Weekly Reflection 102608AD

Sunday, October 26, 2008AD

30^th Sunday in Greentime

The Greatest of All

Thomas Cahill wrote an excellent book several years ago, entitled The Gifts of the Jews. He spoke of the many contributions of the people of the Hebrew Bible to how we think and behave in the world. One thing that Cahill notes is the appeal that ancient Judaism had with its simplicity compared to other religions.

Israel saw, through divine inspiration, slowly, that there can only be one God. In the thousand year formative period of the Hebrew Bible, the Spirit of God brought the Chosen People to see the truth of monotheism.

In the revelation of the Sacred Name, YHWH, to Moses in Exodus 3, God Self-identifies with the Hebrew verb “to be”. God is the God of Life, all life, not some life.

In addition, the belief that each human person is created in the image and likeness of God, male and female, was not lost on people in the ancient world. No other religion or philosophy so enhanced human dignity in a world where society was stratified socially, economically, politically.

Then, too, when the Chosen People were enslaved in Egypt, their God, the God of Life, rescued them from oppression. What YHWH, the God of Life, was saying in essence is that God wants none to be oppressed.

Finally, when Israel neglected to respond to their commitment to the God Who had liberated them from oppression, their lack of response had other effects. If God were not taken seriously, neither would those created in God’s image and likeness be taken seriously either. Through the prophets, God challenged the people to total commitment to God as their Basic Security and the poor response to “love their neighbor as themselves”.

It came down to this with the prophets. God had inspired a religion of “ethical monotheism”, viz., if there be only one God, then, all are created in God’s image and likeness and are to be treated accordingly.

Jesus’ fusion of the Shema Y’israel (Hear, O Israel) (Deut 6) , the commandment of total love of God with the commandment of love of neighbor from Leviticus 18 speaks to us in very simple terms. Yet, in a society where God is not taken seriously (except when convenient and/or expedient), simplicity can be elusive. Bible history shows that a society that forgets obligations to God and neighbor is headed toward trouble. Consider the present!!

St Paul always considered himself a Jew even after his Damascus Road Conversion (c. 35 AD), about 5 years after the death and Resurrection of the Kyrios. He felt that Jesus’ Easter Triumph was God’s vindication of Jesus’ Gospel, that the “system was relativized” and not absolute (if Jesus is Kyrios or Lord, then nobody or nothing else was!!), that Christ’s death and Resurrection was a parable or statement showing us how much God loved everyone (no exceptions).

As a result, Paul, the pious Jew now a member of the nascent Jesus Movement within Judaism, saw religious rituals within Judaism, viz., Torah observance) as quaint, but not salvific. If you want to do those things, knock your socks off. However, the work of your salvation has been done already by the death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus. Members of the Jesus Movement (no matter what their pedigree) are saved by faith in what God has done for them in Christ Jesus. We show our response by living lives of gratitude, thanksgiving or Eucharist (the Greek word for thanksgiving!) through ethical monotheism. God wants us to show our thanx by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Pope John Paul spoke of the “eclipse of God” and the “eclipse of the human person.” in Western society. If God is not taken seriously, neither will the human person be taken seriously. If the person is not taken seriously, neither will God be taken seriously. Catholicism is a religion of ethical monotheism. Others call ethical monotheism “Kin-dom (sic) ethics”, “xenophilia (love of others)”,” faithjustice”. If we forget God, we forget people. If we forget people, we forget God. May we always, with God’s Help, act accordingly. Ethically consistent behavior on human life issues, crucial to USA Catholics, is needed now, more than ever, if “in God we trust.” 102608AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 101908AD

Sunday, October 19, 2008AD

29^th Sunday in Greentime

Getting It Together,

Then and Now!

In his very last work, Introduction to the New Testament , Fr Raymond Brown, a NY Catholic biblical scholar, left a legacy that anyone interested in the Christian Scriptures could pick, enjoy and understand!! Ranked with the best of them, Fr Brown, who died suddenly in 1996, at an early age, continued to teach us how to read and understand so much of what God says to us in the 27 books of the anthology known as the Christian Scriptures.

