Weekly Reflection 062704AD

June 27, 2004AD

12^th Sunday in Greentime

Jesus Has Been There

Before the Reforms of Vatican II, candidates for holy orders were admitted into the clerical state by a ceremony known as tonsure. 5 small clips of hair were cut off the candidate’s head in the form of a cross while the candidate said a verse from Psalm 16, our responsorial psalm today, “O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, You it is Who hold fast my lot.”

The origin of the Psalm seems to have come from old Israel when the land of Israel was divided among 11 tribes. The twelfth tribe was the priestly tribe of Levi and their allotted portion and cup was the Lord’s ministry, not territory. The Psalm further states, “You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.”

From the first century of the Jesus Movement, the earliest Christians saw the fulfillment of Psalm 16 in Jesus Christ’s death and Resurrection.

The Church still prays Psalm 16 in our Night Prayer, known as Compline, on Thursday. Now, the one who prays is no long the levitical priest but all of us in Christ Jesus.

In the sacrament of baptism, we are all baptized into Christ and we share His destiny of death and Resurrection. The life of each person is a process of experiencing both the ecstasy and agony of human living. Through baptism, Catholics learn that while we are not immune to the negative aspects of life, with and through and in Christ Jesus, we are able to transcend them.

Every human person experiences both the right hand of God, viz., the blessings that God lavishes so generously as well as the left hand of God, the painful mystery of life as well. None of us is immune for the vicissitudes of human life.

In the Hebrew tradition, Job said as much. “We accept good things from God. Should we not accept bad things as well?” “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” “Naked came I forth from my mother’s womb; naked I shall return again.”

“Things happen” is a paraphrase from Forrest Gump. Nobody, least of all, a Catholic is exempt from what we call the Paschal Mystery. It can be in moments of desolation and loss when we realize that life is bigger than we are and that we are not, in fact, the center of the universe. There are those who say that only in suffering, can a person be shaken out of self-deception that we really run the show.

However, it is all right. Our destiny is the destiny of death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus asks us and enables us to try to surrender and to let go and to trust the God of Mystery in the journey of human life.

If we trust, with God’s Help, in a Living and Loving God Who is our allotted portion and our cup, then it becomes easier for us to say in and through and with Christ Jesus, that ultimately, while we experience the shadows of life, the God of Life will not allow the Holy One to undergo corruption. Trust Jesus! 062704AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 062004AD

Sunday, June 20, 2004AD

11^th Sunday in Greentime

This Hymn We (Still) Sing

The first followers of Jesus called themselves several different names. Such names included the “solidarity” (ha Echad), the “way of the Lord” (ha Derek YHWH), the “Messianists” (in Greek, Christianoi).

One way that we can self-identify is the Jesus Movement in Armonk. With God’s Help, this simple title re-inforces Who is the basis of our movement, Jesus the Lord. With God’s Help, we try to view reality with what we call “Jesus lenses”, viz., as Jesus views it from His perspective.

One religious sociologist suggested that there is a trajectory in which any movement needs to be aware. First, there is the man (for us, God- man), who establishes a new worldview, an alternate worldview to that of conventional wisdom. Second, the man establishes a movement that shares and spreads the new worldview. Third, the movement can develop into a machine, that seeks to operate efficiently. Fourth, if the movement-machine forgets the vision of the man who established it, then it becomes a monument or musemn, a curiosity or an antique.

We hear a very early baptismal hymn today as our second reading from St Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He was writing, probably in the early 50’s of the first century, AD, and he was quoting a baptismal hymn that the Jesus movement in Galatia already knew well. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is 1) neither Jew nor Greek, there is 2) neither slave nor free, there is 3) not make and female, for you are all one (cf. above ha echad) in Christ Jesus.

We know that in the first century, the pressing question was the first part of the baptismal triad. There was a clear pluralism of biblical responses on how the Jesus-movement fit into the mother religion of Judaism. This became particularly an acute question when non-Jews (Gentiles) started to outnumber Jews who were the core of the Jesus-Movement from the beginning.

However, Christians, by and large, lived with little qualms of conscience about the second part of the triad. It was really not until after the French Revolution (not the Declaration of Independence) that most Christians question the morality of slavery. Most could not envision a world without slavery because it was so entrenched in the system. It boggles the minds of many Christians today that our ancestors thought nothing of slavery as a moral question.

It was only in the twentieth century that the third part of the triad has come under scrutiny. Church and state both ponder the question of the role of women in the world. The implications are still to be considered.

As we hear today, the baptismal hymn, already known and sung in Galatia (present day Turkey) a mere twenty years after the death and Resurrection of Jesus challenges the movement to focus on the Man God Whose vision we share and not allow the machine to become a monument! 062004AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 061304AD

June 13, 2004 AD

Corpus Christ

What’s In a Meal?

