Weekly Reflection Attn New York Catholics in the Third Millenium

Reflection, February 5, 2012AD

2012-02-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

Again, Jesus Was Ahead of His Time!
It is becoming clearer that most of the world’s major religions strive for a common vision. The Dalai Lama and others have called “a Global Ethic”, viz., what things most human persons -- and religions – can take as common ground for living in the Third Millenium. Jesus has been trying to teach us this for the past 2000 years. If the Jewish Messiah is, indeed, the universal Savior, then, His Message is for all.
As Canadian sociologist, Marshall McLuhan, put it in 1967, the “Medium is the Message.” Jesus said the same thing 2000 years in memorable words as well, “I am the Way (Medium) and the Truth and the Life (Message).
It stands to reason that when we see Jesus in action, we see the type of behavior that God expects of us all. In these early sections of St Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus moving quickly (the Greek word for “quickly” appears about 7 times in the first two chapter of the Gospel of St Mark.)
We can deduce certain things about human behavior when we see the Archetypal Human One (a legitimate translation of the more familiar Son of Man.) Today, we see two outstanding characteristics of Jesus’ modus operandi. He is a man of action for the less fortunate and a man of contemplation to maintain right relationships in God with all.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is busy trying to help people cope with the sufferings of their lives, whether through physical pain or demonic possession (psychological addition??) First, it is the sick with various diseases and those possessed of demons, that Jesus heals. He is a Do-er!!
(One of those sick is the first Pope’s mother-in-law. We know that St Peter was married not only because he had a mother-in-law, but that over 25 years later, St Paul refers to St Peter’s wife in a little quoted line from 1 Cor 9. 5. “Do we (Barnabas and Paul) not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas, (the Aramaic word for Peter?) In addition, St Mark uses a biblically charged word “lifted up” which is later going to be used as a buzzword for Resurrection and after she gets up, she waits on them, another biblically charged word for Christian ministry.)
Still, like us in all things but sin, Jesus’ busy days could have stressed Him out. He, like all of us, needed to recharge His battery. This he does, we hear by rising very early before dawn, he went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.
Theologian John Crossan tells us that we can use the image of a laptop getting a recharge from a wall outlet to understand what is happening when we pray. We are the laptops. We get our charge, the Holy Spirit, when we engage in prayer time, plugging into the wall outlet, God’s providing the Juice of the Holy Spirit. (Think about it. It is a variation of the Vine and the Branches metaphor in John 15.)
When Jesus went to charge His Laptop, chances are that He took no biblical scrolls with Him (although He could have). He certainly like many Jews of His time knew some biblical quotes, particularly from the Psalms. Many years ago, Catholics were urged to learn a few of the biblical Psalms that spoke to them. Around here, many parishioners know Psalm 23, Psalm 95, Psalm 117, and Psalm 130. Jesus probably knew them as well and they were part of His prayer repertoire. Also, the Abba Prayer (aka the Our Father) is known to most of us and contains a ready source of prayer and contemplation at any time when we can slow down in silence and surrender in peace to the Divine Presence. In addition, many know such prayers as the Prayer of St Francis and the Prayer of St Francis and other Catholic devotional prayers.
However, chances really are real that before or after He had recited His Psalms, Jesus practiced contemplation. This is the practice of slowing down, in silence and in solitude and listening to the Silence. As the Dalai Lama suggests, this is a given in most major religions. There is something universally human about it and it stands to reason that the Archetypal Human One would be a contemplative.
Still, there is a balance. Jesus spent much of days as the champion of the helpless who came His way. Then, He maintained Himself by hours of prayer. Those who know anything about the Gospels can not say that Jesus did not care about the sick, the poor and the marginalized and that He was not a Person of Contemplative Prayer.
That is the way He wants all of us to be, not just Catholics, but all of us. In our Western Catholic tradition, we are recovering the call to contemplation for all people, not just Catholics. The “contemplative” is etymologically composed of two words con – with or within and temple (where God dwells or resides). (It is a reminder of the Catholic belief in the Divine Indwelling, that God live in us now and we live in God now, and the Deep Incarnation, the Creator of the universe in love is united with the creation, even me, even you, even the ones we don’t like!)
St Peter was more on target than he knew when He told Jesus, “Everyone is looking for You.” Just as Jesus is the Archetypal Human One, then we all want to be truly human. We are looking for Jesus, even when we don’t realize that we are.
Either way you look at Him, Jesus was a contemplative activist or an activist contemplative. Following the urging of the Dalai Lama, contemplation and compassion are calls to all human persons. As Jesus said to the lawyer in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, may we all “go and do likewise”. 020512AD jfq

Reflection, January 29, 2012AD

2012-02-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

One Never Know, Do One?
There are many churches in our Catholic world dedicated to Christ the King and Christ the Good Shepherd. However, nobody has located a Church named, Christ the Prophet. What’s up with that?
In today’s first reading, Moses speaks of “a prophet like himself Whom God will raise in the future.” (The Book of Deuteronomy, whence the reading, was probably written around 622BC.)
The word “prophet” needs explanation. The biblical word is “nabi”. It has a wide sense of meanings. Unfortunately in modern American parlance, frequently, the word is associated with predicting the future, what is yet to come.
In the biblical context, the word “nabi” refers to the NOW, the present moment. The word might be related to the view from standing on a hill looking down on a situation below. In this context, it means seeing human reality from God’s perspective. If anybody named reality from God’s slant, it would have been Moses. He says, in today’s reading,in the future, one like him will arise.
The nabi names reality from God’s vantage point. As we know from experience, the description of a landscape is different when one is on level ground and when one is looking down from above. (Interestingly, it was said that when the Eiffel Tower was opened in Paris, in the 19th century, Parisians for the first time really saw themselves as citizens of a metropolis, rather than residents in an arrondissement (neighborhood).)
Jesus did not Self-identify deliberately as the Prophet of whom Moses spoke, He spoke of them. “No prophet is without honor except in his native place”. In St Luke’s account of the same vignetteJesus speaks of the prophets Elijah and Elisha who experienced rejection just as Jesus had, when He was rejected in His home town. (Mk 6.4) In St Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus raised the widow son of Nain, the reaction of the crowd was “A great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited the people.” In John’s Gospel, they asked Jesus, ‘Are you the Prophet, who is to come?” (John 1.21) The Primitive Christian Community, however, did use the term “prophet” to describe Jesus in their outreach to the Jewish world.
The first generations of the Jesus Movement believed that Jesus was, indeed, the Prophet of Whom Moses spoke. In St Peter’s Second Inaugural Address, on the afternoon of Pentecost Sunday, the future Bishop of Rome said, “Moses said, “the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your own brethren as God raised me up. You shall listen to Him whatever He tells you.”
When we recall the world in which Jesus lived, the Big Lie spoke of the Pax Romana, viz., that the world was at peace. Still, Palestine then was a fascist, violent, repressive state. In the midst of that world, Jesus summarized His program in the world with the slogan, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent & believe this Good News.”
If the slogan is broken down into components, Kingdom of God emphasizing Kingdom is a political statement; Kingdom of God emphasizing God is a religious statement. Repent can signify turn around or snap out of it; Good News means something radically different. (Radical in the sense of getting back to the roots, viz., what God intended all along, but what we tamper with (in the archetypal story of the Fall of Adam and Eve.)
Jesus spoke truth to power. It was not for nothing that the inscription over His Head on the cross said, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”. Nor was the crown of thorns a mistake. The powers that be got Jesus’ Message loud and clear. Apparently, someone in the System read between the lines. Jesus program on non-violent active engagement with the system was a threat that some were taking seriously, but it represented a threat that could not go unchallenged.
As Pope John Paul put it, “the Age of Martyrs continues on in our own time.” In the twentieth century, many died for their belief in a message that ultimately is traced back Jesus’ agenda. We think of Mohandas Gandhi whose murder-martyrdom we commemorate this weekend. We know how imbued he was in the Gospel message of Jesus. We think of Rev Martin Luther King whose birthday we celebrated two weeks ago. (Funny how the media played him down this year!) We think of the martyrs of El Salvador, the Maryknoll Martyrs, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit Martyrs, and many others. Today around the world, people still take difficult non-violent stands for the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
Today, Jesus cures a leper. In His compassionate solidarity, Jesus incurs the ritual impurity of the religious system by His touching the leper. That was a NoNo! When it came to humanization of the victims of the world, Jesus did not worry about conventions. People came first. However, His miracles were meant to be an audio-visual to back up the Gospel of the Kingdom. The message of the Prophet was what got Him crucified, not the good deeds He did to bolster His Gospel.
God indeed, did raise up a prophet like Moses. It was up to folks then and folks now (That’s us!!) to take Jesus’ program seriously. In the process the System will change, sooner for you, if you trust Jesus. It is not about the Bottom Line as the System cons us into thinking; rather it is the Common Good.
Prophets speak out about the invisible pathologies in the System. Today, such pathologies include the following: 1) our attitude to energy; 2) our attitude to the environment; 3) our attitude to economic justice; 4) our attitude to personal ethics. In the recent popular novel, The Kiteflyer, the prophet said, The Golden Rule was basically the 7th commandment, q.v. “Thou shalt not steal”. Paraphrasing the fictional prophet, “If we could get everyone (individuals, “corporate persons” (if they do really exist) and systemic structures (even nations) to abide by the Golden Rule, viz., “Do unto others as you would them do unto you,” it would be a great start. (Don’t boo that one!!). As a modern day prophet in Christ Jesus, Pope John Paul said, “There are no moral freezones. All stand under the scrutiny of the Gospel.”
What prophets in Christ say today echo the message of the Prophet alluded to by Moses. We usually have other names for our Prophet. Still, whatever you call Jesus, His prophetic challenge in His slogan, “The Kingdom of God has drawn near” challenges us here and now, whether we and our children take Him seriously as we try to construct better human communities reflecting the non-violent active engagement with whatever systemic evils threaten God’s children. Are we honest and savvy enough to reflect on what is what God really wants and what is merely spin? 012912AD jfq

Reflection, January 22, 2012AD

2012-01-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

Jesus, Peter & Paul, Benedict , Gandhi — and Me???
Most Wednesdays of the year, Pope Benedict meets with pilgrims to Roma for a general audience. (Our parish visited Pope Benedict on Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009AD.) In his remarks in English, on January 7, 2009AD, prior to our visit, the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict, said, paraphrasing St Paul’s letter to the Romans, “Paul exhorts us to offer our own bodies – meaning our entire selves -- as a spiritual worship: not in the abstract, but in our concrete daily life. (NB He’s talking about YOU and your own life!!) At the same time, this true (on-going) worship does not come about merely through human effort, Rather, through baptism, we have become “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3.28) , Who took upon Himself our human nature and has thus assumed us into Himself.” Take some time out and think about that!!!
Pope Benedict’s citation of St Paul brings a segue with today’s Gospel of the response of the first 4 disciples to Jesus’ message to snap out of the miasmic system, smell God’s coffee and live Jesus’ worldview. Whatever happened with the call of the first disciples, viz., Peter and Andrew and James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they made bold moves by becoming disciples or followers of Jesus.
1)In their literal following of Jesus, they left behind two important boundary markers. They left strong parental and tribal ties and changed their venue as Jesus moved around proclaiming His Gospel. (Recall that at this early point in the Gospel, Jesus heals St Peter’s mother in law and at a later point, St Peter’s wife traveled with her husband at least 25 years after Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Ergo, Mrs Peter’s life changed too!)
2) Recall that these 4 were among the “middle class” such as it were in first century Galilee because they were not part of the 95% of the population who were tenant farmers. These four were tradesmen as fishermen. (They paid taxes.) As a result, their economic status radically changed by abandoning their nets and following Jesus.
3) Remember as well that the 4 were not perfect in any way. St Peter, for example, would later deny Jesus three times. The brothers, Peter and Andrew resented James and John’s power grab later on in Mark’s Gospel.
In response to what St Paul said, many years later, the 4 in the Gospel today offered their human efforts in, with and through Christ Jesus as their spiritual worship to God. The radical response of the 4 disciples obviously is meant to be archetypal for all of us. St Mark is hoping that all of us, with God’s Help, would do the same by our following Jesus every moment of our lives, every moment, not just Sunday for 45-50 minutes.
“The call or vocation archetype” of the first 4 impacts people in a variety of ways. Once Christianity became legalized in the fourth century, a committed Christianity became, for many, a cultural or conventional or a beige Christianity. Many, if not most, came to see Christian or Catholic as an identity badge, rather than a way of life. One area theologian said that in our own middle class world, church participation has become like country club participation. For many, now, we belong to a club, we pay our dues, we go when it fits our schedule, our children learn what club children learn (tennis, swimming or first Penance and Communion), we eat in the dining room (Sunday Mass) occasionally in a while and we join another club if we don’t like the chef, viz., the pastor.
In the twentieth century, one who saw the uniqueness of the Gospel of Christ Jesus was Mohandas Gandhi, whose assassination we commemorate this week. He really believed in the teachings of Jesus but he was never baptized because he felt that it was unwise to join a religion to which most adherents pay lip service, rather than commitment. It is always an eye opener to read some of his one-liners about those who claim to be Christians. 1) “If Christians really believed the Gospel of Jesus, they would walk around on their knees.” 2) “If Christians really wanted to be Kingdom-people, they should become the change that they would like to see the world to be.” 3) “What a great God Christians claim to worship, viz., a God who would become bread to feed God’s own people.” 4) “The first principle of non-violent action is the way of non-cooperation with everything that humiliates people.” 5) “If we are to reach real peace in this world, and if we are to wage war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” 6)” Cooperation, not competition, is the law of the human species ultimately.” 7) “If the world continues to practice an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth mentality, eventually the world would be inhabited by blind people unable to eat corn on the cob!”
1600 years ago, St Augustine of Hippo wrote, “Many who claim to be Christian might not know and live the Gospel; many who know and live the Gospel might not claim to be Christian!” Pope Benedict in his recent message asks us to follow the example and sage prayer of St Paul to offer our lives 24-7 in, with and through Christ Jesus. While they might not have been prime examples, Peter and Andrew and James and John, Paul and Gandhi were willing to try to do so. What is our response? 012212AD jfq

Reflection, Sunday January 15, 2012AD

2012-01-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

Honorary Andrew’s or Andrea’s
In Greek Christianity, they bestow the
title, “Protoclete” (The First-called”) upon St
Andrew, the brother of St Peter. In today’s
Gospel, Andrew is one of the two disciples of
John the Baptist who came to follow Jesus.
He tells his brother, Simon Peter, to come to
Jesus. We all know what happened after. Immediately,
Simon Peter takes precedence and
Andrew recedes into the background. Was St
Andrew jealous?
Probably not. St Andrew appears twice
more in the Fourth Gospel, at the multiplication
of the loaves and the fish and then, again,
just before, the death of Jesus, when a group
of Greek-speaking Jews came to St Andrew at
the Passover and told him that they would like
to see Jesus.
St Andrew’s “job description” seems to
be “to bring other people to Jesus and then,
step back and let Jesus take over.” Every
Catholic has the same job description, mandated
by Baptism and Confirmation.
In Baptism, we are commissioned as
disciples (students) of Jesus. But, in Confirmation,
we are commissioned as apostles
(emissaries of Jesus), sent to bring others to
Jesus and let Jesus take over.
Therefore, in a real way, all the confirmed
are honorary Andrew’s (or Andrea’s).
Whenever a Catholic baptism is celebrated,
the Church bestows a special blessing upon
the father of the neonate. “We bless the father
of this child. He and his wife will be
the first teachers of their child in the ways
of faith and hope. May they be the best of
teachers by what they say and do in Christ
our Lord.” Values are caught, not taught.
However, for example, one child told the
bishop a few years back “I am basically a good
kid. I go to church on Sunday unless I have
something important to do.” Whence that impression?
Values are caught, not taught.
In so many ways, all of us are called to
be “Andrew’s or Andrea’s” by Jesus. As Marshall
McLuhan, the Canadian sociologist of
mass communication, put it, “The medium is
the message.” We recall the familiar adage as
well, “Values are caught, not taught.” Kids
see what motivates us by what enthuses us.
Recall the familiar story told about the
statue of Jesus in France after the D-Day invasion,
in which the arms of the statue had
been blown off. The town decided to leave the
statue as it was and added a prayer of St
Teresa of Avila before the damaged statue that
St Andrew would have understood. St Teresa
wrote, “Christ has no hands, but yours; not
words, but yours, no feet, but yours, no
heart, but yours.”
Adapting St Teresa’s prayer, we remember
that we worship Christ Jesus with and in
our heads, with and in our hearts and with and
in our hands. We care about Jesus so much
that we really want to learn about Him as
parents and family members. We care about
Jesus so much that we really want to celebrate
that He lives in us and we live in Him
through prayer. We care so much about Jesus
that we want to serve Him in the way that
we treat Jesus’ brothers and sisters,less fortunate
than we and about whom Jesus wants us
to have a special concern.
In our parish community, we have
taken a special concern for sisters and brothers
less fortunate than we, whether they live
in poorer areas in New York or in countries
less fortunate than ours. (Even before the
earthquake in Haiti two years ago, St Patrick’s
Community was on board with heightened
consciousness and care for the poorest nation
in the Western Hemisphere. Today, we continue
to learn about sisters and brothers in
Swaziland, who have the lowest standard of
living in the entire world.) In our world today,
with 7 billion sisters and brothers in our human
family, we wonder why so many of us in
affluent nations worry about too much weight
and why so many of us worry about the hunger
that takes the lives of 25,000 people each
day! Faamilies should explore the problem together
and work out answers to solve such
problems. Why is the world as it is?
Not just parents and family members,
but all of us are called to bring people to Jesus.
In early Christianity, each Christian was
expected to bring in one other new member
with himself or herself as part of the on-going
process of evangelization. One Church historian
guessed that this is one of the reasons
why Christianity grew in such exponential
numbers despite intermittent persecutions.
People saw that followers of Jesus took their
faith seriously and, despite the costs involved,
they wanted to get on the bandwagon. St Andrew
would have understood. Bring people to
Jesus and step back and let Jesus take over.
It’s a tried and true method. Values are
caught, not taught, (especially religious
ones!!) 011512AD jfq

Reflection: January 8, 2012AD

2012-01-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

Child(ren) of the Universe
The vivid, exotic imagery of the Epiphany Story continues to stir up questions in our imagination. How many visitors from the East were there? 3, 4, 5 or more? Whence did they come? Arabia, Babylon, Persia (aka today as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran (and maybe Afghanistan) )? Were they kings, wise men, astrologers or astronomers? Were their names Gaspar, Balthazar, Melchior? Was one of them Black, as has been indicated in church art for hundreds of year? What about the star? A true miracle, a supernova, Halley’s comet, a planetary configuration? What about the gifts? How did they know to bring gold, frankincense and myrrh? Did they plan their gift list? What did the gifts mean? What is all this saying to a Catholic in 2012AD? How is it all connected because everything is connected?
Now, as scientists continue to teach us, indeed, all reality is relational. Nothing can be understood in its entirety unless it is understood in its relationship to everything else in reality. We are learning that the conservation of energy (that nothing is lost in the universe, but becomes part of something else) is a universal principle. (Since the days of St Augustine, we called this process of ascent, descent and transformation the Paschal Mystery.) We learn that such a reality as quantum leaps happen, viz., when something totally new comes into being and yet, constituted by realities that already existed. We learn quantum mechanics the reality of the (w)holon, that reality is more than the sum of all its parts. We also learn that all the elements in the periodic chart higher than carbon are connected with the explosion of stars that have been occurring for eons. As many theologians now say, each of us and all of us (and our planetary home) are all made of stardust.
Scripture scholars have commented for years that the appearance of the star of Bethlehem in St Matthew’s story has a deep archetypal significance. With the birth of this Child, the very cosmos has been reconfigured. Reality will never be the same again now that the Creator’s Son has become united with the creation. As St Paul said in Col 1.15, quoting a hymn with which the Colossian Jesus Movement would have known, “Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in Him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth ….all things were created through Him and for Him.” A new star would be a minimalistic way of expressing the change in the universe with the birth of this Child.
Tom Cahill, a New York Catholic historical writer, commented in the Mysteries of the Middle Ages, on the original purpose of the medieval university. The institution was established to give young students a wholistic, integrated world view. The medievals understood, generally, that since Truth was one, there should be no conflict in a liberal arts education. Cahill says that, sadly, the purpose of academia has changed, maybe not for the better. The purpose had been to teach a wholistic worldview, Cahill says; now, the purpose of academia has become, for many, job preparation. “This is progress?”, he asks.
As we salute our Magi ancestors, who worshipped the Christ Child, we should encourage our young people to learn more about the universality of the Gospel, of our role in God’s plan for a World Order, freer from hunger, violence, cruelty, injustice and inequality, of how our global home is shrinking due to technology and transportation improvements.
It is the Catholic (universal or wholistic) thing to do to have the openness to reality as God sees it. Yes, learn computers and technology. Learn the arts and sciences. However, learn Mandarin Chinese or Arabic because they are the languages of the future. (China and Islam are both here to stay.) In addition, all languages bring insights into cultures that share our global home with us. In addition, Catholic students should be open to courses that stress the Transcendental Centrality of human life, indeed, of all life. Catholic students should take serious courses in critical thinking, in which they learn to judge why the world is the way that it is, with a view to change things for the betterment of all. Finally, Catholic students should learn biblical insights that highlight now, more than ever, the meaning of the Magi’s worship of the Christ Child in today’s Gospel. Catholic biblical studies are now offered in tandem with sociology, economics and anthropology.
The Magi were known as “the Wise Men” traditionally. They followed the star that led to Christ Jesus. Wise men and women still follow the Star. Do we encourage our young people to do the same? As Pope Benedict reminded us on New Year’s Day, “It is their future, more than ours”. 010812ADjfq

Reflection, Jan 1, 2011AD

2011-12-31T07:04:00.000-08:00

We Won’t Get Fooled Again — or Will We?
Maryland has produced new license plates for the year, 2012. On the plates are the words, War of 1812, Bicentennial. That little known conflict was declared in 1812 and concluded on December 24, 1814. It was called the Second War for Independence. What’s up with that?
Every year, our Catholic Church makes January 1 a Day of Prayer for Peace in the year ahead. Pope Benedict has maintained this tradition during his ministry. His New Year’s Message for today is a call to educate young people for peace.
Students (hopefully) study the history of the United States. Students in Catholic schools have the luxury to use critical thinking in analysis of America’s wars through the application of St Augustine’s “Just War Theory”.
As some mark the Bicentennial of a war, New York Catholics might find it worthwhile to apply St Augustine’s criterion to this little known conflict. According to a standard textbook in US History, used in area schools, the causes of the war were fivefold: 1) to seize Canada from England; 2) to take Florida from Spain, England’s ally; 3) to stop British seizure of American ships because of the Napoleonic Wars; 4) to end English aid to Native Americans in the West; 5) to demonstrate the strength of the United States. After two years of sporadic conflict, the Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814. The Treaty was status quo ante bellum , viz., the way it was before.
According to traditional Catholic teaching, still in process of evolution, as we recall the words of Blessed John XXIII, “we know more now”. St Augustine taught that for a Catholic to fight morally in a war, certain criteria had to met, each and everyone. If one or more criteria were not met, it would be immoral to fight in such a war.
First, the war had to a war of self-defense. (Preemptive strikes don’t count!!) (NB. This condition was unilaterally rejected by Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 because of American Exceptionalism,(really?)) 2) The war must be a last resort. All efforts for peace had to have been exhausted. 3) The war has to be declared by a legitimate authority. 4) There had to be a reasonable chance of winning. 5) Weapons used had to be just. (Victims question the morality of a just weapon.) 6) Harm done had to be less than any good done. (Again, ask the victims!)
Why 1812? The interpretation has been usually that, indeed, England had violated American interests on the high seas during the European Napoleonic Wars (not to end until the Battle of Waterloo in 1815). In addition, there was indeed evidence of British incitement of Native Americans in what is now the state of Indiana. The British were supplying guns and ammunition to the Native Americans. Someone always makes money when there is a war. There was a battle in 1811 between Native Americans and Americans under the command of General William Henry Harrison. Neither side won, but the Americans claimed that they did. Also, a new breed of Congressmen had been elected in 1810. Many of the group, including Henry Clay and John C Calhoun, appear on the scene. They were militant to assert the young nation’s fighting spirit. There were hopes that if England were defeated, then both Canada would join the USA and Florida would be thrown in by Spain. This would give the USA all east of the Mississippi.
Incidentally, John Quincy Adams was in Ghent, in Belgium, to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which proclaimed a stalemate and a return to existing conditions. In addition, several New England states seriously considered at the Hartford Convention in 1814 the possibility of New England’s seceding from the USA as a protest to what they considered an unjust war. In addition, the Battle of New Orleans, on January 8, 1815, promoted the celebrity of another military leader, Gen Andrew Jackson. New Orleans was fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed. 8 Americans and 2000 British soldiers died in the battle. The news arrived in Washington DC that the Treaty had been signed just as the victory at New Orleans. Spinmeisters had a field day with that.
There were so many variables. Was it a war of self-defense (or an opportunity to move while England was engaged in other wars? 2) Was it a last resort or an opportunity to use an advantageous situation for gain? 3) Was the war declared by a legitimate authority? Here, the evidence shows that Congress did vote, but how representative was Congress when women and Blacks were excluded from voting? 4) Was there a reasonable chance of winning? 5) Were just weapons used? 6) Was the good accomplished greater than the harm done? (In # 5 & 6, again, it depends on whom you asked.)
Using Catholic critical thinking, students reached a conclusion that the War of 1812 was probably not a just war in which a Catholic could have participated morally. Still, the sad scenario of “normalcy bias” kicks in, viz., you are weird or disloyal if you don’t go along with the group.
Last month, the USA ended the Second Gulf War, begun on March 19, 2003. (Incidentally, the DaVinci Code was published the same month!) Even after 9 years since the war began, the causes of the war remain unclear. Also, many supported the troops, but didn’t send their own children!
Today, Pope Benedict asks us to teach our children the ways of peace. Maryland celebrates the Bicentennial of a dubious war in 1812. We conclude a nine year war in the Middle East. One can only comment,“Sadly, the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Are the words of Blessed John really XXIII true? Do we know more now? Lord, make us all instruments of Your Peace. God bless the whole world – no exceptions. jfq 010112AD