In his brief article on the earliest of St Paul’s letters, 1 Thessalonians, Fr Brown encourages all who read his pages and uses them in any way to celebrate and live the Word of God on an amazing observation. St Paul’s letter from which we hear today was probably written as early as 51AD to the Jesus Movement located in the northern Greek city, Thessalonika (still there today), where the Good News about Jesus had been proclaimed by St Paul within twenty years of the death and Resurrection of the Lord, dated c. 30AD.

More remarkable than anything else is that in the opening paragraph of the letter, St Paul mentions the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The Jesus Movement were conscious of the Mystery of God One in Three early on. They did not try to brush it under the table or not bring it up because of its density and inscrutability. True, the primitive Church held several ecumenical councils from Nicaea in 325 AD to Chalcedon in 451 AD to arrive at an acceptable formula for the Churches to celebrate the Holy Trinity. To this day, the Creed that emanates from these councils still unite the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox and many Protestant Churches!

In the early fifth century, three great theologians were alive simultaneously and puzzled over how to understand and teach the Holy Trinity to believers and unbelievers alike. St Patrick used the image of the shamrock; St Augustine used the image of the equilateral triangle; St Basil used the image of the circle.

None explains the Trinity adequately; in a sense, the three were all blindmen trying to describe the elephant they touch!

From St Paul’s first Trinitarian reference in today’s second reading, to the Spirit-driven ecumenical councils that most Christians still celebrate, filtered through the thoughts of St Patrick, St Augustine and St Basil, certain contours develop. First, God is Mystery, viz., infinitely knowable and unknowable simultaneously. (NB Not a copout when you think about it because you are a mystery infinitely knowable and unknowable simultaneously, even to yourself!!) Second, There is equality in God; the three Persons are equal to one another (NB. If there is equality in God, there should be equality among God’s children as well.) Third, God is Relational; the three Persons are in relationship with Each Other, Which is Their Life.) This doctrine of a relational God is called perichoresis (Greek for dancing around!!) Everything in the universe is relational, we are discovering. Should we be surprised?

Not long ago, one American theologian described Trinitarian Life as the paddles of a Mississippi steamboat, in which the paddles poured water continuously into the next paddle and moved the vessel. Another American Catholic theologian described God the Father as the Songwriter with a tune in formation in his or her mind; the Son was described as the written score of that tune; the Spirit is any rendition of the tune done by singer. We still

None of this bothered St Paul and the Thessalonian Christians. St Paul and his Jesus Movement saw reality in a three dome setting. The first dome is where the individual tries to identify who he or she is. The big question is “Who am I?” This is the search for personal meaning that people pursue. The second dome is where groups or cultures try to indentify who or what they are. The big question is “Who are we?” This is the search for group or cultural identity in which individuals find their meaning by the groups with which they are linked. This is when people overdo ethnicity, nationality, gender, etc. Sadly, most people never really pursue the Third Dome. This is the Reality that is imbued throughout by the Creator, the Sustainer, the Purpose of Reality, Whom we call God. The big question is “Who is ‘I am Who Am’”? To live a healthy life within all three domes, St Paul felt that all Reality had to be lived in Christ Jesus.

Whatever happened to St Paul in his conversion experience, we know that 1) he was a Jew; 2) he was a learned Jew; 3) he persecuted the Jesus Movement. In his conversion, St Paul came to see that Jesus, Who had been crucified by the system, the cabal of the Roman Empire and the Temple authorities, had been vindicated by God. Therefore, what Jesus said and did was true. Therefore, the system that had crucified God’s Son made human was relativized and de-stabilized. All reality stands under God’s sway, on God’s terms, not mine nor ours!

While St Paul and his Jesus Movement could not adequately described the nature of God, neither can we today. How consoling it is to realize that the doctrine of the Trinity which did not bother St Paul and his churches has become less bothersome in contemporary Catholicism when we find that even now, science is telling us in so many ways that everything St Paul wrote and said about Jesus and God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the very first paragraph of the Christian Scriptures. We talk about quantum vacuums, conservation of energy, vibrational fields and the process of ascent, descent and transformation with a Christian perspective. Jesus, St Paul, the ecumenical councils, and American theologians now can be understood a little better because of modern science. Let us rejoice and proclaim that God’s Truth is one. 101908AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 101208AD

