Reflection, January 27, 2002AD

To the Ends of the Earth

            As Jesus begins His public ministry in St Matthew’s Gospel today, we hear that the word has gone out to “Galilee of the Gentiles”.   St Matthew reminds us that Jewish Messiah is meant for all.  Nobody has special claims on God’s Love.  Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, for whomever will accept Him.

            Yet, the tendency to distinguish between “us” and “them” that characterizes so many human relationships still seems to typify many of us as Jesus’ followers.  How frequently do we ourselves make distinctions among people?  Who is Christian?  Who is American? Who is more preferable?

            Several years ago, a professor reminded his students to “Beware of the ism’s”. An “ism” is an ideology by which we evaluate others in terms of a selected category.  If they measure up to what we think is desirable (usually, a mirror of ourselves), then they get preferential treatment.

            So, we utilize a variety of “ism’s” in our lives.  When one pre-judges people by their race, then, one is guilty of racism.  When one pre-judges people by their sex, then, one is guilty of sexism. When one pre-judges people by their economic class, then, one is guilty of classism. When one pre-judges people by their age, then, one is guilty of agism.  The list goes on and on and speaks for itself.

            Our Catholic Church is the Body of Christ in space and time.  Yet, we are an incarnational church.

Jesus breaks through, sometimes, in spite of us, rather than through us.  We have our flaws and wrinkles. The scandal of the Incarnation is exactly that.  Some say that our Church is guilty of more than a few “ism’s”.  With the Help of the Gospel, let us try to address these flaws and mirror more authentically the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

            The ironic thing is that this call to break down barriers is clearly germane to the Gospel. Somehow, however, so many of us build, rather than tear down, barriers.

            Father Richard Rohr, a noted American Catholic theologian, has said on numerous occasions, that there are only two world organizations that reasonably have the opportunity to break down barriers among the people of the world, viz., the United Nations and the Roman Catholic Church.  He reminds us that  “catholic” means universal, “according to the entire or the whole”, etymologically.

            As we hear the beginnings of the public ministry in St Matthew’s Gospel at the start of ordinal (not ordinary) time, 2002 AD, let us ask Jesus for the Help to assist Him in His plan to implement His vision (the Kingdom of the God of Life) by living daily lives which reflect the values of that Kingdom.  We cannot make the world perfect, but we can, with His Help, build “better human communities”. Whatever dimensions these communities take, may they not be circumscribed and limited by the various “ism’s” to which we all can so blithely, at times, subscribe. 012702 AD jfq  

         

Reflection, January 20, 2002AD

  Time Still  for Resolutions

            We are a few weeks into the New Year.  It can still be a time for some resolutions.  Again, we offer a list of possible “Wholistic Catholic Resolutions” for consideration.

            Try to emulate our Islamic brothers and sisters who pray five times a day.  Morning and evening prayers, as well as grace before three meals, should be easy to implement if you have not done so already.  Add St Francis’ and/or St Patrick’s Prayers in your daily prayers.

            We all know about the risks of police, fire and ambulance personnel.  Every time, you hear a fire alarm or siren, say a prayer for all the families involved in that emergency.  Pray for those in trouble as well as those who are helping them in times of crisis.

            Try to devote ten minutes a day (or more) at approximately the same time and same place for your personal prayer.  It could be the Rosary, Bible reading, meditation, contemplation, or whatever. This  reminds you that you live and breathe in every moment in the Presence of God, not just some.

            Try to heed the call of Pope John Paul to “re-tool”, “upgrade” and “reacquaint ourselves with our Catholic religion”.  We try to offer worthwhile opportunities for everyone, including our parents and adults, to take refreshers of what Catholic is all-about.  Ask God to keep you open to the process.

Try to get to Mass one day a week in addition to Sunday.  Many find in daily Mass the peace and quiet and lack of hassle frequently experienced at Sunday Eucharists. 