Reflection, December 25, 2011AD

2011-12-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

Do You Know What We Know?
What is your favorite Christmas carol? These days, it is surprising and sad that many Catholic children do not know too many carols. In politically correct environments, children know about Rudolph, Santa and Frosty the Snowman, but they do not know about the Three Kings, the Shepherds, the little drummer boy or Mary’s Boychild. Sad. It is incumbent upon families and churches to stress again and again the importance of traditional Christmas carols. If they don’t learn them from us, they won’t learn them at all.
The author of the first Christmas carols was also the creator of the first Christmas crèche, St Francis of Assisi. The keynote of his message was the belief in the Incarnation, viz., that God became human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth Whose birthday we celebrate today. The birth of Jesus establishes what Catholics call the Deep Incarnation or the Divine Indwelling or the Emmanuel (God is with us!).
Our Hispanic sisters and brothers in Christ refer to the “Bethlehem Principle”. If God could be born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, then God can be born (and is, all the time) in any setting. It is a restatement of our frequent silent, contemplative prayer, here at St Patrick’s. God is everywhere; I am somewhere; God is in me; I am in God. God is everywhere; we are somewhere; God is in us; we are in God; God is everywhere; all are somewhere; God is in all; all are in God. The intuition behind the Bethlehem Principle is consolation. God is with me in every moment of my life. Or as King David put it in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Ask for Help to believe always.
We speak around here about retreating in solitude to the monastery of our own hearts. These mini-retreats can last for one second or longer (preferably). We try to re-orient ourselves to be present to the Presence. The rules of thumb for such a mini-retreat are simply, “Show up; slow down”; “Don’t think; just be”; “Let God be God”.
The formal word to describe this prayer is contemplation . The word “contemplation” has contained within it the word “temple” the place where God dwells. Surprise!! As the Patriarch Jacob said, “You were here all along and I never knew it.” This truly can change the way that you look at your own life. It should!!
We need to realize at the same time, that the Bethlehem Principle is applicable in other ways as well. God shows up in the most unlikely places. We think of those with whom we do not identify. On the TV series, Lost, they were called the Others. We call them frequent with more descriptive terms. There are those with whom I have no affinity, whether because of racial, ethnic, religious or political differences or even people who don’t like us or whom we don’t like. Like it or not God is present in them as well. As we say, “God is their Father; Eve is their Mother; Jesus is their brother; earth is their home.” The very realization of this obvious truth, with God’s Help, can lead us to compassion. You did not ask to be yourself; they did not ask to be themselves. You may not take them out for lunch, but you will understand them differently.
Finally, if God dwells in all and God is with us in all scenarios and we are all connected, then Jesus the Emmanuel can bring us to try a new code of conduct. Actually, it is not a new code, but the original code that we forgot about. We call it the Golden Rule. It appears in many forms, but every major religion has a variation of it. Ours is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Jesus sums it up by the fusion of the two great commandments, “Love God totally and love your neighbor (brother and/or sister) as yourself. Notice that three Realities are identified: God, your neighbor and you.
Each year, our parish places our crèche deliberately in front of the Cross on Cox Avenue. It is a reminder of something that our ancestors took for granted in religious art. In many scenes of the birth of Jesus, the image of the Cross is somehow situated in the scene. It is subtle reminder that Jesus died on the cross with His arms extended and helpless just as He was placed in the manger as a helpless baby with arms extended as well. Both the Christmas manger and the Calvary cross were made of wood, taken from a tree, as a reminder of the tree from which Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Genesis myth. The tree reminds us all as well that, indeed, the Christmas tree is a stealth religious symbol because it was a tree was prominent in three crucial biblical stories, viz., 1) the tree in the Garden of Eden; 2) the manger made from the wood of a tree; 3) the wood of the cross made from the wood of a tree.
We Western Catholics tend to be left-brained people, like most Western culture. We tend to think that intellectual knowledge is the only way to know anything seriously. We tend to play down volitional knowing, sensory knowing, emotional knowing, esthetic knowing, imaginative knowing. If it doesn’t qualify as empirically verifiable, it doesn’t count. Hope in Christ Jesus qualifies something perhaps as a subliminal knowledge. 350 years ago, Blaise Pascal, the great French mathematician, said after a profound religious experience, “The heart has reasons to believe that the head cannot know.” We catch his drift.
No wonder St Francis got such a charge out of the Christmas. His contemplation of the Incarnation changed his view of all reality. On this Christmas Day and throughout the year, celebrate the Bethlehem Principle, viz., if God can be born in Bethlehem, then God can be born (and is!!!) in every situation. Isn’t it wonderful? 122511AD jfq

Reflection, December 18, 2011AD

2011-12-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Mary of Nazareth — Change Agent!!
The Fourth Sunday of Advent is the Sunday to pause and reflect on our Blessed Mother’s Virgin Birth. (Last year, St Joseph, Jesus’ foster father got special kudos; this year, we tip our hats to the Mother of Jesus.)
We hear the story of the Annunciation today. Vatican II said that the two principal titles of Mary are accented in this Gospel, viz., Mary, the Mother of God, and the first disciple of Jesus to hear God’s Word, and to keep it in her heart.
Mary’s response to the mandate of the Archangel Gabriel indicates her (God-given) act of faith in which she consents to the call to discipleship and to give birth to the Son of God Most High. Mary surrendered, let go and trusted that God’s Word to her would be fulfilled , “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your Word.”
The stress upon the Virgin Birth by both St Matthew and St Luke indicates not only the uniqueness of the Birth of this Child. Mary’s Virginity showed a sufficiency with God for her.
The image of the Annunciation to Mary, so popular for such a long time, is an image of Mary at prayer. The image indicates an attitude of watchful waiting for God in her heart and mind and life. Despite the routine of her life, Mary (and Joseph) had to be people who responded to God’s Call to each of us (no exceptions) to slow down, to be silent, to let go and trust God in every scenario.
Clearly, our Blessed Mother must have followed through with her words. One theologian averred that certainly (lest we ever forget) parents are the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith and hope. Values are caught, not taught. A big reason why Jesus turned out as well as He did was that He had experienced such exemplary religious formation from Mary and Joseph.
In different times, God calls each of us to the same challenges. God’s Grace (the Holy Spirit) prompts us to agree to be servants of the Lord in our lives, different than Mary, and yet, similar.
We live today in a world dominated by the media (which dumbs down important news and hypes up trivia for us) on the evening news, if we even bother to watch. We live in a world that has bought into the middle-class, materialistic mirage that just so long as I have what I want and need, then, my life is fulfilled. We live in a world in which we assumed that military and violent solutions to real problems are a natural resource for people, just so long as one throws in the Name of Jesus every once in a while. In some ways, these days, we are paying the price for so much of this. Check the papers, the evening news or your computer.
In the twentieth century, Mohandas Gandhi saw Jesus as an avatar of the Infinite and caught what Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount. However, he never was baptized because he felt that most of us did not take discipleship of Gospel non-violence seriously enough, in large numbers, to warrant Gandhi’s baptism into Christ Jesus. He said that each person should become, with God’s Help, the type of person that we want to see as our world. He said that, if the whole world lived by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, eventually, the world would be populated by blind people who could not eat corn on the cob. He said that the only religion that does not get the non-violent implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Christianity itself. Gandhi did not mince words.
In the 21st century, with God’s Help, we can challenge Gandhi’s accusation by following the example of Mary of Nazareth. God had a plan for her that was creative, life-enhancing, expansive, and abundant. With God’s Grace, Mary said yes.
Earlier this month, we celebrated the Conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, Santa Anna. Mary’s parents did a great job raising their daughter. Through nature and/or nurture, God prepared the mother of the Messiah as the one who mirrored God’s Love in the flesh to her newborn.
The subtleness and intimacy of the love of Mary (and St Joseph the foster father) shaped Jesus’ religious consciousness during those early years of life. Recall Jesus is like us in all things but sin. Certainly, Mary and Joseph did God’s Work!
God has a plan for each of us, as well, that is creative, life- enhancing, expansive and abundant. God gives each of us the Grace to agree to God’s Intention for us. God’s plan is similar to that of Mary’s , the Mother of God. More and more, the word “holiness” has become word like “love” and “nice”. We use them so much that they became drained of meaning. A more appropriate word these days might be the word “integrity”. Holiness is connected to “wholeness”’; integrity is connected to “intergration”. God wants us to live integrated, wholistic, viz., holy lives by acknowledging God as the ever present Center of our lives and of our universe and to try to get our relationships with God, with one another, with our environment and with ourselves in order.
As our Buddhist siblings say, “it is about right relationships”. The call to Gospel non-violence that Mary (and Joseph) , Jesus, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Popes John Paul and Benedict heard is essential to our celebration of the Coming of the Prince of Peace!
So, as Vatican II said, we become disciples of the Lord. We become mothers of God, whenever we bring God to situations where God needs to be brought. What would we say to Gabriel? What would we say to people like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama? What do we say to our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? 121811AD jfq

Reflection, December 11, 2011AD

2011-12-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

Don’t Worry — Be Happy??????????
St Paul offers curious words to the house churches in Thessalonica (present day Salonika) and the house churches of Armonk as well. He urges his audience, then and now, to “rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances. This is what God expects of you in Christ Jesus.”
St Paul’s words were preserved by the Jesus Movement and incorporated into the Christian Scriptures (aka the New Testament). His audience, therefore, his words worth saving and worth reflecting upon again and again. Yet, the same words seem utopian and unreal to most people today. How can one rejoice always, for example? What does St Paul mean by the phrase that he used over 150 times in his letters, in Christ Jesus?
In addition, biblical scholars tell us that St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, whence our second reading today is excerpted, is the earliest preserved document that we have in the Christian Scriptures. It is dated around 50AD, no more than 20 years after the death and Resurrection of the Lord, dated around 30AD). Then, too, again, the audience bought the message, as if they had an insight into its truth.
St Paul’s methodology was to establish house churches of the Jesus Movement in major cities around the Mediterrean Sea. He stayed about two years in the venue and then, moved to another place. He prided himself on going to places where the Jesus Movement had not yet been established. Examples of some of the churches which he established were in Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica and Galatia.
His target audience was the non-Jewish Gentiles who frequented the Jewish synagogues in these cities. We know of a group of Gentiles attracted to the logic of monotheism, the higher ethics and value placed upon the human person, within Judaism, viz., where else in the world was everyone (no exceptions) was seen as created in the image and likeness of God; male and female God created them?
Paul thought of himself until the day of his death as a Jewish missionary who was bringing God fearing Gentiles into the Jewish matrix through their acceptance that Jesus is Lord. (Not all Jews nor Jewish Christians agreed with Paul’s reasoning.) It was in St Paul’s interest as well as the Jesus Movement to maintain a low profile within the “system”. In essence, in their acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus and the proclamation of God’s non-violent New World Order, seen as a leaven or catalyst for change within the Pax Romana (viz., the big lie, back then, was that everyone was happy and there was something wrong with you if your weren’t.
Using modern language, we can update the view of reality that St Paul proclaimed then (and now.) Basically, St Paul and his Jesus Movements in their various house churches believed that God, in Christ Jesus, lived in each and every person. They believed that God, in Christ Jesus, was present in every scenario. Since God was the God of Life and the God of Love, everything ultimately is oriented to Life and Love. This orientation is programmed through the Paschal Mystery of death and Transformation (aka Resurrection) in what modern quantum physicists call the “conservation of energy,” viz., nothing is wasted in the universe. This orientation is lived in a cosmic web in which everyone and everything is connected. Recall Albert Einstein’s “theory of relativity”, that nothing in reality can be understood completely unless it is understood in relationship to everything else in reality. It is not for nothing that the very first paragraph of 1 Thessalonians refers quite unembarrassedly to the Trinitarian relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Thessalonian Jesus Movement had no problem with St Paul’s frequent and favored use of in Christ Jesus in his inspired correspondence. Modern physicists speak of the “Christ Quantum,” the vibrational field established in the Incarnation of the Archetype of Creation, as St Paul calls Jesus. (Col 1.18).
There were three things that the Apostle of Joy (as Jesuit writer, Jim Martin, calls St Paul wanted us all to remember. 1) Never forget that whenever you pray to God “out there”, you miss the point. God lives in you; you live in God. That is the biggie!! 2) Never forget that God can transform every negativity in your life. It is all about consciousness-raising. (A negative experience in one’s past is not necessarily an excuse for a pity-party.) 3) Never forget that God wants you to help transform the negativities in the lives of others. As Lily Tomlin said, “I saw a person in trouble and thought that someone should do something about that and then, I thought, I am someone.”
If a group of people, 2000 years ago, could buy into a new view of reality that transformed their lives, their Catholic descendents today (that’s us) need to ask for the gift of faith in Christ Jesus not to gulp when we hear St Paul says to us, one more time, there is no such thing as a bad day. Everyday is a good one because it is a gift from the God of Life and Love. (That is why we call it “the Present”!!). Granted, some days may be better than others. Our Thessalonian ancestors in the Jesus movement would agree and urge us, their Armonk descendents, to ask for the same faith in Christ Jesus that sustained them. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus!! Emmanuel! God is with us!!
For the Jesus Movement, then and now, it is always Advent; it is always Christmas!! 121111AD jfq

Reflection, December 4, 2011AD

2011-12-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Two Ways to Spend a Weekend
Jesus’ warmup act makes his annual Advent appearance today as we hear of the ministry of St John the Baptist. Again, the strange figure has been transformed in a variety of ways over the course of the twenty centuries, so that today we do not get the strange presence that he was on the scene back then – and now as well.
John shook up the crowd and ultimately, he shook up King Herod, the beneficiary and flunky of the System, imposed by Rome. When the System said enough to John’s program, Herod knew that something about John was on the level, even for people like Herod himself.
The basics are clear. 1) You did not have to go to the Jerusalem Temple to hear God. God spoke through John the Baptist in the wilderness, where things were basic and less complicated; 2) John knew that the System was not the way that God envisions; 3) all of the people were enmeshed in the System in one way or another; 4) God could not tolerate the maintenance of the System and change was on the way; 5) the stakes were high; 6) you might have a chance if you were sincere in snapping out of the miasmic dream of the System cleaning up your own act as a sign of good faith; 7) you were baptized by John in the Jordan once and for all, no repeats, as assign of your intention of smelling God’s coffee; 8) hang on tight and hope for the best. 9) Jesus Himself heard John and was baptized by him as an act of solidarity with the Jewish nation confronted by the Baptist; 10) Jesus rejected the fire and brimstone aspects of John and later on, preached a message guaranteeing that God has already forgiven each of us sinners. Would you have gone out to hear John the Baptist speak and act out on the banks of the Jordan? Back then, if you had heard about this strange dude in the wilderness, you probably would have had to walk.
Why would you have gone out to hear John? Perhaps, you might have wanted to satisfy your curiosity. But, might it have been that the spin you were getting on John was that the Baptist had something to say that you might want to hear?
We can safely assume that John’s audience back then – and now – were people who experienced days that were good and days not so good as well. 95% of the people back then were probably tenant farmers and poverty had to have been a problem. We can be sure that people then, as now, experienced the vicissitudes of life. They experienced troubles, sickness, accidents, failures, disappointments, bad luck and reality changers that shake all of us up. These negative experiences of life shake us out of what has been called “normalcy bias”. As bad as it is, most people felt – and feel – that things are what they are; you can’t change it! In addition, biblical historians remind us that in addition to the ups and downs of every human life, the social and economic and political scene was quite unpredictable as well. There were several uprisings against the social-economic-political scene that we know about from other sources besides the Scriptures. People get discontent with the status quo – then and now. The cauldron was bubbling and it indicated that people had reached the limits of normalcy bias. (The very fact that both John the Baptist and Jesus had groups of people following them made both of them dangerous figures that had to be watched. Both had to have suspected that having a following.
We frequently describe Americans as victims of the N- syndrome, viz. pathological behavior described by words beginning with letter “N”. We tend to want to maintain the normalcy bias, why rock the boat, if it doesn’t affect you too adversely. You can’t change the System. We tend to be numb to the needs of people less fortunate than we. (We stop making child-like statements, “That’s not fair” when we are grow up, unless it affects us personally.) We tend to be non-stop. Remember the Puritan adages, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Think of how we annual loss of control in the pre-Christmas Rush. Whatever, people went out of their way to hear the Baptist. Also, some heeded him. This is one of the reasons that Herod saw John as a threat. Somehow, John the Baptist challenged the System and Herod, the flunky of the System had to put him out of commission.
Today, in our non-stop lives, how many of us would make the journey to hear a John the Baptist like figure? We are not talking about a Therapeutic Moralistic Deism here. Some leave our Catholic midst because they feel that religion must be therapeutic and feel good. They go to the other places where the music is more relevant and they feel good when they leave. What happens when the euphoria wears off. And it will, it will.
John the Baptist, preached to grown ups. Jesus preached to grown ups and blessed children. His message was a serious one, though a compassionate one. It involved a consciousness –shift. The System is not what God wants. God offers an alternative vision or consciousness known as the Kingdom of God. It is yours, even now when you take the vision seriously, acknowledging God as the Eternal Transcendent Constituting Other and try to live as Jesus provides the paradigm. God is with you each now, God can transform your pain, God can help you transform the pain of others.
Would you go to the wilderness to hear John? Would you to stop and listen to Jesus as He passed through your town? Would you be too busy to spare the time? Today, when in Advent (known to the System as the Christmas Rush), in whose parking lot would you end up? Jesus’ or the Mall’s?
120411AD jfq

Reflection, March 10, 2002AD

2011-11-26T07:21:00.001-08:00

Could This Be You?
Long ago, biblical scholars saw two levels of the healing of the blind man in today’s Gospel. First, it describes the physical healing of a 39 year old man who was born blind. Yet, in the story, more than physical sight is given. The man born blind us brought to the illumination of faith by Jesus as he gradually comes to accept Jesus as the Son of Man, even more, the Lord.
The season of Lent has, as one of its origins, a 40 day period of intense preparation by catechumens (tyro-Christians) for the reception of the Sacraments of Initation, viz., Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, during the Easter Vigil from Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday morning.
Some of the names by which Baptism was called in early Christianity was the “Sacrament of Illumination and Enlightenment.” The custom of lighting the small baptismal candle from the Paschal Candle is the vestige of this former sacramental name.
Notice the story of the man born blind. The healing takes place bear a pool and it involves a washing with water. While Jesus only appears twice in the story, He is ever the Subject of the story because of the controversy over the identity of the Healer. While Jesus speaks to the man directly twice, the man only sees Jesus once because he was still blind in the first encounter.
Something curious happens as the story unfolds. As more grief is heaped upon the man, he calls Jesus “that man”, then, a “prophet”, then, “from God”, then,”Son of Man”, then, “Lord”. Like the Samaritan woman last week, the blind man’s faith develops because of the influence of Jesus. The blind man is a symbol of what we are all called to be as disciples of Jesus.
In the latter portions of the fourth Gospel, we start to hear of the “beloved disciple”, one who is the model disciple, the one whom we are all called to be. Much conjecture has been made about the identity of the beloved disciple.
Traditionally, the Fourth Gospel has been attributed to the Apostle John (hence, its unofficial name.) However, all the Gospels are anonymous documents as we are not sure of the identity of any of the evangelists. As a result, some thought that the Apostle John was humbly remaining anonymous in his self-description.
Another opinion is that perhaps, Lazarus, the dead man raised to life in John 11 was the beloved disciple. (This last of Jesus’ 7 signs is the immediate trigger which results in the death and Resurrection of Jesus.)Neither Lazarus nor the beloved disciple had been mentioned earlier in the Gospel.
Still, another opinion is that, perhaps, it is our hero, the blind man, in today’s Gospel, who is the beloved disciple. He is favorable presented in the Gospel as a Jewish disciple who receives initial illumination and enlightenment from Jesus (Whom he cannot see) near a pool of water. As the pressure mounts, his faith in Jesus grows. Finally, in the closing scene today, he “sees” Jesus Who obviously loves him and Whom he obviously loves in return.
The question in the Gospel today is not, “Is the man born blind the beloved disciple?” Maybe yes or no.
Rather, the real question is “Am I the beloved disciple?” 031002 AD jfq

Reflection, Nov 27, 2011AD

2011-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

It’s Always Advent
Our concluding hymn last Sunday (the Feast of Christ the King) is our opening hymn this Sunday, viz., The King of Glory comes. The nation rejoices. Open the gates before Him. Lift up your voices. We concluded one liturgical year looking for the coming of the Lord and we open a liturgical year looking for the coming of the Lord.
Albert Einstein taught the world to take seriously the theory of relativity, viz., everything that exists can only be understood in terms of its relationship to everything else that exists. His theory includes the relativity of space and time. It is always Easter, always Advent. We live in the cosmic web known as the universe and we all are in relationship with the crucified and Risen Lord and we are all in relationship with the Coming Christ.
With this turn of a new church year, during which we focus on the Gospel of St Mark in our Sunday gatherings, we turn now to the Christ Who still comes to us again and again. St Mark’s word to the wise today is stay awake, be vigilant. We never know when Christ is coming.
St Paul, moreover, reflects in his letters that God, indeed, is quite unpredictable and, therefore, as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, God will keep us firm to the end…Why? God is faithful, and by God you were called into solidarity with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Both inspired writers encourage us to maintain a frame of mind in which we try, with God’s Help, always with God’s Help, to be faithful to our commitment to Jesus and His Gospel, to expect Christ Jesus to be present with us in our lives, to be patient and longing for this Christ Who is always coming to us.
Using Einstein’s relativity theory, in this Advent, let us adopt a different way of viewing reality. 1) Therefore, God is still creating the universe and still creating each of us. 2) We are still people who are favored and flawed at the same time. As a result, we are still people who are falling into scenarios of evil. 3) God is still forming people as recipients of God’s ongoing promise of fidelity. 4) God is still sending the Messiah into our world and into our lives. Whenever we are touched and effected by the Christ Quantum, Christmas happens. Christ is born. 5) We are still called by God the Father and Christ Jesus to gather as a critical mass, change agents, catalysts for this new worldview, cells of the Body of Christ Jesus. Easter happens. Christ is crucified and Risen.
The world at large was so taken with the trauma of the death earthquakes, tsunamis experienced this year. What happens in one nation is news in another where the enmeshed System does not control the media as much as here.
There is a sad contrast in our own nation. We had an early snowstorm on October 29, but environmental change is still debated by politicians, claiming to be legitimate. We are becoming jaded to the frequency and the regularity of the deaths of American service people in Afghanistan. Even more startling and shocking is the rush to put a Michael Jackson-like story like the conviction of his doctor on page one at any time when the people of our nation should be taken with more substantial and formative issues.
We spoke together often of the “N-syndrome”, viz., that characterize contemporary American society. It has been said that our culture has been non-stop, moving at 101 mph. (So many of us are always on the go that we literally and figuratively run out of gas.) It has been said that our culture has become numb. We are moving so fast that we get numb to the real problems and situations confronting people around us and in the world. It has been said that our culture has become narcissistic, that we are so self-occupied that we cannot be bothered with large problems around us. All of this tends to make us nervous and/or neurotic. Living in such a reality takes its toll upon the individual and the family and the society in general. All three realities are intrinsically related. Sooner or later, a problem in one area will cause problems in related areas.
We begin the season of Advent this weekend. Yes, Jesus came in history 2000 years ago. However, whenever we listen to His Gospel and try, with His Help, to live and to implement His Gospel in our lives, our family’s life, our community life, our world’s life, Jesus comes again to us. May He come into our lives. It should always be Advent.
20th French theologian, Simone Weil, said that her favorite line in the Bible was “We wait in joyful hope.” We can always prepare the Way for the Lord when we leave space for Him in our lives. Sadly, the time of preparing the way of the Lord becomes another example of the N-syndrome, characterized by non-stop, numbing preparations by which we find ourselves trapped. To prepare the Way for the Lord demands silence, solitude and space, all of which are at a premium especially during the pre-Christmas rush (aka Advent.)
We are all addicted, entrapped, enmeshed and compulsed during the frenetic weeks ahead. Try to make a little way for the Lord in the month ahead by doing something counter-cultural. Ask God in the silence for the gift of fidelity, expectation, patience and longing. Our God is the God of Surprises. One of the great surprises is that what we anticipate is already here!
Advent is a great opportunity to tune out the cacophony and bedlam. Remember Jesus is the Reason for the Season; the economy is not the reason for the season; status anxiety is not the reason for the season, no matter what they tell us. 112711 AD jfq

Reflection: November 20, 2011AD

2011-11-22T13:15:00.001-08:00

Where Will We Stand?
As we conclude our church year today we hear the familiar and challenging parable which Jesus spoke on Spy Wednesday, the day before the Lord’s Supper. Familiar yet challenging in the sense that we all know where the parable is going and we all wonder with which group each of us will be numbered that day. To show its import, it is the last of Jesus’ teachings at the conclusion of His preaching ministry. Location, location, location!
The Dalai Lama commented on the commitment that the Roman Catholic tradition has shown for 2000 years to the challenge of providing the fulfillment of the corporal works of mercy. Even in a Europe today that has frequently turned its back on formal Catholic worship, Catholic values have won the day in many ways. Talking about the spate of executions in Texas and Georgia in September, the NY Times spoke about how Europeans tend to focus on the Catholic stress upon the dignity and inviolable nature of every human person and how outraged European nations were at the frequency of the use of lethal injections by states. The Times added, also, that the USA has committed more to a Protestant individual responsibility for one’s actions, despite circumstances that effect one’s human decisions.
One can imagine an imaginary discussion between two of the great Catholic ladies of the twentieth centuries, viz., Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and Servant of God, Dorothy Day of New York. Blessed Teresa had been criticized by many during her ministry that she provided bandaids for situations that needed radical surgery. Her response was that we can only love one person at a time. If you cannot feed 100 people, then try to feed one. As she said herself, “Holiness (integrity) is not the luxury of a few, but luxury is a simple duty for you and me.” How one responds to the challenge in today’s Gospel varies upon the circumstances of each person’s existential reality. Do what you can do but do something.
Blessed Teresa’s contemporary, Dorothy Day of New York, saw things in a more nuanced context. Known for her establishment of Hospitality Houses for the poorest of the poor and her commitment to the non-violent challenge of the Gospel of St Matthew, Servant Dorothy was up to her elbows in washing the sores of sick people and praying that Macy’s would send over leftover pastries from its store on Herald Square (which Macy’s frequently did!). Yet asked “Why was so much work done by the saints remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? Where were the saints to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to end slavery?”
Another contemporary of the two holy women was Blessed John XXIII, whose birthday we celebrate this week, on November 25, would moderate the discussion between the two ladies with his sage comment, “Catholics know more now.” Not only do we always as individuals and groups try to fulfill the corporal works of mercy, but we try to change the situations which created the social and economic needs of so many people in our human family. Speaking of globalization, is it really gobblization or is it glocalization? Speaking of world ethos, is it the common good or the bottom line that motivates us. Speaking of human dignity, is it exclusively about our in-group or inclusively about every human person?
Interestingly, a few weeks ago, the Vatican published a document calling for radical reform of the world’s financial systems, including, among other things the creation of a global political authority to manage the global economy. The Vatican proposal also called for a “minimum shared body of rules to manage the global financial market, lamenting the “overall abrogations of controls” on movement of capital throughout the world. Pope Benedict is on the bandwagon also, it seems.
Apropos of Blessed John’s caveat, an interesting proposal was recently made by a NY theologian. Students in universities, viz., those fortunately to get the funds together to go to college, were challenged to take a semester off from formal classroom education. They would work for the semester in a local fastfood chain, dealing with the demands of hardwork and obnoxious consumers. For twelve college credits, they would donate 50% of their earnings to a charity of their choice, predetermined in advance. Students would certainly get an education in human relations and might also get an insight into the lives of people not so fortunate as they. They might also ask themselves if they do not succumb to conventional wisdom, viz., “I think what everyone else thinks” or ask how do people end up having to become Burger King Moms, where they have their children sit in a booth at BK doing their homework and eating fastfood as staples because Mom needs to work two jobs to try to keep her head above water. The question that children use as a weapon often again their parents is the whining, “Is that fair?” Sadly, most adults stop asking the question as they grow up, unless, of course, it involved them personally.
Our wonderful Catholic trio, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Blessed John XXIII and Servant of God, Dorothy Day of New York, in discussion, would each have a different spin on the implications of today’s Gospel. However, each would know that Jesus is gets to basics with His last parable. The Dalai Lama was quite correct that, for 2000 years, the Catholic Church has been in the vanguard of trying to fulfill and inculcate Jesus’ vision of the Last Judgment. “When you did it to the least of the sisters and brothers, you did it for Me.”. Let us keep the tradition alive in Christ Jesus!! 112011AD jfq

