Weekly Reflection 103110AD

St Zacchaeus and His Companions
The figure of Zacchaeus, the Danny DeVito of the New Testament, is one of the most appealing in the scriptures. The vivid description of the little guy, the type of tree that he climbed, the venue of the encounter – all speak of the veracity of the scenario.
This story has been compared frequently with the story of rich, young man. Recall the rich young man had lived the letter of the Law and still HADN’T FOUND WHAT HE WAS LOOKING FOR. (a la Bono in 1985). Not everyone is, but the rich, young man was addicted to his possessions. When Jesus struck that chord, he went away sad. Thusfar, Jesus, but don’t go any farther. The rich young man has many descendents in our world today. Many share his attitude to what religion really means.
Zacchaeus was a lot different. He was a much hated (he worked for the Romans) and despised (because of his job and his wealth). Yet, Jesus invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner. (Recall what sharing a meal meant in the Meditterean world, viz, one ate only with one’s family or most intimate friends. What was Jesus implying by His Self-invitation?)
There is more to the story actually. St Luke uses the Greek word, zeteo, when he talks of Zacchaeus’ “seeking” to see Jesus, which was why he climbed the sycamore tree. Jesus uses the same word again at the conclusion of today’s Gospel, “The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost.”
In addition, Zacchaeus was the chief tax collection in the city of Jericho, which is the lowest point on earth where civilization has survived. Even the venue of the encounter of the two “seekers” is archetypically charged. Zacchaeus could not go any lower. He could only come up; Jesus showed him the way and Zacchaeus followed it.
A honest Catholic would come to realize that the boundaries of God’s church are not necessarily the boundaries which we establish ourselves. As St Augustine said 1600 years ago, “The Church has many that God has not; God has many that the Church has not.”
What happened to Zacchaeus after the encounter with JC? Was he one of the 120 in the earliest Jesus’ Movement that was assembled on Easter Sunday? (Recall this story takes place just before Jesus’ fateful week in the Holy City.)What was the reaction of his wife and children when they heard of the restitution that he had resolved to make after Jesus dined with him? Financially, things might have changed a bit. We do not hear about anymore by name.
He probably is one of the anonymous saints that we salute in November, the Month of Remember (the month of All Saints and All Souls). Many more fill their ranks in their effort “to do the right, to love the good and to walk humbly with their God each day.” (Micah 6.8) Many of those whom we have known and loved are included in their holy ranks. We salute them all this day.
Tomorrow’s celebration of All Saints reminds of many people give witness (martyrdom ) to their faith in different ways. Red martyrs are those who die shedding the blood for the sake of Jesus. White martyrs are those who make a radical life change for the sake of the Gospel and do so with God’s Help cheerfully. Green martyrs are what most of us are called to be. That is simply living the everyday routine of our lives for the sake of God and those with whom we share relationship. This means that they try to live “religious” lives, as the cards are dealt to them. (Recall that the word “religion” is based on the Latin, the action of tying together (in a coherent unity.)) Green martyrs do the best they can with God’s Help.
You have known and loved scores of them. Please God, this is the vocation that you are trying to live at this very hour. God has different plans and programmatic for each person. As Vatican II teaches, those who live their lives in accord with the dictates of their conscience within different religion systems are included somehow in the Church by the Mercy of God.
Finally, Jesus makes the statement, “Today salvation has come to this house.” The operative word here is semeron (today) which can be understood today as well by the word “NOW”. As one of our Eucharistic prayers puts it, “Now is the time for Your people to turn back to You. Now is the time to be renewed in Christ Jesus, Your Son, Now is a time of Grace and Reconciliation.”
(St??) Zacchaeus is included in the ranks of All Saints & All Souls. He was among the vanguard of countless others who are in their ranks as well. They were (and are) people who loved the right, did the good and walked humbly with their God each day (each now). Let the saints keeping marchin’ in.

