Weekly Reflection 082706AD

Sunday, August 27, 2006AD

21^st Sunday in Greentime

11^th Sunday after Pentecost

On the One Hand, ….On the Other

Today’s reading from Ephesians has been described by some as “neuralgic”. How exactly do Catholics of the 21^st century understand what the author says? Maybe, the answer might be gleaned from the first line, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Each Catholic couple responds in faith.

When we consider that one of the earliest documents of the Christian Scriptures is St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, written in the mid-50’s of the first century, our reading this morning takes on a different nuance. Recall the baptismal hymn that St Paul quotes in Gal 3.28, “In Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.” Our Christian ancestors sang this hymn on Easter when new members were baptized.

The Galatians hymn represents an explosive view of relationships in the first 25 years of the Jesus Movement. Granted that the primary controversy about the hymn then was the relationship between Jew and Gentile. Granted also, the moral problem with slavery did not confront Christians really until after the French Revolution and the response of the Quakers to the African slave trade, in the nineteenth century. The institution of slavery was just so much a given in the first century and before that, the moral implications of the Galatians hymn were not addressed by most Christians.

In our time, the question of the relationship of the sexes has taken the predominant place on the stage. Hence, we experience the “neuralgia” about which many speak.

There is a paradox (apparent contradiction) between the two readings. Indeed, life is full of paradoxes, so why would biblical things be different? However, the tension between the baptismal hymn in Galatians 3.28 and the second reading from Ephesians 5 today might find a possible interpretation. Christians in Ephesus and in other places wanted to be good neighbors to win over other folks for life in Christ Jesus. However, the notably different ethics of the Jesus Movement probably raised the eyebrows of many of their neighbors. Since Ephesians was written either by St Paul toward the close of his life or by a disciple (some have suggested St Timothy), some suggest that the entire reading should be interpreted in light of the introductory verse, “Husbands and wives, be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Paradoxically, maintaining conventional customs on marriage, both spouses should see one another as one in Christ Jesus. It is “both…and” reality. In cultural context, then, it was very unusual to suggest that a husband be subordinate to his wife. Both are now called to mutual subordination because of their relationship in Christ Jesus. (Such a lifestyle in a fixed cultural setting was a revolutionary application of the Galatians hymn written years earlier.) Christians did not set up different marriage ethics. Rather, couples tried to live traditional ethics in Christ Jesus in their relationships, one with the other. Ephesians tells Christians, then and now, to love one’s spouse as one loves one’s own body, nourishing and cherishing it, even as Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church, because we are all cells of His Body.

Many marriages, both Christian and otherwise, can learn much from this “neuralgic” reading which somehow might more make sense when we add the preposition, “in Christ Jesus”. 082706AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 082006AD

Sunday, August 20, 2006AD

Twentieth Sunday in Greentime

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

What Are You Eating?

The Jesus Movement in Ephesus, the recipients of our second reading today, were men and women who walked a fine line living in Christ Jesus. On the one hand, they wanted to be good neighbors because, then, they would live peaceful lives and win further followers to the Faith. On the other hand, they knew that living in Christ Jesus sometimes would make them walk to a different drumbeat as they tried to implement the values of Jesus’ New World Order in their lives. This might cause eyebrows and blood pressures to be raised by non-Christian neighbors.

We know that St Paul’s “audio-visual communities” known as Churches sometimes caused good folks to wonder. What was all this talk about “in Christ Jesus there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus?”

Some of their pagan fellow citizens might legitimately have wondered about a group of men and women who met regularly on a Saturday evening or early Sunday morning in memory of a leader that had been crucified by a Roman governor for claiming to be “King of the Jews”. Their motto was “Jesus is Lord”. All good citizens, then and now, knew that Caesar was Lord. One cannot have two Lords. They also believed that this Lord, Christ Jesus, was present in their gatherings. Strange, isn’t it? In addition, what was it with their values that were so different that people would legitimately comment, “See how they love one another”. Finally, they might also have wondered about the charge of cannibalism that circulated among their detractors. They eat Someone’s Body and drink Someone’s Blood. What’s up with that?

How can anyone attempt to explain adequately the meaning of our Eucharist? When Jesus focuses specifically on His Gift of the Eucharist, as He does today in our Gospel, words fail us. Still, with God’s Help, we try to fathom the Mystery, viz., the infinitely knowable Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

In 107AD, St Ignatius of Antioch decribed the Eucharist as the “Medicine of Immortality”. In 202 AD, St Irenaeus said that our union with Christ Jesus in the Eucharist was such that a Christian never had to fear death, because ”the God of Life would not allow our bodies, dwelling places or tabernacles of the Eucharistic Lord to be condemned to oblivion”. In the twentieth century, Mohandas Gandhi, who believed in Christ Jesus but never was baptized because he was scandalized by how so many baptized people were nonchalant and blasé about our faith. Still, he said that ”if God wanted to be united with humanity, the most marvelous solution would be to become humanity’s food.” Also, in the twentieth century, CP Schulz of Peanuts fame said, paraphrasing St Augustine’s thought, “You are what you eat.” We are and become the Body of Christ when we eat the Body of Christ. As St Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Tantum Ergo, “Faith believes nor questions how.”