Reflection, November 13, 2011AD

2011-11-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

Companeros de Jesus!!
This week, we remember (at least, some do) the murder of the Jesuit Martyrs in Latin America. Wednesday is the feast of St Roque Gonzalez, a native-born Paraguayan Jesuit murdered by Indians in the 17th century. He was one of the Jesuits responsible for the establishment of the Jesuit reducciones , planned farming communities, The reducciones were made famous in the Oscar winning movie years ago, The Mission, starring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons. We remember, ironically and tragically this week as well, the Jesuits and their companions who died in El Salvador in November, 1989.
23 years ago, this weekend, many were shocked by the murder of 6 Jesuits, their housekeeper and daughter in the University of Central America in El Salvador. Their murderers, later discovered, were assassins associated with the military. The massacre symbolized the 75,000+ people of El Salvador who died in the 1980’s in a nation with the size of and population of Massachusetts.
The civil war, waged in El Salvador for so many years, was called a “war of national security”, “low intensity warfare” against the communist menace. (We supply the weapons; they supply the bodies.) (Aside, in 2011, the new buzzword is “unmanned drone attacks”, viz., computerized killing systems which recently misfired and killed several US forces in Afghanistan. Remember another buzzword, “collateral damage” from Gulf War II?) ) Sadly ironic but historically telling, the Berlin Wall, such a symbol of communism, was brought down a mere ten days earlier. China and Cuba notwithstanding, the communist monolith was cracking. In 2011AD, the two communist nations remain, but radical change appears.
The challenge was presented to the Jesuits to send replacements to take the place of the martyred Jesuits at UCA. One of the Jesuit replacements for the Jesuits was an upstate NYer, who adopted the Big Apple when he taught at Fordham in the 1980’s, viz., Fr Dean Brackley. On October 16, last month, Fr Dean Brackley died of pancreatic cancer. JQ had the privilege of meeting Brackley in El Salvador in 2007AD.
In 1988, he published an article, ‘Downward Mobility” Quoting Brackley, Fr Jim Martin wrote in the Jesuit Guide to Just about Everything, “The drive to acquire, the constant striving toward “upward mobility” is at first driven by something healthy, viz., our longing. “All of us have a natural longing for God. But, as Brackley notes, the consumer culture often tells us that we can satisfy this longing through money, status and possessions. Sound crazy?? Just think of the television commercials that promise happiness if you only buy one more thing”. (p. 183)
One of the things that he said was that the biggest influence on his working with the poor in the Bronx and later in El Salvador was the example of South Bronx Catholic priests, particularly Msgr Gerald Ryan and Rev Neil Connolly. While he taught theology at Fordham, for about ten years, he cycled to a job with a church-sponsored organization, South Bronx People for Change, working with drug addicts, tenants’ organizations and mediator between residents and police. He spoke of how the poor were teachers of the more affluent. As someone said, ‘The poor know something that the rest of us don’t and they can teach us”.
In this month of Remember (in which we recall Fr Dean Brackley as well as Servant of God, Dorothy Day of NY, and the Maryknoll Martyrs of El Salvador ( 2 of the 4 were from NYC)) among others, NY Catholicism, through the Holy Spirit, continues to witness to the permanence and the ferment of the Gospel in the reality of NY life and the life of the world in general.
He makes 12 points in his article about the pathology of the consumer culture. One point, he makes, is point 4. One’s personal worth depends on one’s wealth or job (according to the pathology). That’s why discussing salary is, perhaps, the biggest taboo in social settings; it’s the quickest way of ranking people and is society’s prime measure of our worth. (When it comes to money, people are funny.) He concludes that simpler living (downward mobility) is a move to greater freedom from the rat race of the System.
The call was for a Jesuit priest who had a doctorate in theology and spoke Spanish. Brackley said he felt a physical reaction before a spiritual one to the call. He felt that he was one of the ones that Jesus was calling.
In the Catholic month of Remember, November, we are reminded that while God lives in us now and we live in God now, there is a future in which God’s dream of Enoughism will be fulfilled through the process of collaboration. We ask God to hasten the Kingdom; God asks us to build better human communities reflecting even now what God wants. It is a collaborative effort.
Whatever Jesus meant by the parable of the Talents today, the spin has become that we are to use our talents for the betterment of others. St Irenaeus wrote, “God’s greatest glory is a human person fully alive”. God’s gifts (of talents among other things) make demands upon us for the betterment of the lives of one another, not ours. Now is the time, even now, though not yet. Not knowing the day nor the hour for God’s Kingdom remains. What is happening in Thessalonica 20 years after the Death and Resurrection of the Lord still impacts what happens in New York and our world, our global village, 2000 years later. The Kingdom of God is already among us!!! Your Kingdom come!!!!! It is already and will be!! 111311AD jfq

Reflection, November 6, 2011AD

2011-11-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

Be Still (NOT), My Restless Heart
Karl Rahner wrote that each Catholic of the 21st century had to take quite seriously the reality that each person has transcendence hardwired into his or her humanity. Each person is a question that only Transcendence can ultimately answer. It is incumbent upon the Catholic Church to teach all Catholics (not some Catholics) that if we want, we can enter into moments of silence, solitude and surrender within the monastery of one’s heart. Catholics believe that God lives in each of us and each of us live in God each “now”.
Sadly, but realistically, we realize that we live in a world that “eases God out” (EGO) and trivializes the Transcendent Impulse built into our humanity. Stephen Carter, at Yale, wrote a classic book many years ago, The Culture of Disbelief. Carter’s thesis was that, in contemporary America (this was in the early 1990’s!!), conventional wisdom (aka the System which he identified as “government, media, public education” looked upon an Orientation to the Transcendent in one of two condescending ways:1) sneering toleration of a sense of the Absolute as a neurosis at the least, a psychosis at the worst; 2) a privatization in which you do your thing, but don’t expect the system to go along with it. (This predated tele-evangelists who get into politics agreeing with the System.)
Since then, the situation has deteriorated more so with the coming of the Spirituals but not Religious, the SBNR viz., I’m spiritual but not religious. NY Times columnist, David Brooks, wrote a book, On Paradise Drive, in which he described the emergence of Bourgeois Bohemians (or Bohemian Bourgeois) (BoBos). One woman, Sheila, described her religion as Sheilaism, viz., if works for Sheila, then it’s good. (Poor Sheila and those around her!)
Recently, we have seen the emergence of the Church of Benign Whateverism. This is the religion known as Therapeutic Moralistic Deism. 1)Religion exists to make me feel good. If I don’t feel good, it is the fault of the religion and I take a walk. Sound familiar? 2) Everyone should be nice and respect each other. Sound familiar? 3) Yes, there is Something that others might call God, but I turn to that God as needed. Then, God had better deliver or I’m out of here. Sound familiar again?
Both Karl Rahner and Stephen Carter would catch our responsorial psalm today, Psalm 63, “My soul is thirsting for You, O Lord my God.”, reflecting a perennial human yearning, viz., the yearning for transcendence. St Paul wrote that our bodies groan for fulfillment. St Augustine wrote, “You created our hearts, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” St Thomas Aquinas spoke of the call to Mystery, to see Life as Something bigger than we are, but of Which we are all a part. Fr Karl Rahner described this yearning for transcendence in each person, Which is God’s Call to us by the term “transcendent, supernatural existential” as constituent of every human life. French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, wrote of the X-factor in all people, “the call to union with the Creator and creation.” Canadian theologian, Ron Rolheiser calls it the “Holy Longing”.
Another Canadian theologian, Eckhardt Tolle, recently published a book, The New Earth, in which he stresses the need for all of us to realize that the Transcendent God is within each and everyone of us now and always and that each and everyone of us is within God.
He writes that our egoic self (in which we tend to focus on self-image based on past experiences, particularly hurts, and future anticipations, particularly anxieties,) as something which blocks out our realization that God is in us now and that we are in God now. Catholics would recognize our doctrine of the Divine Indwelling, each of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit (Remember that??)
He describes the core of the Ego as well as the various roles in which we indulge our Ego, viz., how we would like to come across and how we feel we would like to come across. He describes how we can break free from the pain-bodies that constitute so much ego identity. In indulging our Ego, we Ease God Out (EGO). In indulging our corporate Ego, We Ease God Out (WEGO).
Each of us will experience at least once, if not twice or more times, moments in which the Transcendent intertwines with the temporal. Moments of passage, at the time of a birth of a child or the death of a loved one, becomes critical moments in which we experience reality checks. Also, there are other moments in which we experience a helplessness, in either a positive or a negative way, in which we realize that we are not in control.
All religions exist to help people cope with the sufferings that come our way. Followers of Jesus feel the Cross of Christ, crucified and risen, is our archetype for our own experience of life.
Middle-class Therapeutic Moralistic Deism has a hard time with crisis. We live in a culture that needs to control, understand or to fix all things. However, those who remember frequently that our souls, longing for God, will discover that a frequent visit to the Monastery of the Heart can have a different worldview, a consciousness that God is the Center of My Reality, not my Ego or Wego. With Jesus, King David, St Paul and St Augustine and all Saints, we realize that our hearts were created by God and will not rest until they rest in God. “My soul (not only yours, but mine!) is thirsting for You, my God.” Sheila’s soul as well? 110611AD jfq

Reflection, October 30, 2011AD

2011-10-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

We Remember
One of the original Quantum theologians, St Paul, understood that Reality is bigger than we can imagine. He says so on more than one occasion in his letters. He understood that the Big Picture is larger than our minds can comprehend, but that the Big Picture lives in God and God lives in the Big Picture.
The Apostle to the Gentiles did not have the scientific language that we have today. Still, he intuited several modern principles. 1) He understood the Macrocosm is contained in the Microcosm and vice versa, the Microcosm is contained in the Macrocosm. He called the Body of Christ; we call the Divine Indwelling. 2) He intuited that nothing is wasted in creation, what we call today the Conservation of Matter and/ or Energy. We call it the Paschal Mystery. God can convert anything into the good that God desires. 3) He intuited that the universe was all related. (He would have probably been a follower of Ptolemy, who said that the Earth was the Center of the Universe.) We call the universe today a relational matrix or a cosmic web. Albert Einstein taught the theory of relativity. Einstein had the language; St Paul had the insight, but not the language.
In his early letters, we catch glimpses of how the Holy Spirit developed the inspired mind of St Paul as he tried to make sense of the question of death of loved ones. In 1 Thess, his earliest letter, written a mere 20 years after the death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, St Paul clearly anticipated that the Second Coming of the Lord (known in biblical Greek, as the Parousia) was going to happen in his lifetime and of his Jesus Movement house churches in Thessalonica. He spoke of the Resurrection of the dead members of the Movement before the arrival of Christ in glory. Shortly, later, his thinking evolved under the Spirit. We read in later Pauline letters that he has reflected on the Paschal Mystery of Iesous Kyrios (Jesus is Lord), applicable in the life and death and transformation of every Christian, even now, but not yet. “If then we have died in Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
Our language about God is ultimately inadequate. God is Mystery, Incomprehensible, Knowable, but ultimately Unknowable. Recall the story of St Augustine’s encounter with the child’s pouring the sea into the hole by the shore. St Augustine’s insight was that the child had as much chance of pouring the sea into the hole as the human mind had to understand totally the Transcendence that we call God, viz., the Nameless One.
Humbling yet realistic, even biblical language, while divinely inspired we believe, is still written in human language. The Scriptures are the Word of God in divinely inspired, yet in fallible, human language. As theologians say, the Scriptures lead us to Transcendence.
In addition, many Scriptural theologians, such as Second Isaiah and Paul, speak of the Inscrutability of God. Both ask the same questions, ”Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever have been His counselor?” Paul adds, All that exists comes from God; all is by and for God. To God be glory for ever. Amen.(Is 40.13 & Rom 11.34-35)
In divinely inspired, yet humanly incomprehensible language, Jesus spoke to Martha (and us), “I am the Resurrection and the Life. The one who believes in Me will never die.” (Jn 11.25)
We don’t know how Jesus fulfills the Promise made to Martha and to all believers. 21st century people frequently feel that we have gone about as far as we go (in understanding reality and in knowing all we need to know.) Some Catholics feel that their faith (frequently uninformed) works for them and that is good for them. However, it is important to remember that all of us are confronted by the Mystery of God in a variety of settings. Some settings are ordinary or extraordinary; some are planned or unplanned; some are happy or solemn.
Recently, Fr Karl Rahner described God as the Divine Answer to the human question. We are the question; God is the Answer.
As we begin November , the Catholic Month to Remember, the month of All Saints and All Souls, we commend all our faithful departed to the God of Life, the God of Mystery for all eternity. As another theologian said, the first article of our Nicene Creed (soon to be revised on November 27, 2011AD) equals the last article. When we say, “I look forward to the Resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”, we merely re-phrase what we said in the first place, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”
In Celtic Christian thought, Oct 31—Nov 1 represented the reality of thin time, viz., those who have died in Christ entered the Fullness of Divine Presence, the veil between the eternal and the temporal grows porous. It is the awareness that there is a “mystery in your history”, “ a sacred in your secular”, not just those who have gone before us, but ourselves too, even now, but not yet!
Jesus asks all of us to take Him at His word. We try to do so as we think of those who have gone before us in life and in love. Fr Edward Schillebeeckx wrote a prayer hoping that it would be incorporated into our Mass. “In Christ Jesus, “God of Mystery, God of Life, we remember those who have gone before us. We cannot believe that all that they meant to us has been lost forever. You were their Lord then. You are their Lord now!” 103011AD jfq .

Reflection, Oct 23, 2011AD

2011-10-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

Real Chicken Soup
This week we celebrated the Feast of St Luke, the author of both the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. The Gospel of St Luke is considered by many to be the most beautiful of the four Gospels. The Acts of the Apostles, along with St Paul’s letters, give us a view into the life of our ancestors, the Jesus Movement in the first forty years of the New Testament.
One of the principal themes stressed in Luke-Acts is the centrality of prayer. Jesus is the Person of Prayer. In Acts, the earliest community, filled with the Holy Spirit, were clearly Communities of Prayer. St Luke gives us some “real chicken soup”, not like some of those dumb coffee table books we see around.
To use modern parlance, Jesus acknowledged frequently (and urges us to do the same) the orientation of each human life to a contextual, existential transcendence each moment. God lives in me; I live in God. While we cannot spend our entire day conscious of the Divine Presence, (known in traditional Catholic thought as the Divine Indwelling), He teaches us to acknowledge the Deep Incarnation frequently during the day. People speak now of Inter-twining, viz., when the beep goes off on your watch, use it as a moment to reflect “God is in this NOW; this is in God NOW.
St Luke tells us that Jesus prayed before the important moments in His Life. In such decisive moments in His Ministry, viz., His baptism by John (Lk 3), His choice of the 12 (Lk 6) , His teaching the Abba Prayer (Lk 11), before His Transfiguration Lk 9), before His passion, death and Resurrection (Lk 22), Jesus was at prayer.
St Luke also tells us that even in His last breaths, Jesus was at prayer. He always practiced what He preached. In His agony on the Mount of Olives, the night before He died, Jesus prayed a mini version of His signature prayer, in Lk 22.42, “Abba, My Father, not My Will, but Your Will be done!” (Sound familiar??) Even on the cross Jesus united His prayer with His Gift of Self, when He again prayed in Lk 23. 34, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” and ultimately, His dying words, in Lk 23.43, in the quotation of Psalm 31, the Consummate Jew, the Human One, the Mensch, prays, “Father, into Your hands, I commend My Spirit.”
Jesus wants us all to pray with and in the Holy Spirit, the very Life’s Breathe of God, Which Is given to us at baptism and throughout the course of our Christian lives. (Catholics need to remember that Baptism is not a one time infusion of the Holy Spirit). The Spirit is given to us in a variety of ways throughout our lives known perhaps only to God.
Again, three of Jesus’ parables, appearing only in Luke as a strong urge to pray constantly as part of our ongoing journey through life. In the parable of the nagging friend, (Lk 11.5-13) Jesus tells us to be constant and undaunted in our prayer, confident that God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. (One of the ways in which the Holy Spirit can be understood here is as the extraordinary energy given to ordinary people like ourselves to live the Very Life of God.
In the parable of the nagging widow, the unjust judge gives into the non-stop demands of the widow, even to the point of fearing that she may give him a black eye. The disciples of Jesus (that’s us, folks) are told by Jesus to be persistent in our prayers never giving up hope. Jesus tells us something similar in the parable of the persistent neighbor. Jesus encourages us to be persistent in prayer. Just as the neighbor changes his mind and gets out of bed to give his annoying neighbor the bread, so also God wants us to ask, to seek and to knock.
(However, Jesus does not guarantee that we will receive the answer to every prayer of petition which we might offer. He does guarantee that the prayer will be heard. 1) Some prayers are heard and answered by God immediately, it seems. 2) Some prayers take a little time to be heard and they are answered by God after a while. That is all right. 3) Other prayers, at times, are answered in a way that was totally unexpected by God. In fact, God’s point of view in answering the prayer differently reflects the fact that God has a different slant of events and the implications of events upon us and upon the people around us. (For example, if 2 teams prayed for victory in a baseball game, obviously God cannot answer both prayers.) 4) Some prayers are not heard at all, it seems. We pray and we pray and we pray and nothing happens. In fact, things might even get worse. We all experience that, at times, frequently in the darkest moments of our lives.)
In the third Lukan parable on prayer, the Pharisee and the Publican, Jesus tells us that God is more pleased with a sincere and humble act of contrition than with a catalogue congratulating God on how good we are. (Lk. 9-14). This parable reminds the very pious that our Church is meant to be a “hospital for the sinners, not a hotel for the saints.” This parable contains a trap in it because we usually identify ourselves with the second man, viz., the tax collector, when we say that we have an attitude like his. However, the minute we do so, we become like the Pharisee because we say that we are better than the Pharisee. Jesus is smarter than we are.
What type of prayer did Jesus Himself offer to God? He would not have said the Rosary, not yet been invented, nor read the Bible because He would have had to bring the scrolls with Him to His place of prayer.
A great way to understand what Jesus wants to share with us is Transcendental Existentialism or Existential Transcendence, as a way to envision the Kingdom of God. Chances are that He spent the time in contemplative calisthenics (aka transcendental aerobics). Whether He monitored His breathing, or repeated a simple mantra or quietly prayed a mantra when His mind wondered (remember that He was like us in all things but sin) and just maintained a moment in which His beta waves were engaged and His alpha brainwaves were moderated.
Prayer is communication in, with and through the Nameless One. Maintenance of a Sunday association is keeping in touch cannot adequately sustain a real friendship. Frequent familiarity through intentional communities of Church involvement helps, but still does not adequately sustain the deep relationship. The intimacy of time spent with one’s Ultimate Significant Other is what Jesus is talking about in the language of the Third Evangelist. St Teresa of Avila said many years ago, “The greatest mistake people make when they try to pray is to think of God as separated from us.” God is there and I am here, so to speak. Not so!! God lives in me and I live in God. Jesus, St Luke and St Teresa of Avila wants us to take that seriously. 102311AD jfq

Reflection, Oct 16, 2011AD

2011-10-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

God Trumps Caesar (No Pun )
Jesus does not seem to have been in it for the money. When money is involved, He was forced to ask others to provide it. (He asked St Peter to pay the temple tax for Him; He had Judas carry the money bag for the Itinerant 12; the ladies who went from Galilee picked up part of the tab for the journey. There is no record of Jesus’ carrying money of His Own. The only indication that Jesus held any property at all was the indication that it was in His house in Capernaum that Jesus’ welcomed Levi the tax collector to dinner.)
As we hear this famous story today, now more pertinent than ever, it is interesting that Jesus asks them to show Him the coin (He doesn’t have any!) Still, there is more to that. Roman coinage at that time bore the image of Tiberius Caesar, who claimed among his titles Soter (Savior), Son of God, Lord. According to Jewish tribalism at the time, the very touching or handling the Roman coinage would make the individual ritually impure.
It is important to note that the two groups that challenge Jesus today are the Pharisees (who could have been legitimate in their question, but were not, according to St Matthew today) and the Herodians (the flunkies around Herod who was a puppet of the Roman Empire). In their hypocritical concern about religious orthodoxy, they are both un-orthodox themselves!)
It was embarrassing in the beginning for the Jesus Movement proclaim that the Jewish Messiah was a “felon” crucified by the System, the cabal of Empire and vested interest religion. How to explain that for the first three hundred years?
As we said a few weeks back, St Paul saw the “revolutionary” implications of the Kingdom of God vis a vis the Kingdom of Caesar (aka the System). In those early days, the Jesus Movement did not expect that it would have been so long before Jesus returned in triumph and tried to stay off the radar screen.
The problem appeared to be solved when Christianity was legalized by the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, on October 28, 312AD in the Edict of Milan. Even later in the fourth century, Christianity was declared the state religion in 395AD by the Emperor Theodosius in the edict, All the Peoples. You had to be a good Catholic to be a good Roman; you had to be a good Roman to be a good Catholic. Maybe!! Some spoke of Christendom; others spoke of caesaropapism (church and state in collusion and/or sometimes at odds maintaining each’s own agenda).
In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of priorities. First, Caesar has the right to obedience, but God trumps Caesar. As Pope John Paul II said, “There are no moral free-zones for individuals or systems. All stands under the scrutiny of God’s Gospel in Jesus.” Pope John Paul also legitimized the concept of systemic sin when he wrote that there were 4 types of sin: 1) venial sin; 2) serious individual sin; 3) serious corporate or systemic sin; 4) mortal sin. Again, Pope John Paul stresses that there are no moral free-zones.
Blessed John XXIII made the famous statement when Catholic thought in evolution seemed to contradict earlier ideas. He said honestly, “We know more now.” Hence, while Catholic thought had tolerated such things as slavery and capital punishment, we know more now.
Starting 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 20th century, there are seven points that are linchpins of Catholic socio-economic 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) There should be a cooperative effort among government and workers and industries to provide for the common good (not the bottom line); 5) The preferential option for the poor and helpless and needy in society (this one goes back to the Code of Hammurabi); 6) A sense of solidarity and subsidarity ( that level of approach closest to the people is preferable); 7) Care for the environment as a trust (not a commodity) to be passed on to future generations. And all of the above undergirded by the non-violent teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
In difficult days, people like Pope Leo and Blessed John XXIII were challenged for new directions in Catholic 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 because frequently it 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.
In these difficult days, it is important to remember that both individuals and systems are to observe the seven principles emanating from our American bishops and the Vatican. Not all socio-economic thought from Europe is evil. Many on local and national levels need to remember that. The West has come a long way from the fourth century. More and more, people honestly admit that Caesar has been given too much of a moral pass for political expediency. What does it really mean to say, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s; render to God what is God’s”? As Blessed John said, “We know more now.” Some do! 101611AD jfq

Reflection October 9, 2011AD

2011-10-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Our Jewish sisters and brothers have always treated the Sacred Name, YHWH, with an admirable deference. We Catholics have been cautioned to treat the Sacred Name with the awe that is due God’s Self-designation. You may notice that YHWH is not used so frequently as we might have in the past.
The Sacred Name appears 6000 times in the Hebrew Bible and yet, Its pronunciation has been circumvented by the use of other terms, Adonai (the Lord) or HaShem (the Name). The reasoning was that to say a person’s name is to indicate a knowledge of the person with the name. Since YHWH can never be known completely, it is inappropriate to mention the Name.
Today, some refer to the Sacred Name as The Nameless One. 700 years ago, Dominican contemplative, Meister Eckhardt, that the very word God was idolatrous. Our usage of it indicates again we all know clearly of what we speak. Eckhardt referred to the God beyond God.
The Awe for the Sacred Name is particularly evident in the most popular of Hebrew prayers, today’s Responsorial, Psalm 23. Not for nothing. It has been prayed by people for over 3000 years. Its staying power is that it appeals to people’s religious consciousness even if one never saw a shepherd.
We know that, during the Vietnamese Conflict, Christian prisoners would gather for a prayer service when one of the prisoners prayed King David’s words. Several said that it was the way in which God helped them keep their sanity in inhuman situations. We know that some on their way to Hitler’s ovens in the prison camp prayed the words as they entered the “dark valley”.
The rediscovered Awe for the Sacred Name, YHWH, creates a problem because YHWH is mentioned in print (not spoken, though) a few times in the first part of Psalm 23. Still, the sentiment of the Psalm is maintained and in one way, is augmented because of its verification in one’s own life. Who knows how to describe the Reality, the Holy Mystery that both frightens and attracts us at the same time.
Rabbi Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, wrote a book of meditations on Psalm 23. One point that he stresses is that the Nameless One is referred to in the third person in the first part of the Psalm, when King David is talking about God’s role in our lives. However, in the second part of the Psalm when the going gets tough, the Psalm speaks of God in the second person, in a address to, rather than a statement about the Nameless One.
Recently, one scientist made the statement, “Sometimes things that count cannot be counted and sometimes that really don’t count can be counted. Think about it. Another made the statement, “We can only measure what is measurable”. Even Einstein said, “There might be a Great Unifying Theory to Reality and if someone were to uncover it, the Answer would be both beautiful and simple. He also said, “The person who has not experienced the Awesomeness of Reality is already half dead.
Human experience indicates that the Nameless One can be experienced in moments of love and suffering. It was Karl Jung who said that the archetype behind Christ Crucified is both love and suffering in the death of the Crucified One. God breaks through in moments of both agony and ecstasy. Family members say that they experience the Nameless One in limit moments of birth of a baby as well as death of a loved one. Celtic theologians call it “thin time.”
Recently, the Dalai Lama spoke of the image of Mary’s holding Jesus in the Madonna and Child and in the Pieta. In both cases, suffering and love bring the Presence of the Awesome into clearer focus. He says that many Roman catholics do not realize how deeply embedded in their consciousness is the Image of the Nameless One in the depiction of Mother and Son.
In our own lives, too, we continue to ask for faith that Jesus is Lord in all our personal experiences. Whenever we are confronted by negative diminishments (evils that befall us), we ask for faith to believe that Jesus is Lord in my life,
Sadly, Psalm 23 is a prayer that frequently is associated with memorial cards for Protestants who have died. The prayer is meant to be prayed everyday. Maybe, each can add Psalm 23 to his or her own daily repertoire along with the Prayer of St Francis five times a day.
Life and faith are two basic human rights. Life without faith would be intolerable. King David, St Paul, prisoners in both Auschwitz and the Hanoi Hilton, as well as Jesus of Nazareth Himself, were nourished by Psalm 23 often, on good days and days not so good, when he tried to behave and act on his belief that God supplies what we need in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, we pray, as folks like ourselves have prayed for 3000 years, with our friendly reminder.
The Nameless One is my shepherd. I shall not want.
In verdant pastures, the Nameless One gives me repose.
Besides restful waters, the Nameless One leads me.
The Nameless One refreshes my soul
You guide me in right paths for Your Name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley, I feel no evil
For You are at my side with Your rod and Your staff that give me courage
You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes; my cup overflows.
Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the house of the Nameless One now and forever.
Even with the Awe that refraining from the usage of the Sacred Name cautions, the Psalm still brings consolation and peace. Once again, try to add this most popular of prayers to your repertoire. It is worth a try, isn’t it?

