Weekly Reflection 022810AD

Sunday, February 28, 2010AD

Second Sunday of Lent

The Mystery beyond the Mystery

When Catholics use the word “mystery”, it does not mean the same thing that “mystery” means to others. People think “whodunit” or copout with inability to respond without mystifying language. Catholics understand “Mystery” to mean something that is ultimately knowable and unknowable at the same time. Mystery is paradox. Life is full of paradoxes. Indeed, life itself is a mystery, as Madonna sang back in 1989. Ergo, God is a Mystery. Ultimately, you are a Mystery too, especially to youself. As Hermann Hesse wrote in many years ago. “The greatest mystery each of us has to transcend or fathom is oneself.”

Always, on the Second Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of the Transfiguration, wherein Peter, James and John get a glimpse of Christ Jesus in His resurrected state. Whatever happened that day, Jesus had gone up to the mountaintop to pray. St Luke is known as the “Evangelist of Prayer”. Before anything monumental in the life of Christ Jesus is about to happen, Jesus goes to pray in solitude in advance. He does this before He begins His public life, before He elected the 12 and gave His great Sermon in Luke 6, in the Garden before Good Friday and finally on the Cross. Jesus was into prayer bigtime. Perhaps, He wants us to be as well.

When Jesus went to pray, in some cases, spending the entire night in prayer to God, what type of prayer did He say? We know that Jesus could read, yet it doesn’t say that He brought any biblical scrolls with Him, nor the Jewish version of Rosary beads.

In all probability, like many Jews of His time, Jesus would have memorized many prayers. We imitate Him this Lent as we try to get Psalm 23 down this Lent as a community.

However, chances are that Jesus was big into contemplative prayer, viz., prayer without words. Prayer in which we remain as silent as possible and let God speak to us in the Silence.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “God speaks to us in the silence of my minds and hearts. Our job is to slow down and listen to the silence. Then, we translate what we heard by the way we treat others, especially the poor.” One hundred years earlier, the Little Flower, now a Doctor of the Church said, “God is always at home in me; I am usually the one who is out to lunch.”

All the major religions of the world, both East and West, have a contemplative tradition. Some call it the highest form of prayer when one slows down and shuts down and let God speak to us in the Great Silence.

However, Americans frequently find silence as something pathological. We owe this to our Puritan ancestors who taught us that the idle mind was the devil’s workshop.” As a result, “it was early to bed, early to rise” …. and you know the rest.

Priest-psychiatrist wrote about this as early as 1992, “There is a reason that more people do not find the silence and listen to the Inner Voice. They are afraid to do so. The truth is that, in our culture, we fear the Silence precisely because something from within might speak to us. Therefore, we prefer the noise and fear Silence because in that silence, the unconscious might make its presence felt. This consciousness might contain all that we have been repressing and denying about ourselves. It is impossible to listen to the small, still voice within without coming to terms with the unconscious.” It is not for nothing that children have an easier time with contemplation than most adults. Are adults afraid of what the Silence might say to us?

The greatest Catholic theologian, Fr Karl Rahner, whose birthday and anniversary we celebrate this month spoke of Gratia non Creata, Uncreated Grace. He said that this was the immanent and permeating Divine Presence in all. Fr Rahner understood Gratia non Creata as another name for the immanent and premeating Presnce that Christians call the Holy Spirit. The Spirit lives in all; all live in the Spirit. While God is ultimately a Mystery, both knowable and unknowable simultaneously, transcending all Reality, God is also immanent, present in all. Maybe that was what Jesus was tapping into when He went up to pray before big events in His life. Maybe, He wants up to do the same. Recall the distinction made several weeks ago. If you listen to Jesus, you become a disciple. If you don’t, then you remain in the crowd. Which is it going to be?

How do we respond? As mentioned last weekend, treat youself to a twenty minute sit in God’s Presence in our church or any church. Plan to learn Psalm 23 and use it as the handy prayer tool that your ancestors have done for the past 3000 years. There is a reason why the Psalm has perdured. Find out the reason.

Join Jesus on the mountaintop (or in our parish church or anywhere). Let God speak to you in the silence. Peter, James and John heard God say to them, “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” We probably will hear a reasonable facsimile thereof. What do we do next? 022810AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 022110AD

Sunday February 21, 2010AD

First Sunday of Lent

He Knows How It Gets

Each Lent, we recall that Jesus was like us in all things but sin, as we hear the account of Jesus’ temptation at the start of His public life.