In their efforts to be good neighbors who tried, with God’s Help, to edify others as well as sharing the Vision of Christ Jesus, the Church at Ephesus and at New York tries to gather and refocus that Vision weekly. As Blaise Pascal said in the seventeenth century, “The heart has reasons to believe that the mind cannot understand.” The impact of Jesus, our Eucharistic Bread of Life, makes its Presence felt in the strangest ways. Let us rejoice. Let us never take the Eucharist for granted. The stakes have always been high. 082006AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 081306AD

Sunday, August 13, 2006AD

18^th Sunday in Greentime

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

What Does God Want of Us?

The Christian community at Ephesus, in many ways, was very much like our Catholic community in New York. We want to be good neighbors and live in harmony with others. However, Catholic ethics and values frequently differ from the ethics and values of conventional wisdom. We face the dilemma A) by caving in to convention or B) by daring to be different in Christ Jesus.

Today, St Paul tells us to do the best we can to edify others as “audio-visual communities” in the midst of a world that needs the alternative vision, the worldview that we call life in Christ Jesus.

St Paul tries to balance two good things. 1) Christians should be good neighbors. 2) However, Christians should never compromise their values caught from the vibrational field known as the Christ Quantum. We are effected by and we effect every person with whom we have contact. Christ Jesus has effected us in our meetings with Him in community, in Word and in Sacrament, particularly the Eucharist. (In addition, there are myriad other ways in which Christ Jesus has met us in ways that we will never know!) In essence, Christ Jesus has rubbed off on us. Is it manifest at all?

St Paul urges us to be imitators of God. There are six pathologies that he warns us to avoid in the dysfunctional world in which we live. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed (which only God can do and has done already if we accept the Spirit) from you, along with all malice. God knows how much all people need to be liberated from the hostilities that fester in the minds and hearts of so much in Western culture!

What St Paul offers as an alternative lifestyle is certainly something that would not make the newspapers or talk shows or entertainment shows. St Paul tells the Ephesians (and us), “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”

Imagining the immediate world that I inhabit daily, St Paul might seem to be talking through his turban. However, just considering the possibility that God enables me to at least try to make one effort at a time in imitating God more seriously, is a great place to begin.

Enough of the Christian community in Ephesus must have done what St Paul asked of them because that community survived until the present day. They did become the vibrant Christian audio-visual community that tried to be good neighbors but walked to the drumbeat of the Christ Quantum. St Paul and an imploding world challenges New York Catholics to try, with God’s help, to be the audio-visual community that God needs in the capital of the world. Will we go along with conventional wisdom as so many sadly do or will we try to live in love as Christ loved us? 081306AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 080606AD

Sunday, August 6, 2006AD

The Transfiguration of the Lord

9^th Sunday after Pentecost

Pass that by Me Again:

We always hear the Gospel of the Transfiguration on the Second Sunday of Lent. However, when today’s Feast of the Transfiguration occurs on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the usual Sunday readings. Actually, today’s feast sadly represents a feast added to our church calendar to commemorate a crusader victory over the Saracens in the Holy Land. (How slowly do we change! How saddened Jesus must be today as well!)

God’s Voice tells Peter, James and John, “Listen to Him.” What has Jesus just said? Actually, just prior to this, Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me? For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life?” (Mk 8.34-37)

Each Catholic disciple of Jesus must respond to each of those questions at some point in his or her life. What does Jesus expect of me in moments of stress, adversity, decision and priorities? To Whom do we listen? Sadly, and tellingly, as Catholics celebrate the Transfiguration (in Greek,Metamorphesis”), the rest of the world thinks of the anniversary of the atomic bombings at the conclusion of World War II and to the New Moment in Human History that the Nuclear Age has initiated. (That we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.)

In the days ahead, we commemorate three Catholic disciple- martyrs of Jesus. On August 9, we commemorate the death at Auschwitz of St Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, who saw her martyrdom as an act of atonement for her Catholic brethren for their part in the Holocaust of her Jewish brethren. She could have escaped from Holland to Switzerland and safety but the Gospel demanded her to follow a different road. She listened to Jesus.

On August 9, as well, we commemorate the death of Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian Roman Catholic, who walked to a different drummer from the vast majority of his Austrian Catholic kin. Austria had voted in 1938 to be annexed to the Third Reich in the Anschluss. When he was greeted by friends and family, with the words, “Heil, Hitler”, his response was “Pfui, Hitler”. He knew that he was headed for trouble. His troubles came when he was drafted into the Army of the Third Reich and he refused induction. He knew where that was leading him, but he spoke of integrity and faith in Christ Jesus as the bases of his existence. He, too, listened to Jesus.

On August 14, we celebrate the death of St Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life for that of a father of a family condemned to starvation in Auschwitz. He, too, listened to Jesus.

One of the questions posed by Jesus just before His Transfiguration was “What does it profit a man if he gains, etc.?” In the sixteenth century, St Francis Xavier had heard that quote of Jesus many times in his young life. It was only when St Ignatius Loyola passed it by him at the Sorbonne, that Xavier caught the significance of the question. The quote remained the same; Xavier changed.

In the twentieth century, Sts Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe and Franz Jagerstatter caught what Jesus was passing by them with His questions. They listened. In the twenty-first century, how well do we listen as Jesus passes the Gospel by us again? 080606AD jfq