Reflection 10/02/2011AD

2011-10-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

He Can’t Be for Real!!
St Paul spent a lot of time in jail. He did not mean to cause trouble. His methodology was “to stay off the radar screen” as much as he could. However, plans don’t always work out. Although St Paul knew the radical implications of the Gospel and the threat that ultimately, the Gospel of the Kingdom would have posed to the System of Empire, he tried to maintain a low profile. However, sometimes, people read between the lines and jail was in store for the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Interestingly, St Paul wrote his most joyful letter, viz., the letter to the Philippians from a jail cell, in which he speaks of being chained to his guard. His message to the house churches of the Jesus Movement in Philippi (and in Armonk) was upbeat. Recall what he tells us today. “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. … Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard from me. Then the God of peace will be with you.” Is he for real?
Apparently, he was. For this reason, the letter to the Philippians made it into the Christian Scriptures (aka the New Testament). St Paul’s faith in God revealed in Christ Jesus was palpable enough for people to hold on to this letter and try to implement it in their lives in Christ Jesus.
One of those who definitely took St Paul seriously is the man from Assisi whose feast we celebrate this Tuesday, October 4. Many years ago, when I first came to St Patrick’s, a retired gentleman from my home parish in White Plains, who had formerly worked at the United Nations, asked me to try to convince the Jesus Movement at St Patrick’s that believe it or not, most of them were already honorary Franciscans. (In his retirement before God called him home, he worked at an NGO (non- government organization) at the United Nations called, ‘Franciscans at the UN.) He cited three principal ways in which Catholic people can adapt a Franciscan vision of life each day. He told you to tell you to be conscious that you are probably already honorary Franciscans without knowing it.
First, he spoke of a concern for the poor. No Catholic today is unaware of the special love which Jesus has (and St. Francis has) for the poor in their midst. While the term, the preferential option for the poor, is a relatively new term, it expresses our belief that while God loves everyone, there is a special place in God’s Heart for the less fortunate of the sisters and brothers. The tremendous on-going response of this parish community to the various campaigns presented to us shows how well we grasp the first of these Franciscan principles. Pope John Paul mentioned many who fell into this group, “the very young and unborn, the very elderly, sick and dying, the very poor, the very marginalized.” Catholics understand the need. Our question is to teach our children (and ourselves) as Dorothy Day said, “Not only to help the poor, but to learn how the system made them poor in the first place and how to remedy the situation.”
Second, he spoke of a concern for the environment. We are all aware of our responsibility to the world of nature about us. We know about the global effects on the environment of little or large acts of conservation or abuse in our world. We try to keep our trash in the proper receptacles and to recycle cans, plastics and newspapers can be understood as a response to our concern and care for the environment. (For example, we know now that there is area twice the size of Texas in the North Pacific Ocean that is polluted by POPs, viz., (perpetually, organic pollutants, cut up into what resembles a toxic minestrone soup). When St. Francis spoke of “Mother Earth” and “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”, we know that he was on to something very big. When we accept what he is describing, our commitment to a Franciscan vision of Catholicism is depended and enhanced.
Third, he spoke of a concern for peacemaking and non-violence. Most Catholic people want to believe the words of our Savior from the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers (viz., doers of shalom) for they shall be (called) the children of God.” Most people most of the time, one would hope, want to be peaceful and non-violent in word and deed in our dealings with the situation which we face. With God’s help, sometimes we succeed; other times, we fail. However, the process and the desire to commit ourselves to Jesus’ (and Francis’) vision is what is important. Most Catholics want to be this way and we ask God for further help in our efforts to behave as Jesus in situations of anger and confrontation.
(During the Middle Ages, enough people joined the Third Order of St Francis, a lay community that lived in the world that evolving city-states had to take into account that large numbers of their citizenry were sharing an alternate non-violent worldview, the vision of the Kingdom of God, proclaimed by Jesus updated by the Franciscan Movement.
In the 21st century, each of us has all it takes (with God’s Help) to be Honorary Franciscans as well. Recently, Dr Gerard Vanderhaar, one of the founding members of Pax Christi USA, suggested ways in which we can all practice Christian non-violence by adapting with God’s Help some behavior modification in mundane areas. For example, we can adopt non-violent dialogue with one another. (Recall how Fr Jim Martin suggested that the three forms of violence that with God’s Help, we need to transcend include the following: non-violence of action, non-violence in word, non-violence in thought, the most difficult of all. This week, as we remember that with God’s help, some have been successful, we recall the words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, “Integrity is the not the luxury of a few; it is a duty of all.”
From his prison cell, St Paul counsels us in today’s reading; people like St Francis and Blessed Teresa challenge us existentially to try to take seriously the Catholic doctrine of the Deep Incarnation, viz., God is present in all situations or God is present in none. It’s all or nothing with the God with us on days good, and not so, dealing with people easy to be with or not so easy. This God is a God of Life Who can transform any scene into something salvific. St Francis in Assisi said yes. How do we respond? Are we honorary Franciscans, at least “works in progress”? 100211AD jfq

Reflection September 25, 2011AD

2011-09-24T05:59:00.001-07:00

Our Attitude in Christ Shapes Our Action in Christ
In the near future, we will be enhancing our physical plant with the re-paving of our parking lot around the “domus ecclesiae”, “the home of the church”. The Church of St Patrick in Armonk is the community of persons baptized in Christ (the “Jesus Movement” here in Armonk) (those appear on one of the postcards which are souvenirs of our parish.)
However, we realize that our parish campus, particularly our parish church, is only a secondary point of our life in Christ Jesus. The most significant place should be our own homes, our domestic churches. Our parish church becomes a meeting place, a “church-ing” (as a verb) place for all your domestic churches, viz., your own homes, as we re-enforce one another as we gather each weekend.
In our “ahead of the curve” homeschooling model, viz., family programs for our third and fifth grade families, we re-inforce our commitment to this basic scriptural and sociological given, “Where 2 or more gather in My Name, I am present there as we heard a few Sundays back.” We remember the adage, “Values are caught, not taught.”
Around the year 55AD, in the city of Philippi (in present day Macedonia), the Church of the Jesus Movement met on the Lord’s Day in their domus ecclesiae, probably the house of an affluent Christian. Today, St Paul quotes a hymn that apparently the (churched, viz., gathered) Jesus Movement sang there to Christ Jesus, in which the career of Jesus was juxtaposed to the career of Adam and Eve, our first parents.
We hear today the excerpts of that hymn that St Paul quoted in our second reading today. He presumed that his adult audience would have been familiar with the lyrics of the hymn and that the hymn would have been explained to your Christians as best the parents could.) We can be certain that same symbiotic relationship between individual Christian family (24 hours 6 ½ days a week) and the communal Eucharistic churching or gathering on Saturday evening (1/2 a day at most weekly). We can be sure that Christian parents explained to their children what was said and what had happened at the weekly gathering of the Jesus Movement.
The point of the hymn (known as the Carmen Christi) is that Jesus lived a human life the way that the Creator wants all of us to live our own humanities in Christ Jesus. Recall that the temptation to which Adam and Eve succumbed was the temptation to “be like God”. They opted to disobey God through the subtle suspicious suggestion that maybe, one can go one’s own way and that we really do not need God. (One wag suggested that the god our first parents opted to follow was the god, EGO (an acronym for “Easing God Out”).
On the other hand, Jesus did not cling to His equality with God but took the form of a slave (with God as the Ultimate Master). He was like God (in the parlance of Adam & Eve’s temptation) but chose for our sake to live a life of humility and obedience to God’s Will for Him for us.
With God’s Help, two attitudes of Christ grow in us. First, we will become people of humility. (Humility is based on the same etymological root as humanity. The root word is humus, a Latin word for soil or earth.) Humility is a reminder that no matter what, we are dust and to dust we shall return. If this is not humbling and human, what else can be? However, the great proviso in all this is the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ that we share through our baptism into Christ.
The second attitude that will grow in us is obedience to God. (Obedience is based on the same etymological root as audial. The root word is audiere, Latin verb “to hear”.) Obedience is behavior in accordance to what we have heard. We hear the Gospel of Christ. With God’s Help, we try to behave so as we obey the Gospel.
It is difficult for us to be humble and obedient in a culture that claims to be God-centered and whose motto is “In God we trust”. When people refuse to live humbly and obediently on God’s terms, then sooner or later, greed and violence start to rear their heads in their midst.
Every mature Christian somewhere along the way is treated like a grown-up by God once or twice in life. It becomes the moment to realize humbly and honestly that God runs my show, no matter what they tell me or I think; then, he or she needs to surrender, let go and trust the Holy Mystery in Which we live and move and have our existence and then, find the gift of integrity and trust in God’s Presence in one;’s life. It is never too early to share that with the children. A decision has to be made in faith to follow either Adam’s approach to be like God or Jesus’ approach to empty oneself in humility and obedience and integrity and courage to God. At any age, Catholic children can see faith in action.
The Church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus Movement in Armonk (as in Philippi, as in the rest of the world) has to choose 24-7-365 that we opt for Christ’s Way and not Adam and Eve’s in the lives we live daily. When we gather to celebrate weekly at our domus ecclesiae, our presence in Christ Jesus with one another ratifies the choice that hopefully all of us try to make with Christ’s Help daily. 092511AD jfq

Reflection September 18, 2011AD

2011-09-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

Crazy Farmer and/or Sly Fox
Many years ago, Father Andrew Greeley, sociologist and novelist, published a major article about Jesus’ methodology as a story teller. Then as now, stories have a way of illustrating a point more clearly than other means. He entitled this parable, The Parable of the Crazy Farmer. His point was that the landholder in today’s gospel was crazy by human standards. A landholder would not succeed in business with such business practices. That is the point, viz., God is crazy by human standards when it comes to God’s Gifts. Many Protestant and Catholic sisters and brothers find much consolation in the fact that God’s mercy is divine. Forgiveness is a gift freely given and totally undeserved. Understood this way, the parable is a parable of God’s Radical Grace. At any rate, God’s ways are different than our ways. Thank God for that. However, we American Catholics feel a tinge of discomfort because it doesn’t seem fair.
However, there is a way of interpreting the same gospel from a different slant. More and more, biblical scholars are using the tools of sociology and anthropology and psychology to understand the Scriptures, both Hebrew and Christian.
We know now that most of the populace whom Jesus addressed represented the most marginalized of people in society. We know that probably 5% of the population would be what we might call super-affluent. The next 5% would have been middle management, who tried to be the apparatchiks for the super-affluent on top. (This 5% would represent what we might call today the middle class.) This would leave 90% in the lower classes, tenant farmers whose land might have been seized by the wealthy 5% for debts owed and unpaid.
We know that Jesus lived in Nazareth which was about 4 miles from a city named Sepphoris that was the stronghold of the top 10%. Sociologists note that the city is not even mentioned in the Gospel, which means probably that Jesus did not preach there. In addition, because of its physical proximity to Nazareth, Jesus could have walked there in a hour. (Did He and St Joseph work there on the construction of the city?)
We know now as well that Jesus probably used the same parables and teachings over and over on multiple occasions. He did not have make up new material for the same crowd because He was on a walking tour of both Galilee and later, Judea (when He went to Jerusalem.) If stories click, repeat them to illustrate one’s key message.
Now the story takes on a different character. Chances are that 90% of the people listening to Jesus might have been migrant workers or day laborers such as Jesus describes in the parable today.
Granted, the landholder goes out to get the workers at 6 in the morning. However, he only hired a few. (Was he trying to get a few to do a lot of work? (It still happens today.) Then, he needed more and went out accordingly and hired more. Finally, he hires the last group at 5 in the evening. However, he berates them because he implies that they were lazy, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” One could read into the comment about standing idle as a dig that they were not working doing something. (It still happens today.) However, remember he didn’t hire them in the morning. Did he think that maybe, he could get blood from a stone (bigger profits with smaller payrolls.)? In addition, the denarius would have been barely enough for any day laborer to support one’s family, barely enough for survival. Was the landholder implying that he was a philanthropist by paying the group at 5 the same wage (which was a pittance) as the group from the morning? The resentment of the earlier workers might be justified because of the motives of the landholder.
Seen this way, the landholder is not a crazy farmer, but a shrewd exploiter of poor tenant farmers (who might have owned the land in the beginning. Jesus might have been telling this parable to let people know that the system is not the way that God wants it. It is unfair that one person hold so much land, it is unfair that he pits one groups of exploited people against another, it is unfair that the wages paid even to the last group at 5PM were “coolie wages.” This is not what God intends. This injustice needs to be addressed.
One does not know which intention Jesus of Nazareth had when He spoke the parable. Either way, its point was true. First, God is crazy by humans standards by extending the same gift to people who worked different amounts of time. Second, God ‘s Son made human indicts an unfair social-economic system that exploits the powerless. As Marcus Borg puts it, “It a story about a compassionate God and/or about a system that lacks compassion.” We need always to remember that Jesus is smarter than we are.
Neither church (Jerusalem Temple leadership) nor state (the Roman procurator) did liked Jesus. Was it the compassionate God part or the unjust social system part or both that raised their hackles so much that Jesus was seen as a threat?
Today, American Catholics might ask ourselves whether the givens of so many entrenched in the System have about social and economic realities really coincide with Catholic Gospel Values. 1) There must be a just relationship between government, management and labor. 2) The measure of the morality of an economic system is how well it takes care of the most vulnerable. 3) There must be a care expressed because the powerless, the most vulnerable, fall between the cracks sometimes. As Pope John Paul told us, “God did not even bother to reply to Cain’s question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” 091811AD jfq

Reflection September 11, 2011AD

2011-09-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Where were you that day
and where are you now?
Our city and our nation and our world pauses today to remember the tenth anniversary of the events that changed so much of our lives on Sept 11, 2001. We here in our parish community suffered losses in the tragedy; memories persist.
How do I, as a New York Roman Catholic, who knew at least three people who died on that day commemorate the events in light of belief that St Paul expresses today in our second reading, “None of us lives for oneself and no one dies for oneself…so then, whether we live or die we are the Lord’s.” Jesus the Lord makes a total claim upon me. How do I respond?
As we mentioned last weekend, Jesus is what God looks like and God wants us all to look like, as well. And, Jesus does what God wants done and what God wants us to do as well.
What does Jesus look life and what does He do? 1) Jesus clearly centered His life totally on His relationship with God the Father, to Whom He referred as Abba, Papa. 2) Jesus proclaimed a vision of a world in which God’s Will be done (and could be done, even now, with God’s Help!)
His calling God Abba Father was a challenge to Tiberius Caesar who claimed the title of Father of the Pax Romana for himself. His uncle Augustus Caesar had claimed the titles “God from God” and ’Savior of the World” earlier (Sound familiar? It should). Slogans worked well for this family because whether or not, you agreed, conventional wisdom maintained an embedded codependency. “You can’t change the system. It has always been this way.” Jesus begged to differ and hence, He was crucified as a political subversive.
Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God was also a dig at the system embedded by patriarchal Rome. Again, the Caesars claimed that the kingdom was theirs. Jesus again begged to differ. His vision was a world that would be one in which people would do what God wants us to do. The System and its codependents challenged Him. Jesus again begged to differ and hence, He was crucified as a political subversive.
By sheer coincidence, we hear several readings today which challenged the conventional wisdom of the System. As we hear the first reading and the Gospel today, we hear them on two levels, viz., on the personal level (what is this saying to me about my own relationship and on a political level (because each of us is a social and political animal, as Aristotle correctly said 400 years before Jesus).
Jesus would have heard the same reading that we heard today from Sirach many times. (Since Jesus apparently could read, maybe He was the Lector in the Nazareth Synagogue Who proclaimed these questions, “Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins? If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?” In all the questions sum up the introductory line, “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.”
To indicate that Jesus had processed the first reading Himself, St Matthew tells us that Jesus taught the parable of the unmerciful servant, our Gospel today. There is every reason to believe that Jesus had a repertoire of stories that illustrated His Gospel and that He would have used this parable more than once. One thing that we should remember is that Jesus preached basically to the marginalized people of Galilee back then (probably 90-95% of the total population!). The audience would have had a resentment of every character in the story, including the King, the unmerciful servant and the victim of the unmerciful servant. Still, Jesus tells the story about resented people to resentful people.
The king in the parable was the most hated of all and yet, the king not only did not imprison the servant at first but also, forgave the entire debt. The first debtor got off scott-free. However, he did not act similarly to the second debtor who owed him the small amount. The moral of the parable is clear, “So will My heavenly Father do to you, (viz., resentful tenant farmers) unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
Again, Jesus challenged the personal views of the group who heard the parable. However, one’s personal views affects one’s politics (at least, it should). At what is Jesus driving in the parable?We hear an echo from the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We say the prayer daily. What does that line mean to me when I say it?
Somebody calculated that 2/3 of what Jesus was talking about in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke was about people trying to process their anger and their bad feelings toward others. Granted that we live in a world characterized by worry, fear, anxiety and insecurity, we need to be aware that our reptilian brain’s impulse to fight or flee needs to be re-programmed. Jesus’ Gospel is an effort thereat!!
In a recent blog, Fr Jim Martin speaks of three levels of forgiveness that with God’s Help, we might work at. 1) Forgiveness in action is when we refrain from physically assaulting an enemy. Jesus might be throwing the eye for the eye ethic out the window. Apparently this can be done with God’s Help, 2) Forgiveness in word is when we refrain for the opportunity to zing or barb an enemy. Again, this can be done with God’s Help. 3) Forgiveness in thought, the most difficult to achieve (even with God’s Help), is to try to refrain from harboring resentful thoughts toward others.
It is difficult to implement what Jesus expects by my personal response to His teaching today. Yet, Jesus the Lord (that’s what we say when we gather in His Name) does not ask the impossible of us. Even more difficult to implement what Jesus expects by my political response to His teaching today. If, indeed, we are a culture whose motto is “In God we trust”, how do the readings affect me personally and politically? As someone said recently, we are fast becoming not a Jesus Movement of convention, but rather a Jesus Movement of intention. The One that we acknowledge as Lord was crucified and rejected by both church and state systems for teaching these things. He was rejected by the System and He (and His message) is vindicated by God. What do I think of all this on the tenth anniversary of 911? In Christ Jesus, where am I vis a vis where I was ten years ago today at this hour? 091111AD jfq

Reflection, September 4, 2011AD

2011-09-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

Reflections on the Octave of Irene
One of the most unique Catholic Church edifices in the USA is the Cathedral in Los Angeles. People either love it or hate it. If you are ever visiting LA, check it out for yourself. (If you want, you can probably do a virtual visit online as well.)
Tapestries cover the two walls on either side of the worship space, the nave, facing the altar. The tapestries present a mélange of the saints all looking in the direction of the altar as they are participants in the liturgy celebrated there. For example, you might have St Francis of Assisi and St Elizabeth Seton of New York standing on either side of a young Asian child looking to the sanctuary. You might have Blessed John XXIII and St Mary Magdalene standing on either side of an Hispanic little girl holding a doll as they all look to the sanctuary. You might have St Peter and St Joan of Arc standing on either side of a Black professional person as they all look to the sanctuary.
The artist’s idea is that we are to be reminded of the words of the New Testament, “As we gather in worship, we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.” It is a first century anticipation of what we know today as the relativity of time and space. God is beyond space and time and within space and time at the same time. In our finite way, we experience space and time in a limited way. Hence, we do gather in an eternal act of worship, although it may not seem that way to us.
Last week, Pope Benedict celebrated the Eucharist in the presence of one million and a half people in Madrid. Last weekend, as well, in the midst of Hurricane Irene, one intrepid worshipper came here for the 8.30 Mass. Whether there were a million and a half people there in Madrid or just two here in Armonk, we were all surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. As Jesus tells us today in the Gospel, “wherever 2 or 3 gather together in My Name, I am present in the midst of them.” The tapestries from the Cathedral in Los Angeles suddenly make a great deal of sense. As Teilhard de Chardin wrote in the last century, “there is really only one eternal Eucharist, whenever and wherever we say thank you to God for the gift of life in Christ Jesus.”
The parishioner and I both sat on the altar for our Eucharist and called to mind our sins and experienced a reality check that we all need God’s forgiveness and that God forgives us as we began our “Attitude Adjustment Hour in Christ Jesus”. We next heard the Scriptures which reminded us, “God’s thoughts and human thoughts are not always the same, as we hear Jesus put Rocky Bar Jona (aka St Peter) in his place when Rocky states that Jesus should not experience the pains of the cross. (In a form of compensatory time, the worshipper promised faithfully that he would read the weekend bulletin from cover to cover.) We used the short form of the creed. We offered our prayers of intercession particularly for the people in Libya and Syria and Afghanistan and those suffering from the hurricane. We prayed as well for our church as we try to face the disconnect, the dysfunction, the elitism and the narcissism that has accumulated on the Jesus Movement for two thousand years. The action then shifted as we faced the altar and we celebrated the Eucharistic Prayer and Holy Communion. After Holy Communion, we prayed in silence for five minutes in which we agreed not to think any thoughts if possible. The catchword, “If you have thoughts, it’s you, not God.” At the end of the contemplative time, when I opened my eyes, the first thing that I saw was a jar of peanut butter and a box of Cheerios, left the night before by a worshipper at the Vigil Mass. All the food that the Assembly brings is presented to the poor. We try to keep authentic traditions alive around here.
Some things become clearer as God continues to purify and transform our Church. Father Karl Rahner, and others including Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict, who adopted Rahner’s words, remind us that each individual Roman Catholic has to recognize his or her personal transcendental orientation, viz., we become conscious at times that we are dependent up and different from Something Other. They teach us that silence, solitude and slowing down are a path for the intrepid to walk on this journey. Periodic reflection on one’s transcendent orientation is a sine qua non for the Catholic of today. As philosopher Buckminster Fuller put it, “Don’t think, just be!” Or as a Catholic bumper sticker puts it, “Let go, let God.”
Another thing that is becoming clearer as we experience God’s purification and transformation is the realization that compassion for others is a common pillar of the global ethic that Jesus first and now the Dalai Lama encourages for all. Basically, one way to experience a bit of compassion is the honest exercise of saying to oneself, “I’m neurotic and I need a pass sometimes.” Then, say to one self, “They’re neurotic and they need a pass sometimes.” Then say to one’s self, We’re all neurotic and we all need a pass sometimes.” There is my view, their view and finally, God’s View of things. Frequently, they differ from one another. Guess Who is always right?
It makes the implementation of the Golden Rule a little easier. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is always worth it to try to achieve a win-win scenario. It works for me and it works for you. At the very least, the seventh commandment is a real implementation, “Thou shalt not steal”, as is the perennial statement that children make, but adults don’t make (unless it affects them personally), that’s not fair.
For 2000 years, the Jesus Movement gathers on the Lord’s Day and recall the subversive memory of Jesus Christ, crucified and rejected by both church and state as a threat to the patriarchal Systems in place. As Jesus told Rocky (and all of us) last Sunday, “God’s ways are not human ways.” Jesus does not say so, but we know that He is smarter than we are. What does Jesus know? Why do the Systems continue to co-opt Him to say what they want? Do the math.
One theologian recently said. “Jesus is what God looks like and what God wants us to look like? And “ Jesus does what God wants done and what God wants us to do as well.”
“Wherever two or three gather together in His Name, He is present in their midst”. Whether it was the million and a half in Madrid , the artful Cathedral in Los Angeles or the two in Armonk, we were all surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses offering thanks to God in Christ Jesus. Two or three or a million and a half, we all praised God for what God continues to do in Christ Jesus. In this psychological new year, in Christ Jesus, let us try to do the same. 090411AD jfq

Reflection, August 28, 2011AD

2011-08-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

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.”

Reflection, August 21, 2011AD

2011-08-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

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

Reflection, August 14, 2011AD

2011-08-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

Reflection, August 7, 2011AD

2011-08-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

073111AD -- Reflection

2011-07-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

More than a Picnic
The Distribution of the loaves and fish is one of Jesus’ “signature stories”. There are 6 different accounts of such feedings in the four gospels. Scripture students assume that Jesus performed such actions often.
Recently, Professor John Dominic Crossan wrote about the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” in which he discussed extensively the Gospel we hear today. The Lord’s Prayer, which we say so frequently is a minefield to capture what Jesus intends for His disciples then and now. (That’s us, folks).
Crossan says that it is helpful to divide today’s Gospel into a inspired short story with 5 scenes. In each scene, Jesus challenges them (the disciples then and us now). He establishes the disciples’ role as intermediaries here and now to the real practical problem of hunger that the 5000 confronted. Jesus is trying to teach His disciples then and now (us) that God expects a collaborative effort to make the World the place that God wanted it to be all along. “The Kingdom is among you” (even now, though not yet). What practical things are the disciples then and now to do to creat the principle of enoughism, that all God’s children have enough to eat now. Scene One establishes the problem, The crowd has nothing to eat. The disciples suggests that Jesus send them away. Jesus challenges them, “You give them something to eat (here and now)”. Scene Two sees the quest for food by them and they (discovered there were five loaves and 2 fish on hand. They had to do the recon work. 3) Jesus tells them (us) to seat the crowd. We can do this orderly if we really want. Jesus guarantees that there is an “elegant sufficiency” on hand. 4) Then, Jesus takes the loaves and fish, blessed and broke the loaves and gave them (the disciples them and us) to set before the people. NB Jesus blesses food that is already present and available. 5) Then, Jesus tells them (us) to collect the fragments so that nothing goes to waste,
Crossan writes “the story is not just about food, but it is about Just Food.”
When we recall that one only ate with one’s intimates, family and/or peers back then, the significance of the story changes. Apparently in the Mediterrean culture back then, if there were a big celebration different classes of people might be present but they got different types of food, depending upon their social status. One Roman poet, Martial, complained about ‘ calculated social humiliation” and demanded, “Let us all eat the same fare.” Martial was run out of Rome for such remarks. Another smug Roman later said that he gave “all his company the same fare. My slaves do not drink the same wine that I do – but I drink wine they do.”
(Remember what happened in Corinth in 55AD when Christians were checking who brought what to their potluck share suppers and then, who ate what and how much? )
Students of the Christian Scriptures speak of the Common Meal tradition. The Common Meal Tradition includes the 6 distributions stories, the countless share-meals Jesus shared with whoever would dine with Him, the Last Supper and the Resurrection Meals in Luke-Acts and John.
Catholics see the Eucharist as a “signature story” . God calls the folks together; God tells the Jesus story again; then, God takes, blesses, breaks and gives the bread and then, God sends us off to “glorify the Lord by our lives” (in the prayers coming in November!)
Crossan adds, “The Common Meal Tradition may look to a last supper in the past, to a communal meal in the present or a messianic banquet in the future…but it can never get away from this: it is in food and drink equally offered to everyone that the Presence of God and Jesus is found…So the Lord’s Supper is political criticism and economic challenge as well as a sacred rite and liturgical worship. Christians claim that God and Jesus are peculiarly and especially present when food and drink are shared equally by all.”
Raimund Pannikar, SJ adds “The greatest challenge today is to convert Sacred Bread into real bread, liturgical peace into political peace, worship of the Creator into reverence for creation, a Christian praying community into authentic human solidarity. A Eucharist is risky because we may have to leave it unfinished, having gone first to give back to the poor what belongs to them.”
Irish scientist Diarmuid O’Muirchu speaks of Jesus’ share meals as “a new way of being in and reacting to the world, marked by right relationships, (integrity, characterized by justice, love, liberation.) and compassion.” Time to eat! 073111AD

