Weekly Reflection 123007AD

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2007AD

FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

A Whole—y Human Family!!

Every year on the Sunday after Christmas, we celebrate the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. All of us know that we can never emulate the a-typical family from Nazareth, but we are urged to try to live to be “holier” families. (FYI, the words “holy and “whole” and “wholistic” and “ healing” are all related etymologically in old English. The root word means, “integrated, fulfilled, at one” et al.) None of our families will ever reach that point, but that does not mean that we cannot try to make our families more integrated, fulfilled, at one, holy, whole and wholistic.

Each of the Scriptures today speak to each family in different ways. It is up to each family to ask how we measure up in 2007AD.

In his New Year’s Message for Peace this year, Pope Benedict nuances the very meaning of the word “family’ in the Third Millennium. His point is based on the Quantum insight that all is interconnected. The individual family is related to the global family; the global family is related to the individual family.

Bringing together into one synthesis, several contemporary concerns, Pope Benedict entitles his New Year’s Message, The Human Family, A Community of Peace. Is he talking about the individual human family and/or the entire human family? Is he talking about the individual and/or the entire human family as a community of peace?

In a reference to healthy family life, Pope Benedict writes, “We experience some of the fundamental elements of peace: justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, loving concern for weaker family members because of youth, sickness or old age, mutual help in life’s necessities, readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them.” Every individual family certainly has food for thought on that sentence alone! To these words, Pope Benedict adds the caveat that if children do not learn these patterns within families, one might wonder where they would ever learn them.

Then, he speaks of humanity as one great family, committed to the same values that he enumerated above for individual families. Next, in a tangent, he writes, “The human family …dwells in that common house which is the earth.”

Important that it is within the banner of the human family, the global family needs to exercise a stewardship of the earth’s energy resources, as well as reassessment of high consumption levels by some and the investment in research for alternate sources of energy and energy efficiency. In addition, he speaks of three problem areas with our human family, 1) the problems on Africa, about which few seem to care, 2) the ongoing conflicts and violence in the Middle East, 3) increasing number of groups engaged in the arms race with a special sad emphasis on nuclear weapons.

(Sadly, too many focus on some of the “neuralgic” verses in this weekend’s readings. Feminist theologians have interpreted them correctly in the context of the third generation of the Jesus Movement in the first century of the New Testament. Reading between the lines, these ladies do not have some of the difficulties which others have.)

Pope Benedict’s New Year’s Message might be a reminder that other issues also concern us when we reflect on the individual and/or human family as a community of peace. One important add-on with this Holy Family Sunday is to think not only of one’s own family here and now, but the intergenerational ramifications of all of this for one’s own grandchildren and great grandchildren. As Quantum theologians remind us, everything is connected and nothing is wasted by the God of Life and Love. Things done or undone today will have implications for generations to come.

Psychologists and anthropologists have long seen a connection working both ways between individuals (--) families (--) community.

Each entity influences the other either positively or negatively. (St Augustine hinted at this when he wrote De Civitate Dei (the City of God) back in the fifth century. He said that a community is as good or as bad or as indifferent depending on the aggregate conduct of its individuals.

In the twenty-first century, Pope Benedict and others are “up-ing” the ante by suggesting that it is the entire human family now that constitutes one’s family. In his New Year’s Message, Pope Benedict makes a brilliant leap from the conduct and structure of families (yours and mine) to the conduct and structure of the family of the human race.

Each individual family and the entire human family should realize that we are all family, whether we care to admit or not. God is the Father of that family. Sacramentally, our Father invites us to table and to share meals with one another. Catholics are called to let all know that we all are called. Let our behavior as NY Catholics in the New Year impress others to come to the same insight. God bless the whole world (our human family and our home) – no exceptions!!! 123007AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 122307AD

Sunday, December 23, 2007AD

4^th Sunday of Advent

It’s Foster Father’s Day

Every Advent, we pause on reflect on the Fourth Sunday, just before Christmas, to reflect on the fulfillment of the Prophet Isaiah’s words in the Greek Old Testament, “The virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son. His name will be Emmanuel, viz., God with us.” However, this year’s Gospel is St Joseph’s reaction to the news of the Virgin Birth.

Joseph’s dilemma concerned his love for Mary and his righteousness as an observant Jew about Mary’s status as a putative outlaw of the Torah. His decision was to divorce Mary quietly, so that they both could get on with their lives.

However, in days of stricter Torah interpretation, Mary would have been in really big trouble. Theoretically, her violation could have brought public humiliation and execution. (In the news today, we hear how women in some cultures are treated more punitively than men, when caught in an illicit liaison.)

