July 28, 2013AD

Christo- or Retail Therapy?

             You probably heard about the sinking value of the US dollar against the hearty Euro.  On Tuesday this week, it was $1.31 to the Euro. Now,  Europeans are coming here for economical vacations.

             You probably heard that Europe is suffering from bizarre weather this summer season, similar to ours.  There are many forest fires in southern and eastern Europe with Italy, Greece and Hungary particularly effected.

However, in the Celtic Isles, things are different. There has been a dismally wet summer with lots of rain and flooding.  Might global warming have something to do with this meteorological reality?

On Irish radio, recently, a serious discussion was held about the two stories, viz., the strength of the Euro and the bizarre and wet weather in Ireland and England. A psychiatrist was on hand to discuss the problem and offered a facile solution that makes one wonder.  The solution is called “retail therapy”.  To offset depression triggered by rainy weather, people (who could do so!) have been flocking to shops and malls to spend  plentiful Euros to combat the blues.

In an effort to explain retail therapy (aka consumerism) more adequately, the psychiatrist borrowed a paradigm from theology.  The mall is the cathedral.  The ads are the scriptures.  The stores are the chapels.  The sales staff are the clergy.  You, the consumer, are the worshipper.  The act of shopping is the liturgy. Salvation is feeling loved (by the sales person), powerful (by the many choices that one can make in color and/or style, etc.), important (by the total attention paid by the sales person again.) The purchase is the worship offered to the god Mammon (Aramaic for “stuff”)

Sadly, nobody called in to the radio station to challenge the theory that the psychiatrist was offering. Others had earlier identified the same patterns and called them the pathology of “mammon illness”, (aka “affluenza”) (cf preceding page) when we worship “stuff” and not God. What do we really need?    

Check the list of symptoms and see, perchance, if you might recognize something.  Symptoms include “going 100 mph in a 55 mph speed zone, in your brain), and also feeling that problems of others are sad, but I can’t be bothered right now? 

Most Catholics are startled by its brevity and subtle differences today, in St Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. that we all know, which appears directly in the center (not an accident) of St Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.

Most Catholics know today that the biblical word “bread” means a variety of things.  It means literally bread, or food, or sustenance, or in modern American parlance, money, (with which to buy one’s sustenance.) Many people on both sides of the North Atlantic Lake have plenty of “bread.” 

St Luke tells us that Jesus wants us to keep asking each day for the “bread that we need”.  What the evangelist might be hinting at is the necessity of realizing that all our needs are ultimately somehow satisfied by a God Who creates and loves us. No matter what we think our needs are and how to satisfy those needs, God knows what we need and, as Jesus tells us later in the gospel today, that we know how to give gifts to those we love. (How well do we know that, these days, by the way?)    God will give the Holy Spirit (apparently all one really needs) to those who ask for good things from God.

Two parables that St Luke add to his version of the Gospel include the parable of the rich fool and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

Each speaks to a different symptom of Mammon illness (again aka affluenza).

In the parable of the rich fool, the man constantly uses the pronoun “I” and adjective “my” several times in a few lines.  Coin is the name of the game, and then, the gentleman dies. As Jesus asks, “To whom will this stored-up wealth go?”

In the more well-known parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the problem was not that the man was rich, but rather, he did not see Lazarus below the table, looking for the “LO’s”, viz leftovers.

The stress is not upon the fact that the rich man did not see Lazarus in his vision at the banquet table. Pope John Paul used this parable on several occasions, challenging richer nations of the world as the corporate rich man and the poorer nations as the corporate Lazarus. Pope Francis has spoke recently of “a church of the poor and for the poor”. Many see gestures and behavior modification from Rome as positive signs of transformation.    

  YHWH, our Father, asks us to trust God’s Providence at all times. The only difficulty is that God is hard to figure out sometimes.  We delight and presume in God’s Love in good times, but when we get the blues from the seriously painful mysteries of life that we sadly experience at times, then, it is more difficult.  Jesus reminds us today that God’s therapy is more fulfilling and life-giving than retail therapy. 

