Weekly Reflection 062407AD

SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2007AD

NATIVITY OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST

Happy B-Day, JBap

Jesus’ public ministry began with His baptism and response to His kinsman, St John the Baptist, whose birthday we celebrate today. In the Fourth Gospel, the Baptist says of Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

One of the titles that Malachi, one of the latest of the prophets, used for the coming Messiah is the “Sun of Righteousness.” This was one of the reasons when Jesus’ b-day was placed in the third century on Dec 25 (In the Julian Calendar, was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Then, the amount of sunlight increases gradually daily.) In deference to the words of the Baptist, his b-day was calculated as June 24 (With the summer solstice, the amount of sunlight decreases gradually daily.)

Contrary to what most people think, the Baptist’s followers celebrated his memory at least 20 years after John’s death. People were aware that there was a relationship between the Baptist and Jesus, John’s Kinsman, now called the Messiach, the Christos, the Christ, by His followers, now called Christians.

St Luke had to address the confusion in his Gospel-Acts of the Apostles, with the introduction of the Infancy Accounts of both John and Jesus. In every case, in the opening chapter of the Gospel, St Luke stresses that Jesus is greater than John. 1) Zechariah, John’s father, did not believe Gabriel’s message. Mary was, at first, dubious but responded with her Fiat, “Let it be done unto me according to your word.”)

2) John’s conception was unusual (to aged parents), but not unheard of in the biblical tradition; Jesus’ conception is a virginal conception. (This comes in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in the Greek Old Testament, “The Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call Him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us’).”

3) When Mary visited Elizabeth to see the sign of her pregnancy, St Luke tells us that the unborn child, John, leaped for joy in the womb of his mother. Elizabeth says to Mary in humility, “Who am I that the Mother of my Lord shall come to me?” Don’t doubt it! Jesus is greater than John.

The names of the characters in this beautiful Advent chapter of Luke’s Gospel are fraught with meaning. Zechariah means “YHWH has remembered (me)”. Elizabeth means “God is the One to put your money on.” Mary or Miriam means “noble woman”. John means “free gift from God”. Jesus means, “YHWH, help (us).”

Many peoples celebrate this joyous day honoring their special patron. He is the patron of Quebec and Puerto Rico and many other places. There are only three birthdays on our Catholic liturgical calendar each year. We honor Jesus, Mary and their kinsman, St John the Baptist, who prepared the Way of the Lord.”

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Weekly Reflection 061707AD

Sunday, June 17, 2007AD

11^th Sunday in Greentime

Joanna Who?

There is an opinion that Pope Benedict wrote his best selling book, Jesus of Nazareth, as a commentary of the media hype over the DaVinci Code, a few years ago. The Pope says that the book represents his personal search for the face of Jesus. Hopefully, just as many would read the Pope’s book as mindlessly gobbled up Dan Brown’s book. (Do you ever feel that you might have been taken?)

The crucial figure of Mary Magdalene appears in our Gospel this weekend. Recall, please – THE WOMAN IN THE FIRST PART OF THE READING IS NOT MARY MAGDALENE. Dan Brown probably knew that when he wrote the book, but what difference when you are laughing all the way to the bank!

Sadly, the second part of the Gospel today is really charged with food for thought, but manipulated minds might not be capable. St Luke tells us that Jesus had cast out seven demons from the Magdalene. This is quaint, but bizarre language in the opinion of many post moderns. Yet, the use of demons in Scriptures also indicated in many cases, whatever obsesses us and keeps us from focusing on what is truly human. Who can deny that many individuals, families, groups and communities might be described as obsessed and not focused on what is truly human. The demonic today might mean addictions, compulsions and enmeshments that beset individuals and groups. How frequently, honest, yet obsessed people might say to themselves, “If only I (or we) could rise above this all.” Such might involve mindless concern for possessions, power, pleasure, prestige. (Some even are adding petroleum as addictive!) The possibility of Jesus’ empowering Mary Magdalene to snap out of it, see reality as it really is, smell God’s coffee, and in the process, get a new life makes the statement about her neither quaint nor bizarre at all. With Jesus’ Help, individuals and cultures could do the same.

However, there is another lady mentioned in the Gospel today, viz., Joanna, the wife of King Herod’s steward, Chuza, …who provided for them out of their resources.

Whoever the lady was, she was not a marginalized figure. Her husband was on Kings Herod’s payroll. There were a few shekels in her change purse. Joanna could be described as a middle class wife of a management figure in her day. However, here, St Luke describes her as a part of the growing “Jesus Movement” who will soon be on their way up to Jerusalem for the great events to occur then. An unescorted wife following an itinerant preacher must have raised some eyebrows. In addition, she is picking up part of the tab! One might wonder what evil spirit or malady Jesus cast out from her that caused such life-altering behavior modification! Something more is going on in this story, than meets the eye.

St Luke tells us that Joanna continued on the way up to Jerusalem. In fact, he names her (and Mary Magdalene) among the ladies who arrive at Jesus’ empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning and who announce the empty tomb to the rest of the Jesus Movement. (The group did not believe the women.) St Luke tells that several women who had come up to Jerusalem were there when the Spirit gave birth to the Church on Pentecost morning, c. 30 AD.

Pope Benedict writes of these ladies. “Yet Luke makes clear—and the other Gospels also show it in all sorts of ways -- that “many women” belonged to the more intimate community of believers and that their faith-filled following of Jesus was an essential element of that community, as would be vividly illustrated at the foot of the Cross and at the Resurrection.”