Weekly Reflection 102410AD

TaxCollector and/or Pharisee?
Jesus’ parables demonstrate that His right brain was highly developed. His creative way with words and imagery made for such memorable stories that people, after 2000 years, can still catch His drift.
On one hand, we have to be careful because, as often as we hear the parables, their “punch” might be lessened on us. Still, we change as people just as the parable does not.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is familiar to us for several reasons. First, before the liturgical readings were changed after Vatican II, in 1970, this parable was proclaimed every year on a summer Sunday. Second, the bragging of the Pharisee is so outrageous that he is obviously setting himself up, while the humility of the sinful tax collector is touching. Third, Jesus had a knack for setting up two characters in many of His parables. (Recall the older brother and the younger brother in the Prodigal Son, the Rich man and Lazarus, the Good Samaritan and the priest-Levite, the unrighteous judge and the annoying widow.) Fourth, Jesus’ moral, based on a quotation from Ezekiel, teaches us that God sees things differently than we do. How does God see reality?
Another insight in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is that everyone is really in the position of the tax collector seeking God’s mercy (even though some pious types don’t think about themselves). All of us need forgiveness for something in our lives whether we care to admit it to ourselves or not.
The doctrine of original sin, according to Father Andrew Greeley, is the only absolutely verifiable doctrine of Christianity. (He said you can see proof of it every night when you watch the news or news commentaries.) Other terms for original sin might include the following: original rubbish (cf. St Paul) and/or original baggage and/ or original woundedness and/or original dysfunction. The doctrine speaks of the world we inherited at birth without our consultation. None of us is perfect and, without grace, we all contribute to this baggage (or something more startling than the word “rubbish”, as St Paul might have said) of the world. Whether we acknowledge it or not, all of us need God’s forgiveness.
One of the reasons we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary has to do with the fact that Jesus was so extraordinary that He had to have an extraordinary Mom. She did not pass on any junk to her Son. With God’s Grace, all of us can see a gift in realizing that we need to beg God for the mercy.
This may be one reason why the prayer of the tax collector has resonated down through the centuries since Jesus first spoke the parable, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (In fact, it is quite an acceptable mini Act of Contrition, according to the revised ritual of sacrament of penance and reconciliation in 1974.)
There is even a mini-version of the mini-version, the four syllable, two word mantra “Jesus, mercy.” According to stories of saints, this prayer was a liberating technique for people who were able to internalize the prayer through frequent recitation so much so that it became a natural part of their everyday lives! One anonymous Russian peasant, known simply as “the Pilgrim”, walked through Russia-Siberia in the nineteenth century saying the pray as he continued his journey.
A theologian recently said that humility equals truth. When we realize that everything in life is either a gift or predicated on a gift, then we realize the need to say thanks to S(s)omeone. Meister Eckhardt said hundreds of years ago, that if the only prayer we ever humbly said was “Thanx”, that would make God’s Day. Does anyone ever say thanks enough to our Creator and our Liberator and our Ultimate Goal?
Several years ago, Woody Allen said, “90% of life involves just showing up”. The same is true for prayer, “90% of prayer involves just showing up.” How often do we show up?
In addition, does anyone not miss the mark as well by honestly admitting some basic self-descriptions? Our lives are a mass of contradictions. Our lives can be described as works in progress. Our lives are books that are still being written, sometimes with inappropriate chapters. Our lives can be aptly described as a “process of three steps forward, two steps backwards.”
We don’t have to walk from coast to coast, from JFK to SFO. Yet, the internalization and recitation of the “Jesus Prayer” reminds us both of the need for forgiveness in our own lives as well as make us more tolerant of those who need our forgiveness. You can say the Jesus Prayer anywhere. Try it and see. 102410 AD jfq

weekly reflection 10172010

No Ice Pack Needed

Karl Rahner, perhaps the greatest Catholic theologian in the twentieth century, said that in the 21^st century, Catholics would have to come to a deep personal search for Transcendence (aka God) in our lives. He spoke of the “Supernatural Existential” in each person, viz., the Call of Immanent Transcendence, Which God has programmed into our personalities. Catholics call it “the desire to happiness and fulfillment”.