072411AD -- Reflection

2011-07-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

Real Chicken Soup — Then and Now
Catholics and others have asked from the dawn of consciousness the perennial question of Job, “Why do the innocent suffer?” The question is always poignant. However, it takes a sharp edge when it involves either myself or someone close. Where is God in all this?
The study of theodicy in philosophy is the question of how can we reconcile a God Who tolerates evil? In all honesty, the problem is a perennial one. Again, evil is a mystery, viz., something knowable and unknowable at the very same time!!
We have to remember that our ancestors in the Jesus Movement experienced both the right and the left hand of God in their everyday lives. They experienced the 1000 joys of life (and hopefully, said thanks to God for those blessings). They also experienced the 1000 sorrows of life as well, as they experienced sickness, suffering, disappointments, failures, accidents as well as old age, of loss of relatives and their own decline.
For sure, most Roman participants in the Jesus Movement experienced times when they wondered what it is all about. Most would have been acquainted with the Hebrew Bible Book of Job. Job never lost faith in God, but he came very close to cursing God for all the heartache that he felt. He asked, “We accept good things from YHWH, should we not accept evil as well?” He also stated, “YHWH, the Lord, gives and YHWH, the Lord, takes away. Blessed be the Name of YHWH!” In the end, God seems to brush off the question, “Where were you, Job, when I created the universe? What would you do better?” Job humbly submits, “You win, YHWH”.
In his journeys, St Paul experienced many hardships and difficulties. In 2nd Corinthians, He makes the powerful statement, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.” In all the grief that we all experience, Paul says “No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through Him Who loved us.”
What faith the Holy Spirit prompted in Paul as he lived in Christ Jesus! Yet, that faith is a free Gift to us all. If we took more seriously what Paul says to us about the closeness of Christ to each of us, our evaluation of life might differ. Our relationship with Christ is a sharing in the victory of His death and Resurrection.
We still experience the cross in our lives. The cross confronts us in a variety of sizes and shapes, in many ways. They involve any kind of negative experience in our lives, whether sickness, disappointment, accident, old age, betrayal, death of a loved one, or whatever. However, as God said to St Paul in another place, “My strength is enough for you.”
It is very difficult to see negative experiences of our lives as situations in which good things can happen out of evil. Yet, Jesus teaches, as does St Paul, that God remains faithful to us in every situation. Hard to believe sometimes!! Still, we worship the God of Life Who can bring life where there was no life. God is the God Who brought life to the aged womb of Elizabeth and the virginal womb of Mary. God is the God of Life Who brought Life from death when Jesus died. With the God of Life, nothing is impossible. Trust JC!
For any Catholic, sometimes, it gets very tough. It is even made more difficult because when times are good, we tend to avoid getting serious about the transcendent horizon and the inner core of Reality that we call God. In addition, we sometimes become control freaks who made our minds up already about how God should be acting, not only in our own lives, but judgmentally, in the lives of others. Still, Christ Jesus challenges us and enables us to say yes to God in the events of our everyday lives.
Then, all hell broke loose for Roman Christians in 64AD. Trying to live life in Christ Jesus in their mundane lives, the Jesus Movement were accused of the crime of “arson and hatred of the human race” when the Jesus Movement was scapegoated for the Great Fire in Rome in July, 64AD. To use an analogy, our Christian ancestors were considered “urban terrorists” and scapegoating paranoia took over. (Do we ever change?)
St Paul tells his original Roman audience (about 55AD, 9 years before the conflagration and us (his Armonk audience today) in our second reading, “If God is with us, then who could be against us? How many of those men, women and children who died for their belief in Jesus after the Great Fire remembered those words? Apparently, more than a few did. St Paul’s letter, with his urgent plea to Roman Christians to trust in God when they experienced difficulties in their own individual lives, helped sustain many of them when they experienced the cataclysmic when, all of a sudden, their little Jesus Movement in Rome with its call to non-violent active engagement was criminalized and persecuted.
If, indeed, there were an large-scale abandonment of faith by Roman Christians in their days of adversity, it would have been an obvious embarrassment to have included the Letter to the Romans in the Christian Bible (aka New Testament). In fact, about 40 years later, another writer to the Romans, St Ignatius of Antioch flattered the Roman Jesus Movement by speaking of their primacy in faith and compassion. Writing about 50 years later to the descendents of the recipients of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, He calls them a community “worthy of honor, raise, success and integrity”; he tells them that they are a community “preeminent in love” a community that has not been jealous, a community that received directives from both Peter and Paul. Apparently, the Jesus Movement survived the assaults upon them and thrived. No doubt that St Paul’s Letter to the Romans was one of the directives about which St Ignatius wrote.
St Paul tells his original Roman audience (about 55AD, 9 years before the conflagration and us (his Armonk audience today) in our second reading, “If God is with us, then who could be against us?” How many of those men, women and children, who died for their belief in Jesus after the Fire, remembered the words?
In the middle of the Tiber adjacent to Trastevere is the Isola Tiburtina. Catholics in Rome have established there a church of the martyrs of the 20th century. In the very venue where Christians paid with their lives 2,000 years ago, Catholics pay tribute to those who still pay the price for faith.
Please God, faith is bolstered by St Paul’s question today, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” When we, ourselves, experience the Paschal Mystery, the process of ascent, descent and transformation, which is always happening, may we always remember the words of St Paul that bolstered so many for 2000 years now. 072411AD jfq

Reflection -- 071711AD

2011-07-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Laptop That Is You
One of the consistent calls in the Bible is for us to pray constantly. Throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Scriptures, we are encouraged to turn to God.
St Paul is quite insistent on our resonating with the Transcendent God. I need to slow down and recall that God lives in me and I live in God NOW. In his very first letter, St Paul tells the Thessalonian Jesus Movement, “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith!” ( 1Thess 3.10). Later, he tells them to “pray without ceasing” 5.17 and to pray for him specifically v. 25.
However, in his latest book on the Lord’s Prayer, The Greatest Prayer, John Dominic Crossan points out a paradox in St Paul’s encouragement. In today’s reading, St Paul tells us “We do not know how to pray as we ought.” And he includes himself in the “We”. He is making a claim for all the Jesus Movement.
To ease the paradox, Crossan uses an interesting comparison. He speaks of each of us as “laptops”. However, we laptops can operate on the electric charge that we get from the electric outlet into which we plug the charger. Prayer is the charging up with the electricity (God) which is everywhere, but gets channeled through the electric outlet. In essence, prayer is “charging up your laptop”. The charge that we receive is the Spirit of God Who exists in us.
Recall how on Pentecost we spoke of a similar way to describe the Holy Spirit as “Integrating Energy”. “Holy” is etymologically connected to “wholeness, intergration”. “Spirit”, in Greek, is etymologically connected to “energy”. Biblically speaking, we can speak of the Holy Spirit as God’s Integrating Energy. Prayer is utilization of this Divine Energy.
When we were younger, our parents (hopefully) and our churches taught us that there were four types of prayer. PACT, viz., petition, adoration, contrition and thanksgiving. Today, we tell the children who hopefully might be telling their parents, that we call them “Gimme”, “Oh.Wow!!”, “Oops”, and “Thanx” prayers.
However, today, in the Spirit-filled revolution worked by Vatican II, in its reminder of the “Universal Call to Holiness”, we recognize a fifth type of prayer always available for all Catholics. We call it a “Shoosh” prayer. This is a different prayer without words. Different because when we dialogue with God, we usually do all the talking.
A “Shoosh” prayer is when we give God a chance to speak to us. However, God speaks a supersonic language. You cannot hear God’s speaking to us, yet we believe that God does. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said often, “God speaks to us in the silence of our minds and hearts. Our role is to slow down and listen to the Silence and then, translate what we hear by the way we live our lives and treat other people.”
Her basis would be today’s second reading from St Paul. Recall, as we said last weekend, “Something is afoot in the universe” when St Paul said, “The universe has been groaning in travail (in labor pains??) together until now”.
In the all important verse today, St Paul writes us, “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us in sighs too deep for words.” (the Silence, maybe??)
“Something (the Holy Spirit) is afoot in your universe. Something (the Holy Spirit) is afoot in you.” It is through the Spirit-charged cell (that you are) the prayer goes on. In this way, St Paul tells us that we are to pray constantly and, at the same time, we do not know how to pray as we ought. And he includes himself in the “we”.
We hear in a curious psalm the words, “Be still and know that I am God (now).” Take King David’s words as a chance to slow down on a regular basis and chill out in the Integrating Energy that is the Sprit of God in you. In modern terms, charge up your transcendental battery regularly.
We encourage the children and (whoever else who will listen, maybe their families) to sit quietly for a few minutes, close their eyes, try not to think of anything at all. However, when a thought comes into their minds, just to say a monosyllabic word (like “God”, “Now”, “Peace” until the conscious thought fades away.
Recall the famous remark that Blaise Pascal made in the seventeenth century, “The reason why the world does not know peace is that we can’t sit still in silence” (and know that God is God now!) His comment was made 400 years ago.
Last week, our church saluted St Bonaventure, one of the early successors of St Francis. He wrote that “God invites each person to make a journey into God” through quiet and contemplation.” (The title of one book which he wrote was, “The Journey into (sic) God.” Into God??
Stop in the church once in a while and chill out in the Divine Presence. Most of us are too busy to try and when we have a chance, we run off to an ashram and spend big bucks or else, we kickback as we read another dumb “Chicken Soup Book”.
Every major religion in the world speaks of silent, contemplative prayer as the highest type of personal prayer. What do you think that Jesus was doing when He would go apart for a while to pray (charging His Own laptop probably!!)? Human yearnings indicate that Shoosh prayer is the highest form of personal spirituality (resonating with the Transcendent God within and beyond you). Let the Integrating Energy do the praying for you. All you have to do is “Be still and know that God is God now.” 071711AD jfq

071011AD - Reflection

2011-07-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

Beyond Us and Within Us
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St Paul was 2000 years ahead of his time. He expresses, in his letters, ideas that could not be adequately expressed in the language and ideas of the time in which he lived. Even now, all human language about God and about our relationship with God is ultimately insufficient. At best, we can use analogies and metaphors and words. Back then, St Paul used analogies and metaphors and words that ultimately cannot capture the Reality. Today we do the same thing!
Catholic quantum theologians teach us today in language borrowed from 20th + 21st century physicists. They hint that St Paul was a quantum theologian as well. 2000 years ago, St Paul understood that Reality is bigger than the sum of its parts. Reality is not Divine, yet the Divine exists in Reality and Reality exists in the Divine. Reality in God is bigger than the sum of its parts. St Paul intuited that, but he could not express it in human language available to him.
Christian Quantum theologian, Barbara BrownTaylor, offered a meditation about God:

“Where is God in this picture? God is all over the place. God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light – not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them -- but revealed in the singular vast net of relationships animating everything that is.”

By extension, the same is true with the Church, the Body of Christ. According to quantum theory, the whole is contained in each of the parts and the parts are all contained in the whole. Christ Jesus lives in each of us (Divine Indwelling or Tabernacle of the Lord or Dwelling Place of the Holy Spirit or the Christ Quantum, call the Holy Mystery whatever you want); each of us and all of us live in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus lives in each of us and all of us .
Think about the theological reflection mentioned last weekend. Think of staring at the horizon on the ocean. Realize that the Trinitarian God is just beyond the horizon. Think of closing your eyes for a moment and realize that the Trinitarian God is as close to you as the film over your eye! Think that this is true at the same time. The Trinitarian God is transcendent (beyond us) and immanent (within us) at the same time. Savor the paradox.
Then, think of staring toward the horizon on a foggy or a cloudy day. You cannot see the horizon, but you know that it is there nevertheless. Think of staring toward the horizon at night in the darkness. You certainly cannot see the horizon, but you know, all the same, that the horizon is there. Just as God is. Again, savor the paradox.
Quantum theologians teach us that relationships are a basis of Reality and we are effected by our relationships and we effect the relationships of which we are a part. Quantum physicists (and now quantum theologians) tell us that we rub off on each other. We catch one another’s vibrations; we exist in forcefields generated by our relationships with others.
As cells of the Body of Christ, in which the Whole is contained in the parts and the part is contained in the Whole, Christ Jesus, the Archetype of Creation, the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of the Dead effects us and we, through our lives, for good and for bad, effect the Body.
St Paul tells us today that all creation is groaning to fulfillment. We know today from astrophysics that the universe is still in process of creation. The universe is not yet what God the Creator intends it to be. “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves as we wait…” (Rom 8.23) Interestingly, our first reading tells us something similar. “ Just as from the heavens the rain and the snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, so shall my (creating) Word be that goes forth from my mouth. My Word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” (Is 55.10-11). As French Jesuit anthropologist-theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, said in the 20th century, “Something is afoot in the universe.” St Paul knew.
In the twentieth century, Catholic quantum theologians speak now of the Christ Quantum. Christ Jesus exists in all; all exist in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit is the “Something afoot in the universe.” And, by extension, since you are part of the universe, Something is afoot in you!”
Christ Jesus is the pinnacle of humanity, the consummate Jew, the truly Human One, the Son of God, the Image of the Invisible God, the Archetype of Creation, the Firstborn of the Dead, the Author of Life. (The Christ Quantum is alive and well in the Universe, thank you for asking!) St Paul knew this and tried to verbalize it in divinely inspired, but inadequate human language.
In the twenty-first century, in Christ Jesus, may we know this as well, trying to verbalize in better, but, still in inadequate human language, our belief that Christ Jesus is Lord. St Paul intuited this; in Christ Jesus, may we intuit it and live the Reality 24-7-365.!! Don’t think about it; no need to figure it out, viz., it is infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable, at the same moment; just experience it ! 071011AD jfq

Reflection: 070311AD

2011-07-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

A Thought for the Big Weekend
Blessed Juliana of Norwich lived in difficult days of the fourteenth century. Juliana lived in the world described by Barbara Tuchman, modern historian, as A Distant Mirror of the world in which we live today. 1) Frequent war between England and France (100 Years War) was a reality. 2) Disease was prevalent among the rich and the poor alike with the bubonic plague that killed 25% of the population of Europe. 3) There was civil discord in England with a Peasant’s Revolt” led by Wat Tyler. 4) There were church-state tensions when Catholicism did not always do its best to be a “nice religion”. We were lucky not to be alive back then.
Blessed Juliana had a powerful religious experience in the midst of an illness that all expected would culminate in her death, May 8, 1373. She had asked for an experience of how much God loved her. She saw the crucified Head of Jesus and thought that this was her final request before she died. However, she recovered and the strength of this powerful religious experience led her to become a most remarkable women of her time.
Juliana believed that, as St Paul wrote, that God had already won the victory over evil through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. She believed that we were living in the clean up days, which we can help or hinder, but not thwart.
She wrote that there were 4 types of fear that humans face. 1) We fear assault; 2) We fear physical pain; 3) We fear mental anguish.
With the Help of God, we can convert these 3 fears into an opportunity of trust and reliance upon God. How so??
However, a fourth fear, obviating the other three fears, is a radical source of blessing in itself. In Confirmation, we called it the principal Gift of the Holy Spirit, viz., Fear of the Lord.
(In the early twentieth century, Rudolf Otto, a German theologian, described God as mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the awesome and fascinating mystery.) It is the fear of the Lord, a healthy (not neurotic) recognition that there is something that is different than I, on which I am ultimately dependent. It is respect for the Big Picture. It is not ultimately about me or my group.) It is recognition of God, the Ultimate Reality.
Jesus speaks of it in the Beatitudes which we heard earlier this year. Juliana teaches us that “Fear of the Lord” is another name for “Awe or Reverence for God as God”
What we call poverty in spirit, means that ultimately we acknowledge that everything comes from God. Spiritual poverty, humility, meekness, cleanheartedness, compassionate mercy, doers of shalom (“peace makers” is what the word translates), all are synonyms for Fear of the Lord.
Juliana also taught that believers trust that God, in God’s Power and Wisdom, is capable of doing what God wants. (We try to believe, although, at times, we hedge our bets because we would like surety.) Juliana wrote that we trust that God is all powerful and all wise and therefore, can do all things. But still…. What happens when things are not exactly as we want them to be.
Jesus wants us to heed, with the Integrating Energy of the Holy Spirit, the meaning of His Paschal Paradox, viz., God can turn anything into something good. (The big case of point is the very death of Jesus Himself.)
Sometimes, It ain’t easy. Jesus through His life, death and Resurrection says to us the following: 1) Your God is with you; 2) Your God can be trusted; 3) Your universe is safe and ultimately, benevolent; 4) Trust God, beyond and within you; 5) There is no reason ultimately to fear; 6) Your reality is headed to Something Good.
These days, more and more Catholics speak of the “Christ Quantum”, the vibrational field established in the Universe by the Incarnation of the invisible God’s Image, Who is the archetype of creation. Just as we are effected by every encounter we have had in our lives, just as we effect every person that we have encountered, (viz., we all rub off on each other, so to speak!), Jesus rubs off on us through Community, Word and Sacrament and countless ways known only to Jesus.
He asks us to trust that all of us are subjects who are acted upon by a loving and provident God. Even if for some men, it is getting easier to count the number of all the hairs of our head, there is consolation knowing that the loving God is doing the counting.
These days, we hear a lot of the new civil religion that has morphed in contemporary America, therapeutic moralistic deism. (Therapeutic in that religion exists to make me feel good. Moralistic in that we should all be nice to one another; Deism in that there is a God, but my life goes on.)
Several years ago, when the nation debated whether or not we should go into the Second Gulf War, a poll of Mid-West Catholics indicated that about 60% of those Catholics felt that it was more important to be American than to be Catholic. In effect, they supported the powers that be in Washington rather than those in Rome, viz., Blessed John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). (Preemptive strike trumped just war!) If each of us were polled back in March, 2003 (the same month that the Da Vinci Code was published), how would we have responded?
On this Independence Day Weekend, Jesus offers us a subtle challenge. Does the Paschal Mystery of the death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ really come into my evaluation of the direction and meaning of my life? What is my ultimately security? We, our nation, claim as well on our coinage, “In God we trust.” Do we really? 070311AD jfq

June 26, 2011AD -- Corpus Christi

2011-06-09T12:03:00.001-07:00

Where to Begin?
We celebrate this weekend the Corpus Christi, a holyday last Thursday in many countries of the world).
Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ means the following: 1) the Resurrected Body of Jesus Christ now; 2) the Church, Who are Christ’s Body in space and time; 3) the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the outward sign of the Body of Christ Which constitutes the Church. In sum, it’s all about us!!
Our understanding of the Eucharist is multivalent. Its true meaning goes back to the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. However, the Last Supper was the culmination of many meals that Jesus celebrated with anyone who would care to dine with Him.
In all four Gospels, we hear accounts of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. One commentator spoke of the similarity in language that the Evangelists used to speak of what Jesus did in both these feeding miracles as well as His Last Supper (in Mark, Matthew and Luke.) The sequence of verbs is – take-- bless – break – give. Each sequence indicates what Jesus had in mind during His ministry as well as its culmination. Whether it was bread and/or wine, Jesus was expressed the same vision. One commentator calls it “enough-ism”, viz., that everyone has enough to eat.
We know that the earliest Jesus Movement, described by St Paul in 1 Cor, spoke of communal gatherings in one another’s house churches. After the communal meal, the Eucharist would be celebrated. Excerpts of ther Hebrew Bible were proclaimed and prayers were said with the “breaking of the bread.” The Christian Scriptures, according to Father Raymond Brown, do not indicate who presided over the Eucharist.
Before the liturgy, the plan was that everyone would bring something for the group to share. Basically, it was our ancestors’ version of a potluck supper. However, abuses set in. Some noticed who brought what. Others noticed how much each ate. Others only sat with their friends and/or peers. Others had too much liquid refreshment and misbehaved. Many missed the point and St Paul’s solution was to cut out the communal meals. (He could have reversed the order and things might have proceeded differently. One of the hymns that was probably sung at these Eucharists might have “In Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.” Imagine an honest discussion on that hymn either then or now.
Please remember that no matter where you are, GOD COMES FIRST, even on summer Sundays. In the Holy Spirit, the Sunday Eucharist is our way of re-alignment with God the Father, Jesus and with one another throughout the world and the ages. God is the Ground of our Being every moment of our life. Our personal God likes to be remembered and thanked periodically. Our God has told us that the Lord’s Day is significant for this purpose. An hour a week is not much.
“Familiarity breeds complacency”, as Courtney Randall writes, and we should remember certain protocols. 1) Please try to come on time for Sunday Mass. (YOUNG PARENTS, WE ARE NOT SPEAKING ABOUT YOU HERE!! DO THE BEST YOU CAN). When adults consistently come late to the Sunday celebration, what might they be saying, not only about God, about their need to hear the Word of God, (Which late arrivals are not hearing) and for the Church already gathered and whose hearing of the Word late arrivals might disturb?
In addition, bathroom needs should be addressed in advance, if possible. (Emergencies obviously occur.) However, if one anticipates a bathroom visit, perhaps another spot in the church closer to exits accessible to bathrooms is the courteous thing to do. (Recently, at a Lutheran funeral that lasted 45 minutes, not one person left the church. Can Catholics match that or is there a physiological problem with Catholic kidneys?)
Tweeting and texting during Mass, talking during the Mass, yawning without covering one’s mouth? Why do we even have to mention that?
(Recall the Mass that JQ attended in Guatemala!! Over 1500 people acknowledged the Transcendent Orientation of their lives. The Mass lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. Singing was out of the ballpark. Children remained with their parents and nobody (young or old) ran off to the bathroom and/ or to get a drink of water.)
A sign of reverence, upon arrival at church, (either a genuflection or a bow to the tabernacle) is appropriate and traditional. However, after one has received the Eucharist there is no need to genuflect or reverence the tabernacle or altar because YOU HAVE NOW BECOME THE TABERNACLE YOURSELF.)
With God’s Help, make an effort to join in congregational singing. As St Augustine says, “The one who sings prays twice.”
Thank God and you, the Community of St Patrick in Armonk remarkably remains (95%, at least) until the end of Mass. We love it when you remain as long as you want.
Our celebration of Corpus Christi is multivalent. Our Christian ancestors shared the Eucharist in catacombs, upper rooms, basilicas, hidden hedges and in mud huts. The Eucharist unites us with Jesus’ disciples throughout the world and the ages. A reminder of our connection with some who risked life and limb at times for what is available at our convenience should make us more aware of the need that we never neglect our weekly gatherings or we downplay its significance in our lives. 062611AD jfq

Reflection: June 19, 2011AD -- Trinity Sunday

2011-06-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

You Can’t Make This Up!!
In the earliest written Christians Scriptures, St Paul, in the early 50’s of the first century speaks unreflectively of the Holy Trinity. Indeed, the very first lines of the New Testament, according to Father Ray Brown, is a Trinitarian reference, The Father and the Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, all are mentioned in the first sentence. Indeed, the concluding verse of our second reading today also refers to the Trinity, this time, in one sentence!! “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the fellowship (viz., solidarity) of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”
800 years ago, St Bonaventure said, “Everything is a thumbprint or a footprint of God”. Believers, now as ever, look at the beauty of creation, at dawn or at any time, to experience what is called “God’s primordial revelation.” Each day and the wonders that it brings is God’s Present to us; hence, we call it “The Present.”
800 years ago, as well, Meister Eckhardt, a German Dominican theologian, used three simple images to serve as metaphors for the Mystery of the Holy Trinity Whom we celebrate today. 1) The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father in return; the Love between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 2) The Father enjoys the Son; the Son enjoys the Father; the enjoyment between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. 3) The Father dances with the Son; the Son dances with the Father; the Dance of the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit.
The image of the Dancing Trinity, surprisingly, is an ancient one in Church History. The Greek Fathers of the Church spoke of the Trinity as a Perichoresis , viz., A dancing around. (Do you see the etymology of the word “chorus” in the Greek term?)
From our earliest days, we have learned that each person is created in the image and likeness of God. Our catechisms taught us that our ability to know and to love was our divine likeness. While maintaining the same teaching, another spin on the words of Genesis 1 interprets the biblical quote from divine to human. 1) If the three persons of the Trinity are all equal, then, every human person is equal to one another. 2) If the three persons of the Trinity are relational, then, every human person thrives in relationship. 3) If ultimately, the three Persons of the Trinity are incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively), then every human person is ultimately incomprehensible (can never be known exhaustively, even by oneself!)
Fr Karl Rahner said that most Christians live our lives without any reference to the Trinity. Skeptics have made jest of it throughout the years.
However, these days, in Catholic Quantum theology, we remember that the cosmos, the macro-universe appears to be in an orbital relationship. We recall that the atom, the micro-universe, is in orbital relationship as well. Our Catholic thought has always taught that God is relational. Now, we see that not only humanity (the pinnacle of God’s creation) thrives in relationship, so also does reality in its outermost and innermost dimensions. God thrives in us and we thrive in God.
Everyone remembers the vignette of St Augustine’s realizing that it would be easier to pour the Mediterrean Sea into a hole on the beach than to grasp the Mystery of God, One in Three. Still, following St Bonaventure and Meister Eckhardt and Karl Rahner and St Augustine, we live in the Holy Mystery because the Mystery rejoices and lives in us.
More recently, American theologians have added to the metaphors. One speaks of God the Father as an Architect with an Idea of an Edifice in mind; God the Son Incarnate is the Blueprint of the Edifice; God the Holy Spirit is the actualization of the blueprints in a variety of Edifices on a variety of landscapes.
The same theologian also sees God the Father as a Songwriter; God the Son Incarnate is the written Score of the Song; God the Holy Spirit is the variety of ways that the Song can be rendered depending upon the singer.
Another theologian speaks of God the Father as the Sun; God the Son Incarnate is the Sunbeam emanating from the Son; God is the Holy Spirit is the suntan that you get when the Sun reaches you.
The same theologian speaks of God the Father as the water for irrigation; God the Son Incarnate is the channel delivering the water; God the Holy Spirit is the water giving life to the crops.
Just as the angel told St Augustine 1600 years ago, you just cannot figure it all out. Just like each of us, God is a Mystery, knowable and unknowable at the same time.
Be still and that God is God now! 0601911AD jfq

Reflection, June 12, 2011AD -- Pentecost Sunday

2011-06-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Feast of the Integrating Energy
We end our celebration of the 50 days of Easter on this, the 50th Day. Today, we celebrate the Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Spirit, the Feast of God’s “Integrating Energy”
Pentecost is a most democratic event. No distinctions were made between slave or free, male or female. (Distinctions came later.) We ask you to mark today with your red attire.
All human language limps when it comes to describing God’s dealings with us. After all, God is infinite and transcendent. God’s dealings with us cannot be adequately expressed, even in inspired biblical language.
In Hebrew, the word for Spirit is ruach, which is feminine. In Greek the word is pneuma , which is neuter. In Latin, the word is spiritus, both masculine and/or feminine.
In biblical Hebrew and Greek, the words for “Spirit” can mean 1) the wind; 2) the life-breath; 3) extraordinary energy, enabling ordinary folks to do extraordinary things. (In the Star Wars movies of yesteryear, they spoke of “the Force be with you.”)
In addition to this, even divinely-inspired biblical God-language is incapable of expressing the eternal in the temporal. All of us already receive the Spirit in baptism and throughout our lives. All of us receive the Spirit now when we gather, as the Community of Jesus Christ, to hear the Word of God and to celebrate the sacraments. (All of us receive the Spirit in times maybe when we ourselves do not realize it.) All of us receive the Spirit which is why we continue to invoke the Spirit upon us. It is a sense of the biblical “even now, but not yet”!
21st century AD Catholics re-examine our biblical roots. We are a community called by Christ to one, holy, catholic and apostolic. More and more, in line with Scripture and tradition, we should scrutinize accretions through the centuries to assure that they, indeed, reflect what the New Testament has in mind. Are they in conformity with the way things were, the way that they should be?
The universal call to holiness, re-affirmed by Vatican II, is a reminder to us of what the Pentecost experience described in Acts and in John 20 (John’s first Easter chapter). We need to be reminded that, within our Catholic tradition, all, not some are called to live the Gospel and not just in Church. There are no super-Catholics.
Interestingly, when we speak of the marks of our Church, in a sense we are repetitive. Both holy and catholic hint at the same thing. Note the syllable “hol” in both words. The root is based on our word, “Whole”. Basically, what we associated with holiness in days gone by is what today people might think as “wholistic”, viz., we are “together as a person.” A holy person, a Catholic person, is supposed to have his or her together by God’s grace (Spirit or energy or force, you name it.) In as sense, as the American bishops said back in the late 1970’s, the marks of the church are meant to be not things of which we brag, rather goals to be achieved, even now, though not yet by God fully in people called to be “holy” and “Catholic”. A holy person (a Catholic person) is meant to be a person who is energized by God’s grace, the Holy Spirit.
All of us are called to live our lives in Christ’s Spirit, 60-60-24-7-365. All of us are called to be engaged seriously and responsibly in the dialogue with our culture. As the ancient Roman Christian wrote to Diognetus, “Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body.” Just as a human body needs an animating principle, we are called to be animators of society. Sadly, too often, we sit back and let others run the show. Sadly, many generate hatred and fear in their simplistic and loud-mouthed talk. Sadly, many buy it
Your red clothing today mirrors your baptism in the Holy Spirit. With God’s Help, may we answer the call! Not just in the church does Jesus need us, but He needs us engaged actively and intelligently in an outside arena that needs the insight of the Gospel of Life very much now more than ever. Christians, a secular culture needs us just as the human body needs a soul. We do not gloat in our exclusive election; we are elected to let the world understand that all are called (not just some). For some reason, from all eternity, God chose you to be the vehicle in your own part of the universe, to mediate in, with and though God’s Spirit what human living is really all about, what integral, wholistic, holy living is all about . In solidarity with the Jesus Movement in the upper room in today’s first reading, we continue to pray for the constant outpouring of the Integrating Energy of God the Father in with and through Christ Jesus. Happy birthday to us! 061211AD jfq

