Rocky Two
Last Sunday, we heard the first part of St Peter’s encounter with Jesus at Caesarea Philippi. We heard that when Jesus asked the question, “Who do people say that I am?” St Peter had the correct answer. “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” However, while he got the Identity correctly, Rocky did not get what type of Messiah Jesus is. On its own, the conferral of the name “Rock(y?) might be a tribute to St Peter’s fortitude or his braggadocio.
The scene continue to unfold this morning in which Jesus predicts that the God-Mensch (the Human One) must experience what all creation experiences, the process that scientists call the conservation of matter or energy or what Christians, since the days of St Augustine of Hippo (whose feast we celebrate today), called the Paschal Mystery (the process of ascent, descent and transformation) that all matter, including our personal life experiences, whether we like it or not.
Rocky Bar Jona (St Peter’s surname) speaks as we all would when he responds to Jesus’ Words by saying that such should not the case for the Messiah, the Christ (or His followers, either). “Jesus sharply tells Rocky, get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Jesus then uses the opportunity as a teaching moment for Rocky (really, an Everyone Figure) as well as the other disciples (then and now, including you and me) as a teaching moment. In a series of 4 challenging statements, Jesus challenges all of us to get serious about what life is really all about.
Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny one’s (false) self, take up one’s cross and follow me. How do you respond to that? How does Jesus want you to respond?
Whoever wishes to save one’s life will lose it, but whoever loses one’s life for my sake will find it? How do you respond to that? How does Jesus want you to respond?
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit one’s life in the process? How do you respond to that? How does Jesus want you to respond?
What can one give in exchange for one’s life? How do you respond to that? How does Jesus want you to respond?
St Paul addresses the Jesus Movement in Roma and in Armonk in the second reading today. He tells each of us that, as an act of liturgy, we are to offer our lives as a living sacrifice to God. He has not talking just about the two hour gathering in the Roman house churches of the Jesus Movement every Saturday evening across the Tiber in Trastevere or our “45 NY Minute” gatherings here at St Patrick’s . He is talking about one’s total life. St Paul asks us to see every moment of our day as an opportunity to offer our lives to God in thanksgiving for the very gift of the day which we live. Yes, go to liturgy on the Lord’s Day, but offer your life to God the rest of the week as an act of worship. It is what God wants for you. It is what Jesus empowers us to do.
In essence, it is not about success in one’s career, but it is fidelity to God’s pattern for human living, exemplified in Christ Jesus. Jeremiah, another Everyone figure, speaks of the innate longing for authentic human living built into us in our very humanity. Jewish theologian, King David, wrote in Psalm 63, that “our flesh pines and our soul thirst for God, Whom we seek.” Canadian theologian, Ron Rolheiser, calls it the Holy Longing that God has placed in you. Irish theologian, Diarmuid O’Muirchu, speaks of the lure of the future, viz., what I am here and now is not what God wants for me ultimately. There is always room for growth in humanity. German theologian, Karl Rahner speaks of the supernatural or transcendental existential that is present in every human person. In honest moments, we all know what they mean.
Last Sunday, we referred to Rocky Balboa of movie fame. One of the really quotable lines in one of the Rocky movies was the memorable, ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” That is what Jesus was telling Rocky Bar Jona (aka St Peter) in today’s Gospel. That is what Jeremiah and King David hint at with expressions such as “fire burning in my heart” and “our souls thirsting for God like the earth, parched lifeless and without water”. That is what St Paul is talking when he speaks to the Jesus Movement in Roma and/or in Armonk.. “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may discern God’s Will (for you, personally.)
In our Gospel last Sunday, Jesus asked Rocky “Who do people say that I am?” In essence, this week, Jesus is asking Rocky (and all of us, for that matter!), Who do you say that you are? If transcendence is not part of one’s response, one needs to do serious soul-searching. Today, we celebrate the feast of St Augustine. Judging by the age in which he lived, he had it made. He had talent, brains, opportunity. He was an “up and comer.” However, something was amiss and he knew it. In the opening statement of his autobiography, the psycho-history, Testimony or Confessions of St Augustine, he wrote, “God, You created our hearts and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. You were with me, but I was not with you. You cried out and pierced my deafness. You enlightened my blindness. I tasted You and I am hungry for You. You touched ne and I am afire with longing for your embrace.”
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Reflection, August 21, 2011AD
Rocky (Balboa ,Raccoon or What?)