            Once a week, try to spend maybe 20 or 30 minutes in quiet prayer in Church.  It’s like making a house call or visit to Jesus.  Don’t necessarily plan any formal prayer unless you care to do so.  Just come and relax in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in our parish church.          Try to observe Friday abstinence from meat or to practice some other penance during the week (though “never on Sunday” when we celebrate the Resurrection. Friday night pizza as a family can be a weekly teaching moment for parents.  Remind your children (and yourself) after you say grace that many people at this very hour and (some, not very far away) do not have the blessing of three square meals a day.  This is a reason why we might forego meat one day a week.

            In this context, try to remember the Ecumenical Food Food Pantry and the ongoing need for food by so many in our world. Not only on designated Sundays but every Sunday, a symbolic offering of food in the vestibule of our church reminds us of another reason why we give thanks to God each week.  We have food to spare.         

Try to volunteer some time, even one hour a week, to some project where you can help.  Volunteer work is a tremendous way to show our gratitude to God for the many blessings and gifts which we have received.  In addition, it shows our solidarity with those less fortunate and gifted than we.               

            Try to take part in different projects offered by the parish and community as a way of uniting your life with other Catholics and other communities in our efforts to know, love and serve God in this world in the New Year of the Lord, 2002 AD.       012002 AD jfq         

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Reflection, January 13, 2002AD

  We Are All Godparents!!

            At our 10.30 Mass this weekend, we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism with the family of Grace Elizabeth Scavone. Worshippers at the Mass fulfill the role of “honorary godparents.”

            Our Catholic religion is an incarnational, sacramental relgion.  Our Catholic faith thrives through the recognition in faith that Jesus Christ is with us in the daily journey of our lives. 

            We try to recall that the mission of sharing not only our life, but our faith as well is a demand placed upon all of us.  Jesus has plenty of work for all of us to do.

            We live in what has been called a “post-modern society”.  (In light of September 11^th , we even need to  rename even this term.)  Nevertheless, as 21^st century USA RC’s, we might fulfill our role with a mindset characterized by 4 traits.

First, we live with a revised “historical consciousness.” We know that we are hurtling through time, but in the light of the recent past, we realize that historical changes are not necessarily for the better.  The violence of the twentieth century, culminating in the unbelievable atrocities of September 11^th cautions us to realize that all progress is not necessarily a blessing.  (We now need to ponder the implications of this in light of stem-cell research.) Yet, Jesus wants us, as honorary godparents, to realize that there is a “Mystery in your history.”

            Two, we are aware now more than ever that we are to have a “global consciousness”. The world is, indeed, a global village.  The less fortunate of our world are our fellow villagers as well as our kinsfolk. (We all have a Common Relative.) Jesus wants us to understand and to behave that all the villagers and kinsfolk have dignity and equality.

            Third, our awareness of our  familial relationships with all our global villagers urge us to have a “pluralistic consciousness”.  Believe it or not, we can learn from one another!! The Second Vatican Council teaches is to see Jesus Christ as “God’s Absolute Revelation.”  However, there are truths from others can we can learn and appropriate in the light of Jesus Christ.

            Fourth, we are alerted to a “cosmic consciousness”. We are not only related to one another, but to the world around us, for whom we are to be advocates. (Recall the bumper sticker, “Take care of your mother!” with a picture of the earth as the famous “Blue Marble.”) We are further related to the universe of which we are a small, but most significant, part. Space travel reminds us of this new consciousness.

            Jesus Christ wants us as parents and honorary godparents to share with our children this transforming view of reality for generations yet to come.

            400 years ago, St Teresa of Avila wrote the following prayer which has a special relevance at a baptismal Mass.