This year, we hear St Luke’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Ergo, Jesus was baptized by John and proclaimed as God’s Son. He then went off to the wilderness to figure out the implications of what He has to do.

The number “40” is a number that is “charged” biblically. It usually refers to a period of testing and/or teaching in the Scriptures. Obviously, in this case, St. Luke speaks of the test of Jesus at the start of His public life. Next, after this section of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins in the synagogue in Nazareth announcing “the Spirit has anointed (christened) Him to preach Good News to the poor.”

The triple temptation which Jesus experienced had to do with the nature of the ministry which He was undertaking. What the devil confronted Jesus with was the temptation to prove Himself in other ways besides the way which God the Father had pre-ordained. The God of Life willed that “it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to die and then, to rise again” to save us.

The devil tries to dissuade the Messiah from this course of action. First, the tempter suggests that Jesus proves that He is the Messiah through magic tricks. “Turn these stones into bread.” Next, the devil suggests that Jesus tries to establish Himself as a political Messiah. In return, the devil will give Him all the power and the glory of kingdoms if Jesus worships Him. An interesting insight is that the nations of the world are, indeed, Satan’s to give! St. Augustine of Hippo had a field day with that idea in the De Civitate Dei.) Finally, the devil suggests to Jesus that Jesus test God by jumping off the parapet of the Jerusalem Temple.

To each of the temptations hurled at Him, Jesus responds with quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy. This fifth book of the Torah stresses the love and gratitude of the individual Israelite for the Presence of Yahweh with the Chosen People. Yahweh is with the individual and with the community, but always on God’s terms and never on ours. There is a divine necessity (which Christians call “the Cross”) within every human experience and a Divine Presence as well. Quoting Deuteronomy, Jesus is within His Jewish religious tradition in resisting temptation to go another route.

Interestingly, the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, was succumbing to the serpent’s temptation to go another route and to “be like God.” They were not content with God’s plan for them and they preferred the tempter’s alternative. Chaos, dysfunction and sin set in our world, as a result. Our modern world still suffers the effects of that decision.

Psychologists say that there are three basic childhood needs that we carry with us through life. We are drawn to security, esteem and control. As we mature, we still strive for these things. All is fine if we obey God’s rules!

However, many go off the deep end. We rely in “golden calves” which we believe will provide us for the absolute security, esteem and control beginning to obsess us. The god that we worship is EGO, viz., Easing God Out.

Psychologist Erich Fromm commented “evil deeds to harden hearts, good deeds tends to soften it, to make it more alive. The more a person’s heart hardens, the less freedom does that person have to change, the more is that person is determined by previous action.” Jewish thought speaks of the Yetzer rasa (the evil urge) existing in the human heart.

The evil urge goes all the back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the temptation scene in Genesis. Therein, the temptation was “You too can be like God”. You can, in essence, control and name reality, even in changing basic rules. The Tempter approaches them and all their children (that’s us, folks) in subtle ways, sly and suggestive ways that challenge God’s plan for us. We are called to live religious lives (basically linked up with the Transcendent that permeates all reality). This means our relationships with God, others, particularly the poor among us, and the ecology in which we live. (The word “religion” is based etymologically on the Latin, ligere – to bind together and re – again.),

It is curious to notice as well that just as Jesus began His public life with the triple temptation in the Gospel, so also, in Luke’s Gospel, the “last temptation of Christ” is also three-fold. As Jesus was dying, He is tempted three times to “save Yourself”. The leaders, the soldiers and the criminal on the other cross who did the Devil’s work by tempting Jesus to short-circuit Yahweh’s Divine Plan.

Jesus’ final response to the Devil’s temptation were the words of Psalm 31 on His lips. “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.” He died, God’s obedient, humble Son, the elder brother of our human family, a person of faith and hope who said “Yes” to the Divine Necessity of the Cross.

We can only ask Jesus to give us a Share in His Spirit so that each of us in obedience and humility and solidarity with others say “Yes” to God’s Plan for each of us. Jesus does not require the impossible of His disciples. He asks us to live and die as He did. As Gabriel told our Blessed Mother, “Nothing is impossible with God.” We always ask God to give us the strength to resist temptation and always offer our “Yes” to God. 022110 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 021410AD

Sunday, February 14, 2010AD

6^th Sunday in Greentime

Where Are You Listening Now?