St Joseph’s dilemma was his love for his bride and his commitment to Torah. St Matthew tells us that compassion was intended to triumph over Law because of his plan. However, the Annunciation to St Joseph in today’s Gospel obviates the problem. This was, indeed, a good man.

Child psychologists tell us that children’s earliest ages (from birth to 5) can be most formative in terms of self-imagery, God-imagery and one’s place in the world. There is no reason to think that such was not the case with St Joseph and his foster-child. The first person that Jesus would have addressed as Abba, Dada, was St Joseph, his foster father. Later, Jesus was so comfortable with the word that He teaches us still to address God as Abba. Jesus must have had a very positive self-image and God image that somehow was mediated through the love and care of his foster father.

Theologians tell us that the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of St Anne (dealing with Mary’s conception without original sin in the womb of her mother) is really an expression of the idea that Jesus turned out so well, that it had to be due to the positive environment in which He dwelt in Nazareth. One might add that the use of the word “righteous” by St Matthew in today’s Gospel is an inspired way to say the same about the positive influence of Jesus’ foster father. (The only other person called righteous in St Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus Himself when Mrs Pilate tells her husband to have nothing to do with that righteous man.

Many comment on the beating that fathers frequently take in conventional wisdom these days. Many feel that many traditional institutions, such as marriage, have undergone a scrutiny that would not have been imaginable before 1968, seen as a critical watershed even earlier that Tom Brokaw’s new book. A few years ago, a book appeared, entitled Fatherless America, which theorized that the fading role of some Dads, for myriad reasons, some quite legitimate, was a germane problem to American culture because it ultimately was concerned with the traditional family, the cell of any society.

No doubt, the Holy Family was a-typical. No family could match the triad of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. However, it is appropriate that we see the husband of Mary, the foster father of the Son of God Incarnate, as an admirable example of spouse and head of household. Righteous and compassionate, with compassion on the ascent. As most cultures know, the role of the father is formative of the child’s self-imagery, God imagery, and one’s role in life. In the baptismal liturgy we all hear that the father, with his wife, will be the first teachers of the children in the ways of faith and hope. How important it is for parents who seriously want a religious formation for their children to realize that values are caught, not taught, particularly in the home, hopefully called the domestic church. Sad when parents drop kids off at religious education and then, drive off at dismissal time without any participation in the Sunday Eucharist. Even sadder are examples of when families attend Mass as a group, only when grandparents are visiting. Values are caught, not taught. St Joseph would tell us to listen to the seriousness of those words. Hopefully, many more will. 122307AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 121607AD

Sunday, December 16, 2007AD

3^rd Sunday of Advent

(Gaudete Sunday)

Jack the Dipper -- Back Again!!

Today we have our encore visit from the Messiah’s Warm-Up Man. Last Sunday, we heard a synopsis of the John the Baptist’s message on the banks of the Jordan about the perils of “beige Judaism” in the 1st century (and we add, “beige Catholicism” in the 21^st century.)

This week, the imprisoned Baptist sends two of his representatives to ask Jesus whether or not Jesus is the “One Who is to come.” Jesus gives a typical response by reminding John’s envoys what has been happening with Jesus’ arrival. In fulfillment of the vision of Isaiah in our first reading this weekend, “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk”. However, Jesus adds two others. “The dead are raised and the poor hear the Gospel”One would expect that the mightiest acts of all would be mentioned last. What is mightier than the dead’s being raised? Yet, there is, according to the young Jesus, “the poor hear the Gospel.”

Now, anthropologists help biblical scholars understand the world out of which the Scriptures, both Hebrew and Christian, emanated. In Jesus’ world, probably as high as 95% of the population were sharecroppers and/or tenant farmers. Most people lived from hand to mouth. They had less than warm feelings for any of those who controlled the situation, whether it was the Romans, their collaborators in Herod’s clique or their flunkies, who did the clique’s bidding.

Jesus’ outreach was to the 95% who lived a tough existence daily. (Their lot in life has been compared to the majority of people who live in Central America.) It was to such, then and now, that Jesus proclaimed the Gospel (Good News??) to them. Jesus taught them that in Jesus’ arrival and establishment of the Kingdom of God, things could and would ultimately be different. Things could be different already in one’s own mind and heart if one followed what Mohandas Gandhi said, “If you want the Kingdom even sooner, then try to be the person who lives the Kingdom values daily.”

Gandhi meant to be encouraging, but sadly, many would feel discouragement. One should be reminded that when we are young, we want to change the world. As we mature, then, we hope to change ourselves. What Jesus and Gandhi tell us, try it and see!