            Christ has no body now, but yours,

          No hands but yours,

no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

The roles of parents, families, parishes are more crucial now than ever.  In sharing faith and hope in Jesus Christ, may Jesus rely on the firm witness of parents, families and parishes who are the body, the hands, the feet and the eyes of Jesus Christ for their children.   011302 AD jfq 

                                                                               

     

Reflection, January 6, 2002AD

  What to Give the Prince of Peace This Year?            The Visit of the Magi to the Christ Child is one of the most beloved scenes in the Gospels.  Were there three of them? Or four? Or five?  St Matthew does not specify the number.  However, tradition favors three since there were three gifts mentioned, viz., gold, frankincense and myrrh.

            The gifts represent the identity of the Christ Child, the Emmanuel (God with us), the Word made flesh Who dwelt among us, the Prince of Peace. The gold represents His royalty since He was a descendent of King David. The frankincense represents His divinity. The myrrh (comparable to after-shave lotion) represents His humanity.

            Symbols abound in the beautiful story. The Gospel tells us that the visitors from the East were astrologers (magoi)

The star hints that the very structure of the universe is affected by the birth of this Child. The biblical antecedents of the gifts appear in the psalms in which we sing about that Kings who brought gifts to the Davidic King. The fact that the child is born at the end of the 42^nd generation (a multiple of seven) from Abraham is no accident.  God’s plan was fulfilled at God’s pre-appointed time. Not mentioned in the reading but part of the tradition for over a thousand years is the depiction of one of the visitors as Black.  Fr Andrew Greeley says that the Gospel was “equal opportunity” and ahead of its time. The point is that the visitors were the vanguard of billions of Gentiles (non-Jews) who come to worship Jesus, the Christ Child, as we do this Christmas.

            Beautiful biblical symbolism points to all of us who enter a new “Year of the Lord” this January.  We are the Gentiles now worshiping Jesus the Prince of Peace.

            There are three gifts that United States Catholics can present to the Prince of Peace as we celebrate His Nativity and His Epiphany among us.  They were enumerated in their present terminology by the Catholic Bishops of the USA in their Peace Pastoral of 1983, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response. 

            As we enter a New Year with the gifts of life and faith in the God of Jesus Christ, let us remind ourselves of these gifts that we can offer the newborn King in our lives.  First, let us ask God to remind us again and again that we are indeed living in a new moment in human history.  Since 1965, with the advent of super-nuclear weapons as well as the mega-problems with a polluted environment, the bishops, as well as Pope John Paul, remind us that traditional forms of conflict resolution are no longer applicable in the new moment.

            Second, another gift to the Prince of Peace is an honest effort to commitment to a consistent life ethic.  As American Catholics, let us try, with God’s Help, to be pro-life on every human life issue.  Let us try to behave that whether “we care to admit it or not, we are all sisters and brothers, we are one family and God is the Father of us all.”  Every human life is God-given and every human person is a child of God.  God is the Father of all, not some, the bad as well as the good.

            Third, we can ask for the grace to be practice “disarmament of the human heart” not only now, but throughout the new “Year of the Lord”. Let us ask for the strength to forego any violent word, action or behavior that tempts us. What better gift to offer the Prince of Peace on His birthday than to practice His Gospel as best we can each moment of our life.  May our lives be lives of positive, not negative, energy, forces for good and not for recrimination.

            Each holiday season, gifts abound. Our Magi predecessors brought three gifts to the Christ Child.  Now, more than ever, each USA Catholic can also try to present three gifts as well as we celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace. Let us try to remember and behave that we are in a new moment of human history.  May we try to be consistently pro-life on every human life issue.  (It is not easy, but it is logical.) May we try to disarm our hearts and actions to stress our belief that it really was the Prince of Peace Whose birthday and Epiphany we celebrate.   010602 AD  jfq

                             

Three kings hold each other up

We are afraid of astrologers and prefer kings.

Reflection, Oct 28, 2012AD

   Was It Good or Was It Bad?