Many say that Catholic children, in the past, all knew several quotes from the Bible verbatim. One of them is the line today in the Gospel reading, “You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Sadly, today, most Catholic children (and their parents) are not that familiar with too many lines from the Bible anymore. Still, this one has a familiarity about it.
Today’s Gospel scene has undergone much scrutiny for a long time and in the twentieth century, in the years leading up to and following on Vatican Council II. Newer interpretations latent in ancient texts give all Catholics, from the Papacy (Petrine Ministry) to the local pews (where all Catholics gather), much to ponder and much to consider.
Jesus commends and blesses Simon Bar Jona for His Spirit-filled insight on Jesus’ true Identity. However, in a not so much quoted follow-up dialogue (which we hear next Sunday), Jesus commands Simon Peter, “Outta My Face, Satan.” In the same encounter? What went wrong? While Simon Peter was correct that Jesus was the Messiah, he thought that Jesus’ Messiahship should not involved the cross and Resurrection as part of Jesus’ programatic. He was right, but he was wrong!! Simon Peter does not want to hear about the pains of life, the left Hand of God.
Simon Peter is really meant frequently to be an “Everybody” - figure in St Matthew’s Gospel. Like everybody, he runs hot and cold in his response of faith to Jesus. Well known, but not so much quoted is the statement of Jesus to Simon Peter at the Last Supper, “Before the night is over, you will deny Me three times.” And, he did, as we all know. The denial of Jesus appears in all 4 Gospels and its veracity is maintained by the criterion of embarrassment, viz., don’t put in a story in a Gospel that causes embarrassment for any of the main figures. (If it didn’t happen, don’t make it up.)
Still, in the familiar vignette, the two sides of the mercurial Simon Bar Jona appear. His personality might also be reflected in the name change which Jesus gives him that day. When we hear the reading as we do today, the nickname “Rocky” is quite noble. However, “Rocky” might be a loving dig at St Peter’s irascible and unpredictable personality. How “Rocky” was St Peter on the night that he denied three times that he know even who Jesus was? Obviously, Jesus knew Rocky better than Rocky knew himself.
Everybody, symbolized by Rocky in today’s Gospel, can be described in similar terms. We are all works in progress. We are all a mass of contradictions. We are all a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back,( if we are lucky.) We are all enigmas, maybe not to ourselves, but others. Deal with it.
Our institutions (state and church) are the same way. Our institutions (state and church) are works in progress. Our institutions (state and church) are a mass of contradictions (Tell us about it!) Our institutions ( both state and church) are cases of 3 steps forward, two steps back, (if we are lucky.) Our institutions (both state and church) are all enigmas, maybe not to themselves, but to others. Deal with it.
Sociologists of religion tell us that there are certain patterns observable in religious institutions based on a charismatic founder. The described patterns are not meant to be caustic, but critical (in view of healthy self-analysis.) 1. A Movement is formed with a charismatic Mentor. 2. After His physical departure, the movement is maintained by an adherence to the Message and the Method of the Mentor . 3. However, all Movements need to establish some groundrules to maintain themselves. However, these groundrules can become the basis of a Machine, so that the Movement becomes a Machine. If followers of the charismatic Mentor, with His Message and Methods, do not keep their eyes on the Mentor’s Original Vision, the Movement can devolve into a Machine. 4. If something is not done at this late stage that Machine can devolve into a Musemn, if not a Mausoleum.
Another point that the Jesus Movement needs to remember is that Jesus said, “On Rocky, I will build my church.” All the Movement from the Papacy to the local pews need to remember that it is Jesus’ church, not Peter’s, that Jesus is building. We need to adhere as much as we can with God’s Help to the Original Vision of Jesus, as we hear it proclaimed in the Word of God. Well intentioned wags comment that Jesus came to establish a New World Order (read Kingdom of God), but for the time, he has to settle for the church.
In the insightful Gospel last Sunday that we heard of the God-Mensch, Jesus, apologized to a woman that He had dyssed, made a serious adjustment in His operating procedures. All of us “Rocky’s” must learn to follow His example and know enough to realize that we can need others to clarify our vision. If we make mistakes, we must muster the fortitude to apologize and move on, whether it is as an individual, as a group, as institutions, whether state or church.