On this last Sunday before we enter the Lenten Season, we hear this weekend the beginning of the commissioning address of Jesus to His newly form group of 12 as well as other disciples who listen to His words. In addition, St Luke tells that Jesus was also addressing the crowd NOW as well. From what vantage point are you listening NOW?

Catholics are familiar with much of what Jesus says today because it is similar to what Jesus says in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. (There are more Beatitudes in St Matthew; St Luke adds a series of Woes to balance the Beatitudes.) Familiar, but different.

Recall that the language which St Luke uses today, viz., the poor, is language that is used throughout the Scriptures. In today’s reading, Jesus is clearly referring the material poor, downcast and mournful because of their condition. It is not that Jesus is glorifying their poverty. Rather, he is stating that God is conscious of it, that time is on the side of the poor and that the poor have a headstart to God.

Recall also that Anawim YHWH were a group within Judaism (as well as the earliest Jesus Movement) of men and women who understood and lived that no matter things seemed to appear God was running the show. They, with God’s Help, bore the pains of life (although they tried alleviating them as much as they could). They made leaps of faith into God by surrendering, letting go and trusting the Holy Mystery Who permeated them.

The rich young man, notwithstanding, (wealth was his particular problem apparently) there is no evidence that the Jesus Movement, from the days of earliest Christian house-churches, expected that all the members of the movement were to surrender their goods to the community. The story that St Luke himself presents later on in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles presents the Jerusalem community living that way, not as a demand, but as a choice. (This opinion was cogently presented several years by NY Catholic theologian, Fr Raymond Brown.) Later on, when the Jerusalem Community experienced hard times, we are told several times that the outlying communities provided for their needs. (Modern examples of the same are your recent generosity to our sisters and brothers in Swaziland and in Haiti as well as your regular food contributions to the Food Pantry in P-ville as well as others area pantries).

Recently, one theologian suggested that the composition of the hearers of Jesus’ Word could change. If one accepted the Centrality of God, as proclaimed by Christ Jesus, then that person would be a disciple. If one were to reject the Centrality of God (and make power, prestige, possessions their security), then that person was part of the crowd. The thing to remember is all of us (depending on circumstances and our response to the Gift of Faith) can move back and forth between the two groups. When we trust God, we are the disciples; when we trust other things, then we are the crowd.

The basic question becomes “What (or Who) is your ultimate security?” Recently, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke to a crowd of business leaders on Wall Street at the Stock Exchange. He said to them that somehow, the System (with its profit and loss categories) had taken over much of Western civilization. He said that frequently, the morality of business decisions depended how profitable the bottom line would be. He was not shown the door because so many agreed that he was naming reality.

Rather than impose his own interpretation on the System, Archbp Williams highlighted the idea that structures have a moral life of their own. He basically agreed with Jeremiah, Popes John Paul II and Benedict, and Jesus that “socio-economic structures effect people and come under the scrutiny of the Gospel.” As Pope John Paul put it, “There are no moral free zones!”

Jim Wallis suggests that men and women of good faith need to develop a “new normal” in response to the Recession of 2008. The “system”, the “market” “conventional wisdom” (call it what you want!) did not take the Paschal Mystery into account in economic foresight. Even in elementary school, Catholic students learned, early on, that everything is the process we know as “the Paschal Mystery”. All life goes through the process of ascent, descent and transformation. All things do pass, even economies. One thing that people realize that we cannot and will not go back to the way we were. New message emerge, “We are still confronted with the fact that three billion people (virtually half of God’s children on the planet) still live in less than two dollars a day. That service to your neighbor and the common good is more rewarding and fulfilling than the endless pursuit of individual gain. New questions emerge, “Do we want our children’s values shaped by the market and its advertising?” New spins on old Gospels emerge, “One factor that had a significant impact upon the behavior (of the cast in the Good Samaritan parable ) was whether or not they were in a hurry.”