 Today, October 28 is the anniversary of the Edict of Milan by the Emperor Constantine in 313AD. Simply put, it stated, “it was OK to be Catholic.” It was legal to be a Christian. Ten years earlier, the Jesus Movement had been under its most severe persecution by the reforming emperor Diocletian. Thousands of our Christian ancestors died rather than abandon faith in Christ Jesus. Then, it all changed overnight.

Earlier that year, Constantine had won a military battle over his main opponents at the time in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, still standing and used as a foot bridge over the Tiber in Rome to this day. According to the story, Constantine had seen a vision of a cross in the sky with the Greek letters, Chi and rho, viz., XP, the first two letters in the word Christos, “Christ or Messiah or Annointed One”. To this day, scholars wonder whether it was a real religious experience, or a made up story because Constantine had seen the advantages of a unified religion, which even thrived though persecuted.

However, during the same century, Christianity went from being a legal religion to the state religion. In 395, another edict said “It was necessary to be a Christian. Jews and pagans, beware.”

     Some say that it was the triumph of Christ over Caesar. Still, wait a minute!! Did the Roman empire absorb the Church or did the church absorb the Roman empire? At any rate, Constantine formed a template of church and state relations that persisted until the twentieth century.

     Dante wrote that the triumph of Christianity in the fourth century was also the beginning of the Church's downfall. Many have seen the first three centuries of the Jesus Movement as the infancy period of Christianity. How much that is pivotal in later life for an adult is starting to be in place in infancy? Then, during the next 17 centuries, the Church grew into adolescence, with all the growing pains associated. (Now, according to that paradigm, the church is just achieving adulthood as we turn 21, with interesting implications for  future church.)

Certainly the Jesus Movement of the days of the Edict of Milan must have breathed a sigh of relief. Next, collusion between empire and  church became apparent. For example, since most Christians were non-violent during the first three hundred years, St Augustine had to develop his just war theory, viz., when a Christian fight in a war.

  Many felt that the Gospel of Jesus was watered down. Rev Martin Luther King said famously, “The Church is meant to be the conscience of the state.” People as different as St Benedict, Martin Luther, Mohandas Gandhi, and Dorothy Day and Pope John Paul II have said basically the same throughput church history.

    On the one hand today, people speak of today of SBNR’s, viz.,  “spiritual but not religious” and “Nones” (none of the above in response to religious preference), flexodoxy what works for me.       On the other hand, people, particularly politicians these days, pull out the “God bless America” card every chance they get. “Do you believe in Jesus” is not the same question as “do you believe Jesus”?

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII began what is called the best kept secret in Catholic thought, viz., the development of Catholic socio-economic theory, based on our Judeao-Christian tradition, preceding even Jesus Himself.  As it has developed in the American Catholic Church in the 20^th century, there are seven points that are linchpins of Catholic socio-economic-political theory. 1) The absolute respect for every human life as God’s gift. (Like it or not, we have to deal with it). 2) The primacy of the family; 3) Each human right brings a concomitant  human responsibility; 4) A cooperative effort among government and workers and industry to provide for the common good (not the bottom line); 5) The preferential option for the poor and helpless and needy in society. (Cardinal Dolan spoke recently of our concern for the “uns”, when he said at the Al Smith Dinner last week, “God has a special concern for the unemployed, uninsured, unwed mothers, unborn babies, undocumented immigrants, the unwanted by the culture”); 6) A sense of solidarity and subsidarity (that level or approach most efficient and closest to the people is preferable); 7) Care for the environment as a trust (not a commodity) to be passed on to future generations.