It is said frequently that a sure sign of a dysfunctional person, group or institution is its inability to admit that we make mistakes. This is something for “all of us Rocky’s” to think about, as we wonder what Jesus really meant by the name change of Simon Bar Jona. What did Jesus know and when did He know it? And about whom and/ or what? 082111AD jfq
Many say that Catholic children, in the past, all knew several quotes from the Bible verbatim. One of them is the line today in the Gospel reading, “You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Sadly, today, most Catholic children (and their parents) are not that familiar with too many lines from the Bible anymore. Still, this one has a familiarity about it.
Today’s Gospel scene has undergone much scrutiny for a long time and in the twentieth century, in the years leading up to and following on Vatican Council II. Newer interpretations latent in ancient texts give all Catholics, from the Papacy (Petrine Ministry) to the local pews (where all Catholics gather), much to ponder and much to consider.
Jesus commends and blesses Simon Bar Jona for His Spirit-filled insight on Jesus’ true Identity. However, in a not so much quoted follow-up dialogue (which we hear next Sunday), Jesus commands Simon Peter, “Outta My Face, Satan.” In the same encounter? What went wrong? While Simon Peter was correct that Jesus was the Messiah, he thought that Jesus’ Messiahship should not involved the cross and Resurrection as part of Jesus’ programatic. He was right, but he was wrong!! Simon Peter does not want to hear about the pains of life, the left Hand of God.
Simon Peter is really meant frequently to be an “Everybody” - figure in St Matthew’s Gospel. Like everybody, he runs hot and cold in his response of faith to Jesus. Well known, but not so much quoted is the statement of Jesus to Simon Peter at the Last Supper, “Before the night is over, you will deny Me three times.” And, he did, as we all know. The denial of Jesus appears in all 4 Gospels and its veracity is maintained by the criterion of embarrassment, viz., don’t put in a story in a Gospel that causes embarrassment for any of the main figures. (If it didn’t happen, don’t make it up.)
Still, in the familiar vignette, the two sides of the mercurial Simon Bar Jona appear. His personality might also be reflected in the name change which Jesus gives him that day. When we hear the reading as we do today, the nickname “Rocky” is quite noble. However, “Rocky” might be a loving dig at St Peter’s irascible and unpredictable personality. How “Rocky” was St Peter on the night that he denied three times that he know even who Jesus was? Obviously, Jesus knew Rocky better than Rocky knew himself.
Everybody, symbolized by Rocky in today’s Gospel, can be described in similar terms. We are all works in progress. We are all a mass of contradictions. We are all a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back,( if we are lucky.) We are all enigmas, maybe not to ourselves, but others. Deal with it.
Our institutions (state and church) are the same way. Our institutions (state and church) are works in progress. Our institutions (state and church) are a mass of contradictions (Tell us about it!) Our institutions ( both state and church) are cases of 3 steps forward, two steps back, (if we are lucky.) Our institutions (both state and church) are all enigmas, maybe not to themselves, but to others. Deal with it.
Sociologists of religion tell us that there are certain patterns observable in religious institutions based on a charismatic founder. The described patterns are not meant to be caustic, but critical (in view of healthy self-analysis.) 1. A Movement is formed with a charismatic Mentor. 2. After His physical departure, the movement is maintained by an adherence to the Message and the Method of the Mentor . 3. However, all Movements need to establish some groundrules to maintain themselves. However, these groundrules can become the basis of a Machine, so that the Movement becomes a Machine. If followers of the charismatic Mentor, with His Message and Methods, do not keep their eyes on the Mentor’s Original Vision, the Movement can devolve into a Machine. 4. If something is not done at this late stage that Machine can devolve into a Musemn, if not a Mausoleum.
Another point that the Jesus Movement needs to remember is that Jesus said, “On Rocky, I will build my church.” All the Movement from the Papacy to the local pews need to remember that it is Jesus’ church, not Peter’s, that Jesus is building. We need to adhere as much as we can with God’s Help to the Original Vision of Jesus, as we hear it proclaimed in the Word of God. Well intentioned wags comment that Jesus came to establish a New World Order (read Kingdom of God), but for the time, he has to settle for the church.
In the insightful Gospel last Sunday that we heard of the God-Mensch, Jesus, apologized to a woman that He had dyssed, made a serious adjustment in His operating procedures. All of us “Rocky’s” must learn to follow His example and know enough to realize that we can need others to clarify our vision. If we make mistakes, we must muster the fortitude to apologize and move on, whether it is as an individual, as a group, as institutions, whether state or church.