Unfortunately, for many, the Call of Immanent Transcendence gets morphed into the desire to transcend ourselves (AND OTHERS) through security, esteem and control. As a result, the God’s Call gets trivialized in a culture that claims that we can have it all here now. (Read between the lines on ads on TV!) Thus, we discovered sadly recently that the “Supernatural Existential” of many USA Catholics is lacking desire, depth and substance. Many do not acknowledge that God has hardwired us for Something beyond ourselves and yet within ourselves.

God’s New World Order (aka the Kingdom of God) is not the System, not the American Dream, not Western Civilization, not the City of Man (a la St Augustine). This is because our culture became less focused and committed to acknowledge that God even is! Still, occasionally, prominent people pay lip service to God, but for many, a “practical atheism” kicks in. Throw in a “God bless America” every once in a while and then, do what you want. So, American Catholics have to be especially careful. In the past, Catholics were seen to be different, that we subscribed to a different moral code. (Remember Billy Joel’s Only the Good Die Young (still played regularly on WFAS – FM?)) In today’s world, the song makes no sense.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to His disciples of “the necessity of praying always and never losing heart.” In the post-World Trade Center world, we heed Jesus’ Words in a radical way. Our world has changed, not ended. Yet, Jesus Christ is the Same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. He urges us to pray always without losing heart, and His Words are strangely encouraging.

The widow, in ancient Israel, had a special place in the social and economic system. This was because unless there was a son or a brother or father to provide security, a widow was on her own. In the early church, there was an order of older women, whose vocation was, after the death of their spouses, would agree to pray and to serve the needs of the Christian community. In gratitude, the community would support them in their needs. This order of widows was an ancestor of the orders of religious women in the Church.

A crooked judge was a strange image for Jesus to employ to describe God. Jesus probably had tongue in cheek when He told this story because he tells us that the judge was afraid that she might, literally, “give him a black eye” if he did not acquiesce to her demands. The point is that if a crooked judge will ultimately respond to a legitimate petition, will not a loving God respond even more quickly?

In addition, Catholics are to respond to the call of the Infinite in our lives as a group when we gather for our family gathering at our Domus Ecclesiae (29 Cox Ave) each weekend. We accept the invitation to gather, to share the story about Jesus, to share His Meal and then, to return to the new week fortified by mutual support and Nourishment.

Sadly, we have children in our religious education programs who have not learned the Sign of the Cross by the time they come here. Don’t blame the Church for that. Recall the prayer for the Dad in the Baptismal liturgy: “He and his wife will be the first of teachers in faith and hope. May they always be the best of teachers bearing witness by what they say in Christ Jesus.” Sadly, we have parents who bring their children to church when their own parents (the grandparents are visiting and they make it a point to greet the Presider of the Mass.)

Jesus urges us to pray persistently (not 24-7-365 obviously) on a regular basis. We need to turn periodically to God. Islamic men do so five times a day. Catholics can emulate their example by praying five days a day as well, viz., in the morning and evening and before three meals.

More and more, people are realizing that the drive to Transcendence is a “Holy Longing”. Some go to ashrams or pagodas to practice Zen or other Eastern techniques (for a fee, of course!!) Julia Roberts could have saved a lot of money. If she wanted, she would found all three in Italy (Eat, Pray and Love). If she stayed a little longer.

Our Catholic tradition is summed up in the watchwords from Vatican II, “the Universal Call to Holiness.” Our children teach their own parents the technique of Centering Prayer. The children are called to silence, to solitude and to slow down for a fixed period of time. (The ideal is 20 minutes twice a day, preferable in the morning and the evening.) When the “monkey mind” wanders, (as it always does), then the children call to mind a simple word which is a reminder of their commitment to give God time and space in their busy lives. It could be as simple as the word “God” or “Peace” or “Love”. One theologian said recently that when some are in silence and solitude even for a brief time, they have to face themselves and the ways and wherefores of their lives. If some are in silence and solitude with oneself, then they have to turn to the place of Transcendent and Immanent God. Who needs it?