Some days, it is too hot. Other days, it is too rainy.  Sometimes, we have plenty. Other times, we have less. However, we always need nourishment; we need to eat everyday.  On all days, Jesus urges to keep on asking for the sustenance that we need.  (It is interesting that biblical prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, urge us to “eat God’s Word” absorbing the Word into our system. God feeds us it in Christian community, the bread of the Scriptures and of the Eucharist. Let us share God’s Bread on good days, and not so good.  God’s guarantee is eternal.   072813AD jfq      

July 21, 2013AD

Get in Here, Martha !!

This familiar Gospel story is known by all of

us. However, we need to read between the lines for

some food for thought. Recall that Jesus was an

“envelope-pusher” from way back, so He was not

too bashful.

Jesus broke several cultural taboos with his

friendly visit. 1) In that culture, a single gentleman

would not visit 2 single ladies. (Notice no mention

of Lazarus in Luke’s Gospel.) 2) A single man

would not have dined with 2 single ladies in their

home. (Recall that one only ate meals with those

with whom one was most intimate, viz., relatives

and/or close friends.) 3) Family members would

never ask an outsider to settle a family quarrel. 4)

A woman would not have sat at the feet of an itinerant

prophet. (Only men were the students.) Recall

the Barbra Streisand movie,

Yentl, years ago?

First, the fact that Jesus went unescorted

into home of the two ladies would get the neighbors

to talk. In an unchaperoned setting, one might

wonder what was going on. Remember Lazarus is

not “at home” in this story.

Second, nor was Jesus bashful about accepting

dinner invitations. In several places, people

invited Jesus to dinner and it was never a dull evening.

(One student at Stepinac asked, years ago, if

Jesus had a problem with his weight because “the

man was always eating!”)

Jesus’ strategy of table fellowship was characteristic

behavior in His mission of breaking down

barriers between people. (In Acts of the Apostles

and 1 Corinthians, we know that table fellowship

was pivotal in the early Christian communities.)

This is another reason for the importance of our

gathering as a parish for a variety of social events.

Table fellowship unites ideally. It should not be divisive.)

Jesus violated cultural norms when he accepted

the dinner invitation of Martha and Mary.

(Once again, there is a need to clarify that the

name Miryam, viz., “noble woman”, Hebrew for

Mary, was one of the most popular names for

women in Jesus’ world. Emphatically, this Mary is

not Mary Magdalene, although some have mistakenly

identified her as such.)

However, Jesus’ job description, like ours in

Christ Jesus, is to proclaim that the Kingdom is

here, even now (though not yet.) God’s New World

Order is wherever and whenever people believe and

behave that God is ultimately running the show

and not themselves.

Everyone is invited to accept table fellowship

in the Kingdom. No one is excluded. Everyone

is God’s daughter or son. Remember the opening

to Jesus’ signature prayer,

“Our Father”, not my

Father, Your Father, Father

Cultural norms of western civilization are

not necessarily what God wants. Table manners

for example are not moral questions, but who is

included and who was excluded were moral questions

in Jesus’ New World Order . The fact that Jesus

was willing to break bread with anybody who

desired to eat with Him indicated that culture’s

norms are not necessarily about what God is concerned.

Cultures that have accommodated and excused

corporate and group violence, dishonesty,

and greed need to recognize that God sees reality

differently than they do. Using Gospel lenses, honest

change and readjustment is something to consider

as the first step.

Third, Jesus violated another “no-no” or

taboo by placing Himself in the midst of a quarrel

between two sisters. However, Jesus was a member

of every family, despite cultural mores.

Fourth, another taboo which Jesus violated

had to do with Mary’s sitting at the feet of Rabbi

Jesus. Again, Jesus stressed the universality of

God’s invitation to listen to Jesus teach about the

New World Order (aka the Kingdom of God) (the

way it can be now and will be someday, if we allow

God into our lives). Jesus invited women as well as

men to hear Him. In fact, Jesus told Martha to

cook only one dish ASAP and get into the living

room to listen as Mary listened. Jesus invited her

to be a disciple.

St Teresa of Avila (aka Big Tess) had said

realistically,

“I feel the call to silence, but my

mind can be had with the thought of a sardine

sandwich.”

Saint Therese, the Little Flower (aka

Little Tess) said,

“God is always at home in us;

we are the ones who was usually out to lunch.”

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said,

“God speaks to

us in the silence. Our job is to hear the Silence

and translate what we hear by the way we treat

one another.”

Listen to the three wise Teresa’s.