It is said frequently that a sure sign of a dysfunctional person, group or institution is its inability to admit that we make mistakes. This is something for “all of us Rocky’s” to think about, as we wonder what Jesus really meant by the name change of Simon Bar Jona. What did Jesus know and when did He know it? And about whom and/ or what? 082111AD jfq
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Reflection, August 14, 2011AD
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Psalm 67 is a psalm sometime prayed as the opening prayer of the day in the Catholic Church. It looked beyond the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem to a prayer that all the nations praise God.
It is a breakaway prayer because the prayers of a exclusive, privileged “in” place, viz., the Jerusalem Temple, are starting to be inclusive of “all the nations”. It is curious to note that many today are questioning whether or not the nation-state, a relatively new phenomenon, is becoming a dinosaur, viz., too big to solve little problems and too little to solve big problems. Nations as we know them today are basically an evolution of a European idea, taking shape throughout the Middle Ages and crystalized in 1648.
It is noticeable that the peoples are used interchangeably with the nations. Many say that it is time perhaps, to apply Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ paradigm of dealing with death and dying to institutions that have seen their day. At any rate, “peoples” might express what the Psalmist was trying to say back then as well as its aptness today.
Psalm 67 represents a quantum breakthrough in the sense that it breaks down the barrier between them and us. It depicts the idea that the one God Who is worshipped in this place is the God Who creates, sustains and calls all, not some, to life. Today in our world of frequently tribalistic, reductional thinking ( the “how I and my kind see life mentality”), we need a change of consciousness.
This week, we celebrate Blaise Pascal, a world famous mathematician who was proud to be Catholic in 17th century France. He challenged the au courant notion of the Enlightenment, in which the human mind was the ultimate judge of reality. He intuited that more was going on in the universe than your thinking. A better term for losing touch with our planetary and cosmic relational matrix might have been more appropriately, the “Endarkenment”. Pascal, a practicing Catholic, warned,“The Creator is the arbiter of reality, not your brain.” We see it in our “enlightened” Western notion that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. (Ask the folks in England about that this weekend?)
Psalm 67 tells all (then and now) that we can do better than that. In biblical language, we move in Psalm 67 from exclusive election (We are the Chosen Ones, not they) to inclusive election (We are the ones chosen to tell them that they are chosen also.) Our first reading today is a prayer that God’s House will become a house of prayer for all peoples. This hope evolves in the Holy Spirit to the role of the Christian Church (the Jesus Movement) now. Unfortunately, some Christians get the wrong message by the tribalistic concept that “We are saved; you’re not!!”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gets his come-uppance from a Gentile woman. Jesus gave her a short answer. She puts Him in His place and He apologizes. The fact that this Gospel scene is so embarrassing means that, indeed, it happened. Why was a story that paints a shadow side of Jesus. Jesus came to see here that the God Whom Jesus proclaims loves even the daughters of a pushy Gentile woman.
We speak today of an overlapping consensus. We don’t worry so much how we reach a point of agreed common good, but rather that we reach the point in the first place! Since our world is getting smaller daily, more speak of a universal global ethic that people of various religious traditions can agree upon while maintaining their own traditions.
All the major religions ultimately address the question of how we bear the pains of life. There is a universal process throughout reality, from the farthest rim of the universe to the innermost particle of matter. We are in a process of ascent, descent, transformation. We are all born, we all live and we all die. Deal with it!!
How do we deal with it? There are certain basic principles: 1) The Dalai Lama points out that contemplation, the call to silence, is a legitimate common ground among the major religions, East and West. 2) Major religions have some call to compassion that we ultimately are all in the same boat. We all need to master the drive to neurotic control of the reptilian brain. Karen Armstrong tell us that the human brain, through a God-given process has developed two spots for compensatory aggression, viz., the neo-cortex and the limbic lobe. I am a bit neurotic and you are a bit neurotic; we all are a bit neurotic. Again, deal with it. 3) There is a common Golden Rule – Do unto others that you would have done to you. (Duh!!) 4) In addition, there is a basic human law, Thou shalt not steal. (Not rocket science). As Pope John Paul II said, thereare no moral freezones for indivudals and/or groups. We must never stop asking the questions which most adults do, Is that fair? There is need to balance rights and equity.