In the process, slowly and imperceptibly, silence does not threaten us. Silence leads to a sense of being alone with oneself. A sense of being alone with oneself leads to a sense of the Divine Presence (both beyond us and with us) at the same time.

Sadly, we have children in our religious education programs who have not learned the Sign of the Cross by the time they come here. Don’t blame the Church for that. Recall the prayer for the Dad in the Baptismal liturgy: “He and his wife will be the first of teachers in faith and hope. May they always be the best of teachers bearing witness by what they say in Christ Jesus.”

Rahner’s warning that individual Catholics needed to get more in touch with the Sacred in our lives is strangely on the money after September 11^th. We live in a culture that does not feel that it needs the Father of Jesus Christ. With such absurd evil confronting us in our own nation and our world, so many felt that the only place to turn was to a good God, Who Alone brings consolation. Churches were packed the Sunday or two after 911 and then, business returned to usual. What was up with that? God does not mind when people turn to God in times of need, but what attitude is transmitted by folks who only do so when all else has failed. As Jesus says, “Which father of you would give your son a stone if the child asked for bread? How much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who asked God?” jfq 101710AD

Weekly Bulletin -- Oct 10, 2010

Everything Old Is New Again!

Our Church is evolving. Everything alive evolves. We wonder about the Church of the Future. Father Karl Rahner, SJ, the premier Catholic theologian of the twentieth century, wrote several articles about the shape of the church to come. He notes traits that he anticipated for our future Church. The Church of the Future will certainly be recognizably a Church that has evolved in the Holy Spirit from our apostolic roots. There will always be an integral connection between what is basic “Jesus Movement.” It will be a church that gets back to basics. Father Rahner coined the expression, later adopted by Vatican Council II, that there is within the Church a “hierarchy of truths”. Three, Rahner listed as central and integral, viz., the Trinity, the Incarnation and Grace. Christians worship one God Who exists in relationship. Second, the Creator became united fully with Creation in the Incarnation of the Jesus Christ. Third, everything is a gift (a grace). Christians call the ultimate gift the Holy Spirit. Of the three, Rahner claimed that the primary truth is what our Christians ancestors proclaimed in their house churches and catacombs, “Iesous Kyrios”, “Jesus is Lord”. The Church of the future will be proclaim the basic Mystery of faith, Rahner wrote, wherever and whenever people proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ and try to conform their lives with that reality. Our parishioners are invited to a Sunday night Mass in Spanish at Assumption in Peekskill, where the majority of parishioners are from Guatemala or Ecuador. They tell us to expect a group of 1,000 parishioners for a Mass, not rushed, in which singing is expected and done by most. What is it that we are missing in more Anglo parishes that those in Hispanic parishes experience? We maintain our acquaintance with God the Father and Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit.

Second, the church of the 21^st will be a multilevel experience. Sunday participation obviously is a non-negotiable, a public acknowledgement that God is the Ground of our existence. Rahner foresees the establishment, already happening, of intentional communities, groups of Catholics and other Christians who gather for a common pursuit of a transcendent goal. Our traditional Lenten Ecumenical gatherings is a perennial gathering of an intentional community to observe Lent together with other Christians. Our Daily Mass congregants, our Religious Education Teams, our Divine Office groups, our Contemplative & Pax Christi groups are all intentional communities that augment their Sunday Mass participation. The list continues to grow. We are trying to be familiar with God in Christ Jesus.