The person of Joanna, the wife of Chuza, recovering because of Jesus from an addictive pathology, has slipped under the radar screen for most folks. She represented the un-convention mores of Jesus and His Movement. Obviously, we focused on Mary Magdalene because of her greater prominence in the Gospels. However, imagine what Dan Brown (or a committed Christian woman) might do with the figure of Joanna in reflecting on the role of women in the Jesus Movement then (and now, as well.) 061707AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 061007AD

Sunday, June 10, 2007AD

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi

Pope Benedict has made the NYT non-fiction bestseller list (#4, last Sunday!) with Jesus of Nazareth. It is a beautifully written book that, apparently, many are enjoying. It is not beach reading. However, it might be worth your while to read some of it slowly as often as you can. (Put away the “Chicken Soup for …” books. Become re-acquainted with Christ Jesus.) You will know Jesus and our new Pope a lot better. Give it a try.

In five different parts of the book, Pope Benedict speaks of the centrality of “bread” in saga of Jesus:

1) when the Tempter challenges Jesus to change stones into bread; 2) when Jesus distributes the loaves and the fish; 3) when Jesus teaches us to pray for “our daily bread”; 4) when Jesus changes the bread into His Body (Corpus Christi) at the Last Supper; 5) when Jesus self-refers as the “Bread of Life” in the Gospel of John.

Pope Benedict brings together several of these scenes in a reflection on the scene of today’s Gospel. The Hebrew word for bread, lehem,has several meanings. First, it means simply “bread”. However, it also translates as “food”, as “sustenance”, as “whatever buys our bread,viz.,money”.

However, Pope Benedict sees a deeper meaning when one uses lehem in a Jesus context. Now, the word means whatever sustains us in our total life. Christians, in general, remember that an image that Jesus used to self-describe was the “Bread of Life.” Catholics have always seen the word in a Eucharistic context, as we have prayed the Lord’s Prayer before reception of Holy Communion since at least 100AD. Even more, Pope Benedict says that Jesus’ Bread is whatever needs that God supplies us in Christ Jesus for a totally and fully human life.

In another place in his book, Pope Benedict ties together the use by Jesus of the word “Our” in the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer as well as in the bread petition. Jesus teaches us to acknowledge God as our (common) Father. If only our human family would take seriously that God is our Father and Eve is our mother and Christ Jesus is our Elder Brother! Then, the bread petition takes on a deeper meaning. What person would leave a sister or brother hungry at table? Pope Benedict sees a connection here between the uses of lehem. Our Father supplies whatever we need as our sustenance in Christ Jesus for a fully human life. Part of our response to God’s largesse in a variety of ways is to be generous in our sharing God’s gifts with others, all our siblings, all our brothers and sisters. Quoting St Cyprian, the Pope says that we cannot ask for our own daily bread and forget those who have no bread themselves.

“Bread” is a charged symbol, in most traditional human societies. As we celebrate Corpus Christi today, let us thank God for God’s Bread. Let us commit ourselves to receive the gift gratefully and sacramentally each week. Let us remember that “our daily bread” offers in our human family. 061007AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 060307AD

Sunday, June 3, 2007AD

Trinity Sunday

You Can’t Make This Up!!

800 years ago, St Bonaventure said, “Everything is a thumbprint or a footprint of God”. Believers, now as ever, look at the beauty of creation, at dawn or at any time, to experience what is called “God’s primordial revelation.” Each day and the wonders that it brings is God’s Present to us; hence, we call it “The Present.”

800 years ago, as well, Meister Eckhardt, a German Dominican theologian, used three simple images to serve as metaphors for the Mystery of the Holy Trinity Whom we celebrate today. 1) The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father in return; the Love between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 2) The Father enjoys the Son; the Son enjoys the Father; the enjoyment between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 3) The Father dances with the Son; the Son dances with the Father; the Dance of the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit.

The image of the Dancing Trinity, surprisingly, is an ancient one in Church History. The Greek Fathers of the Church spoke of the Trinity as a Perichoresis , viz., A dancing around. (Do you see the etymology of the word “chorus” in the Greek term?)

From our earliest days, we have learned that each person is created in the image and likeness of God. Our catechisms taught us that our ability to know and to love was our divine likeness. While maintaining the same teaching, another spin on the words of Genesis 1 interprets the biblical quote from divine to human. 1) If the three persons of the Trinity are all equal, then, every human person is equal to one another. 2) If the three persons of the Trinity are relational, then, every human person thrives in relationship. 3) If ultimately, the three Persons of the Trinity are incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively), then every human person is ultimately incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively, even by oneself!)

Fr Karl Rahner said that most Christians live our lives without any reference to the Trinity. Skeptics have made jest of it throughout the years.

However, these days, in Catholic Quantum theology, we remember that the cosmos, the macro-universe appears to be in an orbital relationship. We recall that the atom, the micro-universe, is in orbital relationship as well. Our Catholic thought has always taught that God is relational. Now, we see that not only humanity (the pinnacle of God’s creation) thrives in relationship, so also does reality in its outermost and innermost dimensions. God thrives in us and we thrive in God.

Everyone remembers the vignette of St Augustine’s realizing that it would be easier to pour the Mediterrean Sea into a hole on the beach than to grasp the Mystery of God, One in Three. Still, following St Bonaventure and Meister Eckhardt and Karl Rahner and St Augustine, we rejoice and live in the Holy Mystery because the Holy Mystery rejoices and lives in us. 052707AD jfq