In difficult days, people like both Pope Leo and Blessed John XXIII were challenged for the new awareness in Catholic economic-socio-political theory. Pope John Paul II (who commented that after the fall of the Eastern bloc, “capitalism had no right to gloat over its victory over communism because frequently it also made the worker into a cipher of the system”,) was too lofty a figure to chide in his time, but he was clearly in the tradition of Pope Leo XIII. He said that the common good trumps the bottom line.          Still, does anyone listen? Many play the Christian card. How much of what they stand for reflects what Jesus teaches. One of the great problems that we face is the demonization of those from whom we differ. Did you ever notice that someone else's usually the cause of your problem? This is an example of binary thinking, viz., me (and mine) against them (and theirs). Binary thinking limits the possibility of agreement or accommodation or compromise (a dirty word these days). In every situation, there are at least three viewpoints, mine, his and what is really going on here? However, when God is always on your side, then, anything goes!   Was the Edict of Milan a hit or a miss?  102812AD jfq

Reflection, October 21, 2012AD

Bond, James Bond... Meet Pope John XXIII             

             This month, Western civilization commemorates three anniversaries of events fifty years ago, viz., the opening of Vatican 2 and the release of the first James Bond movie, “Dr No” and the Cuban missile crisis. 

             Catholics are recovering the incarnational, universal, wholistic, integral image that everything is connected in Christ Jesus. We are learning much from our sisters and brothers in the scientific and cosmological works. Reality is a relational matrix. Hence the Jesus Movement is a relational matrix. It is all connected! St Paul hinted at that back in the first century, but for several reasons, we forgot.

The first Bond movie was released around this time. Bond movies are still entertaining. Who was the best portrayer? Which was the best movie? What scenes did we like the best? “Bond, James Bond.” “Shaken, not stirred.” “Licensed to kill!”

However, many see a schizophrenic aspect to James Bond movies.  Entertaining, yes, but dangerously amoral. Who really controls Hollywood and the entertainment world?  The Bond movies were produced, at first,  during the Cold War.  Guess who was always good and who was always evil?  In addition, “Dr No” might have created or, at least,  fueled “a my country, right or wrong” attitude. “All is fair in love and war.”  007 could work with that. However, how did he arrive at the way you personally might evaluate such an attitude?

Double 00 agents were licensed to kill and they had no big problem doing so. Even now, numbers disagree on those killed in Bond movies. They increase, rather than decrease.

In these days, for our own nation, we need to ask ourselves as “followers of Jesus”, “the Jesus movement here and now”, “cells in the Body of Christ”, what is our own attitude to international assassination, which is now a given in the war of terror? (Remember Pope John Paul's caveat in 2000, there are no moral free zones. Individuals and the institution acting in our name come under the scrutiny of the Gospel. American Catholics need to ask ourselves about assassination hit lists and the use of drones and other forms of cyber warfare.

On October 22, 1962, the world was plunged into the Cuban missile crisis. Surveillance had indicated that Soviet long range missiles were in the process of installation ninety miles from our shores  If you were around then, you will recall what a tense time it was. For Catholics, confession lines were out the door. People tried to remember if they had made their nine First Fridays. The blockade of Cuba was serious business. Later that week, when the Russian ships turned around in the mid-Atlantic, the world breathed a sigh of relief. On the following weekend, it was agreed that the USA would withdraw our weapons from Turkey as part of the trade-off. The reaction of many was that we didn't even know that we had weapons in Turkey. If we did, we knew that we were the good guys and would only used them in the name of freedom. What was the connection between what we do and the Evil Empire (back then)? Americans knew the Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba, but we were not told that we had already put them in Turkey, contiguous to the old USSR. Really?