This viewpoint fits beautifully into our Jesus, the archetype of creation, according to St Paul. That is why Christians celebrate Christ Jesus as the Absolute Savior. Jesus speaks passim in His Gospel of prayer, group and personal, ritual and contemplative. He speaks of the call to compassion. He endorses the Golden Rule. He stresses our need to never stop asking “is it fair?”
We need to emphasize that a basic humanity, manifested in different religious expression urges us to certain human attitudes. Is the individual to be stressed over the common good? How do we correspond personal interest with common equity. How do the stronger take care of the weaker? How do we handle injustices, deliberate or not?
As the children’s song goes,
“Rich or poor, Black or White,
Blind and lame, we’re all the same!
081411ADjfq
Psalm 67 is a psalm sometime prayed as the opening prayer of the day in the Catholic Church. It looked beyond the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem to a prayer that all the nations praise God.
It is a breakaway prayer because the prayers of a exclusive, privileged “in” place, viz., the Jerusalem Temple, are starting to be inclusive of “all the nations”. It is curious to note that many today are questioning whether or not the nation-state, a relatively new phenomenon, is becoming a dinosaur, viz., too big to solve little problems and too little to solve big problems. Nations as we know them today are basically an evolution of a European idea, taking shape throughout the Middle Ages and crystalized in 1648.
It is noticeable that the peoples are used interchangeably with the nations. Many say that it is time perhaps, to apply Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ paradigm of dealing with death and dying to institutions that have seen their day. At any rate, “peoples” might express what the Psalmist was trying to say back then as well as its aptness today.
Psalm 67 represents a quantum breakthrough in the sense that it breaks down the barrier between them and us. It depicts the idea that the one God Who is worshipped in this place is the God Who creates, sustains and calls all, not some, to life. Today in our world of frequently tribalistic, reductional thinking ( the “how I and my kind see life mentality”), we need a change of consciousness.
This week, we celebrate Blaise Pascal, a world famous mathematician who was proud to be Catholic in 17th century France. He challenged the au courant notion of the Enlightenment, in which the human mind was the ultimate judge of reality. He intuited that more was going on in the universe than your thinking. A better term for losing touch with our planetary and cosmic relational matrix might have been more appropriately, the “Endarkenment”. Pascal, a practicing Catholic, warned,“The Creator is the arbiter of reality, not your brain.” We see it in our “enlightened” Western notion that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. (Ask the folks in England about that this weekend?)
Psalm 67 tells all (then and now) that we can do better than that. In biblical language, we move in Psalm 67 from exclusive election (We are the Chosen Ones, not they) to inclusive election (We are the ones chosen to tell them that they are chosen also.) Our first reading today is a prayer that God’s House will become a house of prayer for all peoples. This hope evolves in the Holy Spirit to the role of the Christian Church (the Jesus Movement) now. Unfortunately, some Christians get the wrong message by the tribalistic concept that “We are saved; you’re not!!”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gets his come-uppance from a Gentile woman. Jesus gave her a short answer. She puts Him in His place and He apologizes. The fact that this Gospel scene is so embarrassing means that, indeed, it happened. Why was a story that paints a shadow side of Jesus. Jesus came to see here that the God Whom Jesus proclaims loves even the daughters of a pushy Gentile woman.
We speak today of an overlapping consensus. We don’t worry so much how we reach a point of agreed common good, but rather that we reach the point in the first place! Since our world is getting smaller daily, more speak of a universal global ethic that people of various religious traditions can agree upon while maintaining their own traditions.
All the major religions ultimately address the question of how we bear the pains of life. There is a universal process throughout reality, from the farthest rim of the universe to the innermost particle of matter. We are in a process of ascent, descent, transformation. We are all born, we all live and we all die. Deal with it!!
How do we deal with it? There are certain basic principles: 1) The Dalai Lama points out that contemplation, the call to silence, is a legitimate common ground among the major religions, East and West. 2) Major religions have some call to compassion that we ultimately are all in the same boat. We all need to master the drive to neurotic control of the reptilian brain. Karen Armstrong tell us that the human brain, through a God-given process has developed two spots for compensatory aggression, viz., the neo-cortex and the limbic lobe. I am a bit neurotic and you are a bit neurotic; we all are a bit neurotic. Again, deal with it. 3) There is a common Golden Rule – Do unto others that you would have done to you. (Duh!!) 4) In addition, there is a basic human law, Thou shalt not steal. (Not rocket science). As Pope John Paul II said, thereare no moral freezones for indivudals and/or groups. We must never stop asking the questions which most adults do, Is that fair? There is need to balance rights and equity.
