Weekly Reflection 033008AD

Sunday March 30, 2008AD

Second Sunday of Easter

Doubting Thomas Sunday

What’s in a Word?

Quite fortuitously, as NY Catholics anticipate the visit next month of the Vicar of St Peter, the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict, we hear excerpts these Easter Sundays from the first papal encyclical, the First Letter of St Peter.

St Peter’s successor comes to address the United Nations and to greet the Jesus Movement here at the capital of the World (aka the Big Apple) on our 200^th anniversary of formation as a diocese.

Many describe Catholicism these days as living in a post-Christian era since the watershed events of the twentieth century. Imagine how Catholicism would be today if Blessed (soon to be, St) John XXIII had not responded to the call of the Holy Spirit in convening Vatican II? The Spirit only began an evolutionary process which continues today.

Some see an interesting parallel between this post-Christian era with the first centuries of the Church, viz., the pre-Christian era, from Jerusalem in 30 AD until the legitimization and ascendancy of the Church in fourth century Rome. The marginalization of Catholicism these days mirrors the marginalization of the first followers of Jesus. We, like they, live on the fringes of conventional wisdom of Western civilization, not the center.

Then and now, Catholics are out of step in so many ways with culture. We affirm a Gospel of Life amid a world that, at times, glorifies individualism and self-aggrandizement. Catholics challenge and do not accept the violent solution as a “quick fix” to problems. With the endless downward spiral in the Middle East as well as two very long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Catholics are starting to heed more seriously the call of Vatican II and recent Popes that humanity must come up with some new answers to conflict resolution. Many Catholics realize now that they should have listened to Pope John Paul and Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), instead of Donald Rumsfeld and clique. Catholics also stress as part of our tradition of concern for our sisters and brothers as germane to the Gospel. Catholics realize that others use similar language and slogans as we do. However, they might not mean the same thing to them as they do to Catholics. Yet, in all of this, we Catholics still sin whenever we do not always practice what we preach. Catholics still need to be forgiven. We are a people that is forgiven and needs forgiveness, a people that are reforming and in need of reformation.

On these Easter Sundays, we hear from Pope Benedict’s predecessor. (There are good arguments, pro and con, about St Peter’s actual authorship. ) The letter has a great deal of imagery to encourage Christians in a world in which they find increasing alienation because of their commitment to Christ and their higher moral standards.

In today’s reading, we are reminded that our faith is such that it is, at times, tested. However, we are to be reminded that God’s gift of salvation is a prize worth the aggravation.

The word that the author uses to describe Christians is the word “paroikoi”, which means, among other things, “colonists”. Christians live in the world, but our real homeland is our life with God even now, and in the future. Colonists in this world, our true home is our ultimate life with God in eternity.

(The word “paraoikoi” also is an etymological root for the word for parish. Recall that we can refer to our parish church as our “other home”. However, in this reference, the other home is your residence. )

The use of the word “paraoikoi” as colonist in the sense in which Peter’s letter uses it makes us more aware of the transitory nature of reality. We are here. Our life each day is an experience of the Transcendent if we see with the eyes of faith. Jesus asks us to live each day with the realization that God keeps us in existence from moment to moment to moment. Jesus asks us to live edifying lives so that if we are ever challenged, it will be for doing what is right in God’s eyes. Jesus asks us to live as colonists in a world that frequently de-values human life, that stresses success more than fidelity to a true humanity, that stresses the individual at the expense of others. Jesus asks us to live the values of the Kingdom of God and to make the world freer from violence, hunger, cruelty, injustice, inhumanity.

Still, we fail, as individuals and as community. The message of Jesus continues to be perseverance. We paraphrase of Matthew’s Beatitude. “Blessed is that person who acknowledges, with God’s Help, that God (not EGO or WEGO) is the center of one’s life, for that person is moving in the right direction.”

Peter, in the first and in the twenty-first centuries, encourages Christians to weather the storm of alienation in a community that is looking in other directions for whatever reasons. He urges his audience, then and now, to snap out of illusion, to accept forgiveness for our sins, to live Gospel lives, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, viz., that we all are family, favored, flawed, fallen and forgiven from the housetops. In these difficult days, Peter’s words have a distinct relevance for all of us, particularly NY Catholics. 033008AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 032308AD

Sunday, March 23, 2008AD

Easter Sunday

First Sunday of Easter

The Motor Keeps Going!

This is the Day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is one of the hymns that our first Communicants and their families sing at their big day in May. Our parish deliberately schedules our two sacraments of initation, in addition to baptism, during the Fifty Days of Easter. This Friday evening, March 28, Bishop Dennis Sullivan visits for Confirmation for our ninth grade candidates; on Saturday morning, May 3, we celebrate First Holy Communion.