Reflection: 060511AD

2011-06-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

Who Decides?
St Luke tells us today that the Primitive Christian Community re-assembled in the upper room (where the Last Supper had occurred) and prayed for 9 days after Jesus’ Ascension. The Jesus Movement consisted of the 11 and His mother as well as His brethren and the women who had come up from Galilee with Him. This was the group upon whom the Spirit came on Pentecost.
This is why we ask the Catholic community to wear red clothing next weekend, on Pentecost Sunday. If you or I were there on Pentecost in 30 AD in the upper room, the Holy Spirit would have been given to us as well. The coming of the Holy Spirit is, indeed, a democratic experience for all in our baptism. All, not some, are included by God. Think about it!
Just before Pentecost, Peter addresses the 120 (!!!!) gathered in the upper room and speaks of the predicament caused by the treachery of Judas. Since the 12 represented the original 12 patriarchs (the sons of Jacob), Jesus meant to reestablish the True Israel. Now the 12’s ranks were thinned. Therefore, it was necessary to select one who had been with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry. Two were selected as possible candidates. First, Joseph (called Barsabbas as well as Justus) seemed to be the one since he is set up with all his nicknames. The other possibility was the unknown Matthias.
It was the group of 120 who prayed and then, cast lots (picked out of a hat) and Matthias was the winner. Notice what Luke tells us in the story. It was the entire group of 120 who prayed and then, picked out of the hat. This notion is known as the “Matthias principle”. What is important is the entire group’s choice of the 2 candidates, the entire group’s prayer involvement and, then, the group left it up to God symbolically through casting of lots.
It appears a bit simplistic, but it is, nevertheless, quite biblical and quite within Jewish tradition. We know that in ancient Rome, the Christians gathered together and prayed and selected a layman, St Fabian, as Pope. The legend says that while they were praying, a dove came in and landed on the head of Fabian, a lay-person in the group. (Or was it the blue bird of happiness?) The total community at prayer took this a sign from God that Fabian was God’s choice.
We also know that the people of ancient Milan selected a non-Christian, viz., Police Commissioner of Milan, St Ambrose, as their bishop, one of the most important bishops of the early Church. The story was that St Ambrose, not yet baptized himself, was the police commissioner of Milan. He was asked to organize the meeting of the people of Milan for prayer and their selection of their next bishop. Apparently, someone started chanting, “Ambrosius episcopos, Ambrose the bishop.” They, in effect, elected a non-Christian (who quickly became one) and who was ordained as one of the greatest bishops in the early church. In fact, he is considered one of the 4 major doctors of the Western Church. The people made a good choice.
Our second reading has been excerpts from 1st Peter, a letter to strengthen all Christians in Northwest Asia Minor harassed for their faith in Jesus Christ. It was the entire group that was addressed as the “priestly people, the holy nation, the people set apart.” What does this really mean if it is not just a slogan? In these times, in which there are already calls for structural changes within our Church, recall the Matthias principle, the selection of St Fabian and St Ambrose. It is important to celebrate the Vatican II principle of resourcement, going back to our apostolic roots. If change was legitimate then, as the Jesus Movement continued to react to the unforeseen events of changing times, such as the deaths of some of the Apostolic generation, the entrance of gentiles into a Jewish messianic movement, or the ultimate destruction by the Romans of the Jerusalem Temple in 70AD, in the tradition is change legitimate today? Even mega Pentecostal churches speak today of the need to provide something like what our Christian ancestors did with their house-churches. Mega-church doesn’t cut it for all anymore. We see traditions and trends that have lain dormant for a longtime within our Apostolic Tradition. In many ways, we Catholics do this already in what we called “faith-based and/or intentional communities”. As our world continues to change, more lay involvement in the everyday affairs of a local community (and larger) ones have a place worth exploring. The question always remains, “How did we get from there to here?” Answers to new problems might, indeed, by right under our noses, if we read the New Testament with candor. Everything old can be new again in Christ Jesus. 060511AD jfq

Reflection: 052911AD

2011-05-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

A Religion for Grown-up’s!
When 1st Peter writes to his flock, he speaks to the entire community, viz., “the baptized called to be the “priestly people, etc.” He reminds them that, at times, there will, indeed, be great difficulties associated with the faith of Jesus Christ. He continues that theme this weekend.
He tells them then, and us now, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope”. Recall, sociologists tell us that our earliest Christian ancestors in the Jesus Movement were remarkably similar to us in socio-economic background! (However, we are probably better educated.)
The Gospels and rest of the New Testament letters were addressed to adults, not children. Again, Sts Peter and Paul and company addressed adults and left it to grownups to communicate to children the message with which the New Testament letters were concerned.
It is important for 21st century Catholics to remember that our religion is for all ages, not just the young. While we have stressed, traditionally, in the USA, the religious formation of children, it has become a serious goal in the past 20 years to make adult religious education a total parish commitment.
While Jesus blessed children, He didn’t specifically teach them. He left it to families to communicate the Word to children.
Pope John Paul II urged the Catholic world to a New Evangelization, back in 1995, in anticipation of the turn of the Third Millennium. The slogan for it was to educate, catechize, adult Catholics to “hear the Gospel again – maybe, for the first time.” The idea was that God’s Word does not change; rather we do. So we change as “hearers of the Word.” Back then, we spoke of the “evangelical helix”, viz., the various ways in which Catholics celebrate our faith. We had the “SBNR” (“spirituals but not religious”) on the fringes. We hoped in the Holy Spirit, to segue many, at least, into “occasionals”. We hoped in the Holy Spirit to have the “occasionals” segue into “regulars”. We hope in the Holy Spirit to have the “regulars” segue into “apostolic disciples”, engaged in various ministries to supplement their status as regulars. Thank the Holy Spirit, we still make some progress here.
Next, in 2000AD, our parish was one of seven Archdiocesan parishes selected to participate in a commitment to total parish catechesis, young and old alike. The program was funded by a grant from General Motors to promote adult religious learning. Our goal in 2000 was to implement a newly published teaching manual for Adults, “Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us”. We try to maintain the best for the religious education of the entire community. We hope that while adults understand that the parish commits itself to a structured religious education program for our children, we aim high for a quality program for all our parishioners. We adjust regularly.
In 2005, the Archdiocese endorsed “The Family Catechesis Program”, which has been successful in our parish. The methodology was to sponsor inter-generational gatherings in which a religious theme would be focused and then, some hands-on activity by the people involved. Finally, some food and refreshments were served. Such events as Bible Bingo, our sacramental Blessing Cup Meals and Confirmation, Great Generation Salutes, potluck suppers wonderfully fill the bill.
In an effort to integrate all three drives in total parish catechesis, we are inaugurating on a trial basis a new program in religious education next fall. We are offering options to third and fifth grade families either to elect a traditional template of religious education on Sunday mornings. Otherwise, students will be home-schooled by their own parents, with mandatory testing provided by the religious text book producers, as part of family catechesis here at the Parish a few times in the year.
In imitation of Jesus and the inspired biblical writers, we aim at the entire parish and trust to the Holy Spirit that parents and families, “the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith and hope” assist us in that project. Grownups, talk about what your faith means to you all the time. Explain the Word of God even in the car as you return home each weekend to your own House Church. Let us all proclaim the Word in the houses as well as on the housetops!
In his first encyclical, St Peter tells us, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you (your children, in this case) for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence”. In Christ Jesus, let us try once again. 52911AD jfq

Reflection: 052211AD

2011-05-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

A 21st Century Altar of Peace
Ancient Rome which had built an Empire based on violence and conquest propagandized their reign of terror as the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. In fact, in Rome itself, they constructed an Ara Pacis, an altar of peace. Things seemed peaceful if you toed the mark. However, if you dared to deviate, you were in big trouble. Many died violently (including the Son of God) during this “peace”. The author of 1st Peter tells us today that just as Jesus, rejected by the builders, became the cornerstone, so that through the Spirit, we will be built into a temple of worship. The author was encouraging his readers to put up a good defense against their growing alienation from the so-called “civilized” world, aka the System. Just as Jesus was rejected by the System, so also His followers can be rejected as well. However, God has other plans. Each of us and all of us are enlivened by the Spirit of Jesus Christ and we are asked to live daily lives of service to God and to one another. With God’s Help, we sometimes succeed. At other times, we fail miserably. When one sins and fails miserably, one’s enemies are quick to throw it up in your face and scoff.
Catholics are expected to behave differently. We claim to have met and have been changed by Christ Jesus. Psychologists tell us that we are impacted by every person with whom we have contact. Quantum physicists tell us that we generate “vibration fields or force fields or gravity fields.” Catholics believe that Jesus has an impact on each of us, sometimes, greater, other times, lesser.
The holy priesthood about which 1 Peter speaks in our reading today refers to the daily liturgy that each Catholic person offers to God through Jesus Christ. Whatever it is that you do, whether a spouse, a parent, a child, a relative, a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker, your interactions with others should be (and can be) affected by your union with Jesus Christ. Because you are affected by Jesus Christ, your response to His influence should be your everyday Christian life, lived with His Help as best you can. In this way, you offer spiritual sacrifices as a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own” Our Sunday liturgy should be a source and summation of what our lives are during the other 167 hours of the week.
As we know, not all of us Catholics, clerical and lay, live becomingly our relationship in Christ Jesus. We know this, but we get frequent sad, painful reminders always.
Interestingly, thirty years ago, Pope John Paul II used the theme of building up a temple of peace made of individual mosaic tiles of human hearts. It was during his historic visit to Coventry, England during the Anglo-Argentine War over the Malvinas (aka the Falkland Islands) in the south Atlantic.
The Pope had planned his visit to England for several years and it was historic because it was the first visit to England by a Pope since the days of Henry VIII. To the surprise and chagrin of many, war broke out between England (Protestant??) and Argentina (95% Catholic). How would it appear for the Pope to visit a nation at war with a Catholic country. The Pope demanded a command performance of a Mass for Peace concelebrated by Archbishops of Westminster and of Buenos Aires, during which they offered one another the Sign of Peace. Then, the Pope traveled to England and then, to Argentina in hastily arranged pilgrimage as well.
While in England, the Pope made a plea for people to build up a temple of peace made up of their hearts that were trying with God’s Help to renounce violence as a legitimate recourse in the twentieth century. He challenged English Catholics ( as well as anyone who would listen) to think twice before following the conventional wisdom of Margaret Thatcher and of the Argentine generals who favored war (sending other people’s children and/or parents, not their own) to take the spotlight off domestic problems which each nation faced.
The Pope’s Coventry sermon, as well as his two addresses in the United Nations as well as his words at the original Ground Zero in Hiroshima, Japan, resonate beautifully with the US Catholic bishops’ Challenge of Peace of 1983. (John Cardinal O’Connor, one of the principal authors of the letter died on the anniversary of its publication.) Pope John Paul had a message for us as well when he visited us the first time in October, 1979. He reminded us to avoid people who generate hatred and bad feelings among people. What would Blessed John Paul say to us in 2011AD about the spiritual altar of peace that Christ is trying to build with each of our individual lives? One can only wonder! 052211AD jfq

Reflection: May 15, 2011AD

2011-05-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Who Runs Your Show?
Traditionally, the 4th Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”. Consoling images, both of God the Father as the Good Shepherd and of Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd, are reinforced by Psalm 23, the most popular of all psalms, as well as by John 10, where Jesus identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd.
This week, 1st Peter uses the very same imagery as he speaks to a harried group of Christians, then and now. Then, followers of Jesus were alienated from the mainstream of conventional wisdom because they practiced Christian ethical monotheism. Christians said that people should behave in a more human fashion in our dealings with one another. We claim that we walk to a different tune from Jesus, viz., that we are not hypnotized by the superficiality of a mass consciousness controlled by the System.
However, some of us still buy the spiel. In addition, we Christians do not always practice what we preach. Therefore, Christians fail and sin in our response to the call of God in our lives. We do not always live, as a community and/or as individuals in community, becomingly the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sin was a factor, then, as it is now. Christians fail, at times, to live the life that God expects of us.
1st Peter tells his readers that there will be crises in which Christians might suffer. If Christians are harassed, it should be for doing what is right and just. He warns that Christians must never give scandal. We must act as responsible citizens. If we are ever persecuted, it should only be for doing what is right in God’s eyes.
He focuses his argument on Jesus as “the Suffering Servant”, which is derived from the prophet known as Second Isaiah. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” He handed Himself over to the One Who judges justly. Through his innocence, we who had gone astray like sheep have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.
Quite legitimately, the Greek words for “shepherd” and “guardian” have interesting nuances for 21st century Catholics. The first Greek word, poime, translates as “shepherd” or “pastor”. The second Greek word, episcokopos, translates as “guardian or overseer or bishop” Therefore, arguing from 1st Peter, each Catholic can say that his or her Pastor and Bishop is the vindicated Suffering Servant, Jesus Christ.
All Church people, lay, religious and clergy, need to remember Christ Jesus, the One Who is the Shepherd, Pastor and Bishop. We all need to acknowledge that Jesus has expectations of each of us. He will help us achieve those expectations for our own good and for the good of others. He asks us to follow the example that He leaves us in the patterns of His own behavior.
If we are persecuted for doing so, “we are to be patient for suffering for doing what is good.” That is following the pattern of Jesus the Suffering Servant.
However, it is required that we, as individuals and as individuals in community and as a Church community, avoid what is sinful and harmful to the welfare of another person. Here, when we fail, we have to be accountable for our failures. We have to be sure that such failures do not happen again. We have to see how we can change structures within our Church not germane to the Gospel Message of the Good Shepherd, our Pastor and Bishop.
Our church is in a process of purification now. We have to remember that Jesus is the Good Shepherd Who wants us to follow Him. While remaining true to the Gospel, it is time for Catholics to stop re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. We hit the iceberg about 40 years ago. The Jesus Movement will survive as we experience difficult transformation. We are experiencing the Paschal Paradox right now. We have ascended; now we are descending; in Christ Jesus, we are already experiencing transformation. It just may not be the transformation that we wanted.
As one liturgical scholar put it recently, Christ Jesus is the Celebrant of every Eucharist. One of the group presides in His Name. There are, in attendance, a priestly community (guess whom?) who, by the hundreds, are re-commissioned weekly to be sent out to proclaim by our ordinary behavior that we take the implications of Jesus seriously in our daily lives. (Neither dancing in Times Square and/or Ground Zero nor cheering on marching bands on TV talk shows might not have been the way to do so. Neither would a smirk at hearing what was in the enemy’s medicine cabinet nor what DVD’s he had in his collection) Whenever we do not do so, we have to be accountable for our actions. However, the Lord is our Shepherd. We need to remember that, always, we are empowered by the Good Shepherd to live in His pattern. 051511AD jfq

Reflection: 050811AD

2011-05-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

Gather the One Group
During the 1950’s, there was a comedy series, entitled “The Life of Riley”. The show was about a Brooklyn family who had moved to Los Angeles. (This was before the Dodgers did the same. Many of the characters in the series were Brooklyn expatriates who formed an organization, the “Brooklyn Patriots of Los Angeles” (BPLA). They met regularly to talk about the Borough of Churches, their old home.
One of the ways in which we can understand 1st Peter’s encouragement of his audience was to remind them that they were “colonists”, or “sojourners” in this world, no matter where they lived. (Jim Wallis’ group, the Sojourners, trying to stimulate a Great Awakening in our nation based on Gospel values, takes its name from this term in 1 Peter.)
St Peter reminds his audience, then and now, that the stakes are high. Each of us is saved through precious blood by Christ, a “spotless, unblemished Lamb.” 1st Peter urges his audience (with God’s Help) “to be holy as (God) is holy”.
Most people do not realize it but the word “holy” is related etymologically the word “whole”. To be holy is not to be either a Bible thumping individual, not does it mean to be a sanctimonious individual either. A w-holy person is one who, through God’s grace in Christ Jesus, is getting his or her act together as an individual in community with others called to the same mandate. Such a person realizes that each of us is always a work in progress, that each of us is a bundle of contradictions, that each of us is a story still being written. With God’s Help, we try to become integrated, completed, fulfilled, perfected, unified.
He urges his audience to recall that our ultimate task is to live w-holy lives through, with and in God forever. Human language, even the inspired language of the Scriptures, cannot explain our destiny adequately.
Just as the Brooklyn Patriots met frequently to remember their common heritage, so also, the Catholic Disciples of Jesus gather frequently (each Lord’s Day) to remember our common heritage. We gather together as the family of Jesus Christ to hear the stories again, to share our lot with one another, to break bread in Jesus’ Sacramental Meal and to be fortified for the week ahead in this land in which we are really only “colonists” or “sojourners”. Our coming together (our Churching) should focus us on our daily life.
As we hear the beautiful Gospel today of the journey to Emmaus, we pick up a similar vibration with Cleophas and his companion. (People wonder if the companion is Mrs Cleophas. Yet, it might very well be a characterization of you yourself who walk with Jesus each Sunday, each Lord’s Day, each day!!) The two are walking sadly home from Jerusalem on Easter Sunday where they really felt out of place after Good Friday. We are familiar with how Jesus makes the journey with them and explains to them the meaning of the Scriptures and then, dines with them when He “breaks the bread”. Then, their eyes were opened (by faith) and they recognized the Risen Lord. Then, they returned to Jerusalem where they regrouped with the other disciples of Jesus at another Sunday evening meal.
Our Jesus Movement, our Catholic gathering, is important. Now more than ever, we realize that Catholic values make us anathema to many. We realize, as well, that by our Catholic value system, we have set ourselves up and, so, others are very quick to denounce our failures and sins. (God knows that we have them!) We need the consolation of gathering to strengthen one another as a group of “colonists” or “sojourners” in an antagonistic world in which anti-Catholicism literally came over on the Mayflower and is exacerbated by a feeding frenzy media, to the present day.
Each week, whether in Emmaus, Jerusalem, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, the Bronx, Mount Vernon or Armonk, we gather together in Jesus’ Name and Spirit as “colonists and sojourners in this world” as we share the stories, break the bread and minister to one another. 1) Each member of the community needs your presence. 2) You need the presence of the community. 3) The people driving by on Cox Avenue need your witness as they see our crowded parking lot and traffic jams on Sunday mornings. The Presence of Jesus Christ continues whenever His family gathers in His Name. To quote Pope Benedict again in his recent book, “the point is not that Jesus was; the point is that Jesus is.” When we gather weekly to celebrate His Presence and we try to take His Gospel seriously in all aspects of our lives, we make Him even more present. 050811AD jfq

Reflection: 050111AD

2011-05-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

What’s in a Word?
We hear excerpts these Easter Sundays from the first papal encyclical, the First Letter of St Peter. There are several Bible scholars who feel that it is a baptismal sermon that was transcribed. For that reason, during this season when we re-focus and re-commit ourselves to Christ Jesus, St Peter’s words in our second readings these Easter Sundays are aimed at us, as much as our first century Jesus Movement ancestors in the faith of Christ Jesus.
Many describe Catholicism these days as living in a post-Christian era since the watershed events of the twentieth century. Imagine how Catholicism would be today if Blessed (soon to be, St) John XXIII had not responded to the call of the Holy Spirit in convening Vatican II? The Spirit only began an evolutionary process continuing today.
Some see an interesting parallel between this post-Christian era with the first centuries of the Church, viz., the pre-Christian era, from Jerusalem in 30 AD until the legitimization of the Church in fourth century Rome. The marginalization of Catholicism today mirrors the marginalization of the first followers of Jesus. We, like they, live on the fringes of conventional wisdom of Western civilization, not the center.
Then and now, Catholics are out of step in so many ways with culture. We affirm a Gospel of Life amid a world that, at times, glorifies individualism and self-aggrandizement. Catholics are urged to challenge and not accept the violent solution as a “quick fix” to problems. With the endless downward spiral in the Middle East as well as two very long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Catholics are starting to heed more seriously the call of Vatican II and recent Popes that humanity must come up with some new answers to conflict resolution. Many Catholics realize now that they should have listened to Pope John Paul and Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), instead of Donald Rumsfeld (of “unforeseen- unforeseeables” fame, in his autobiography) and associates. Catholics also urged to stress, as germane to our tradition, concern for our sisters and brothers as germane to the Gospel. Catholics need to realize that others use similar language and slogans as we do. However, they might not mean the same thing to them as they do to Catholics. Yet, in all of this, we Catholics still sin whenever we do not always practice what we preach. Catholics still need to be forgiven. We are a people that is forgiven and needs forgiveness, a people that are reforming in need of reformation.
On these Easter Sundays, we hear from Pope Benedict’s predecessor. (There are good arguments, pro and con, about St Peter’s actual authorship.) The letter has a great deal of imagery to encourage Christians in a world in which they find increasing alienation because of their commitment to Christ and their higher moral standards.
In today’s reading, we are reminded that our faith is such that it is, at times, tested. We are reminded that God’s gift of salvation is a prize worth the “agida”.
The word that the author uses to describe Christians is the word “paroikoi”, which means, among other things, “sojourners or colonists”. Christians live in the world, but our real homeland is our life with God even now, and in the future. Colonists in this world, our true home is our ultimate life with God in eternity.
(The word “paraoikoi” also is an etymological root for the word for parish. Recall that we can refer to our parish church as our “other home”. However, in this reference, the other home is your residence. )
The use of the word “paraoikoi” as colonist in the sense in which Peter’s letter uses it makes us more aware of the transitory nature of reality. We are here. Our life each day is an experience of the Transcendent if we see with the eyes of faith. Jesus asks us to live each day with the realization that God keeps us in existence from moment to moment to moment. Jesus asks us to live edifying lives so that if we are ever challenged, it will be for doing what is right in God’s eyes. Jesus asks us to live as colonists in a world frequently de-valuing human life, that stresses success more than fidelity to a true humanity, that stresses the individual at the expense of others. Jesus asks us to live Kingdom values and to make the world freer from violence, hunger, cruelty, injustice, inhumanity.
Still, we fail, as individuals and as community. The message of Jesus continues to be perseverance. We paraphrase of Matthew’s Beatitude. “Blessed is that person who acknowledges, with God’s Help, that God (not EGO or WEGO) is the center of one’s life, for that person is moving in the right direction.”
Peter, in the first and in the twenty-first centuries, encourages Christians to weather the storm of alienation in a community that is looking in other directions for whatever reasons. He urges his audience, then and now, to snap out of illusion, to accept forgiveness for our sins, to live Gospel lives, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, viz., that we all are family, favored, flawed, fallen and forgiven from the housetops. In these difficult days, Peter’s words have a distinct relevance for all of us, particularly NY Catholics.
In his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 2, St Peter’s Successor, Pope Benedict XVI says that there is no doubt that Jesus lived and died. The question is whether He lives now. In a succinct statement, the Pope writes, “it is not just that Jesus was, rather, it is that Jesus is.” What is our baptismal response? 050111AD jfq

Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011AD

2011-04-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

The Motor Keeps Going!
This is the Day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is one of the hymns that our first Communicants and their families sing at their big day in May. Our parish deliberately schedules First Communion Holy during the Fifty Days of Easter. On Saturday morning, May 7, we celebrate First Communicants.
However, we need to think differently. For a Catholic, every day is Easter, when you believe in Christ Jesus. Since the insights of Albert Einstein as well as the Quantum Physicists of the Twentieth Century, space and time and matter and energy are all related. It is hard for us to imagine, but scientists tell us that we need space and time as co-ordinates to orient our relational universe. God sees things differently. We need space and time; God does not. Humbling and encouraging it is, at the same time.
When we think of what Jesus experienced that first Holy Week, we feel the paradox of the Paschal Mystery, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, in which all reality participates. Jesus experienced acclamation by the crowds on Palm Sunday. Later that week, he experienced a change of fortunes when he was betrayed and denied and abandoned by His closest followers. He experienced kangaroo courts by both institutional church and state. There were moments when He felt fear and seeming abandonment by God the Father. On Good Friday, all appeared to be lost. However, there was another chapter.
While Jesus mentioned resurrection and did resuscitations, as He did with Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain, it was not the center of His program. Jesus’ proclamation was the Nearness of God’s World Order, God is with us in Christ Jesus even now, but not yet. To use modern argot, even His closest followers did not catch His drift. Easter was a surprise.
Yet, what they experienced in The Risen One after the third day was a transformational experience. Something happened to St Peter and the 12. The big talker who ended up denying Jesus. The others were cowering in hiding for fear of repercussions after Good Friday. An unexpected breakthrough had occurred and things were never the same. Pope Benedict thinks that the very fact that the Sabbath was ultimately moved to a Sunday reflects events that truly occurred on the first day of the week that were significant enough to change the Lord’s Day. In the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection of Jesus becomes the Motor driving the Jesus Movement for 2000 years and is what brings us together today. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
What to say? Blessed John Duns Scotus said that God allowed the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus to convince us how much God loved us. Blessed Juliana of Norwich said that God allowed the worst thing in the world to happen so that the best thing in the world to happen (in the very same action)!! St Catherine of Genoa said that God had to allow the death and Resurrection of His Son; if there were any other way, why would God want this? St Anthony said that the reason why the God-man died on the cross was so that when you look at a crucifix you are looking into a mirror.
The pattern of death and Resurrection is the pattern of the universe. In the outermost rim of the cosmos and in the innermost recess of the universe, the Paschal Process is ascent, descent and transformation St Paul tells us that Jesus is the archetype of creation. Everything and everyone experiences life, descent and transformed life. It just happens to us so up close that we don’t realize it.
The Paschal Mystery keeps the Jesus Movement moving along, despite our sins and failures. The Church is God’s Family; we are all favored by God; we are all flawed; we all fall at times into sin; we are all forgiven. Our job is one of inclusive election, viz., to proclaim that all people are included in this paradigm. Christians are the ones who realize it and are called to spread the good news. Sometimes, we do well; sometimes, we do not.
French philosophe, Francois Voltaire, said that the Church had to have a divine and human source . Otherwise, the Jesus Movement would not last. John Lennon said 40 years that the Beatles would be around a lot longer than Jesus. (John was wrong about that!) Late night comics add their mean-spirited two cents daily.
Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, one of NY’s great gifts to Catholicism, a candidate now for sainthood, said that the church has great flaws, but it brings Jesus to us. She caught the Divine Indwelling, aka the Scandal of the Incarnation, aka the Easter Principle that God even raises the dead, as St Paul tells us in Rom 4. Most Catholics, in good faith, try to do so as well.
The Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, the archetype of creation as St Paul tells us in Col 1.15 is the Motor that keeps the Tradition alive. What the Quantum theologians now tell us is that the Risen One now longer needs the relativity of space and time. Christ Jesus is immanent and transcendent (within and beyond the Universe). Space and time are relative for us.
Catholics believe that God the Father and Christ Jesus are everywhere; we believe that we are somewhere. Therefore, we believe that God the Father and Christ Jesus in us. (Recall the Baltimore Catechism teaching that we are temples of the Holy Spirit!)
The Father and the Crucified-Risen One live in us and we live in the Father and Crucified-Risen One. The motor keeps running. Easter is a “State of Consciousness”. Every day is the day that Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.!! Alleluia! Alleluia!! 042411AD jfq