Jesus calls each of us to discipleship,

“to

hear the Word of God and act upon it.”

We are

men and women, Type A’s and Type B’s, Jews and

Gentiles, young and old, rich and poor, welleducated

and not. He calls us to listen in silence

to His version of reality and try to model our reality

on His view. May we accept God’s forgiveness and

forgive one another. Only God can build a perfect

world. All God wants us to do is to build a better

one that we inherited. Do the best you can now to

teach your children (and yourself) the importance

of enhancing not diminishing the home planet that

we all share May our world be freer of hunger,

violence, cruelty, injustice and inequality.

May all

those called to discipleship in Christ hear the

Teacher and practice, with His Help, what He

preaches.

“Now is the time; now is the day of salvation,”

as St Paul teaches. Do we

Now have more

important items on the agenda?

072113AD jfq

July 14, 2013AD

The Jericho Road Full of Questions

Every bone in my body was aching.

And a gash just below my left eye

Left me dazed with confusion and anger,

One more victim as crime rates soar high!

I had heard many stories and warnings,

That road I should not travel alone.

But I thought I was fit and impervious

A lesson too late to bemoan!

Many passed me and stared in amazement,

I never felt so much betrayed,

As I glimpsed the far priest and the Levite

My stomach, it groaned in despair.

Till a guy with a donkey approached me,

A stranger so thoughtful and rare.

And he mounted me onto his donkey

And rushed me for medical care.

Next, I knew I was sleeping in comfort

And sustained with some food of the best.

But in nervous concern I queried

What ‘twould cost me to be such a guest.

No worry, but trust in the carer,

Had accounted for every expense,

With such care I could quickly recover

And no one would ask recompense.

But then came the shock and the quandary.

O dear! How it made my heart sink!

Compromising my whole reputation,

Betraying my unique Jewish rank.

Samaritans we always have hated,

For me they’re the lowest of low.

How disgusting – he handled my body,

I better let nobody know!

But why did he do this good turn?

Now surely he too must have known

That Jews and Samaritans differ

And should keep far apart on their own.

I’m confused and unsure of my grounding,

I don’t understand what is going on.

While my own all passed by and ignored me,

A Samaritan lifted my head!

Who said who should all hate who differ?

On our own we should only rely?

And why is religion so righteous

Leaving people like me in the mire?

The Samaritans, I still do not like them.

After all, I’ve been told that from youth,

But I can’t trust my own any longer

‘Cause I wonder if they’re telling the truth.

I wonder about all this religion.

Can it lead God’s people astray?

When the outcast can glow in compassion

While the righteous pile rules to obey! 

Paraphrased from a poem by Diarmuid O’Murchu’s

Christianity’s Dangerous Memory

     

(New York:

Crossroad Publishing, 2011AD) 

July 7, 2013AD

Two by Two in Christ Jesus

             Today, St Luke presents us with a story that tells us a great deal about both the beginnings of the Jesus Movement as well as implications for 21^st century Catholicism as well. He presents an interesting scenario to us.

             In addition to the Twelve, Jesus sent out a further 72 to proclaim that God has something new and important to share with whoever will listen. Jesus saw the task as so urgent that He stressed the necessity of traveling lightly and making the rounds to as many households as possible.  The message is serious in its implications.  “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”

Emanating from Latin America in the later twentieth century was the re-establishment (in a new way) of a traditional Catholistic paradigm, viz., the intentional community, “Wherever 2 or 3 gather together in my Name, I am present (Emmanuel) in their midst.  Because of the increasing dearth of clergy in Latin America, folks gathered together for what was called “base communities”.  These groups gather together to pray  and to apply critical thinking (not spin) in light of the Gospel of Jesus to existential realities which confronted them in increasingly difficult socio-economic-political settings.  How do we analyze and correct the problems that we face in light of the teachings of Jesus?  Men and women with the gift of faith in Jesus and maybe, only a sixth grade education, were organizing these groups,  many of which came to be seen as threats by both state and church, frequently in collusion with each other. 

However, some have wondered that if Jesus’ mission were so urgent, then why did He not send out these missionaries on their own?  Why opt for 36 teams of 2, and not 72 individuals?