On the scene at the time also, was blessed John XXIII, whom the Holy Spirit, viz. the Integrating Energy, who presided over the opening of Vatican II on Oct 11, 1962, fifty years ago. In later documents published after the specter of the Cuban Missile Crisis was behind us, it became apparent that the pope who called Vatican II had been involved behind the scenes in the calming of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Get the DVD, “Thirteen Days”  See how close we all came to MAD, mutually assured destruction, in 1962. Reason and the Holy Spirit won the day. Later, President JFK thanked Blessed John for Vatican intervention in the calming of tensions, including a key radio message in which certain code words known only to NATO and Moscow were broadcast one hour before the Soviet ships moved back out of the blockade zone. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, also acknowledged Blessed John’s assistance. These events apparently inspired the ailing Blessed John to develop the landmark, Pacem in Terris, considered a landmark event in the development of Catholic cultural, economic, political social theory, which so many would like to forget these days. (Next April, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Pacem in Terris.  As a statement to people of good will, not to the bishops of the church, some think that “the people of good will” were JFK and Khrushchev. The hope and harsh reality that the Cuban Missile Crisis caused resulted in a wakeup on the part of many that the Catholic Church had to tend the world to respond to changing times, all across the board.  We started to realize that the Catholic Church had plenty of work to do to respond to the new world. (Remember Pope John’s frequent, “We know more now!”) The result was the change of attitude triggered by the Holy Spirit in the pastoral ministry of Pope John XXIII and Paul VI and the bishops of Vatican, which energized the church, at least until the early nineteen eighties when reaction (for whatever reasons) set in.

Hard to see a connection between James Bond and Blessed John XXIII. Still, think about it.  Maybe, we have just changed the bad guys. The good guys always remain the same. Guess whom? Two slogans we can quickly recall could be James Bond’s “Licensed (by whom?) to kill” and Blessed John XXIII’s “We know more now!” Let us hope that Blessed John was correct in his new assessment. Really?     102112AD jfq

Reflection, February 3, 2002AD

Want to Be Poor (in Spirit)?

         We begin today a recitation  of the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. There are some who say that if you focus on the Sermon on the Mount, you will get a thumbnail of the Matthew’s Gospel   There are those who say that if you focus on the Beatitudes, you will get a thumbnail of the Sermon on the Mount.  There are those who say that if you focus on the first Beatitude, you will get a thumbnail of all the Beatitudes.  Is Jesus for real when He states, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for the Kingdom of heaven is theirs.” 

     It is important for us to clarify the meaning of the term “poverty in spirit”. In two biblical languages, viz., Hebrew and Greek, the “in” in poor “in” spirit refers to “aspect”.  It certainly is not good to be poor when one has to worry about the next meal for one’s family or about the availability of satisfactory medical care. (May we never forget that many poor are not that far away from us.)

     No, Jesus is not talking here about material poverty; He speaks of spiritual poverty.  This means that one recognizes one’s status as a human person.  We are all here as contingent beings.  None of us came into this world on our own.  We were born and exist without any consultation. The Creator gives us life and creates us from moment to moment to moment.  The realization that each of us stands before our Creator with empty (and dirty) hands is the first step to poverty in spirit.  No matter what our position or status in life, ultimately, all of us exist because the Creator wills it so. This realization is healthy and God-given.  It enables us to view life accurately, from the Creator’s slant; it de-centralizes and relativizes our own position in the universe.  God is the Center of the universe; we are not.  Recognition of this is a grace.  And, grace happens!!!

     That is one reason why St Paul says in our reading from 1 Cor 1 this weekend, quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” Boasting (self-reliance without taking God into the equation) was one of the worst sins that Paul could envision.  Many in our world today (individuals and institutions) pride themselves on “rugged individualism”.  Indeed, this is extolled, even now, as a value by those who feel that they are able to tend themselves (frequently, through accident of birth) and therefore, everyone should be the same way.

     However, if you realize and trust in God’s unseen Presence in your moment to moment existence, Jesus tells us that you have received a great gift, the secret of successful human living, from the Creator’s perspective.

     Therefore, as we hear the Beatitudes today, remember that so many biblical terms have been distorted and not understood in modern language.  Poverty in spirit is a good thing; meekness, humility, single-heartedness (aka cleanliness of heart) are good things.  They are gifts if we understand that they are simply synonyms for acknowledging God’s Centrality in one’s existence”

     As we have heard before, blessed is that person who with God’s grace acknowledges that God is the center of the universe)not oneself). Why? That person is on the right track. Who needs poverty in spirit? We all do and, with God’s grace, we can receive the gift and share with us by Gospel living each day. 020302 AD jfq

    

Reflection, February 10, 2002AD

Are We Always Salt & Light?