Reflection: April 17, 2011AD

2011-04-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Was Pilate Correct?
We begin Holy Week today as we commemorate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. The vivid imagery stays in our minds and yet, more is going on than just an historical and liturgical re-enactment. The significance of Palm Sunday is archetypal in Catholic minds and hearts.
The historical background is clear enough. Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east and His followers and inhabitants of Jerusalem welcomed Him crying “Hosanna”. During the days that followed, Jesus symbolically derailed the Temple Establishment through His expulsion of the money changers in the Temple (90% of the commerce of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus had to do with the Temple trade.) The controversy with the Temple Establishment raised the hackles of the Roman authorities who probably decided that anyone who rocked the boat during Passover (a feast of liberation from slavery) would quickly become toast.
However, more was going on behind the scenes then (and NOW also!). There was another procession around that time as well, entering Jerusalem from the west. It would have been the retinue of Pilate who lived in another place, Caesarea, and would have gone up to Jerusalem to keep an eye on the action. Pilate represents Tiberius Caesar whose fascist empire was based on fear and violence. They called it the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace).
People therefore, had a choice in which procession to participate. Jesus came in from the east; Pilate came in from the west. Conventional wisdom then (and Now?) wavered after a few days. Where were the crowds from Palm Sunday with Jesus on Good Friday? Had they changed loyalties? One can only wonder.
Still, one can ask oneself about one’s own loyalties NOW. Where would I be on Palm Sunday? Where would I be on Good Friday?
In our Isaiah today, we hear a prophecy about a mysterious figure, an innocent Servant, who suffers in place of the guilty. Is the prophet referring to himself? An individual whom the prophet knew who fit the category? The people of Israel, persecuted throughout their history? Possibly the strange figure of the Messiah? (Very few opted for the last choice.)
In our second reading, we hear an early liturgical hymn that was sung by the Jesus Movement in Philippi (in northern Greece) as early as 55AD, 25 years after the death and the Resurrection of the Lord.) St Paul quotes the lyrics of the hymn as a way of teaching the Philippians (and us NOW) that “our attitude must be the attitude of Christ.”
He explains that Jesus lived a life of humility, obedience and relationship with others. He knew Who He was and, in humility and obedience, He emptied Himself and lived our life, even to death on the cross. His attitude should be our attitude. In Christ Jesus, St Paul tells us that we should live lives of kindness, forgiveness and compassion, as best we can.
When you think about it, what was the real threat that anyone in an established venue (church and/or state) that was threatening about Jesus’ Message? Was it the “offer no resistance to injury violently’? Was it “love your neighbor as yourself”? Was it “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?
What was so threatening in Jesus’ Gospel that He died on Good Friday? If a Kingdom of God were to exist, how would Christ the King apportion items on His agenda? Was Pilate on to something that if enough critical mass plugged into Jesus’ New Consciousness, established religion and/or state were on shaky ground?
The choice that is presented to us today and this week is to participate in one or the other procession. Who is higher on our priority list? Caesar or Jesus? Do we follow a company man or a Kingdom Man? Do we worship the System or do we worship God? Is it the bottom line or is it the Common Good” Quoting the prophet Zechariah, St Matthew tells us today that the king comes to Jerusalem, humbly (meekly) riding the foal of an ass. Christ the King does not come in triumph or awe or majesty. He comes in humility, obedience and a life lived for others. The same word that Zechariah used is the word that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the soil.” Jesus invites us in Matthew’s Gospel to learn from Him “Who is meek and humble of heart”. To be part of His retinue, He calls us empowering us to try to live with kindness, forgiveness and compassion.
Sadly, many try to hedge our bets. St Paul tells his Philippian audience in another place that our true citizenship (allegiance) is in heaven. However, nobody can serve two masters, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. The choice comes down to “in whose parade will we participate – Caesar’s or Jesus’”? One carries weapons; the other carries a cross. You cannot march in two places at once.
In which parade am I participating? Is it for Caesar or for Jesus? Am I a company person or a Kingdom person? Do I worship the System or do I worship God? Is it the Bottom Line or is it the Common Good? When all is said and done, what’s my story? 041711ADjfq

Reflection:041011AD

2011-04-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Lazarus, et al.
The granddaddy of all Jesus’ miracles is our Sunday Gospel today as we continue to move relentlessly to Easter. In a prime example of the literary skill of the Fourth Evangelist, we hear how Jesus’ giving life to a dead man is going to hurdle Him, the Resurrection and the Life, to death Himself on Good Friday. However, believers know the final chapter to the saga. The Easter chapter has radical life-changing implications for each of us. This is known as “Johannine (John’s) irony or multivalence.” People with faith have a different spin on life.
The last and the greatest of Signs that Jesus performed in the Fourth Gospel point to what Jesus can do for each of us if we allow Him. All the other Signs were good things. The wine from water at Cana, the royal official’s son, the ungrateful cripple at the pool of Bethesda, the walking on the water, the loaves and the fish, the gift of sight and faith to the blind man -- all were good things. Nobody has to fear when Jesus is on the scene. However, the gift of life itself is the greatest gift.
We, followers of Jesus, should always try to remember Life’s Three Noble Truths. 1) Life can get tough. We all experience the two hands of God at one time or another. The right hand of God showers blessings upon us for which we do not always say thanx often enough. However, the left hand of God challenges us with the disappointments, rejections, absurdities, failures, troubles and sadness. (The affluent in Western Civilization usually can avoid much of this for a while at least.) 2) Such bad things are a part of life. 3) Still, life is the greatest good even with the bad things. That’s Life!!
Jesus Self-refers today as the Resurrection and the Life. Words can’t grasp the meaning; that is why we need faith. Still, we need to remember a crucial facet of Christ Jesus, viz., the Incarnation. St John tells us today in this majestic story from the Gospel that, in the course of it, Martha tells Jesus off in no uncertain terms for his delay at coming. Next, St John tells us that Jesus’ stomach turned when He saw His friend’s tomb. Next, he tells that Jesus wept at the death of His friend. In essence, in one line in the Gospel, “God cried”. Next, St John tells us that Jesus’ prayer before raising Lazarus began with a shriek, a scream. Such conduct from the One Who is the Resurrection and the Life!
In the very beginning of the Gospel, St John tells us, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Incarnation challenges us to say yes to the Presence of God in a particular place in space and time, in Jesus of Nazareth. Theologians call the Incarnation, the Scandal of the Particular. The One at Whom Martha yells, the One Who weeps, the One Whose stomach turns, the One Who screams and shrieks His prayer is God made human.
Catholics and all people need to recall that language about God is metaphorical at best. St Thomas Aquinas spoke of Deus Major
God is always greater than we can imagine.
God is always more unlike than like the way that we (try to) describe God. Each human person, created in the Divine Image, is incapable of total self-description. Both God and the human person are Mysteries, viz., infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable. However, we try.
In addition, modern Catholic theologians, following the example of Aquinas, speak also of Deus Minor. viz., God is always lesser than we can imagine. God is present in the most insignificant of settings. One Australian Catholic theologian speaks of the Deep Incarnation, viz., God in all things. Another group of Latino(a) Catholic theologians speak of the Nazareth Principle, viz., God shows up in the most unlikely of places!!
In a curious verse, Jesus makes the statement, “Our brother Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him”. We know what Jesus means by his words. By extension, might Jesus be hinting to us, then and now, we all might be sleepwalking through life and Jesus needs to awaken us. Without recognition of the Transcendent, on whom all are both dependent upon and different than, we might be sleepwalking through life. Recently, one theologian said, “We may be asleep when we are born, when we grow up, when we marry, when we raise families, when we get older and when we die if we do not recognize the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, 24x7.”
In this very earthy story, the human mind cannot grasp the meaning of the words, “Resurrection” and “Life”. In truth, the more we use them, the more we need to clarify meanings. The word in Greek for Resurrection is Anastasis, (standing up or again); the woman’s name Anastasia is based on this. The words in Greek for life are Bios (physical life) and Zoe (life in its totality); the woman’s name, Zoe, is based on this. The Gospel uses Zoe, (life in its totality.)
A humble, human (both words etymologically connected to the Latin word, humus , soil) should rejoice that God Incarnate was castigated and felt human emotions in this story. Nevertheless, Christ Jesus proclaims, “ I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The Gospel today is a gigantic koan, a riddle both infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable. Still the koan promises us life and love forever in God. Try to go figure, but then, rejoice in the Holy Mystery. Some think Lazarus is the beloved disciple; others think it could be you and me. 041011AD jfq

Reflection: April 3, 2011AD

2011-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

Might This Be You?
Long ago, biblical scholars saw two levels of the healing of the blind man in today’s Gospel. First, it describes the physical healing of a man who was born blind. Yet, in the story, more than physical sight is given. The man born blind was brought to the illumination of faith by Jesus as he gradually comes to accept Jesus as the Son of Man, even more, the Lord.
There are several words that the 4th Evangelist uses for the verb “to see”. In John’s vocabulary, “to see” is a loaded term. It is an example of what is called Johannine Irony or Multivalence, viz., words have more than one meaning. Yes, the man received his physical sight, even though he never asked Jesus for the gift of sight. It was freely bestowed on him by the Divine Healer. However, in the upshot of the story, the man also received the Gift of Sight to see Who Jesus really is. As John Newton wrote 200 years in the hymn , “Amazing Grace”, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”
The season of Lent was a 40 day period of intense preparation by catechumens (tyro-Christians) for the reception of the Sacraments of Initation, viz., Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, during the Easter Vigil, Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday.
One of the names by which Baptism was called in early Christianity was the “Sacrament of Illumination and Enlightenment.” The custom of lighting the small baptismal candle from the Paschal Candle is the vestige of this former sacramental name.
The healing of the blind man takes place bear a pool and it involves a washing with water. While Jesus only appears twice in the story, He is ever the Subject of the story because of the controversy over the identity of the Healer. While Jesus speaks to the man twice, the man sees Jesus once because he was still blind in the first encounter.
Curiously, the more grief is heaped upon the man, the more he calls Jesus “that man”, then, a “prophet”, then, “from God”, then,” Son of Man”, then, “Lord”. Like the Samaritan woman last week, the blind man’s faith develops because of the influence of Jesus. The blind man is a symbol of what we are all called to be as disciples of Jesus.
Late in the fourth Gospel, we hear of the “beloved disciple”, one who is the model disciple, the one whom we are all called to be. Contrary to the DaVinci Code, Mary Magdalen appears along with the Beloved Disciple. (I bet Dan Brown knew it, but assumed you did not and would not check it out.)
Traditionally, the Fourth Gospel has been attributed to the Apostle John (hence, its unofficial name.) However, all the Gospels are anonymous documents. We are not sure of the identity of any of the evangelists. Some thought that the Apostle John was remaining anonymous in his self-description.
One opinion on the identity of the “Beloved Disciple” is the Samaritan Woman, mentioned in last week’s Gospel. She certainly came to faith and quickly became an “apostolic disciple”, viz., a mature baptized Christian who took her discipleship seriously so that she brought other people to Jesus.
Another opinion is that perhaps, Lazarus, the dead man raised to life in John 11 was the beloved disciple. (This last of Jesus’ 7 signs is the immediate trigger which results in the death and Resurrection of Jesus.)Neither Lazarus nor the beloved disciple had been mentioned earlier.
Still, another opinion is that, perhaps, it is our hero, the blind man, in today’s Gospel, who is the beloved disciple. He is favorable presented in the Gospel as a Jewish disciple who receives initial illumination and enlightenment from Jesus (Whom he cannot see) near a pool of water. As the pressure mounts, his faith in Jesus grows. In the closing scene, he “sees” Jesus Who obviously loves him and Whom he obviously loves in return.
We are learning more and more about the fallacy of “rugged individualism”. Nobody’s identity escapes our relationships with others. Created in the Image and Likeness of God, the human person is infinitely knowable, known through our infinite unknowability (as is our Trinitarian God). The human person is equal (as are the three persons in our Trinitarian God). The human person is relational, not monadic (as is our Trinitarian God).
The question in the Gospel today is not, “Is the man born blind the beloved disciple?” Maybe yes or no. Rather, the real question is “Are you the beloved disciple?” 040311 AD jfq

Reflection 032711AD

2011-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

Who Was That Lady Again?
Jesus rocked the boat on many occasions. (Indeed, if you really heard Him, He still does today. Remember the turn the other cheek and love your enemies a few weeks back in the Sermon on the Mount?) However, much of the controversy caused by Jesus and His Gospel has become lost on us, because, in subtle ways, putative Christian cultures have watered down His Vision.
We see His upsetting mores in today’s Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well. She was a Samaritan (Strike One); she was a woman (Strike Two); she was a known adulteress with 5 ex-husbands (Strike Three). However, she was not called Out by Jesus. (Indeed, then and now, no one should be called Out!) Indeed, she ended up as an apostolic disciple after her encounter with Jesus at the Well (hinting at Baptism, maybe??) By the end of the Gospel today, she ends up as an Evangelizer to her townfolk in what Pope John Paul called the “New Evangelization”.
As Jesus speaks to her at the well, the woman is obviously set up by the Grace of God (Remember, there are no coincidences, according to Celtic Christianity!) Her understanding of Jesus gradually evolves as Jesus draws her faith forward. At first, she refers to Jesus as a “Jew”, then “sir”, then “prophet” then, “Messiah”. Then when Jesus speaks of his own divinity, as He says to the woman, I AM, and identification with YHWH, the Great “I AM”. Late, the other outlanders whom the new Samaritan apostolic disciple brings to Jesus proclaim that Jesus is “the Savior of the World”. Through her graced encounter with Jesus at the well, the entire town is on the road to New Evangelization.
When Jesus gets to the heart of the matter about the quality of her personal life, He prompts her honest response. Jesus reached her through His Revelation to her about herself. She saw herself as God saw and loved her, defenseless and sinful. This lady has received from Jesus the gift of “poverty in spirit”. She saw her reality through Jesus as she really was. Everyone, not just the Samaritan woman, needs a dose of poverty in spirit throughout our lives, viz., we are all defenseless and sinful in God’s eyes.
When Pope John Paul visited is in October, 1995, many of our community celebrated Mass with him in Central Park. (Another more cogent event sadly was taking place that day, Homecoming Day at Byram Hills High School; many opted for that. Are we surprised? Go figure!) The Pope spoke of the “new Evangelization”, God’s constant call to hear the Gospel again, maybe for the first time.) We are asked to “re-discover” how God is drawing us to God’s Self in our daily journey through life.
In an area parish, many years ago, an effort was made to implement the process of Total Parish Catechesis in an effort to spread the “call for the New Evangelization” of Pope John Paul before 2000AD. A special effort was made in sacramental programs to insure that they were family programs, including the parents as well as the sacramental candidates. Parents wondered why they were included in the meetings. One parent said and this is a quote, “I have all the religious education I need; thanx very much!!” Another parent said, “Who is getting confirmed me or my kid?”
We celebrated Confirmation here yesterday and once again, the ranks of apostolic disciples have swollen (Or have they?) The Spirit rushes where She wills. (Spirit, ruach, in Hebrew is a feminine noun!).
Some of the questions which we might use in our personal “re-discovery might include the following: 1) Has my understanding of God evolved or stagnated during my life’s journey thusfar? 2) Has my own self-understanding evolved or stagnated during my life’s journey thusfar? 3) Has my understanding of what Jesus expects of me in daily life evolved or stagnated during my life’s journey thusfar? 4) Finally, ask yourself why you answered (or did not answer) the questions.
Who was that lady in the Gospel today? She might be “you” and/or “me” and/or all of us. In the running water of Baptism, we are all brought to meet Jesus for the first time. We became His disciple as we learn from Him about ourselves and our God. In Confirmation, we were all asked (and commissioned) to become His Apostles as well, viz., sent out to proclaim in our lives that Jesus had made a difference to us and we are proud of that difference. We would not be the same as everyone else because everyone is not committed to be an apostolic disciple” as we pledged to be in the Holy Spirit. With Jesus’ Help, we can bring others to the well to hear and to see and to believe in Jesus and in themselves, (maybe for the first time.) We might learn a little more about ourselves as well. 032711AD jfq

Reflection 032011AD

2011-03-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

A Matter of Honor
Several years ago, the world was shocked by an incident in Iraq. Recall that Saddam Hussein had two sons-in-law, who had defected to Saddam’s enemies. The Iraqi dictator said that he forgave his sons-in-law and that they could return to Iraq to be re-united with their wives and families. The two idiots returned and Saddam had them executed two days later. According to news reports, the family of Saddam had been shamed and its honor could only be restored by an act of retribution. (Don’t laugh. Don’t similar, though not so drastic, events still take place in “nice society”?)
Honor and shame codes are important values in the Middle East, both then, in the time of Jesus and today, now as well. We see an example of honor and shame code today in the Gospel of the Transfiguration. The shame of Jesus’ death will be vindicated by the Restoration of God’s Honor in Resurrection of Christ Jesus.
One explanation for this annual Lenten Gospel is that it is a reminder to us that the journey to the cross leads ultimately to the Resurrection. According to an ancient tradition, the unusual event on the mountaintop occurred about 40 days before the death of Jesus. Hence, it is a Gospel that we always hear at the beginning of Lent.
In its place in the Gospel, Jesus has just announced His impending death and Resurrection in Jerusalem. In the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke), each of Jesus’ triple predictions of His archetypal fate (and ours) is met by disbelief and misunderstanding by His closest followers. (Are we any different?)
When Jesus announced by Caesarea Philippi what was in store for Him, it was Peter (the first Pope) (who had just professed that Jesus was the “Christ, the Son of the Living God) spoke, “God forbid that anything like that happen to you” (and, more importantly, me). Jesus’ response to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking human thoughts, not God’s thoughts.” was similar to what Jesus said to Satan last week, “Begone, Satan.”
Next, Jesus instructs Peter, the Twelve, and all the disciples (us) with three important rules of thumbs for Catholic behavior.1) “If a person wishes to come after Me, he or she must deny one’s very self (his false self??), take up His cross and follow Me.” 2) “Whoever would save his life must lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, will find it.” 3) “What profit would a person show if he were to gain the whole world but destroy himself in the process?”
These three quotations are reflections on what we have been talking about the past several weeks as Jesus proclaims the Sermon on the Mount to us in our Gospels. Once again, we recall that Jesus is like us in all things but sin but He is smarter than we are. He knows something that we don’t get. Once again, we recall the state of the world was worse than it is around here in central Westchester County, and still Jesus speaks to us. Finally, we recall that these words are seen as so radical and subversive by Pilate and the Temple Establishment, that Jesus had to go. During the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John experienced the metamorphosis (Transfiguration in Greek), they heard the Voice of God the Father say, ‘This is My Divine Son. Listen to Him”. (Recall the difference between hearing and listening.) Do you really get what He is saying to you here and now?
God the Father affirmed that Jesus would be dishonored and shamed in His passion. However, God’s Honor would be restored in the Resurrection. In light of this, the disciples were to learn what Jesus was trying to teach them (and us) with His Gospel.
As Mohandas Gandhi put it so simply, “Jesus does not invite people to a new religion but to a new view of life.” Gandhi said as well, “The true message of Jesus can be represented by the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing the Law of Compassion.”
Always remember that Jesus is Emmanuel, viz., God with us, in our lives. Most people’s religious lives are spent in domestic settings (dealing with families, neighbors, etc.) rather than in monastic ones (where one is spent in contemplation totally). When we feel shamed or dishonored by the misfortunes of life, (and we all will, someday), the Paschal Mystery of the death and Resurrection of the Lord, in which we all share, God’s Honor will be vindicated in your life and all of our lives. However, we always need to remember that the vindication will be on God’s terms and in God’s Own time. 032011AD jfq

Reflection: March 13, 2011AD

2011-03-12T04:40:00.000-08:00

In the Desert
Jesus is like us in all things but sin. Just as temptation is a part of our lives, so also temptation was part of His. Recall the Agony in the Garden as the culmination as well as the triple temptations to come down off the cross as His enemies taunted Him.
It is important to recognize that while Satan challenges Jesus as the Son of God, Satan is not strictly referring to Jesus as the Second Person of the trinity. Rather, the term, “Son of God”, as it has been used thusfar in St Matthew’s Gospel readers more to Jesus as the personification of Israel at its very best. Remember when the prophet Hosea said, “When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt, I called My Son.” In addition, Jesus tells us all to address God as Abba, Da or Papa. Therefore, we are all (daughters and) sons of God.
It is important for us to recognize honestly that it is impossible to delve into the mind of another person, especially a divine person, with a divine and fully human nature. (We can’t even know sometimes what is going on in our minds. Psychologists refer to human behavior as “epiphenomenological”, viz., behavior is a manifestation of many hidden factors below the surface.)
While Jesus probably told His disciples that He was indeed tempted at the start of His public ministry, St Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is presenting an illustration of what happened to Jesus as Jesus tried to get His act together in the desert for 40 days.
We read in the Gospel today that Jesus remained faithful to the vocation to which God the Father had called Him. He resisted temptation (as Adam and Eve did not) to go and do things His own way. Unlike our first parents Jesus did not fall for the Original Lie, viz. you too can be like God. He refused to use power to dazzle crowds. He refused to use His power to impress and fulfill the requests if cynical non-believers. He refused to use His power to gain political hegemony.
As a member of Israel, Jesus relies on the faithfulness of YHWH. He quotes the Book of Deuteronomy three times as a means of strength to resist temptation.
The Book of Deuteronomy is addressed to Jews who, with God’s Help take responsibility for their lives in the midst of their Jewish culture. Deuteronomy is for the mature.
The three quotes which Jesus uses can work for us as well as we try to live our own lives as God wants us to live them. When He is tempted to turn stones into bread, He reminds Himself that “Not by bread alone does one live, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. These days, we think of bread (lehem in Hebrew), not only as bread, but also as food, sustenence, but also the money (bread) that buys what we all need. The quotation takes on a different meaning for us, doesn’t it?
When Jesus is tempted to do a trick to impress skeptics (read publicity stunt) He reminds Himself, “You shall not put the Lord Your God to the test.” We are reminded that God has no obligation to live up to the demands which we make upon God.
Finally, when Jesus, Israel personified, is tempted to be a political Messiah, interestingly Satan claims that he will give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. Many have commented that the systems of the world of power, domination and control which masquerade in many ways and in many places, really, indeed do belong to Satan. Most of us deny that we are addicted to dominant consciousness (conventional wisdom, Western civilization, whatever) and the dominant consciousness is addicted as well to power, wealth, control, petroleum The ideal Jew responds again by quoting Deuteronomy “The Lord your God, you shall love and respect, viz., acknowledge as the source and centre of your own life; “this Lord you will serve.” When we think of temptation, we are reminded at times that the things we serves can become the things that dominate us, becoming the basis of an ultimately false security.
We are all tempted to live on everything else but God’s promise. We are all tempted to make God live up to our terms. We are tempted to find in other things the security only God can provide. We are tempted very easily to forget that it was God’s Space before I made it MySpace.
May the example and Help of the Son of God made human in Christ Jesus guide and strengthen the rest of us (all daughters and sons of God as well) as continue to experience the temptations which lead us all to succumb to the Original Lie, both as individuals and as cultures. 031311AD jfq

Reflection: 030611AD

2011-03-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

See You on Wednesday
On this Sunday just before Ash Wednesday, Catholics have heard excerpts from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mtt 5-7). Some used these Sunday’s Gospels as an chance to do an Examination of Conscience for Lent.
As we recall the introductory statement of Jesus to the Sermon, “Blessed are they who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” The sermon concludes this morning with the words, “Everyone who listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
In addition, not in our Sunday readings, the Lord’s Prayer is directly in the middle of the Great Sermon. (Recall that many call the Lord’s Prayer, the Anthem of God’s New World Order, New Consciousness, New Age, God’s Kingdom.) Almost in the center of the Lord’s Prayer is the petition, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Recall again that it is estimated that 2/3 of Jesus teaching was about getting along with others, avoiding grudges, violence and hatred.)
One twentieth century theologian said, “Gradually, I came to see a glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said that the Kingdom of God must be in everyone…To change the world by bullets or ballots was a useless procedure. Ergo, the only revolution worth-while is the one man revolution within each human heart. Each one would make this by himself and need not wait for the majority.” (Recall the sentiment expressed by many, “When I was young, I wanted to change the world…Now that I am older, I just want to change myself.”)
Jesus has some tough language for us to process in His words. In trying to analyze what He means for each of us, we might keep three points salient in my minds and hearts, 1) Jesus is smarter than I am. 2) Jesus’ world was just as violent as my own (and maybe, more so). 3) Jesus would not ask the impossible of me.
Taking Jesus at His word, ask for the grace or Help to take specific one time situations in our lives and try, with God’s Help, to take Jesus at His word. As we hear in several places in the Christian Scriptures, Jesus was “like us in all things but sin.” Chances are that Jesus had tough days (just like you and me). Chances are that some people rubbed Jesus the wrong way. Chances are that Jesus might have found it difficult to turn the other cheek with the self-righteous. Recall the words toward the conclusion of the Gospel today, to the one who listens to Jesus, viz., with God’s Help, tries to take the Gospel seriously, is “like the wise man who built his house on rock. The rains fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted his house. It did not collapse; it had solidly been set on rock.”
During the Season of Lent, now upon us, one easy Lenten practice is to log on our parish website daily. Click on the Daily Scripture Readings, then click on any chapter in the 72 books of the Bible that you want. Spend some time looking at that chapter and then check the footnotes at the end for Catholic clarification of what the inspired writers might be saying. A good place to begin would certainly be chapters 5 & 6 & 7, with which we have become so familiar these past Sundays.
As we near Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are dust and unto dust, we shall return. We periodically re-focus on what life is all about. Millions of people throughout the world will be reminded that our time in the world is not forever. At the same time, we hear that, indeed, it is time to snap out of it and smell God’s coffee. Periodically, we experience transcendence, viz., that we are different than and radically (basically) dependent upon Something Other than ourselves. The Sundays preceding Ash Wednesday offer us a splendid opportunity to get back to basics and right relationships with the Transcendent Other, the people in our lives, our earthly environment and ourselves. Each of us has a personal, a planetary and a cosmic significance, revealed through the Paschal Mystery of Christ Jesus, our participation in the universal process of ascent, descent and transformation. May we all heed the Sputnik Moment in which we find ourselves in Lent, 2011AD, as we try to get serious once again about what it all really means.
There is a famous religious symbol associated with St Francis of Assisi, known as the Cross of San Damiano. Jesus hangs on the cross in this iconic image with His eyes open staring at you, the viewer, He has not yet died but clearly is at death’s door. The question he seems to be raising is simply, “Do you believe all this?” That is the question Jesus poses for of us as we near Ash Wednesday this week. 030611AD jfq

Refection February 27, 2011AD

2011-02-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

Don’t Worry; Be Happy?????
Most people of a certain age recall the popular song many years by Jamaican singer, Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry. Be Happy”. One of its great lines was “Landlord says your rent is late; it may be time to litigate. Don’t worry. Be happy!!” (Some politicians back then even tried to use the song in election campaigns. Bobby said no!)
The line came from a mantra proposed by an Islamic mystic, “Do the best you can; don’t worry; be happy; I am God.” Just about anybody would say that but for the grace of God, that it would be impossible to say those words and truly mean them.
Jesus asks us to do basically the same. As USA Catholics near Ash Wednesday, 2011AD, we hear His Words in today’s Sputnik Moment from Jesus’ Examination of Conscience (aka the Sermon on the Mount). Recall also the reminder that we have been hearing all these pre-Lenten Sundays. “Jesus does not ask the impossible.” “With God, all things are possible (even with you).”
Human persons are programmed in many different ways. First, Dr Eric Erickson spoke of basic childhood needs that remain with us throughout life. We are all under the sway (to a greater or lesser degree) of basic childhood needs, the basic needs for security, esteem and control (which can devolve into the three idols of Power, Prestige and Possessions). These basic drives are with us all our lives. What varies, with God’s Help, is our response to them. These impulses can control us. In Christ Jesus, we can control them. Another way in which human persons are driven is through how we respond to the call to transcendence that is basic to human living. 100 years, German psychologist, Rudolf Otto, identified to the human drive toward the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans (the Mystery, both awesome and fascinating), the intuition of Transcendence, on which each of us is dependent upon and yet different. (Christians call It the Holy Mystery, YHWH, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Catholic theologians speak of the need for every mature human person to respond to these basic human needs. Lent will be the time for us to soul-search this year.
Modern theologians speak of two false gods in competition with YHWH, the God of Life, the God of Reality, the God beyond space and time, yet the God here and now, the God of Love, Incarnate in Christ Jesus. First we all worship at one time or another the demi-god Ego (Easing God out??). We make ourselves and our immediate needs and gratifications the center of our existence. We characterize life as “My Story”. It is about us. Sorry!!
Second we all worship at one time or another the demi-god Wego (We ease God out). Now, we take our group identities and the false security, esteem and control that they seem to maintain. Then, we worship our group, however, we define ourselves as the center of our existence (and everyone else’s too, if they were smart like us.)
The two gods, Ego and Wego, have many demi-gods or avatars in modern life. We can name at least four of them. Ego and Wego appear in modern versions of the god Mars, the god of dominance. Ego and Wego appear in modern versions of the god Baal, the god of tangible control. Ego and Wego appear in modern versions of the god Mammonas (mentioned today in the Gospel), the god of Bling. Ego and Wego appear in modern versions of the god Bacchus, (“If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad!”)
We all practice both forms of idolatry (and their demi-gods) when we make something other than God the center and mainstay of our existence. Recall the first and summary Beatitude a few weeks back. “Blessed is that person who tries, with God’s Help, to acknowledge and behave that God is the Center of the their lives, for that person is moving in the right direction.” We all honestly know that it is easier said than done.
Jesus might rephrase the Islamic mantra adapted by Bobby McFerrin. “God’s Will be done; God lives in you; Tough times do come; Tough times do pass; All will be well; Jesus is Lord.” As the man said in the Gospel, “Lord, I believe. Help my lack of faith.”
Once again, Jesus urges us to trust Him and God the Father on this. We ask for His Help to practice the transforming initative, asking, at least, this one time to trust and acknowledge and behave that God is, indeed, the Center of my and our Existence. In, with and through Christ Jesus, we participate in the paradox of the God’s Paschal Mystery, from ascent to decent to transformation, certain both of gravity and God’s grace. 022711AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 022011AD

