Weekly Reflection 032606AD

SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2006AD

4^TH SUNDAY OF LENT (LAETARE SUNDAY)

Nicodemus – 2006 AD

Nicodemus appears only in the Gospel of John three times. However, his appearances come at crucial places. As a result, his name is well known among Catholics.

In today’s Gospel excerpt from Jn 3, we hear some of the principal terms of John’s theology, such as the following: 1)Unless a person is born again, he shall not see the Kingdom of God. 2) The wind (Spirit) blows where it wills; we know not whence it comes and whither it goes. 3) God so loved the world that God gave the Only begotten Son. 4) The Son of Man must be lifted up. Also, John tells us that Nicodemus, with Joseph of Arimathea, buried Jesus.

The ironic question is “Was Nicodemus a disciple of Jesus?” At a recent biblical discussion, a group of Catholics had a prolonged serious discussion on the question. At the end of the discussion, all agreed that we really cannot tell.

In another curious citation in Jn 12, the Evangelist chides the “many, even among the authorities, believed in Jesus, but …they did not acknowledge it openly in order not to be expelled from the synagogue. They preferred human praise to the glory of God. (Was this a dig at Nicodemus types?

Jesus in John’s Gospel requires a yes or no from “wannabe” disciples. Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, gives us the strength to say “Yes” to Jesus. When we do so, we are born again and again and again.

However, we are not certain how Nicodemus responded to Jesus’ question. Instead of saying Yes unequivocally, did Nicodemus temporize or waffle with a Nes (tentative yes) or a Yo (tentative no)?

Is John challenging the Nicodemus in me to temporize or waffle in my response to Jesus? All of us probably hedge our bets when it comes to faith, early and often. Am I readily identifiable as a Disciple of Jesus or do I, at times, obfuscate my faith? Do I make an effort to live with one eye on conventional wisdom and the other on the Gospel of Jesus? As Pilate told the crowd on Good Friday, “Look at the Man”, do we see the God-man Whose Presence in our lives has the most radical implications?

Our contemporary culture challenges us to buy into the Original Lie (Who Needs God?). It stresses individual rights at the expense of the group. It measures human worth by what one has, rather than what one is. It makes us numb at times to the real problems that others face, close and far away. It values efficiency and speed more than morality. It measures material success as a sign of salvation.

The figure of Nicodemus challenges us to answer ourselves if we see God made human in Jesus Christ and if we see the Mystery of Christ Crucified as the basis of life. With the Help of the Paraclete, may any ambivalence of Nicodemus be banished from us!! 032606 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 031906AD

Sunday, March 19, 2006AD

Third Sunday of Lent

Minority Reports, Then &Now

St Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians offer some Christian teaching to followers of Jesus in what strikes us as archaic and/or bizarre situations. There is a strange relevance to his words in which we are reminded that the more things change, the more they remain the same. His message is as operative, Catholics believe, in the 21^st as in the 1^st century.

Then and now, some demand signs and others demand wisdom. Then and now, Paul’s message is the same, “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others, Christ the Power and Wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

What St Paul is saying is that the Paschal Mystery is a koan, viz., something you experience in a way that is ineffable, incomprehensible, infinite. Only when one has been there in Christ, can one grasp it.. The Paschal Mystery is what makes the universe go around.

More and more, our world resembles the world of the first Christians. Catholic values are on the fringes of modern conventional wisdom. Many tolerate us at best, with a certain amusement. Others harass us because Catholic values are so out of step with much of Western civilization. Whatever Jesus had in mind in the Sermon on the Mount and at the Last Supper is not the way Western Civilization turned out. But, many would have us think that it has.

In his efforts to keep the Gospel of Christ Crucified, viz., the Paschal Mystery, in colloquial focus, Pope John Paul published his magnum opus, Evangelium Vitae, the Gospel of Life, on March 25, 1995 AD. This anniversary week, the Pope’s update of the Gospel has a sad relevance with the third anniversary of the Second Gulf War.

The encyclical is based on 4 scriptural quotations. 1) “The Voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground.” 2) “I came that they may have life.” 3) “You shall not kill”. 4) “Whatever you did to the least, You did it to Me.”

The Pope teaches us that whenever the Transcendent (God) is eclipsed, the human person will become eclipsed. Whenever the human person is eclipsed, the Transcendent (God) is eclipsed.

Violence and technology have become strange bedfellows. As the Pope reminds us, just because we can do something does not mean that we should.

The Pope broadened horizons. He said that every taking of human life is a death in the human family and that every taking of a human life is fratricidal.

He reminds us that Catholics are to follow a Consistent Life Ethic, that all human life is sacred (even Iraqi civilians??). He asks us to be a New Culture of Life, part of a coalition to proclaim that God is God and we are not. In this New Moment, humans are capable of undoing what God has been doing since the beginning. Whether it is through weaponry, pollution, nuclear energy unchecked, high tech cannibalism (aka stem cell research), we can undo what God has in mind. The Original Lie remains, “You can be like God.” Jesus, St Paul and Pope John Paul tell us, “Don’t believe it. Don’t even try!”