A student once asked if Jesus had a weight problem. The teacher wondered why the student would ask the question. The student’s response was, “He was always eating.”

One of the characteristics of Jesus’ public ministry was his table-fellowship. Jesus would dine with whoever invited Him. His rationale was “Well people do not need a doctor; the sick do.”

Not all agreed with His modus operandi. It is hard for us to imagine the social taboos that Jesus broke down with his table fellowship. 1) One only ate with one’s intimates, viz., one’s family or one’s closest friends, usually on the same social level. 2) One ate only with those who kept Kosher laws. In the world back then, most people could not afford to practice Kosher. These were called Ame Haaretz (the people of the land). (It was not a complement.)

Jesus violated the social mores over and over again. It was one of the reasons why the “good people” were suspicious of Him. He was attacking the religious parameters of Israel by His open-mindedness.

The Gospel story today tells us of an incident that is testified to in all four Gospels, the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The story reminds us of a picnic in which we meet different people. Such a concept would have been unthinkable back then. In addition, such a large gathering of people threatens civic order as well. Since the multiplication of loaves and fish appears in all 4 Gospels (in Mark, two separate times), such a gathering might not have been a one-time thing for Jesus, but that He might have hosted these grass-roots meals more often. As a result, Jesus threatened both temple and state by gathering people of all walks of life together during which dietary and social restrictions as well as crowd control were challenged.

As we celebrate Corpus Christi today, as well as the Anniversary of the dedication of our parish church and the dedication of a new parish center and St Anthony’s bread and the beginning of the summer, Jesus reminds us that venues don’t count ultimately. People are together in Christ in a variety of settings and we hope that barriers break down and community in Christ becomes stronger.

Jesus uses communal meals as a means of gathering the folks, sharing His View of the Kingdom of God, somehow and sharing the same food with all. He teaches us many things through His methodology.

In 2004 AD, in Christ, we still gather in His Name (our Elder Brother), tell stories about Him, share His favorite food (the Food by which we remember Him in a special way), commit ourselves to the Worldview that He wants us to have. Such a gathering can only re-inforce the Force-Field that the Body of Christ is. The Power of that Force-Field travels with us when we leave our communal gathering. Please God, the lives we touch feel its effect. 061304AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 060604AD

Sunday June 6, 2004AD

Trinity Sunday

Yet………

On June 6, 1994, a young girl stood on a dock in Dover, England as an honorary flotilla to Calais, France was about to set sail in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. She said a prayer which our community prays every weekday morning after Holy Communion. It is called the Universal Prayer for Peace.

Jesus, lead us from death to life.

Jesus, lead us from falsehood to truth.

Jesus, lead us from despair to hope.

Jesus, lead us from fear to trust

Jesus, lead us from darkness to light.

Jesus, lead us from hatred to love.

Jesus, lead us from war to peace.

Prince of Peace, give Your Peace to our hearts, our nations, our planet, our universe.

We still need to offer the prayer which the young girl offered. Sadly, our world offers us the negatives from which we need true liberation. We live in a world of violent death, falsehood, despair, fear, darkness, hatred and war.

We believe, as Catholics, that Jesus can, indeed, lead us to where God wants us to be. Yet, the Way seems difficult.

On Trinity Sunday, in Psalm 8, we are reminded that ultimately each of us is created in image and likeness of God. Yet, despite our apparent insignificance compared to the wonders of nature, God made us little less than the angels and crowned us with honor and glory. Sadly, we have not taken our human dignity seriously. The Trinity reminds us of three realities about ourselves, since we are created in that divine image and likeness. Early on, Church writers spoke of the Process of Perichoresis (literally, a dancing around) in the Trinity. The Trinity exists in mystery; the Trinity exists in relationship; the Trinity exists in equality.

We are created in the image of the Trinity. We exist in mystery; we exist in relationship; we exist in equality. At least, we should.

If each of us, as disciples of Jesus, takes our humanity and His Gospel seriously, then, with God’s Help, we can try not to change the world. We can try to change ourselves.

We can never know ourselves completely. We know that we thrive in relationships. We say that we are all equal in God’s eyes, although we do not always take that seriously.

We can use a reverse human image to understand God. We can imagine God with two hands. God’s right hand showers us with countless blessings, for which we occasionally express gratitude. However, God has a left hand as well. It is sometimes through the painful mysteries of life that are sent our way that we can become the person created in the divine image and likeness that God wants us to be.

Yet, Christians speak of the Paschal Mystery. It is through the process of dying and rising again and again in our journey through life that our old selves can die to illusion and be born into the Life that God has intended for us all from the beginning.

If we let go and try to take our divine image and Jesus’ Gospel more seriously, the vision expressed in the Universal Peace Prayer might be closer, at least, for ourselves. 060604 AD jfq