Sunday, October 12, 2008AD

28^th Sunday in Greentime

Not Along Those Lines

When St Paul speaks of the “flesh”, most people think that he is talking about matters related to sex. This is because we live with a dualistic thought framework, in Western Civilization, viz., “body and soul”, “flesh and spirit(ual)”. However, St Paul was not thinking in those terms. When he talks of the “flesh”, he talks more about a false persona, a false self-image, an illusion that most people live with that is ultimately inaccurate and untrue. The flesh is living life with the illusion that one is the center of the Universe. You (and your brain) are the center of the universe. St Paul feels that one who lives a life of the flesh is living an illusion of which we need to “let go”, a private “I”, a limited selfhood. The flesh is a trapped body that does not see the Big Picture. We don’t really know our place in the order of the Universe.

To quote traditional and recent writers as well, we are reluctant to admit that life will get tough (people from the Buddha, Scott Peck and our Lord Jesus Christ have been saying that all along), that we are not the center of the universe (no matter what our mothers told us when we were grasping for the security, esteem and control, early childhood needs that some people never learn to handle maturely as they become adults), that our lives are not about us, but rather we are about Life.

When we live in a relatively affluent society, in a sense, our illusion gets re-enforced by the milieu in which we live. Security, esteem and control translate into power, prestige and prosperity in the culture. These things are all well and good and desirable in their place, but, ultimately sadly, for many living in the flesh, they become tools in those individual scenarios that we call our lives and which do not focus on the Big Picture, viz., “God lives in me and I live in God”.

When individuals and families and groups exist without really plugging into the Big Picture, it means that we support one another in living the illusion, that we really don’t know who we truly are and what is our place within God’s Reality. The illusion is not, de facto, evil. It just is an incomplete illusion. When the Big Picture, the Transcendent, is not recognized, it enhances Life in the Flesh, which ultimately will never be a transformed life. In lieu of the Transcendent, the individual and corporate Ego take over and the innate human drive to Transcendence cannot be fulfilled.

Snapping out of this illusion is grown-up business. Buddhists speak of “Ego annihilation.” Psychologists call it, “Ego de-stabilization”. Christians call this, “Ego crucifixion”. To use modern argot, one must learn the need to surrender, let go and trust the Holy Mystery that exists in us and in Whom we exist. This is what Christ Jesus did in His Paschal Mystery in which we all share, in his death and Resurrection, Christ Jesus (the Human One) surrendered, let go and trusted the Holy Mystery as He hanged on the Cross. The transformation that He experienced and which we experience through our connection with Him through the Body of Christ, we call the Resurrection. We now live in a different Reality, even now, but not yet.

We are finding now from quantum physics that consciousness of relationship is the unifying force of the Universe. It is not matter that is important, but relationships beyond the tangible and the material. Just like God can only be perceived in what God does, the immeasurable relationship between things exist but can only be perceived through the effects of the relationship. More is going on in the Universe than most people realize. Empty space is an illusion, because it is actually a “quantum vacuum”, filled with imperceptible reality. One German physicist said that we are only capable of measuring what can be measured. The edge of reality out there and the deepest recesses of reality within can never be measured; they exist, infinitely knowable and unknowable, in mystery.

Nothing will ever change that, thank God, because the God of Life, the God of Love is more involved in the nitty-gritty of your life story than you are!! As another Catholic theologian said recently, “Sadness, troubles, failures, absurdities, rejections and disappointments are bad things. Bad things are a part of life. Still, Life is the greatest good.” To bring this home and to reveal the process, God made a “preemptive strike” in the Incarnation of Christ Jesus. “You gotta believe!!” Processing all this is an acceptance in faith of the Paschal Mystery of descent and transformation (death and Resurrection) that is inherent in the universe. It is what Christ Jesus the Human One, (a translation of Son of Man, a self-identification which Jesus used on several occasions) experienced just like us. The vibrational effects of His Experience, the Paschal Mystery, reverberate in our very lives 24-7-365. As St Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ. The life I live now is not my own. Christ is living in me (and I am living in Christ, he might have added). I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith and hope in the Son of God (the forcefield of the Christ Quantum) Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