Last month, Pope Benedict published his encyclical, “Spe Salvi, Saved by Hope.” The Pope says that faith and hope are basically the same gift from God. Someone faithful is hopeful; someone hopeful is faithful. He specifies three types of faith-hope: 1) informative faith-hope, “What is it that the gift of faith-hope teaches me?” 2) transformative faith, “How am I different because of faith-hope?”; 3) performative faith, “How am I making a difference in this world by my faith-hope?”

The Pope rues the fact that sadly, even the Church itself has bought into an individualistic view of faith. Jesus proclaims a message with worldly implications. Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God has sadly, for many, morphed into a “me and my JC” individualistic faith. The Pope feels that Karl Marx was sadly correct that religion in the West had become an opiate for the masses, not the vision that Jesus proclaimed with the Advent of the Kingdom. The Pope says, “Christian hope is not individualistic. Rather, we are social in nature; so, we hope in a social context.”

In a world where stratification between rich and poor grows because of unchallenged globalization (called gobblization by some) and where protestors are viewed as enemies, rather than champions of the poor, Jesus’ words, “The Good news is proclaimed to the poor is not a reference to pie in the sky, but to honest efforts in tandem with the Gospel vision of the Kingdom of God, even now, not yet, to make things better for your children. 121607AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 120907AD

December 9, 2007AD

Second Sunday of Advent

Are You Talking to Me?

One of our familiar Advent companions makes his annual appearance in our Liturgy of the Word today. We do not hear from Jesus in our Gospel today, but His warm-up man is on the scene, setting the stage. St John the Baptist is back and reminds us that complacency is a pax perniciosa, viz., a dangerous peace.

Our culture is rapidly changing in the Third Millennium. Yet, most people are so busy and occupied with the frenetic pace of life. (This season of Advent has deteriorated into the Christmas Rush, as usual. Is this December that different for most of us than Decembers past?)

Good people get caught up in the “pax perniciosa”, we are moving with such momentum that we do not even know it. We even have great excuses because of the fast pace of our lives. Still, the Baptist challenges us with the need to get our acts together; Jesus provides the Energy and the Agenda for what we need to do. In his recent encyclical, Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope), the Pope rues the fact that religion has become so individual and lost our communal ramifications. Perhaps, St John’s blasting and Pope Benedict’s lament can turn us on to the Gospel of Jesus (maybe for the first time).

Yes, the culture is changing. Finally, we are waking up to the reality of global warming (at least, most are waking up.) Most Americans Catholics are realizing that there is a basic absurdity with the fact that we are involved in a seemingly endless war (in violation of Catholic teaching) involving untold lives and billions (some are saying trillions) of dollars, when there are unresolved problems with health care for tens of millions of Americans as well as the rebuilding of a city devastated by Katrina. In addition, when politicians in both parties debate whether waterboarding constitutes torture, does anyone suggest “Try it and see”? Most realize that the drop of the dollar’s value vis a vis the Euro indicates that something is not right.

Catholics believe that Christ Jesus is already here and lives in us. Yet, John the Baptist reminds us that there is a deepening, a new coming, of Jesus into our lives that we should always anticipate. Jesus is here even now, but not yet! We await His Advent.

Fr Albert Nolan, a South African priest, recently published a book, Jesus Today. He describes 4 characteristics of adults in the 21^st century. 1) He speaks of the absolute need for every human person to acknowledge that each person is geared to Transcendence. (God is meant for all, not for some.) 2) He speaks of our need to realize that “rugged individualism” is an unhealthy value both for individuals and nations addicted to “unilateralism” 3) He speaks of our need to recognize that groundswells for change are growing from below. Global warming groups, peace groups, human rights’ activists are here to stay, and established institutions need to listen to their “critical thought”. 4) Finally, he speaks of the need to see that quantum physicists are recovering the traditional Catholic notion of the universe. Everything is, indeed, connected and related, one of the principal meanings of the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

We need the Baptist to shake us up yearly to remind us 1) to snap out of it; 2) to get a new life – view; 3) to smell God’s coffee. Re-discover (maybe for the first time) the programmatic of Jesus, God’s World Order (not ours), the Kingdom of God. (When politicians say that Jesus is too smart to run for President, there is more truth to it than meets the eye.)

John the Baptist did not bother to go into the towns and villages of Palestine back then. He insisted that the people go out to him. He insisted that even the good people who bothered to go to listen to the prophet by the Jordan, who called them a “brood of vipers”.