This viewpoint fits beautifully into our Jesus, the archetype of creation, according to St Paul. That is why Christians celebrate Christ Jesus as the Absolute Savior. Jesus speaks passim in His Gospel of prayer, group and personal, ritual and contemplative. He speaks of the call to compassion. He endorses the Golden Rule. He stresses our need to never stop asking “is it fair?”
We need to emphasize that a basic humanity, manifested in different religious expression urges us to certain human attitudes. Is the individual to be stressed over the common good? How do we correspond personal interest with common equity. How do the stronger take care of the weaker? How do we handle injustices, deliberate or not?
As the children’s song goes,
“Rich or poor, Black or White,
Blind and lame, we’re all the same!
081411ADjfq
Reflection, August 7, 2011AD
A Sound of Sheer Silence
Our Pax Christi Group meets regularly on Thursday morning after 8.30 Mass for our weekly meeting. We chose Thursday because we recall the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus on Holy Thursday and the Eucharist is the sacrament of God’s Peace. In earlier times, violence and battles were not to be fought on Thursdays in deference to what Jesus did on Holy Thursday.
Our group is viewing and discussing a DVD from the Great Courses Series on Islam. It is an eye-opener in many ways. First, there is so much about Islam that most of us do not know. Sadly, too many prefer to be informed by talking heads who do not know very much either, but pretend that they do. No names!! Second, there is much we can learn about Christianity ourselves by learning the profile of Islam. So many of our customs came from Islamic Traditions. Third, there is so much that we can learn about ourselves and our common ground as we try to reach a Common Global Ethic, so that our human family can proceed safely through the twenty-first century.
It is important for us to understand that Jews and Christians and Islamics worship the same God, but under different Names, viz., YHWH, Abba (the Father of Jesus Christ), Allah and countless other Names. (In fact, our Islamic brothers and sisters have a devotion entitled, the Thousand Names of Allah. Each person completes the statement, “Allah is…..”. Both Jews and Christians can easy adopt the practice by addressing the devotion to Adon (the Jewish circumlocution for YHWH) or the Father or Abba is ….
Just about every major religion, East or West, understands Contemplation (the Prayer of Silence) as the highest form of prayer. It is a practical and useful way for men and women to come together and acknowledge the Transcendental Grounding of Reality, most especially, the Transcendental Grounding of the Human Person, both East and West. Even now, people of various religious traditions get together for Contemplation in an ecumenical fashion that is not invasive or intrusive on any religious tradition.
In our first reading, we hear that Elijah experienced the Presence of God in a tiny, whispering sound. (A more accurate translation of the original is in the “a sound of sheer silence”.) God determines when and where we experience in God’s Presence in a powerful way. We can only prepare ourselves by surrendering some time, our will and intellect, the cacophonous noise in which we exist, and by giving God some space.
One way that we try to teach our children here at St Patrick’s to prepare themselves to be open to the Transcendent in their lives by silently praying four syllable mantras that ready their bodies, souls and spirits for an experience of the Presence. Any Jew, Catholic or Islamic can follow regimen. Try it and see. A few of the warmup mentras include the following: God lives in me; I live in God. God lives in all; all live in God. God in the stars; the stars in God. God within me; God beyond me. God within all; all within God. God beyond thought; God beyond words. God is a Noun; God beyond nouns. God is the Verb; God beyond verbs. God beyond all; God beyond God. Let go, let God; let God, let go. Let God be God. Any Jew, Christian or Islamic can pray this way. Then, we try to go into a contemplative silence. Try not to think. Watch the thinker. You’re not your thoughts. When you find your “monkey mind” (a Buddhist term) wandering, simply think of a mono-syllabic word and softly say the word until the Monkey mind quiets down. The thoughts we have become the opportunity for us to surrender, let go and let God be God.
Our Gospel tells us today that Jesus went up the mountain to pray after He shook His disciples up to not pass the buck by telling the hungry poor to go away and find some food for themselves, (something that too many complacent people and governments still do). St Matthew does not tell us that Jesus took His Bible or His Rosary with Him, Remember that would have been the Hebrew Bible because the Christians Scriptures were still in the future. Remember also that Rosary beads probably were adapted from Islamic prayer beads.) Rather, he went up the mountain to pray. One can safely assume that Jesus practiced some form of contemplation in the solitude and silence and stillness and the slowdown on the mountaintop.