As Oprah has said for years, “We are already spiritual persons, who are looking to become human persons!” (not the reverse). Humanity is oriented to transcendence, viz., the call of the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Incomprehensible that is on the one hand, out there, and on the other hand, within. It is how we try to respond to that orientation that determines our very humanity. This drive to the Transcendent generates within us a healthy sense of creatureliness, a sense of dependence upon the Transcendent, a sense of pouring out my cares, that, ultimately, my destiny is under the sway of the One Who gives me life, loves me and saves me, a cosmic humility in discovering my place in the grand scheme of God’s universe and a sense of radical awe that the Creating, Loving and Saving God is more responsible for my life than I am myself. This is the act of faith in and of Christ Jesus 101208AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 100508AD

Sunday, October 5, 2008AD

27^th Sunday in Greentime

Don’t Worry, Be Happy???

Paul, Part 17

As St Paul speaks to the adult Christian community in Philippi, he could have used a song made popular a few years ago by Bobby McFaren, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. The song is still popular and still cheers us up. However, how many, these days, take its lyrics seriously? Does St Paul mean the same thing in his words to the Catholics of Philippi (and Armonk?)

We are experiencing difficult days right now and it is hard to follow Bobby McFaren’s facetious and St Paul’s serious advice. St Paul felt that the most important thing was the death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, in which God made human participated in the process of ascent, descent and transformation that is germane to all life. God runs every show. God invented the physical principle of “conservation of energy”, viz., nothing is wasted. Everything is convertible into something good by the Creator, the Sustainer and the Goal of life.

St Paul understood that life in Christ Jesus is an ongoing project. In our early life, we get our “roots and wings” from our families and church and communities. In early adulthood, most of us “build our tower” and make our mark in life. Somewhere in the midst of all this, each person and each group (no exceptions) is forced to “take a walk in the woods”. We come to realize (hopefully) that life is more than building a tower or taking the world by storm. We learn that we have to bear pain in our lives, viz., that we can fix, understand and control everything. In later adulthood, we must make “leaps of faith again and again” into the vicissitudes of life.

St Paul understood at all stages of life, Catholics need to hear the Gospel again and again. It is not that the Gospel changes; it is that we change as we journey through life. As Pope John Paul said, “We all need to hear the Gospel again – for the first time.”

The central mystery of the universe is the Paschal Mystery. Christ Jesus, the archetype of creation, experienced the Paschal Mystery, viz., death and Resurrection in Christ. Through Him, Catholics (and all others, although they probably don’t realize it) experience death and Resurrection again and again and again. All, especially Catholics, need to “leap in faith”, to “let go and let God”, to “bear the pains that are a part of every life” (even in the American Dream).

In the midst of life in Philippi and in Armonk, St Paul tells us, “Christ Jesus is near”. We recall Jesus’ own Words a few Sundays ago, when He says, “Wherever two or more gather in My Name, I am present with them.” Indeed, His nickname in St Matthew’s Gospel is “Emmanuel, God is with us”. Catholics believe that these words are true on good days as well as bad.

Curiously, we hear from Paul that two women were feuding in the Philippian Catholic community. He tells them to lighten up. We know that these folks also experienced alienation from outsiders as well as other turmoils in life. We can safely assume that they experienced disappointments, rejections, absurdities, fatal events in the life of family and friends, as well as the other turmoils of life. Sadly, we know from other Pauline letters that adult Catholics experienced in their relationships, at times, addictions, infidelity, and abuse. God the Father and Christ Jesus are everywhere; we are somewhere. God and Christ Jesus live in us and we live in God and Christ Jesus. Therefore, St Paul tells these folks in Christ (and us as well) to “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God…will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.

These adult Philippian Catholics did not laugh St Paul out of town. They preserved this letter, as well as their Philippian Catholic Community, still around long after St Paul died in Roma. These adult Catholics in Christ took Paul’s words seriously and with God’s Help, tried to live their everyday lives with the view that, in all things, “Christ Jesus is near” and that in Christ Jesus, they lived the Paschal Mystery of death and Resurrection in Christ.

Both Jesus and St Paul saw the Gospel to be a Way of Life for grownups. Probably, as Philippian Christians rode their chariots home from the Eucharist each Saturday evening, they tried to explain Paul’s words to their children through their words and through their actions. In and with and through Christ, we have to do the same. 100508AD jfq