American theologian, Fr Richard Rohr suggests that all of us should 1)find time for silence, solitude and slowing down, because God lives in us and we live in God, even now, but not yet, but we are too busy to realize it; 2) should try to go Jesus’ Way in conflict resolution, a loving (rather than antagonistic)response to difficulties; 3) should try to take responsibility for our actions (not to fall victim to therapeutic victimization (blaming others all the time for why I am not happy; 4) should do something to make the world better, even on the local scale.

The Baptist and Pope Benedict (and Jesus) would heartily agree. Think globally and act locally and globally to proclaim “God’s World Order is coming even now, not yet.” 120907AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 120207AD

Sunday December 2, 2007AD

First Sunday of Advent

It’s Jesus Knocking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a famous painting of Jesus’ knocking on the door with no doorknob, seeking entrance to the house. The artist meant the painting that way, because he wanted to stress that one can only admit Jesus into one’s life from the inside.

It is during Advent which we begin today that Christians are reminded that Christ is always knocking on the doors of our hearts. It is always Advent. Christ wants us to live with fervor, expectation, patience and longing that no matter how intense our relationship is with Him already that we can always allow Him to deepen our relationship. We live in Christ Jesus even now, but not yet.

Sadly, so much of the news was preoccupied the day after Thanksgiving with the sad scene of a herd mentality, when thousands, for whatever reasons, are programmed, like Pavlov’s dogs, to storm shopping malls for “holiday bargains.” Such may be good for the economy. (No matter how we jump through the hoop, someone is still disappointed.) However, is it good for those involved or their world?

Psychologists tell us that the earliest childhood needs are security, esteem and control. As we grow up, please God, we learn to meet those needs in terms of our relationships with our family and our world. However, some never get out of the childhood mode. Sadly, when a group or nation make security, esteem and control their overall drive, there can be a re-enforcement of these childhood drives, which causing an addicted, compulsed, entangled milieu, leading to greater pathology.

750 years ago, Blessed Juliana of Norwich wrote that there were three drives that impelled people to go off the deep end frequently. 1)There is the drive to competition, viz., I or we are numero uno. 2) There is the drive to comparison, viz., I or we are better than you are. 3) There is the drive to contrariness, viz., someone else is at fault because I am not so happy as I would like. The English mystic could be writing today, when one thinks about it.

Christ Jesus, ever patient, is knocking at the doors of our hearts again as we begin a new church year. He asks us in the year of grace ahead to “smell God’s coffee, to snap out of it, to get a new worldview.” He invites us out of the addicted milieu in a variety of ways. The principal way in which He invites us is through the Christ Quantum, the Christ Vibrational Field, the Christ Force Field (aka the Church). He urges us 1) to draw closer to Him in Christian Community, 2) to listen more closely, with a discerning ear, to what He says in our Scriptures, His Word, 3) to allow Him to be more united to us through the sacramental life of the Church.

While it is always Advent, Catholics tend to see these Sundays in December as a New Year of Grace, associating Resolutions with the New Year. 1) Try to make sure that we attend Mass every Sunday. In addition, do yourself a favor and come and sit in the church for about 20 minutes each week in down time. The custom is to visit Santa in the malls. Come, visit the “Reason for the Season” on His home turf.2) Try to be on time for Mass. Sadly, too many consistently come late to Mass and frequently miss most of the readings (the Liturgy of the Word). It is almost as if one is saying by such consistent behavior that one does not need to hear this. I know it already. However, it could also be construed as a disregard for the Word or a disregard for others who are there on time to hear the Word. (Young parents with children, we are not talking about you here!!) 3) Make every effort to receive Holy Communion weekly. Get to confession during the Advent season. (Surprisingly, many younger folks have not been to confession in 20 or 25 years sometimes, although they are regular Churchgoers. (Don’t be afraid! The priests here at St Patrick’s are always happy when you come to penance, no matter the time frame.)We offer opportunities for penance throughout Advent. Parents, bring your kids! Kids, bring your parents!

Our human family is still a long way from the fulfillment of the vision in our first reading today from Isaiah. Remember we can’t change the world; with God’s Help, we can change ourselves. We need to respond to Jesus’ knocking on our heart’s door. In addition, all it takes is one great opening, such as St Augustine found out in his long journey to faith. Our second reading today from Romans was the reading that Christ used to knock on the door of St Augustine’s heart loudly enough for his response.

The Gospel tells us that while it is always Advent, we still know not the day nor the hour when the Lord will come. Even now, but not yet, Christ knocks on our doors. Let us use this season of grace to be watchful and be prepared for the Lord.. We won’t be disappointed. 120207AD jfq