Several solutions have been offered.  First, since the message about the Kingdom of God needed verification, the Semitic mindset was that the testimony had to be given by at least two witnesses. Second, the teams of two suggested that the missionaries on such an all-important and stressful assignment needed the companionship of one another to de-compress from the pressures of the mission effort. Third, probably, the most salient solution might be that the Kingdom of God is not about a solitary relationship between an individual and God.  Rather, the proclamation of the Kingdom involves a radical change in one’s relationships with God and with other people.  Gospel living is about God and others, not just God and self. (Someone calculated that over 2/3 of what Jesus said, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount in St Matthew’s Gospel, which we just concluded in the daily lectio continua , had to do with getting along with other people along the patterns of behavior demanded by Jesus. A good relationship with God is bound to affect our dealings with other people; a good relationship with other people is bound to affect our dealings with God. 

The format that Jesus used showed that, even in His public life, word was starting to spread to others through the witness of teams of two.  Most people back then tended to live very localized lives.  Most never traveled very far from the place where they were born and they lived in very circumscribed environs in very structured relationships with very few people.  Into this nexus of relationships, itinerant teams of two entered and brought news about the radical new order of things that can be affected by people snapping out of myopia to a new vision of reality.

Testifying to the Proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth, these teams of two would back up the power of their testimony by healing infirmities of those who were ill. These healings were not meant to be showstoppers, but rather, audio-visual indications of the veracity of the witnesses’ testimony.

In the modern Jesus Movement, there has been the re-emergence of these small groups, intentional communities, base communities in which committed Catholics gather together to analyze problems in a Catholistic (though not necessarily sacramental settings). Such groups recognize that relatedness is the name of the game for human living. It includes relatedness to Mother Nature, relatedness to one’s sisters and brothers in one human family in one human household, relatedness to the Holy Mystery (both knowable and unknowable at the same time) of Transcendence, with concomitant ethical responsibities, indeed, relatedness with the entire universe, which we call reality.

In many Christian settings, these intentional communities have been recovered in the Catholic Church. As religious orders wane, they pave the way for new intentional communities as people who take seriously the universal call to integrity, from Vatican II, both backward to the beginning and forward to the future. (Extra) ordinary Catholics form intentional communities, such as Project Embrace, FIAT, Pax Christi, Contemplative Outreach, religious education. As St Paul writes in one of his pastoral letters, “The Gospel will not be stopped, even in the twenty-first century.”     

Each person is a relational, psychosomatic unity, with a mind-body connection within us, operating for better or for worse, for the reality of God’s new plan for us seriously, then, we would, in a sense, be different people. Visions change!!

2000 years after the setting of this Gospel, while times and venues change, people remain the same.  As two or three or more proclaim the message in word and action, the message of the Kingdom, brought to us by Catholic faith, can continue to work miracles to convince us “The Kingdom is at hand for you.”  You might even see it in better health checkups.  Trust Jesus. 070713AD         

     

June 30, 2013AD

   JQ’s Farewell Address

             I remember the first Mass that I have celebrated here with you on July 1, 1994.  Some of you who are here this afternoon were here that day as well.

                 Many years ago, when I was first ordained as a deacon, the priest who was to be my mentor taught me many things. Among them was the importance of stressing several key ideas with the community on a regular basis. One of them was the necessity of regular reception of the Eucharist as a way to keep in touch with the Christian community throughout the week and throughout the world. Not surprisingly, the communion lines in the church there in Yonkers were lengthy.   

Some of the ideas that I wanted to share with you have evolved.  Please God, over the years and to many of you, hopefully, today, they will sound redundant.

First, all of us are still living in the New Testament. It did not end with the completion of the Book of Revelation.  Jesus continues to make His influence felt, viz., the Holy Spirit, in our lives as much as He did in that first century.

In fact, please God, we are living in the beginning of the New Testament. (Someone said several years when looking back at Church history, that the church has matured one psychological year for each one hundred years of church history. The first three hundred years represent our neonate pivotal first three years.  The Dark Ages represent the latency phase of most lives. The years of the Reformation represent the teen years, when one asserts independence.  Since we are at the start of the twenty-first century, by that template, the Jesus Movement in entering into early adulthood.  In the history of this planet and universe, 2000 years are insignificant. 2013 years hence, in the year of the Lord, 4026AD, our descendents in the Jesus Movement  then will look back at us today and ask themselves, Why did they not get the teachings of Jesus more clearly on that point or this point. As Blessed John XXIII said in the 1960’s, “We know more now (in 4026AD)”. Our understanding of Gospel truth is evolving.