As Archbishop Rowan stated on Wall Street recently, Jesus did not suggest any specific socio-economic system. Jesus challenges His audience (then and now) with where we hear Jesus’ Beatitudes and Woes. If you hear God’s Word now and act upon it, you are a disciple. If you hear Jesus and still rely ultimately on other things (Golden Calves), you remain in the crowds. Where do you stand now? 021410AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 020710AD

Sunday, Feb 7, 2010AD

Fifth Sunday in Green

God Ever Greater, yet Nearer

Catholics try to stress that God is always living in us and we are all living in God. (If God is omnipotent, it’s logical, isn’t it?) Still, there are times when we feel the Divine Presence in powerful, haunting ways. They can be both joyful and/or stressful. Divine Presence resonates in our lives. Many years ago, sociologist, Rev Andrew Greeley wrote that most people had 5 or 6 powerful religious experiences in their lives, and that is all that most people need to nourish a lifetime of faith.

We hear about two powerful religious experiences today in our first reading and in our Gospel, viz., the experience of Isaiah (at his initial call to prophecy) and or St Peter (after the great catch of fish). Neither Isaiah nor St Peter was ever the same again.

The experience of Transcendence goes back as our ancestors lived in this world. At least, 100,000 years ago, our ancestors demonstrated their intuition that the human person was different. Archaeologists still discover evidence of religion in burial procedures, tools left behind, the use of fire early on, and the development of human communication. All indicate that humans are different in our awareness. Archaeologists and anthropologists tell us today about 10,000 years ago, around 8,000BC, occurred the Agricultural Revolution, with its implications to the present day. As later theologians said, humans always intuited that we were the poets of the universe.

About 100 years ago, a German theologian, Rudolf Otto, described this orientation to Something Greater, yet Nearer, in human experience. Using Latin, Otto described that Something as Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans (the Mystery Tremendous and Fascinating).

Again, we need the clarification of terms. Mysterium, in this sense, means “something knowable, yet unknowable, at the very same time”, something that cannot be experienced totally. Tremendum means awesome, something beyond our control. Fascinans means alluring, something overwhelmingly appealing.

Now more than ever, that Something challenges and invites us. The desire for this Something goes on and on. There are at aleast three reasons for this. 1) The call to Transcendence is in infinite. 2) The human quest for knowledge, love and freedom is insatiable. We can never know, love and be loved, or be free enough. 3) We continue to change as people. Our cultures hopefully evolve (or sadly, sometimes, devolve).

There is much discussion these days about theism, atheism, agnosticism, deism, etc. Usually, most of these discussions are strawmen, because they dissect people’s ideas, not the Something generating these ideas.

The term “theism” is a general term which basically means, “God, as you (personally or culturally) understand God.”

There is always a proviso that we avoid “idolization” of the term “God”. What might work for you might not work for someone else. Don’t blame them, if they don’t agree with you.

With this is mind, it is important for Catholics (and others as well) to remember that while the human mind and heart are oriented to Transcendence, God is bigger than human comprehension. As a result, we try to remember that no expression for God can be taken absolutely literally. For these reasons, humble believers say, “God has many Names”. (Our Islamic brothers and sisters speak of the 1,000 Names of Allah.)

Catholics believe that God has planted this Holy Longing for Transcendence in our minds and hearts. St Thomas Aquinas called “obediential potency”, the potential to hear God’s call and respond in humble obedience.

In the twentieth century, Fr Karl Rahner speaks of the “supernatural existential”, viz., the call to transcendence in which we live and move and have our being, both within and beyond us.

In our Scriptures today, there is no doubt that both Isaiah and St Peter had profound experiences of the Mysterium . Note that the reaction of both to their awareness of the Divine Presence and Divine Calling is their unworthiness to respond. Isaiah calls himself, “a man of unclean lips” and St Peter tells Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Both realize that they are “out of their league”, yet both respond to the alluring call that is made to them.

The Divine Presence can be felt in a variety of settings. It is always on God’s initative; we don’t trigger it ourselves. Isaiah was in the temple in Jerusalem praying when had his experience. St Peter was at work, fishing.

There is no reason to think that God changes God’s modus operandi in dealing with us, the unlikely, the unworthys and the unknowns of this world. In different days, people spoke of “Red Martyrdom”, when, in a Promethean show of strength, we do one great thing for God. In other days, people spoke of “White Martyrdom”, we stoically sacrifice ourselves for a noble mission. In our own time, people speak of “Green Martyrdom”, when, in humility and obedience to God’s constant call to us (sometimes, though not always, powerfully felt), we say yes to God in our doing what seems so trivial and mundane and unimportant.

God is ever greater, ever nearer, even in the everyday routine of my life. Slow down, in solitude and silence frequently and let God be God. Isaiah did. Jesus did, St Peter did. We will be in good company. 020710AD jfq