          Last weekend, Jesus proclaimed that, with God’s Help, those who acknowledge that they aren’t, but God is, the Center of the Universe are already (!) possessing the Kingdom.

The God-graced process that Jesus asks us to pursue is a state of mind and heart that strives for shalom (not peace in the conventional sense) and solidarity and compassion, non-violently, in this world.

          A grace itself, the first step to possess the kingdom is to ask Jesus to  believe (truly believe) that poverty in spirit (aka meekness, humility, single-heartedness) is a good thing.  Our culture belittles (directly or indirectly) the values which Jesus proclaims in the Sermon on the Mount. The first step is to ask Jesus for the Help to listen to Him, amid the cacophony of the modern world.  After all, isn’t that God said at the Transfiguration? “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.”

          Jesus makes the bold statement that His disciples are called to be “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”.  It might be wise for us to remind ourselves that this is not a blanket congratulation that Jesus is throwing at us.  It is a challenge to meet the demands of poverty of spirit once we have even agreed in our mind and heart that this poverty of spirit is something to be attained.  Remember how our culture has prejudiced our interpretation of the word, “poverty”.

          To qualify as “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”, it is necessary for an American Catholic in the 21^st century to acknowledge that “Catholics are different”. We belong to a community that celebrates the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ through a consistent commitment to the Gospel of Life.  We are a community that has reminded the nation and the world that we are called to practice “disarmament of their hearts”, in which we ask God for the Help to forego violent thoughts, words or actions and for the Grace not to condone violence even when it appears to be for a good end.  We are a community that realizes that we are living in a new moment in human history, in which our very humanity is threatened by technological abuses of the environment and of the very process of human reproduction.  We are a community that realizes that we are responsible for the institutions which we establish and we have to answer for any injustices against helpless people that they perpetrate.

          Beatitude living as the “salt of the earth” and as “light of the world” is a process because human living is a process. We need to ask God for the Help that we need everyday to live the process.  The first step in this ongoing process is the realization that it is only by removing the false god “EGO” from the center of our universe as we need constant infusions of “poverty of spirit” to forego the temptation.

          Maybe, we, as individuals and as a Church, do not always manifest this “poverty of spirit” to the world.  Maybe, it is presumptuous to think that Jesus automatically labels all of us as the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” Maybe, we need Lent, 2002 AD to examine ourselves on our basic commitment to the Gospel of Jesus. 021002 AD jfq.              

Reflection, February 17, 2002AD

            Like Us in All Things

     King David is one of the most colorful and human of all the figures of the Hebrew Bible.  We know a great deal about him because he was the first great King of his people and his descendents on the Throne of David made sure that his heritage was maintained.  Court historians (divinely inspired, but human, nonetheless) gave David a generally favorable spin in the biblical books of 1 & 2 Samuel.  However, his humanity seeps through.

     In a certain sense, David did it all. He was a songwriter, some of whose lyrics made it into the Book of Psalms. (The entire book is attributed to him, although he probably only wrote a few of the psalms.) However, he was violent. He was an adulterer.  His son Absalom rebelled against him.  He did not get along with his first wife.  He was the father of a generally dysfunctional family. His story, then, mirrors many stories now.

         However, he knew that God loved him.  He knew when it was time to do penance for his sins. He knew that God was correct in being displeased with his performance as a person. He would try (at least, for a while,) to do better.

     One particularly telling incident is the story of David and Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.  Because David was the father of Bathsheba’s unborn child, he called Uriah, a non-Jew soldier of David’s, back for a period of “rest and relaxation” with his wife, Bathsheba (as well, David’s ladyfriend).  When Uriah refused the “R and R” because his soldiers were not given the same reward, David had him placed in the frontlines where he would surely be killed.  Now, David would have no problem with a paternity suit.