Paul’s small Christian community in Corinth constituted a few hundred people at best. Today, Jesus’ and Paul’s and John Paul’s message reaches a larger audience. Let us think about their words today more than ever. 032606 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 031206AD

SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2006AD

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

Two Fathers, Two Sons

Today, we hear one of the starkest and strangest stories in the Bible in the “Testing of Abraham.” What is going on in this story?

YHWH, the God of Life, is the HEAVY today with the demand that Isaac, Abraham’s son, his only son, the son that he loves be sacrificed as a sign of Abraham’s absolute commitment to this God Who promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. However, Isaac is the only son. Still, Abraham went and prepared to obey God.

The story is meant to be interpreted on several levels. First, it appeared in written form around 950 BC when the Torah started to take written shape. The neighbors of Israel frequently engaged in human sacrifice. Indeed, in the worship of Baal, the fertility god of the Canaanites, there might even have been a liturgy of sacrifice of a firstborn male to ensure further fertility for the family. In essence, one meaning of the story is the clear statement that YHWH, the God of Life, does not require human sacrifice of any human person. Instead, Israel sacrificed animals, sheep and goats, whose blood was seen as a proper substitute for human blood. (Interestingly, today, animal rights’ activists would probably maintain a constant protest outside the Jerusalem Temple, were it still standing!)

YHWH, the God of Life, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, even put an end to sacrificing the blood of anyone or anything in doing exactly what God appeared to be doing with Abraham. Only, this time, God does allow the sacrificial death of God’s Son on Good Friday. However, in so doing, Jesus brings an end to all primal religion which requires the shedding of blood. Jesus’ Blood was shed once and for all. God shed God’s Blood. No longer is bloodshed necessary!

Theologians and others speak now of the Great Convergence, pointed by the crucifixion of the God-Man. They say that, quoting people as diverse as Pope Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII and Pope John Paul and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whichever group we prefer, for there are no longer such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest if which the issue must be disastrous for all parties. Remember your humanity and forget the rest. (Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 1955)

Reading between the lines of the Testing of Abraham and the Crucifixion of Jesus, believers and non-believers get the message. The Gospel of Jesus is the only viable way out of the transmission of violence, hatred and anger. If we do not transform these negative energies, we only transmit them. Three values that 21^st century NY Catholics (and others) can adopt include the following: 1) The Genome Project proves it, viz., there is common DNA from an original parent in each of us. Surprise! We are all brothers and sisters. 2) As brilliant minds saw 50 years ago, war has become obsolete in conflict resolution. It has outlived whatever purpose it had. 3) We can agree on a global ethic, with one principle , “the Golden Rule”, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Maybe, you won’t change the world; maybe, God may change you. The inspired evolution in the nexus between the Testing of Abraham and the Crucifixion of the God-man may move on in your mind and heart. That is a great place to start. 031206AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 030506AD

Sunday, March 5, 2006AD

First Sunday of Lent

Lent – Who Needs It?

St Mark tells us that, at the start of His public ministry, Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and He was with the wild beasts. Bible scholars see the wild beasts as the description of the temptations.

Like all of us, Jesus was a text in travail, a work in progress, during His 40 day retreat in the wilderness. The same descriptions characterize us, as well as several others (not applicable to Jesus, such as masses of contradictions, sinful converts or converted sinners. All of our lives are three steps forward, two steps backward.

Individuals and families and groups and cultures are fall into this category. In a variety of ways, we all are tempted. Our childhood impulses to security, esteem and control are always latent in our subconscious. Whenever they possess us, we become addicted, compulsed and enmeshed.

The corporate subconscious that dominates Western civilization still operates under the following fallacies, listed by Eckhardt Tolle: 1) We are living in the best of all possible worlds. 2) We are completely separate from one another, nature and the universe. 3) The physical world is all there is. (We know that these are fallacies and yet, most of us spend much time operating under them.)

That is one of the reasons why we need Lent each year. As best we can, we ask God to give us the Strength to slow down, to find silence and solitude in a culture that fast-paced, noisy and over-extended.

All of us are susceptible to and victims of the pathologies of culture, (aka the pathologies of our ego.) We are all with the wild beasts wherever we are, more than we realize. That is why we need a yearly inventory, at the very least, as we prepare for Easter. The Parish Community is offering several opportunities for a mini-retreat tailored made for your own needs by you. Check our weekly bulletin for some of the things that we plan to do during the Lenten season and come and join us. If you have other ideas or suggestions, speak to us. Lent originated in two ways. First, it was a forty day period of intense preparation for Easter baptism by adult catechumens, viz., adults preparing to enter the Jesus Movement. Second, for those converted sinners and/or sinner converts, those masses of contradiction that every Christian is, it became a forty day elongated celebration of the Sacrament of Penance. On Ash Wednesday, the folks confessed their sins and were given a penance to do as a sacramental way of accepting the forgiveness already given to them through the death and Resurrection of the Lord. In this way, they were better disposed to celebrate in with and through the Crucified and Risen Christ Jesus, to surrender, to let go and to trust the Holy Mystery of God of Life.

As we heard on Ash Wednesday, “now is the very acceptable time.” Carpe diem! 030506AD jfq