We celebrate the Divine Indwelling or Deep Incarnation of God in each and everyone of us – no exceptions. As we said in traditional Catholic terminology, we are all “tabernacles of the Holy Spirit”.

 Recall the prayer exercise we did many times. God is everywhere; I am somewhere; God lives in me; I live in God (NOW!) Each day is a day in the Lord. Presence to the Deep Incarnation, the Divine Indwelling  makes a difference in the way that all of us can experience life each day.  

Another idea that we thought about a lot together was the baptismal hymn that our ancestors in the Jesus Movement sang twenty-five years after Jesus’ death and Resurrection. All are one in Christ Jesus. There no longer exists, Jew or Gentile, slave or freeman, male or female.  All are one in Christ Jesus. I think that our parish community has tried to take St Paul’s hymn at its word for these nineteen years as best we could.  These words remind us of the Deep Incarnation in each of us as well as teach us that Jesus wants us to be people, “His transition team”  actively working for racial justice, economic justice, gender justice. In the Name of Jesus, we tried to do so. 

Next, we tried to learn together the art of Contemplation. Unfortunately, contemplative and mystical are turn-off words when they are used in a religious context.  A better way to express the concept is through our realization that every human person has a transcendental orientation. However, once in a while, we realize occasionally that we are dependent upon and different than an Other every moment of our life, from moment to moment. This transcendental re- orientation is constitutive of what it is to be a human person.   Transcendental re-orientation is available to all.  You don’t have to go to an ashram in India or upstate New York.  You can learn the practice anywhere and you can’t beat the price! Maybe, an evolving Catholic vocation is to teach the art of contemplation or else join with other faith traditions who feel the same transcendental orientation.

Around here, the parish community here has tried to take Vatican Council II seriously.  One of the clarion calls from Vatican Council II was the universal call to holiness.  Holiness is another put off, substitute the word “integrity” for “holiness” because the two words mean the same. Our parish  has tried to take the universal call to integrity seriously.

The work of Project Embrace and the Fiat Initative as well as the enriched social consciousness of CYO b-ball in the past few years speak to how our community has responded to the universal call to integrity. In fact, as you probably know, our CYO basketball program was honored at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC for sportsmanship.  The St Patrick’s B-ball motto, “CYO — not just basketball” has given a  call to make such the motto of the entire program in the Archdiocesan CYO athletic program.  St Patrick’s people are tops.    

Back in 2000AD, our parish community joined in a project of fostering total parish catechesis. Religious education was not just to get children ready for Confirmation and then, bye-bye until marriage (maybe!). The great document then was “Our Hearts Were Burning.” Since those days, we tried to maintain a high quality of Sunday preaching, use of the Sunday bulletin for adult religious formation, adult book and study groups, our “Young Dads Group”. 

Tying all of this together is the call to all of us, as God’s children, to behave toward one another in a just and compassionate way that we call “Gospel non-violence”. Non-violence is a word that has been misinterpreted by our culture. Gospel non-violence cannot be misinterpreted.   

We recall the words of the Challenge of Peace by the USA Catholic bishops on the arms race.  First, we try to see all human issues thru the focus of the seamless garment, the consistent life ethic. All human life is sacred, from womb to tomb, from Park Row to Skid Row to Death Row. Second, we try to see that we have entered in the beginning of the Third Millenium of human history a new moment. We have the ability to undo what the Creator has been doing for eons through weaponry, environmental pollution, genetics, et al. Third, we are all called to a personal disarmament of the human heart, viz., to try in Christ Jesus to recommit ourselves to Gospel non-violence in our dealings with everyone.  As Pope John Paul said, “there are no moral free-zones for anyone (individual and/or systemic or governmental)”. All stand under the scrutiny of the Gospel lenses of Jesus.   

This week, Catholics heard at daily Mass Jesus’ encounter with the Friendly Pharisee, who agreed with Jesus about the law of ethical monotheism. If there is one God, there is one human family. Please, behave accordingly!!

    God bless the whole world

no exceptions!

063013AD,  Lovingly and respectfully, jfq