Third, very importantly, Father Rahner spoke of the secularization of faith in the Western world. Others have called it the “evaporation of faith”. When things are going well, people have a tendency to forget about God. Then, when they “walk in the woods” in a crisis that they cannot fix, understand or control, Western people frequently become angry and/or pathetic. The crisis was not supposed to happen to me! Why am I deprived of happiness when others around me seem content. (Under another name, Catholic theologians refer to the Paschal Mystery (all things are in process of ascending, descending and transforming in Christ Jesus; ancient Greek philosophers, like Heraclitus, taught that everything flows, one cannot stand in the same river twice because the person is constantly changing and the river is as well; Buddhist thought calls it the principle of impermenance, “all Things will pass”. Physicists call it the conservation of matter or energy. Nothing is wasted in the universe. Rather, it experiences a transformation into something else. When good people get lulled into a sense that everything is bound to get better, they frequently become disappointed and/ or angry and/ or pathetic and/or depressed.

Fr Rahner died in 1984, but he sensed where the Western world was going. People in the West were afraid of silence, solitude and a slowing down in which we can get in touch with our core being in God. His opinion was bolstered by a Meditation guru who has described the 20 minutes of silence each day (optimum twice a day) as going to a transcendental gymnasium. We exercise our orientation to transcendence in a twenty minute contemplation session. (The meditation guru makes a lot more money than Fr Rahner!)

Our monastic ancestors recognized a reality called, Acecia. They called it the noon-time demon. It means that we cannot be bothered with a visit to the “transcendental gym” when things are going well enough. Why do I need to spend time “doing nothing”?

Fr Rahner says the in the future, if the Catholic of the 21^st century does recognizes his or her transcendental orientation, we might as well call it a day. We need to be aware of the Divine Indwelling, the Deep Incarnation, the scandal of particularity, the Galilee principle (God shows up the strangest places). Recently the techniques of focus on the now, taught by Eckhardt Tolle, are now becoming emergency measures.

As one NY theologian said recently, the world was God’s Space. Then, it became Myspace (outdated apparently) tweeting, texting, Facebooking. All these things are good things, but what makes you think that anyone cares what you had for lunch? The same theologian wrote that when we make ourselves the arbiters or the centers of the universe, we worship the god EGO (easing God Out). God is not the central point of the reality (you are).

In today’s Gospel, we hear the story of the Cure of the Ten Lepers. (There is a scholarly debate over whether this Gospel represent an actual incident in the journey of Jesus up to Jerusalem or whether it was a parable that Jesus told along the way. Either scenario, the point is the same.) Jesus brings us healing to 10 lepers and then, tells them to go to the Jewish priests for a verification of their healing.

The twist that confronts the hearer is twofold. 1) The one who returned to Jesus was the outsider, the Samaritan, culturally despised, for being different (Do we ever change?) This is an example of what we call the Galilee Principle, the Deep Incarnation, the Scandal of Particularity, God shows up in the most unlikely places. 2) In addition to the hierarchy of the Jewish priests, the Samaritan knew that it was at the feet of Jesus that he was really to give praise to God. He, the outsider, did not have to go for a verification of his healing. He came to give thanks to God at the feet of Jesus. Where Jesus is is where we worship God.

We are can experience the Divine Presence (and do often without realizing that we do) in large settings, in informal settings, in moments of intimacy with the Lord. Catholics in the 21st century need to absorb that lesson. With God’s Help, we will do so. Beware of Acecia!! 101010AD jfq

Weekly Reflection -- Oct 3, 2010AD

If Today You Hear God’s Voice…

We celebrate the Feast of St Francis tomorrow. Some say that very few caught the Spirit of the Gospel as did the man from Assisi (1182-1225). His spin of the Gospel still speaks to the 21^st century USA Catholics.

He was truly impacted with the Incarnation, that the Creator and the Creation were one in Jesus Christ. All reality (not just humanity) is effected by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. As a result, St Francis was the originator of Christmas carols and Christmas crèches to use earthy images and sounds to celebrate what theologians call the Divine Indwelling. God lives in all things; all things live in God.

