Weekly Reflection 022705AD

Third Sunday in Lent

Do We Listen and Not Hear?

Daily, Catholics begin Morning Prayer (aka Lauds) with Psalm 95, our responsorial psalm today. In Latin, it is called the Venite, Exultemus (Come, let us acclaim the Lord).

Psalm 95 begins by acknowledging the Creator as responsible for all that is. In primitive language, we hear , “YHWH is the great God, the great king over all the gods…He is our God, Whose people we are, the flock God tends.” These folks had a primitive worldview, but they had the knack of expressing things in clear language.

Then, the second part of the Psalm speaks of our duty as God’s people, the flock God tends. We are told, “Do not harden your hearts, as our ancestors.”

God’s Centrality makes our commitment to the Ten Commandments not just lip service.

Fr Jim Keenan, a NY Jesuit, tells us that the first three commandments acknowledge our responsibilities to God as the Center of our lives. However, the last seven commandments speak of the implications of divine Centrality for us in our dealings with our sisters and brothers, who are God’s daughters and sons. God challenges us to respect our heritage (4^th), the dignity of human life (5^th), the dignity of commitment in marriage and all relationships (6th) , the importance of respect the property of others (7^th) and the importance of integrity in our words and actions (8^th). The last two commandments expect that we ask ourselves if our deepest heart wishes about other people and their “stuff” (9^th & 10^th) are really a re-iteration of the first commandment, viz., do our heart wishes correspond with the Centrality of God in our lives? If God is not the Center, dysfunction and sin result.

Psalm 95 and the Ten Commandments remind us that biblical religion is a religion of ethical monotheism. So what if we say that God is the center of our lives and then disregard God’s caveats to us regarding our lives with one another? As Jesus says at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father.” The Hebrew prophets saw the treatment of biblical triad of the widow, the orphan and the alien as the acid test of the authenticity of religion. Jesus, our Prophet par excellence, sums up His last parable in St Matthew’s Gospel, “Whatever you did (or did not do) for the least of the brothers and sisters, you did (or did not do) for me.” Someone recently said that we can self-examine by asking ourselves the question, “Is that fair? Psalm 95 challenges us to anticipate how we as individuals and as groups (both church and state) can respond to the call of Psalm 95 and the judgment of the Great King. The basic question might be, “Was what you did fair to the least of the sisters and brothers, the widow, the orphan, the alien?” Is it? 022705AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 022005AD

Second Sunday in Lent

Listening to Him in a New Moment

Last Sunday, we heard of the temptation of Adam and Eve to which they succumbed. ”You too can be like God.” However, Jesus offers us the power to resist temptation if we ask.

This perennial temptation remains with us. There are two choices. Either, we can choose YHWH, the God of Life, or, we can believe the Original Lie, viz., we really don’t need God, you know, and so choose the god, EGO (Easing God out) and then, we are on our own, or so we think!

The Voice in the Transfiguration tells Peter, James and John, “This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him.” Don’t listen to others when they contradict what Jesus is saying.

In the cacophony, We scarcely hear the Voice of Jesus. So many vie for our attention and offer an alternative view, which “eases God out”. Many listen to alternative worldviews and subscribe to them, even in good faith. Sadly, some individuals and institutions (both church and state) claim to call out “Lord, Lord” and then, fail to do what Jesus demands in the Sermon on the Mount.

For example, in steroid scandals in professional and amateur sports, why do athletes do what they do? Are they following the Voice of YHWH, proclaimed by Jesus or the Egonic voice of pride, of profits, of prestige? When we hear that so many receive a slap on the wrist, one can only wonder what is operative in the minds of those who tolerate such behavior.

In addition, how often do Catholic people succumb (without serious reflection) to conventional wisdom about violence as the rapid solution to conflict resolution when it has to do with people who are considered somehow “subhuman”?

Are some less human than others?

Perhaps, the most startling example now is that of genetic reproduction. Recently, we heard that one’s favorite pet can be cloned. (In fact, a cat has been cloned already.) Anybody with half a brain knows what we will all be hearing soon. Talk of designer children (never of designer old people) can almost be predicted. As we hear the Voice telling us, “Listen to Jesus”, we recall the Jesus tells us in the first Beatitude, “Blessed is that person who, with God’s Help, tries to acknowledge God as the center of reality because that person is heading in the right direction.” However, there was another voice that we heard recently, viz., that of the Tempter, “You too can be like God.”

It is not an exaggeration that the primordial sin of the human race has been arrogance, an attempt to be something that we are not. Like it or not, we are not God. To attempt to control reality through military or political power, through profits, through prosperity, through prestige, through anything which we absolutize is an insult to God. To attempt to play God in the area of human cloning is an egregious insult to the God of Life. The god of conventional wisdom (EGO) tells us to ease God out as the center of reality and to place ourselves in control. How long can it be before we self-destruct?

Jesus offers us the opportunity to re-focus our hearing (the most primitive of the five senses). He speaks to us the Word of God in a language which, with His Help, we understand.

The forces of the god EGO trivialize Mystery of God. Many are buying into the Jeroboam Principle, viz., call out “Lord, Lord” and then go ahead and do whatever you want. Instead, Catholics, LISTEN TO JESUS!! LISTEN TO JESUS !! 022005 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 021305AD

First Sunday of Lent

Back to Basics (God’s Style)

On the 1^st Sunday of Lent, we hear familiar stories which still ring true in our minds and hearts. One true story has a tragic (but, ultimately, a happy) ending, viz., the fall of Adam and Eve. The True story has a happy (but, ultimately, tragic and happy) ending, viz., the triple temptation and triumph of Jesus.