However, we need to think differently. For a Catholic, every day is Easter, when you believe in Christ Jesus. Since the insights of Albert Einstein as well as the Quantum Physicists of the Twentieth Century, space and time and matter and energy are all related. It is hard for us to imagine, but scientists tell us that we need space and time as co-ordinates to orient our universe. God sees things differently. We need space and time; God does not. Humbling and encouraging at the same time.

When we think of what Jesus experienced that first Holy Week, we feel the paradox of the Paschal Mystery, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, in which all reality participates. Jesus experienced acclamation by the crowds on Palm Sunday. Later that week, he experienced a change of fortunes when he was betrayed and denied and abandoned by His closest followers. He experienced kangaroo courts by both institutional church and state. There were moments when He felt fear and seeming abandonment by God the Father. On Good Friday, all appeared to be lost. However, there was another chapter.

While Jesus mentioned resurrection and did resuscitations, as He did with Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain, it was not the center of His program. Jesus’ proclamation was the Nearness of God’s World Order in His person. To use modern argot, even His closest followers did not catch His drift. The resurrection was a surprise.

Yet, what they experienced in The Risen One after the third day was a transformational experience. Something happened to St Peter and the 12. The big talker who ended up denying Jesus. The others were cowering in hiding for fear of repercussions after Good Friday. The unexpected breakthrough had occurred and things were never the same. In the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection of Jesus becomes the Motor driving the Jesus Movement for 2000 years and is what brings us together today. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

What to say? Blessed John Duns Scotus said that God allowed the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus to convince us how much God loved us. Blessed Juliana of Norwich said that God allowed the worst thing in the world to happen so that the best thing in the world to happen (in the very same action)!! St Catherine of Genoa said that God had to allow the death and Resurrection of His Son; if there were any other way, why would God want this?

The pattern of death and Resurrection is the pattern of the universe. St Paul tells us that Jesus is the archetype of creation. Everything and everyone experiences life, descent and transformed life. It just happens to us so up close that we don’t realize it.

The motor of the Resurrection keeps the Jesus Movement moving along, despite our sins and failures. The Church is God’s Family; we are all favored by God; we are all flawed; we all fall at times into sin; we are all forgiven. Our job is one of inclusive election, viz., to proclaim that all people are included in this paradigm. Christians are the ones who realize it and are called to spread the good news. Sometimes, we do well; sometimes, we do not.

French philosophe, Francois Voltaire, said that the Church had to have a divine and human source . Otherwise, it would not have lasted. John Lennon said 40 years that the Beatles would be around a lot longer than Jesus. (John was wrong about that!) Late night comics add their mean-spirited two cents daily.

Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, one of NY’s great gifts to Catholicism, a candidate now for sainthood, said that the church has great flaws, but it brings Jesus to us. She caught the Scandal of the Incarnation. Most Catholics, in good faith, do as well.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the Motor that keeps the Tradition alive. What the Quantum theologians now tell us is that the Risen One now longer needs the relativity of space and time. Christ Jesus is immanent and transcendent (within and beyond the Universe). Space and time are relative for us.

Catholics believe that God the Father and Christ Jesus are everywhere; we believe that we are somewhere. Therefore, we believe that God the Father and Christ Jesus in us. (Recall the Baltimore catechism teaching that we are temples of the Holy Spirit!)

The Father and the Crucified and Risen One live in us and we live in the Father and Crucified and Risen One. The motor keeps running. Every day is the day that Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.!! Alleluia! Alleluia!! 032308AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 031608AD

Sunday, March 16, 2008AD

Palm Sunday

March in Which Parade?

We begin Holy Week today as we commemorate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. The vivid imagery stays in our minds and yet, more is going on than just an historical and liturgical re-enactment. The significance of Palm Sunday is archetypal in Catholic minds and hearts.

The historical background is clear enough. Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east and His followers and inhabitants of Jerusalem welcomed Him crying “Hosanna”. During the days that followed, Jesus symbolically derailed the Temple Establishment through His expulsion of the money changers in the Temple (90% of the commerce of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus had to do with the Temple trade.) The controversy with the Temple Establishment raised the hackles of the Roman authorities who probably decided that anyone who rocked the boat during Passover (a feast of liberation from slavery) would quickly become toast.

However, more was going on behind the scenes then (and NOW also!). There was another procession around that time as well, entering Jerusalem from the west. It would have been the retinue of Pilate who lived in another place, Caesarea, and would have gone up to Jerusalem to keep an eye on the action. Pilate represents Tiberius Caesar whose fascist empire was based on fear and violence. They called it the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace).