The prophet Nathan went to King David and challenged him with the parable of the man who slew his neighbor’s one sheep for dinner, when he himself had an entire flock from which to choose.

  When Nathan asked David what should be done with the man who killed the sheep, David’s response was, “The man should surely die.” Nathan retorted, “You are that man.”

According to the story in Scripture, David composed Psalm 51, known as the Miserere Mei  in Latin from its opening words, “Have mercy on me.”  Psalm 51 appears frequently during the Lenten season, as it does every Ash Wednesday.

  We need to ask Jesus on the First Sunday of Lent to do something about the fact that we all are like King David in so many ways.  We are loved by God, but we goof off.  Whenever temptation confronts us, as it confronted Jesus in the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent, we need to ask Jesus for the grace to see that we constantly miss the mark of human living that Jesus asks us to live with His Help.  We need to ask Jesus to help us root out from our lives whatever it is that prevents us from behaving as if God truly is the Center of our lives.  We need to ask Jesus to help us become the “salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”, which He enables us to be if we allow Him.

  As we hear in the liturgy each day, “let us call to mind our minds and ask God for pardon and peace.” Let us ask Jesus to help us resist the temptation to be other than what God wants us to be. 021702 AD jfq            

  

            Like Us in All Things

     King David is one of the most colorful and human of all the figures of the Hebrew Bible.  We know a great deal about him because he was the first great King of his people and his descendents on the Throne of David made sure that his heritage was maintained.  Court historians (divinely inspired, but human, nonetheless) gave David a generally favorable spin in the biblical books of 1 & 2 Samuel.  However, his humanity seeps through.

     In a certain sense, David did it all. He was a songwriter, some of whose lyrics made it into the Book of Psalms. (The entire book is attributed to him, although he probably only wrote a few of the psalms.) However, he was violent. He was an adulterer.  His son Absalom rebelled against him.  He did not get along with his first wife.  He was the father of a generally dysfunctional family. His story, then, mirrors many stories now.

         However, he knew that God loved him.  He knew when it was time to do penance for his sins. He knew that God was correct in being displeased with his performance as a person. He would try (at least, for a while,) to do better.

     One particularly telling incident is the story of David and Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.  Because David was the father of Bathsheba’s unborn child, he called Uriah, a non-Jew soldier of David’s, back for a period of “rest and relaxation” with his wife, Bathsheba (as well, David’s ladyfriend).  When Uriah refused the “R and R” because his soldiers were not given the same reward, David had him placed in the frontlines where he would surely be killed.  Now, David would have no problem with a paternity suit.

The prophet Nathan went to King David and challenged him with the parable of the man who slew his neighbor’s one sheep for dinner, when he himself had an entire flock from which to choose.

  When Nathan asked David what should be done with the man who killed the sheep, David’s response was, “The man should surely die.” Nathan retorted, “You are that man.”

According to the story in Scripture, David composed Psalm 51, known as the Miserere Mei  in Latin from its opening words, “Have mercy on me.”  Psalm 51 appears frequently during the Lenten season, as it does every Ash Wednesday.

  We need to ask Jesus on the First Sunday of Lent to do something about the fact that we all are like King David in so many ways.  We are loved by God, but we goof off.  Whenever temptation confronts us, as it confronted Jesus in the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent, we need to ask Jesus for the grace to see that we constantly miss the mark of human living that Jesus asks us to live with His Help.  We need to ask Jesus to help us root out from our lives whatever it is that prevents us from behaving as if God truly is the Center of our lives.  We need to ask Jesus to help us become the “salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”, which He enables us to be if we allow Him.

  As we hear in the liturgy each day, “let us call to mind our minds and ask God for pardon and peace.” Let us ask Jesus to help us resist the temptation to be other than what God wants us to be. 021702 AD jfq