Listen and l earn from Jesus the Master!! Elijah, Mohammed, the Buddha, Confucius and Lao-Tze, the Dalai Lama and Jesus Himself could all have been comfortable at an “Ecumenical Transcendental Grounding Sesheen”. Try it and see. 080711AD jfq
Our Pax Christi Group meets regularly on Thursday morning after 8.30 Mass for our weekly meeting. We chose Thursday because we recall the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus on Holy Thursday and the Eucharist is the sacrament of God’s Peace. In earlier times, violence and battles were not to be fought on Thursdays in deference to what Jesus did on Holy Thursday.
Our group is viewing and discussing a DVD from the Great Courses Series on Islam. It is an eye-opener in many ways. First, there is so much about Islam that most of us do not know. Sadly, too many prefer to be informed by talking heads who do not know very much either, but pretend that they do. No names!! Second, there is much we can learn about Christianity ourselves by learning the profile of Islam. So many of our customs came from Islamic Traditions. Third, there is so much that we can learn about ourselves and our common ground as we try to reach a Common Global Ethic, so that our human family can proceed safely through the twenty-first century.
It is important for us to understand that Jews and Christians and Islamics worship the same God, but under different Names, viz., YHWH, Abba (the Father of Jesus Christ), Allah and countless other Names. (In fact, our Islamic brothers and sisters have a devotion entitled, the Thousand Names of Allah. Each person completes the statement, “Allah is…..”. Both Jews and Christians can easy adopt the practice by addressing the devotion to Adon (the Jewish circumlocution for YHWH) or the Father or Abba is ….
Just about every major religion, East or West, understands Contemplation (the Prayer of Silence) as the highest form of prayer. It is a practical and useful way for men and women to come together and acknowledge the Transcendental Grounding of Reality, most especially, the Transcendental Grounding of the Human Person, both East and West. Even now, people of various religious traditions get together for Contemplation in an ecumenical fashion that is not invasive or intrusive on any religious tradition.
In our first reading, we hear that Elijah experienced the Presence of God in a tiny, whispering sound. (A more accurate translation of the original is in the “a sound of sheer silence”.) God determines when and where we experience in God’s Presence in a powerful way. We can only prepare ourselves by surrendering some time, our will and intellect, the cacophonous noise in which we exist, and by giving God some space.
One way that we try to teach our children here at St Patrick’s to prepare themselves to be open to the Transcendent in their lives by silently praying four syllable mantras that ready their bodies, souls and spirits for an experience of the Presence. Any Jew, Catholic or Islamic can follow regimen. Try it and see. A few of the warmup mentras include the following: God lives in me; I live in God. God lives in all; all live in God. God in the stars; the stars in God. God within me; God beyond me. God within all; all within God. God beyond thought; God beyond words. God is a Noun; God beyond nouns. God is the Verb; God beyond verbs. God beyond all; God beyond God. Let go, let God; let God, let go. Let God be God. Any Jew, Christian or Islamic can pray this way. Then, we try to go into a contemplative silence. Try not to think. Watch the thinker. You’re not your thoughts. When you find your “monkey mind” (a Buddhist term) wandering, simply think of a mono-syllabic word and softly say the word until the Monkey mind quiets down. The thoughts we have become the opportunity for us to surrender, let go and let God be God.
Our Gospel tells us today that Jesus went up the mountain to pray after He shook His disciples up to not pass the buck by telling the hungry poor to go away and find some food for themselves, (something that too many complacent people and governments still do). St Matthew does not tell us that Jesus took His Bible or His Rosary with Him, Remember that would have been the Hebrew Bible because the Christians Scriptures were still in the future. Remember also that Rosary beads probably were adapted from Islamic prayer beads.) Rather, he went up the mountain to pray. One can safely assume that Jesus practiced some form of contemplation in the solitude and silence and stillness and the slowdown on the mountaintop.
Listen and l earn from Jesus the Master!! Elijah, Mohammed, the Buddha, Confucius and Lao-Tze, the Dalai Lama and Jesus Himself could all have been comfortable at an “Ecumenical Transcendental Grounding Sesheen”. Try it and see. 080711AD jfq
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