People therefore, had a choice in which procession to particpiate. Jesus came in from the east; Pilate came in from the west. Conventional wisdom then (and Now?) wavered after a few days. Where were the crowds from Palm Sunday with Jesus on Good Friday? Had they changed loyalties? One can only wonder.

Still, one can ask oneself about one’s own loyalties NOW. Where would I be on Palm Sunday? Where would I be on Good Friday?

In our Isaiah today, we hear a prophecy about a mysterious figure, an innocent Servant, who suffers in place of the guilty. Is the prophet referring to himself? An individual whom the prophet knew who fit the category? The people of Israel, persecuted throughout their history? Possibly the strange figure of the Messiah? (Very few opted for the last choice.)

In our second reading, we hear an early liturgical hymn that was sung by the Jesus Movement in Philippi (in northern Greece) as early as 55AD, 25 years after the death and the Resurrection of the Lord.) St Paul quotes the lyrics of the hymn as a way of teaching the Philippians (and us NOW) that “our attitude must be the attitude of Christ.”

He explains that Jesus lived a life of humility, obedience and relationship with others. He knew Who He was and, in humility and obedience, He emptied Himself and lived our life, even to death on the cross. His attitude should be our attitude. In Christ Jesus, St Paul tells us that we should live lives of kindness, forgiveness and compassion, as best we can.

The choice that is presented to us today and this week is to participate in one or the other

procession. Who is higher on our priority list? Caesar or Jesus? Quoting the prophet Zechariah, St Matthew tells us today that the king comes to Jerusalem, humbly (meekly) riding the foal of an ass. Christ the King does not come in triumph or awe or majesty. He comes in humility, obedience and a life lived for others. The same word that Zechariah used is the word that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the soil.” Jesus invites us in Matthew’s Gospel to learn from Him “Who is meek and humble of heart”. To be part of His retinue, He calls us empowering us to try to live with kindness, forgiveness and compassion.

Sadly, many try to hedge our bets.

St Paul tells his Philippian audience in another place that our true citizenship (allegiance) is in heaven. However, nobody can serve two masters, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. The choice comes down to “in whose parade will we participate – Caesar’s or Jesus’”? One carries weapons; the other carries a cross. You cannot march in two places at once. In which parade are you participating? 031608AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 030908AD

Sunday, March 9, 2008AD

Fifth Sunday of lent

Lazarus, et al.

The granddaddy of all Jesus’ miracles is our Sunday Gospel today as we continue to move relentlessly to Easter. In a prime example of the literary skill of the Fourth Evangelist, we hear how Jesus’ giving life to a dead man is going to hurdle Him, the Resurrection and the Life, to death Himself on Good Friday. However, believers know the final chapter to the saga. That chapter has radical life-changing implications for each of us. This is known as “Johannine (John’s) irony or multivalence.” People have faith have a different spin on life.

The last and the greatest of Signs that Jesus performed in the Fourth Gospel point to what Jesus can do for each of us if we allow Him. All the other Signs were good things. The wine from water at Cana, the royal official’s son, the ungrateful cripple at the pool of Bethesda, the walking on the water, the loaves and the fish, the gift of sight and faith to the blind man -- all were good things. Nobody has to fear when Jesus is on the scene. However, the gift of life itself is the greatest gift.

We, followers of Jesus, should always try to remember Life’s Three Noble Truths. 1) Life can get tough. We all experience the two hands of God at one time or another. The right hand of God showers blessings upon us for which we do not always say thanx often enough. However, the left hand of God challenges us with the disappointments, rejections, absurdities, failures, troubles and sadness. (The affluent in Western Civilization usually can avoid much of this for a while at least.) 2) Such bad things are a part of life. 3) Still, life is the greatest good even with the bad things. That’s Life!!

Jesus Self-refers today as the Resurrection and the Life. Words can’t grasp the meaning; that is why we need faith. Still, we need to remember a crucial facet of Christ Jesus, viz., the Incarnation. St John tells us today in this majestic story from the Gospel that, in the course of it, Martha tells Jesus off in no uncertain terms for his delay at coming. Next, St John tells us that Jesus’ stomach turned when He saw His friend’s tomb. Next, he tells that Jesus wept at the death of His friend. In essence, in one line in the Gospel, “God cried”. Next, St John tells us that Jesus’ prayer before raising Lazarus began with a shriek, a scream. Such conduct from the One Who is the Resurrection and the Life!