The sad story of Adam and Eve gets lived out in our world and in our own lives again. Adam and Eve succumb to the Original Lie (Who needs God)? As a result, the snowball effect of sin kicks in. The enmeshment and contagion and addiction to sin enters the world and soon erupts in lying and deception

YHWH had asked our first parents to live on God’s terms, not on theirs. Live a good life, but there are certain things that you cannot do. However, the temptation to “be like God” was too much for the couple.

The fall happens and the promise of Redemption immediately follows. Still, Cain and Abel come next and deception and violence and murder happen next. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

God’s people in Israel kept up the sad tradition, despite their lofty vocation to the light of the nations.

King David (a paradigm of all of us) is one, while loved by God, but goofed off, who knew that God loved him.

After David’s confrontation with Nathan the Prophet who challenged the King because of his murder of Uriah, the husband of David’s girlfriend, Bathsheba, David repented. He wrote his own act of contrition to lyrics, Psalm 51, the Miserere Mei, (our psalm on Ash Wednesday and today.)

Another King, Jeroboam I, played things differently. He would be the first to lead the people in insisting that he and Israel loved YHWH. However, after he had done so, he went off and did whatever he wanted. When challenged, Jeroboam would practice the “Jeroboam Principle” and play the God card. People in both church and state still practice the Jeroboam Principle, viz., they say they love God and do whatever they want.

The Gospel story also is paradigmatic for all of us. In Matthew’s Gospel, the devil begins each of his temptations with the words, “If you are God’s Son, do this or that.” Jesus is, indeed, God’s Only Begotten Son. Through Him, Adam and David and Jeroboam, and all of us are as well, but He preferred, unlike our first parents and Jeroboam, not to subscribe to the Original Lie. Jesus realizes that He needs YHWH and YHWH’s plan for Him and opts to live His life, as God wants, not as the devil or anyone else wants. Ultimately, Jesus will meet the cross on Good Friday (on God’s terms’ and then, experience the Resurrection on Easter. Life, death and life again is God’s plan for all creation. Trust YHWH and nobody else.

We are offered four paradigms today. We can try to live our lives on our terms (Adam and Eve); we can try to do it our way, but shape up when confronted with the implications of our actions (King David); we can kid others by implying we love God and then, do whatever we want (Jeroboam) or we can (WITH GOD’S HELP) do the right, love the God and walk humbly (as God’s child) with and in and through Jesus each day. 021305AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 020605AD

February 6, 2005AD

Fifth Sunday in Greentime

Jesus-Wannabe’s

Jesus is a Person Who believes in behavior modification. It is possible for us to make fundamental changes in the way we say and do things. We know this because Jesus addresses His Sermon on the Mount, His most well-known teaching, to the crowd (curious bystanders as well as disciples). He makes His pitch to all, not some.

He asks His hearers to be the “salt of the earth”. Interestingly, salt is a seasoner, not the entire meal. It is a preservative that brings out a deeper, richer taste in what it seasons.

Is Jesus suggesting that He wants us to be “Jesus-wannabes” in accepting the challenge that He makes today? It is, indeed, a challenge because Jesus asks what one does when the salt loses its flavor.

Last Sunday’s Beatitudes and this Sunday’s challenge to be “salt and light” are excellent segues into Lent beginning this Wednesday (so soon!)

Jesus does not demand the impossible of us. He energizes us whenever we ask Him in the Holy Spirit to be “Jesus-wannabes” in our daily lives. (After all, is that not to what committed ourselves in Confirmation?)

To be a Jesus-wannabe is a life-long process with three steps forward and two steps back. We are all works in progress. Jesus asks us to re-commit ourselves to the transformation into Jesus-wannabe’s each day.

The first thing that we need to do is to ask for the grace to buy into the Three Noble Truths. 1) You are not the center of the universe. 2) Life inevitably gets hard for us all and someday, we die. 3) Our life is not about us. Our lives are about life and death and life in Christ again and again.

The more we try to say yes to the Three Noble Truths, the more we can look outward to be the “Citizens of the World” that Pope John Paul II calls us to be in his 2005 AD World Day of Prayer for Peace (010105AD). With confidence that God is in charge, not us, we can re-commit ourselves to an n-going process of disarmament of the heart. We can re-commit ourselves to a life of working for egalitarianism, viz., talk that all are created equal is more than rhetoric but a life’s vocation for every Catholic. Finally, we can re-commit ourselves to solidarity with all the people of the world who are “citizens of the world” along with us.

Then, when we pray or sing the Anthem of the Kingdom of God (aka the Lord’s Prayer) which is located directly in the center of the Sermon on the Mount, then, we can honestly pray, “Your (not my) Kingdom come” and “Your (not my) Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

As we enter Lent, 2005 AD, let us re-commit ourselves as “Jesus-wannabes” and “snap out of it” and “wake up to what is Really Real.” Let us move out of ourselves and experience “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again and again”. Let us be proud to be part of the Body of Christ. Whenever we try to be “Jesus-wannabes”, we also become the Salt of the Earth. The earth needs to be seasoned. 020605AD jfq