned a song, “Where Were You When the World Stood Still?”

The song expressed the shock of so many after such a cataclysmic event.

However, one of the lines in the song betrays a sad reality in the minds of some American Catholics. One line asked if you were watching “I Love Lucy”. Another line asked if “you read your Bible and then, went out and purchased a gun”. Another line said that watching CNN, he could not “tell the difference between Iraq and Iran.”

Interesting in the week gone by, one of the newspapers in NY, which we truly claim is the capital of the world, featured as its headline a new turn in the Michael Jackson case. In the upper left hand corner was an item about the 20,000+ people who died in the Iranian earthquake last week. In the upper right hand corner was an item about the 120 Africans who died in a plane crash. In the opinions of the editors of the newspaper, residents of the capital of the world have bizarre priorities about important events.

This is just another reason why American Catholics need the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. We are reminded as Catholics in the capital of the world that Jesus depends upon us to be a “light for all the nations”. Just as the Jesus Movement grasped the universality of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, NY (and all) Catholics are called by God to be the light for all the nations. Are we?

In one of the Eucharistic prayers, we say the prayer to God, “whether we care to admit or not, we are all sisters and brothers, we are all family, and that You, Our Father, invite as one family to one table.”

Jesus was first worshipped by the Magi (from the East). To this day, their origin remains a mystery. Were they Iranians or Iraqis or what? Yet, God called them to worship “the Emmanuel”, “God among us”, at Bethlehem. The Coming of Jesus Christ shows that God loves all, not some.

Fr Andrew Greeley wryly wrote many years ago, that since one of the Magi was usually portrayed as Black, that the Catholic Church should have been equal opportunity from the beginning. Sadly, we were not; many would say that we still aren’t!!

The implications of St Paul’s baptismal hymn in Galatians 3.28 continue to challenge all, including NY Catholics, “In Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ”.

Psychologists tell us that we are affected by every person whom we ever met and with whom we had a relationship. Are we affected by our relationship in Community, in Word and in Sacrament with Jesus Christ?

The singer of the song (which made a lot of money) should learn the difference between Iraq and Iran. He might question his reading the Bible and then, going out to purchase a gun. 010404AD jfq