In the very beginning of the Gospel, St John tells us, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Incarnation challenges us to say yes to the Presence of God in a particular place in space and time, in Jesus of Nazareth. Theologians call the Incarnation, the Scandal of the Particular. The One at Whom Martha yells Who weeps, Whose stomach turns, Who screams and shrieks His prayer is God made human.

Catholics and all people need to recall that language about God is metaphorical at best. St Thomas Aquinas spoke of Deus Major

God is always greater than we can imagine.

God is always more unlike than like the way that we (try to) describe God. Each human person, created in the Divine Image, is incapable of total self-description. Both God and the human person are Mysteries, viz., infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable. However, we try.

In this very earthy story, the human mind cannot grasp the meaning of the words, “Resurrection” and “Life”. In truth, the more we use them, the more we need to clarify meanings. The word in Greek for Resurrection is Anastasis, (standing again); the woman’s name Anastasia is based on this. The words in Greek for life are Bios (physical life) and Zoe (life in its totality; the woman’s name, Zoe, is based on this. The Gospel uses Zoe, (life in its totality.)

A humble, human (both words etymologically connected to the Latin word, humus , soil) should rejoice that God Incarnate was castigated and felt human emotions in this story. Nevertheless, Christ Jesus proclaims, “ I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The Gospel today is a gigantic koan, a riddle both infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable. Still the koan promises us life and love forever in God. Try to go figure, but then, rejoice in the Holy Mystery. Some think Lazarus is the beloved disciple; others think it could be you and me. 030908AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 030208AD

Sunday, March 2, 2008AD

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Laetare Sunday

Could He Be You?

Long ago, biblical scholars saw two levels of the healing of the blind man in today’s Gospel. First, it describes the physical healing of a man who was born blind. Yet, in the story, more than physical sight is given. The man born blind was brought to the illumination of faith by Jesus as he gradually comes to accept Jesus as the Son of Man, even more, the Lord.

There are several words that the 4^th Evangelist uses for the verb “to see”. In John’s vocabulary, “to see” is a loaded term. It is an example of what is called Johannine Irony or Multivalence, viz., words have more than one meaning. Yes, the man received his physical sight, even though he never asked Jesus for the gift of sight. It was freely bestowed on him by the Divine Healer. However, in the upshot of the story, the man also received the Gift of Sight to see Who Jesus really is. As John Newton wrote 200 years in the hymn , “Amazing Grace”, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

The season of Lent was a 40 day period of intense preparation by catechumens (tyro-Christians) for the reception of the Sacraments of Initation, viz., Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, during the Easter Vigil, Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday.

One of the names by which Baptism was called in early Christianity was the “Sacrament of Illumination and Enlightenment.” The custom of lighting the small baptismal candle from the Paschal Candle is the vestige of this former sacramental name.

The healing of the blind man takes place bear a pool and it involves a washing with water. While Jesus only appears twice in the story, He is ever the Subject of the story because of the controversy over the identity of the Healer. While Jesus speaks to the man twice, the man sees Jesus once because he was still blind in the first encounter.

Curiously, the more grief is heaped upon the man, the more he calls Jesus “that man”, then, a “prophet”, then, “from God”, then,”Son of Man”, then, “Lord”. Like the Samaritan woman last week, the blind man’s faith develops because of the influence of Jesus. The blind man is a symbol of what we are all called to be as disciples of Jesus.

Late in the Fourth Gospel, we hear of the “beloved disciple”, one who is the model disciple, the one whom we are all called to be. Contrary to the DaVinci Code, Mary Magdalen appears along with the Beloved Disciple. (I bet Dan Brown knew it, but assumed you did not and would not check it out.)

Traditionally, the Fourth Gospel has been attributed to the Apostle John (hence, its unofficial name.) However, all the Gospels are anonymous documents. We are not sure of the identity of any of the evangelists. Some thought that the Apostle John was remaining anonymous in his self-description.

Another opinion is that perhaps, Lazarus, the dead man raised to life in John 11 was the beloved disciple. (This last of Jesus’ 7 signs is the immediate trigger which results in the death and Resurrection of Jesus.)Neither Lazarus nor the beloved disciple had been mentioned earlier.

Still, another opinion is that, perhaps, it is our hero, the blind man, in today’s Gospel, who is the beloved disciple. He is favorable presented in the Gospel as a Jewish disciple who receives initial illumination and enlightenment from Jesus (Whom he cannot see) near a pool of water. As the pressure mounts, his faith in Jesus grows. In the closing scene, he “sees” Jesus Who obviously loves him and Whom he obviously loves in return.

The question in the Gospel today is not, “Is the man born blind the beloved disciple?” Maybe yes or no. Rather, the real question is “Are you the beloved disciple?” 030208 AD jfq