The implications of the Incarnation continue to unfold among us. 1) Humble man and women come to understand that it is arrogant to assume that our minds are the sole arbiters of what reality truly is. The intellect is not the only means to arrive at insight and understanding. Catholic theology understands that creation is an ongoing evolutionary process and that 21^st century history is not the end-point of the process, but the landmark on God-driven road to fulfillment.

2) We are coming to know that we are not spectators of God’s evolutionary process in Christ. Rather, each of us is a participant in Christ in God’s unfolding universe. St Francis probably intuited it, but he could not verbalize it.

3) We are coming to realize that there are more than one ways of knowing. Not just intellectually, but also we can know things through our senses, emotions, awe at creation, awe at art. Blaise Pascal, the great Catholic mathematician-theologian of 16^th century France, wrote ”The heart has reasons to love that the mind cannot understand.” Most (certainly St Francis of Assisi) would nod their heads in agreement. Life is bigger than we are.

In a very real way, St Francis must have been taken with our Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 95. (Most mornings, our parish sings Psalm 95,, known in the Latin as the “Venite, exultemus” viz., “come, let us adore”, the first two words of the Psalm in Latin.)

The entire psalm is a fusion of two distinct, yet related, ideas in Judaeo-Christian thought. First, the Psalmist proclaims that the universe belongs to God. God holds in His hands the depths of the earth and the highest mountains as well. He made the sea; it belongs to God, the dry land, too, for it was formed by His hands. (In primitive terms, Psalm 95 celebrates Divine Creation. Now, as we come to know the vastness of the universe through the Hubble Telescope and other deep space exploration, the universe still belongs to God. God made it; it belongs to God. (pace # 1 on the NY Times bestseller list Richard Dawkins, who merely co-opted recently the Judaeo-Christian concept of creatio ex nihilo, all creation came from nothing through God’s Word.)

First, his signature prayer, his Prayer for Peace, is a practical way for us to remember in Christ Jesus, the DNA and glue of the universe, to be instruments of God’s Peace in reality daily. Try to say the prayer five times a day. God will surely point out opportunities to you where you can, indeed, be such an instrument.

In addition, St Francis saw the “preferential option for the poor”, so vilified by talk-show hosts these days. God loves all God’s people. However, God has a special concern for the less fortunate in our midst. God expects us to have the same concern or solicitude for the less fortunate in our midst. (Who are they these days? They are everyone that you are glad that you are not, widows, orphans, aliens as well as those who are marginalized by the American Dream. (They are not marginalized in the Consciousness of the Kingdom of God.)

His celebration of the Incarnation is also demonstrated when he wrote what is considered the earliest example of Italian poetry, the Canticle of the Sun, in which St Francis celebrates the unity of creation. The modern hymn, “All Creatures of Our God and King” is an adaptation of St Francis’ poem. St Francis is the patron of the Catholic environmental movement.

The name of a new (though curiously old) sin is specieism. This means that human decisions are made about how we are to treat the earth. Does it exist only for us? Does the natural world have a right to life, as Pope John Paul II, asked many times? 800 years ago, St Francis would have seen that. That is why he referred to Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Fire, Sister Water. They have rights as well. Sister Water is particularly speaking up for its rights these days, with oil spills and their aftermaths, with diminishing water supplies for expanding populations. Think of the blessing water is every time you turn on the faucets or visit the water cooler.

This weekend, St Paul reminds St Timothy (and St Francis and us), “Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard this rich trust with the Help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.”

The power of the Incarnation caught the mind and heart of St Francis effecting his attitude to reality. After 800 years, the man from Assisi still challenges us with St Paul to take as our norm the words we hear in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. He celebrated the Deep Incarnation with its implications for non-violent conflict resolution, for the preferential option for the poor, a concern for creation 800 years ahead of his time. New expressions of perennial faith still need to be verbalized and lived. 100310AD jfq