2011-02-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Son of Sputnik Moments
Several years ago, Franciscan theologian, Richard Rohr, held a lecture series entitled, “Love Your Enemy”. He covered many salient points that have more relevance now than ever in our world. In this Sputnik Moment in which Catholics throughout the world find ourselves as we approach Ash Wednesday, our Sunday Gospels, excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, become for us an honest examination of conscience. Jesus calls us all to an honest self-critique, viz., not how I see myself, rather, how does God’s see me? Our Sunday readings from now until Ash Wednesday represent Sputnik Moments for us. Where am I really at as a Catholic human person?
The triple questions of a honest self-critique should be the following: 1) What do I want people to say about me? Or How do I want to come across? 2) What do people say about me? Or How do I come across to others? 3) What should be people say about me? Or Who am I really?
The purposes of the Rohr series were two-fold. First, it helped participants to understand the deep patterns in the individual and collective psyche that fuels the violence and hatred about which Jesus cautions us today’s Gospel reading. Second, it was to view Jesus and His Gospel message not only as a mop-up for the mess we have made of original sin (aka original junk or baggage or trash) that we pass on in our lives, but rather as preventive medicine for the toxic world in which we live.
According to the Book of Genesis which the Catholic world is hearing at daily Mass throughout the world this week, violence becomes foundational to cultural patterns. At the end of the archetypal story of Cain and Abel, rival cities are founded by the sons of Cain. The presumption is that one gathers with one’s own peers in social settings. As a result, jealousy and rivalries develop between peers and between cities. Greed and violence easily develop in such settings. We need to be vigilant in curtailing violence. To a certain degree, we can all be Cain and/or Abel.
The archetypal example for the Jesus Movement is Jesus Himself at His death and Resurrection. After all the grief and abandonment that Jesus experienced in the cowardice of the 12, the betrayal by Judas, the triple denial by St Peter, as well as kangaroo trials by both Church and State authorities, as well as the mockery of Jesus at His crucifixion, St Luke tells us that Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” All four evangelists tell us that Jesus did not “get even” or “settle the score” with those who tortured Him. Rather, He forgave them. We recall that Jesus teaches us to, at least try, to forgive with God’s Help, whenever we say the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, we know deep down that Jesus would not ask us to imitate Him, if not possible. Jesus turns the tables upside down. After Easter, Jesus does not seek any new victims. He does not transmit violence, rather He transforms it. He asks us to do the same. Even though we live in a world that is inured to violence, He asks us to give it a try, with His Help, at least in situations in which I am confronted with the choice between a violent response or a win-win response. In Christ Jesus, it becomes violence transmitted to violence transformed.
The world lives today with the specter of violence, both institutional and terrorist. One way that Catholics can live the teachings of Jesus with regard to nursing anger and grudges is practice what we call “disarmament of the heart.” Such a disarmament is an ongoing process. We can teach our children the art of asking God for help to try disarmament of the “terrorism of the tongue.” Violent parents can practice disarmament of the “terrorism of the fist”. We can practice disarmament of the “terrorism of bias”, where we pre-judge others by what they are (or not).
The least that any of us can do to practice is the idea of a transforming initative. This means trying to recognize that we should head anger off at the pass, with God’s Help. It means trying, with God’s Help, to curb the reptilian brain response of fight-flight that is deep within us and our culture. The prayer becomes “Maybe, next time, I might act out my angry and violent impulses. But, Jesus, give the strength to let go of my urge to violence this time.” At least, try to take Jesus seriously enough in this real situation that I will try not to make a cutting remark to someone or to make a gesture to a driver in another vehicle or to make a blanket statement about “all those people”.
We want our children and grandchildren to grow up in a less angry world. We can make one small effort in our little world by telling our children and grandchildren not to fly off the handle so fast, by teaching them why doing so is a no-win situation, by showing them by trying to do it ourselves, and by inspiring them when we do so, with God’s Help.
Father Rohr also said that it was amazing that throughout 2000 years, most Christians, with the exceptions of the Quakers and the Amish and the Mennonites, have given a deaf ear to much of what Jesus has been saying the last two weeks about anger management, revenge and love of others. That is only for professional Catholics, not Ordinary Joes like me.
“Jesus, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, from despair to hope, from fear to trust, from darkness to light, from hatred to love, from war to peace. Jesus, give peace to our hearts, our people, our planet, our universe.”
“Just this one time, help me to try to break the cycle of violence in my own life. Make me an instrument of Your peace today and not tomorrow, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” 022011AD jfq

Reflection 0213111AD

2011-02-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Sputnik Moments
In Arizona, you can carry a pistol in a holster into a Sunday Mass. Last week, we saw a beer ad at the Superbowl with a cowboy drawing a gun in a saloon (was it in Arzona?) until the Clythesdales got to town and the party began. Do we miss the point of Jesus’ teachings? Do we need Sputnik Moments?
Recently, the President coined a new term for an experience that many might recall. It was the night of Friday, October 4, 1958, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite (Sputnik I) into orbit. It was a wake-up call for many people who realized for what reason, “we were not the only kids in the hood”. We came to realize as well that we were lacking in many areas of learning, including both science and foreign languages. (It was at this time that many folks started to learn Russian as a more realistic language than French, which was then the language of choice for so many. (Today with the rise in the 21st Century of the BRIIC nations, viz., Brazil, (Russia), India, Indonesia and China, languages indigenous to those nations might be wise selections for students.)
During these Sundays before Ash Wednesday, Catholics throughout the world will be hearing most of the basic insights of Jesus’ Charter for God’s New Age, the Sermon on the Mount. We recall that the Sermon begins with the Beatitudes, summed up, briefly, “Blessed is that person, who tries, with God’s Help, to acknowledge and behave that God is the Center of that person’ universe.” Last week, recall that all Catholics are called to the light of the world, as the Italian Cardinal put it, the pure glass through which the Presence of Jesus Christ is visible to the world. No more, two-tiered levels of holiness, as Vatican II said, there is the “Universal Call to Holiness”. We believe as well that Jesus does not expect the impossible of us. If He tells us to do so, there must be some way that we can.
This week and next, we hear six of the teachings of Moses that Jesus brought up to a deeper interpretation. Three of Jesus’ six teachings here were about control of anger and violence. (Some have calculated that 2/3 of Jesus’ teaching in Mark, Matthew and Luke’s Gospels were about getting along with others.( About 25 years ago, when Pope John Paul made a visit to us, there were many who said that USA Catholics were becoming “Cafeteria Catholics”, viz., picking and stressing aspects of the Gospel that we felt were more important. (Honest Catholics would see that “cafeteria Catholics” were of all sizes and shapes, including the very people who coined the term!) In a sense then, Jesus can be described as a “Cafeteria Jew”.
Nursing grudges and allowing old wounds to fester is toxic for both individuals and groups. (Some say that, in the end, it will be greed and violence that does the world in as it is.)
Medical people tell us that people nursing anger are unhappy people. “Unhappy people get happy by making happy people unhappy.” Think about it.
It is difficult for people to try to live differently in such a way when culture thrives through fostering anger and hatred and fear. Again, we believe that Jesus does not ask the impossible.
Many years ago, when hostage, Terry Anderson, in Lebanon, was finally freed, reporters questioned him. One asked him if he forgave his captors. Terry responded that, as a Catholic, he was expected (by Jesus) to forgive his captors. Later, when he was asked to clarify such the amazing statement, he said that it was for his own good that he forgave the captors. He said that if he imprisoned anyone in his heart, he would have act as the guard in the prison maintaining the imprisonment. He said, “For my own health, I have to move on.” Think about it. Finally, Jesus Himself, as we recall, teaches us in His signature prayer that we ask God to “forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Gulp! What does He mean by that?
The world lives today with the specter of violence, both institutional and terrorist. One way that Catholics can live the teachings of Jesus with regard to nursing anger and grudges is practice what we call “disarmament of the heart.” Such a disarmament is an ongoing process. We can teach our children the art of asking God for help to try disarmament of the “terrorism of the tongue.” Violent parents can practice disarmament of the “terrorism of the fist”. We can practice disarmament of the “terrorism of bias”, where we pre-judge others by what they are (or are not).
The least that any of us can do to practice is the idea of a transforming initative. This means trying to recognize that we should head anger off at the pass with God’s Help. It means trying to with God’s Help to curb the reptilian brain response of fight-flight that is deep within us and our culture. At least, try to take Jesus seriously enough in this real situation that I will try not to make a cutting remark to someone or to make a gesture to a driver in another vehicle or to make a blanket statement about “all those people”.
We want our children and grandchildren to grow up in a less angry world. We can make one small effort in our little world by telling our children and grandchildren not to fly off the handle so fast, by teaching them why doing so is a no-win situation, by showing them by trying to do it ourselves, and by inspiring them when we do so, with God’s Help.
“Lord, make me an instrument of Your Peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love”. You know the rest of it. With God’s Help, let us all give this ongoing process our best effort. 021311AD jfq

Reflection 020611AD

2011-02-05T04:43:00.001-08:00

Are We Really 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 what God said of Jesus at the Transfiguration? “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.”
Do we really listen to Jesus? Or the more basic question that Pope Benedict poses, “Do you believe in Jesus? More to the point, do you believe Jesus?” During this pre-Lenten season, we have each Sunday, an opportunity to answer those three questions honestly. Because Ash Wednesday is so late this year, viz., March 9, we have the opportunity to hear each Sunday from now until then the Sermon on the Mount, called by many the Constitution of the Kingdom of God (aka the System of God!) While we are in the time of year, sadly called Ordinary Time in the Liturgy, we continue to live in the New Testament. Jesus is still Emmanuel, God with us, even now! Hardly, ordinary time, when one desires to live, in, with and through Christ Jesus, we live in the New Testament, the Extraordinary Time, Greentime (the season of hope in God’s abiding Presence in Christ Jesus).
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 prejudices 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 21st century to acknowledge that “Catholics should be different” because we have met Jesus in a Catholic Christian way. (Recall that the word “catholic” is etymologically akin to the words “(w)holistic” and “holy” . We belong to a community that celebrates the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ through a consistent commitment to the Gospel of Life. 1) We are meant to be a community who realize that our religion is ultimately mono-theism, not money-theism (Think about it!) We realize that Christ Jesus reveals the Paschal Mystery is the universal pattern, viz., everything is in process, each is involved of the process of ascent, descent and transformation. It’s God’s Plan for the universe. Why fear it?
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.
These days, we remember that we have, as American Catholics, a vocation through, with and in Christ Jesus to be live wholisticly in our relationships with God, with one another, with our world. In these days, we need to ask ourselves if we really believe that individualism, survival of the fittest in our worlds, and people’s fending for themselves when the deck is frequently stacked against them reflects Jesus’ Programmatic of the Kingdom of God. We need to ask ourselves if we are system people or Kingdom people. The question is valid for American Catholics in every aspect of life. As Pope John Paul said so succinctly ten years ago, “there are no moral free zones.”
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 every day to live the process. The first step in this ongoing process is the realization that to dethrone the principal false god “EGO” (with its demigods of Mars (the war god), Baal (the controlling God), Mammon (the having it all god), Bacchus (the feel-good god) from the center of our universe, 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 this extended time to do a serious examination of conscience based on the Sermon on the Mount. How seriously we take our wholistic, Catholic religion and its demands upon us Lent, 2011 AD to examine ourselves on our basic commitment to the Gospel of Jesus? Do we believe in Jesus? More important, do we believe Him? 020611 AD jfq.

Reflection 013011AD

2011-01-21T04:17:00.000-08:00

Re-learn the Vocab!!!
More and more, we become aware that the Jesus Movement is marginalized in the world. Many refer to the present time as the post Christian Era. (However, some might counter with the question, “Were we ever really Christian? Did we not kiss up the System with Protestant, Catholic and Jewish lingo?”
In many quarters, conventional wisdom tolerates our Christian “neurosis” as quaint. Thorstein Veblen, a sociologist of religion, said almost 100 years ago, that whenever bourgeouis (middle class) living became a seeming reality, then religion wanes. When things go well, transcendence fades in the background. Now we have seen the rise of Therapeutic Moralistic Deism (the Religion of Nice). Veblen’s words are verified again. The Religion of Nice eventually becomes the Religion of None! It is happening all around us already.
In others, some persecute the Jesus Movement. (A few years ago, Robert Royal wrote a book, “The (Christian) Martyrs of the Twentieth Century.” There is a shrine to such martyrs on an island in the middle of the Tiber River in Roma. Martyrs commemorated there were religious martyrs of the modern times. Among the places where martyrs appeared were WWII Europe, Mexico and Latin America, Communist China.
Conventional usage dictates the meaning of words and ideas. Catholics are particularly “linguistically challenged” in the Beatitudes, this morning’s Gospel. What Jesus means by a word is not necessarily what Western civilization means.
A prime example today is “poor (in spirit).” Who wants to be poor? Our culture thrives on prosperity and power and possessions, viz., paying your own way to control your reality. It is only game in town. Who would want it otherwise?
When Jesus gives us the first Beatitude today, He talks about a different type of poverty that is blessed to have been given. “Blessed is that one who knows that one cannot, no matter how hard one tries, ultimately to be the captain of the ship of Self”. God runs my show, not I. Some day, I’ll get it!
Three Noble Truths confront the one gifted with poverty in spirit. 1) No matter how hard you try, you cannot be the center of the universe. The world does not spin around you, no matter what your Mama told you. 2) Your existence is a part of a cosmic process known as life, death transformed life. Live with it; deal with it. 3) No matter how hard you try, you cannot avoid the down side of life permanently. You might buy it off here and now (and that is all right), but you cannot do so forever. Catholics, since St Augustine, call this process the Paschal Mystery.
We begin today a recitation of the Sermon on the Mount. There are some who say that if you focus on the Sermon on the Mount, you get a thumbnail of the Matthew’s Gospel There are those who say that if you focus on the Beatitudes, you get a thumbnail of the Sermon on the Mount. There are those who say that if you focus on the first Beatitude, you will a thumbnail of all the Beatitudes. What’s with Jesus when He says, “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” of 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, which 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 awareness 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 lot in life is, all of us exist because the Creator wills us so. This awareness 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 grace happening.
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”. This is extolled, even now, as a value by those who feel that they can tend themselves (frequently, through good fortune birth) and ergo, everyone should be the same. 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 which acknowledge God’s Centrality in one’s existence”. When we accept that gift, we are behaving as mature and honest adults.
Pope Benedict in Jesus of Nazareth speaks of the Beatitudes at length. He reminds us of three items. 1) Jesus’ orientation is toward His relationship with God, Whom Jesus describes as abba, dada, papa. He instructs us that God wants this to be our orientation to God as well. Jesus tells us that this God is Our Father. 2) Jesus sees His disciples (that’s us) as people who should try, with His Indwelling Spirit, to acknowledge God as the center of our lives, just as Jesus does. 3) This acknowledgement does not come easily. Not matter what politicians and other TV pundits tell us, do not be so certain that we live in a culture that really sees God as its center. In God we trust sounds nice, but do we? This snapping out of it is what Jesus is trying to proclaim to all of us. (Recall that “snap out of it” is an accurate translation of “repent”, the Semitic word “suv”.) Pope Benedict says that Catholics have to be “people who do not run with the pack, who refuse to collude with the injustice that has become endemic in the world…They counter the dominion of evil through the passive,non-violent resistance of their suffering.” (pp. 86-87)
Jesus teaches, “Blessed is that person who with God’s grace acknowledges that God is the center of the universe (not oneself). Why? He or she 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 It with others by Gospel living each day. 013011AD AD jfq

Reflection 012311AD

2011-01-21T04:15:00.000-08:00

Let’s Get Together
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?
French sociologist, Rene Girard, documented many years ago what he called the “scapegoat mechanism”. We tend to identify ourselves and our groups as the norm. We presume that whoever deviates from the norm that we establish is to blame for whatever is wrong in our world or in our own lives. In other words, we humans have succumbed to dualistic or binary thinking. Martin Buber might call it “I – it” thought. I (or we) are the not the problem. Others are the problem. IN USA history, it was (is?) the North-South, then white-black, later the West-the East, now, Western-Islamic culture. In each guess, who is right?
Several years ago, a professor reminded his students, “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. Most 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 sad 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. We don’t invite people in; frequently, we tell many that they have to take a walk.
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 Greentime (aka the New Testament), ordinal (not ordinary) time, 2011 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.
In the beginning of the Jesus Movement, apparently our Christian ancestors tried to implement Jesus’ table fellowship with Saturday night gathering before the celebration of the Eucharist for what we would call a potluck supper today. Still, the effects of the System back then took its toll on the nascent Jesus Movement. The creed of St Paul’s hymn, “In Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female” was lost, at least, by some of the Corinthian house churches when the rich sat with the rich, the poor with poor, friends with friends. In addition, they checked out what another brought and what they ate. As Dorothy Day so cogently put it, 1900 years later, “I urge people again not to discredit Christianity because of the faults of Christians.” According to her, “God made heaven hinge in the way we act toward God in the dis guise of commonplace, frail, ordinary humanity.”
Jesus wants us to transcend the “ism’s” in our hearts and minds, both conscious and non-conscious. Are we Catholics in name and/or in reality? 012311AD jfq

Reflection 011611AD

2011-01-15T05:20:00.000-08:00

First Vegas
Because St Paul wrote several letters to the nascent Jesus Movement in Corinth, in Greece, Catholics can get a clear view of a Christian community in its early days. However, the Jesus Movement at Corinth was an unusual group of people. Therefore, while we can learn a great deal about them, it is important to realize that this group was different, very different.
Somebody described the port city of Corinth as comparable to Las Vegas, a free-wheeling place with a variety of folks constituting the population. Like most Christian communities, the Jesus Movement in Corinth probably were constituted by “house churches”, small communities of 30 or so, who would meet weekly on Saturday evenings in the house of a Christian with a room large enough to accommodate 30 people. The term that is used in contemporary Catholicism would be “intentional communities.” Today’s concept of “church buildings” was, for Corinthian Christians, not yet on the horizon.
Although St Paul did not have the language of Catholic quantum theology, he did proclaim (without using the term) the “Christ quantum”, viz., the pervasive impact of Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God and the pattern of all creation. He believed (as we do) that the impact of Jesus affects His followers and enables to feel His Presence in our midst. The crucified and Risen Lord was alive and well in the Jesus Movement throughout the world. Just give the Spirit time and God’s Plan for the world would unfold.
St Paul’s strategy was to establish Christian communities in crucial cities in the Mediterrean basin as communal audio-visuals in Christ Jesus. His strategy was that local leaders would emerge when Paul moved on. These local leaders would guide and direct the communities.
(Interestingly, in many places, today, parishes need to restore St Paul’s practice after a fashion. In scores, maybe hundreds, of cases even in the USA, parishes do not have a resident pastor. Rather, lay people minister to the parish community. For liturgical celebrations, priests would come, when available, to celebrate sacraments. Otherwise, on Sundays when a priest was unavailable, a liturgy has been designed by the Vatican, entitled Sunday Worship in the Absence of a Priest. It involved the morning (or evening) prayer of the Church (Lauds (or Vespers)) ff. by Liturgy of the Word, according to the Sunday readings throughout the world, ff by prayers of intercession, a prayer of TXG and a communion rite, all presided over by a Eucharistic Minister.)
The group shared an alternative explanation, worldview, and consciousness. They mutually supported one another in the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s Death and Resurrection. (In today’s world, something comparable would be Recovery Movements, such as Alcoholics, Overeaters’, Gamblers’, where people gather in small groups.) Committed to Christ Jesus, in the words of Pope Benedict, they not only believed in Jesus, they believed Jesus.
However, problems arose. The Jesus Movement at Corinth was to live the Alternate Worldview in their dealings with others, but particularly among themselves. With an egalitarian view of the kinship group, these folks addressed one another as brothers and sisters (cf the reference to Sosthenes in today’s reading). They did not always, however, practice what they preached. For example, class consciousness emerged. More affluent Christians associated with one another and avoided poorer, less “in” Christian brothers and sisters. In addition, some preferred St Peter’s style more; others favored Apollos (Paul’s successor) after Paul left. Others felt that salvation meant “anything goes”.
Paul’s challenge in his letters was to restore the original vision of a mission of inclusive election in Christ, viz., Christ had plans to use this community to convert the world. “Sanctified” in the greeting today is not meant to be self-congratulatory; rather, “sanctified” means that God has set apart Christians to let all people know that God is for everybody, not just an “in-group”. The Jesus Movement were to allow Christ Jesus to use them to lead lives of holiness. (INTEGRITY is what holiness means here.) Some of their antics stymied the plan, but did not defeat it. Then, as now, some things remain the same. St Paul truly believed that these small groups in key places in the world could transform the world into the world that God wanted in Christ Jesus. (True, his time frame was off, but his strategy continues slowly, slowly to permeate the world.) Paul believed that if Christians were to live as Jesus wants us all to live, then, others would join up. Some of our antics, then and now, delay God’s Plan, not defeat it. Things remain the same. Still, wherever we gather in Christ Jesus, we try, with God’s Help” to hasten the Day when Christ’s New Age, World Order will come. You can recall that the Kingdom is here (even now), but not yet, when we try to take Jesus seriously in their lives and act accordingly. 011611AD jfq

Reflection, 010911AD

2011-01-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Whose Voice Is That?
Pope Benedict speaks of the Baptism of the Lord and His death and Resurrection as two bracketing events with Jesus. Both in their own ways were both scandalous and salvific.
One of the key facts of Jesus’ public life was that He was baptized by John at the start of His career. The difficulty is that Jesus came down from Nazareth in Galilee, in a different part of the nation, and listened to John. However, John’s message was that the people were called to repentance, to turn from the sins and to hope for God’s forgiveness. The submersion in the River Jordan represents a death since water can drown us as well as Israel’s safe crossing of the Sea in the great story of Exodus. However, the rising from the River Jordan represents a new life, the liberation after YHWH brought Israel to safety, symbolized either by the life-giving effects of water and/or by the amniotic fluid in the pregnant mother’s womb. To what was Jesus dying and into what was He being born? What was up with Jesus’ baptism for the forgiveness of sins?
The solution seems to be that Jesus came forward in solidarity with the people of Israel. They were called to repentance and to baptism by John. Jesus, the Consummate Jew, came forward with His people to share in their response to John’s call. It is obviously not that He Himself was a sinner; rather, He was a member of a sinful people. As St Matthew tells us, John objected to the appropriateness of Jesus’ gesture. Both agreed. “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Ultimately, Jesus died as the Consummate Jew. Though innocent, He died in place of the guilty. His death was the other side of the Resurrection, the victory that the Innocent One won over sin and death for His people.
While both the Baptist and Jesus agreed that God was in the process of doing something new in the world, the two disagreed on the nature of God at work. John had a deep experience of God, but his message was fire and brimstone. He loved Judaism, but he stood outside it, in the wilderness. He offered no promises, but the possibility that God might relent on God’s judgment on reality as it was.
Jesus, John the Baptist’s disciple, also had a deep experience of God, but His experience was a different one. Pope Benedict stresses, as do other modern theologians, that the basis of Jesus’ ministry was His experience of YHWH as Abba, viz., “daddy”, “poppy”, “da”. The love of Abba of Jesus was unconditional and Jesus never wavered from teaching that to His listeners. God loved you no matter what; the problem is that people felt that they might be incorrigible, beyond God’s love.
There are certain indisputable givens about Jesus’ ministry and message. Among them are the following: 1) He proclaimed a message that nobody was outside the pale of God’s love. 2) He practiced inclusive table fellowship with anybody who would dine with him. (Recall the strict social taboos under which Middle Eastern people lived with regard to dining. One only ate with one’s family or with one’s intimates. Jesus would eat with anybody.) In addition, at just about every one of the meals that He attended, invariably some social taboo would be broken, either by Jesus or the disciples or one of the attendees, invited or uninvited. 3) Jesus used the oriental technique of parables, koans, stories disorienting for a few moments and forcing people to re-examine their givens and views. 4) He proclaimed that this something new that was happening was happening in Him. He called it the Coming of the Kingdom of God. (Since then, many individuals and nations and cultures have co-opted the term” New World Order” or “New Age” or “Born Again.”) Jesus used them first in a different context. The response to be made to Jesus’ message was the Aramaic word “Suv”, snap out of it, turn around, get a new life. Suv?? “Snap out of what” remains the question? In essence, Jesus offers an alternative view of reality, subversive of the Systems, viz., the powers that be. Does He still do so?
The tektonos (artisan??) Jesus of Nazareth joined in solidarity with His own people by trekking from Nazareth to join the ranks of sinful Israel in John’s baptism. However, Pope Benedict (citing today’s Gospel) sees the baptism of Jesus as the proclamation and anointing of Jesus as the New David. The coronation of the new King of Israel was His enthronement on the cross, where He is mocked by a crown of thorns and the inscription over His Head that He is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (INRI). Does He reign over me? Do I believe in Jesus? Do I believe Jesus? Pope Benedict says that they are not the same question. Whom do we trust? 010911AD jfq

Reflection 010211AD

2011-01-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

Wise Ones, Then and Now
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. Also, what’s a “Magi”?
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 42nd 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. 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.
If, indeed, we worship the Prince of Peace, what changes for us? First, our concept of the Earth is different. Several years ago, astronaut, Michael Collins, spoke from Apollo IX, “I really believe that if the leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. I think the view from 100,000 miles could be invaluable in getting people to work out joint solutions by causing them to realize that the planet we share unites us in a way far more basic and far more important than difference in skin, color, religion or economic systems. The earth appears fragile above all else.” Several years later, a Saudi Arabian prince was launched to the manned space station. His comment was, “When I first went aloft, I saw my country. Then, next, I saw my continent. Then next, I saw the whole world.”. Pope Benedict spoke, “the individual human family has an impact on the global family; the global family has an impact on the individual family.” Tell your kids.
In our Catholic (“wholistic” is a modern day synonym for “Catholic”) paradigm, today’s Catholics echo the call. Peter Maurin, the French associate and mentor of the Servant of God, Dorothy Day, wrote during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, “Our job as Catholics is to make the world an easier place for people to be good.” Catholic theologian, economist, EF Schuhmacher spoke of the Great Convergence. Building on Mohandas Gandhi, if the entire world practiced an eye for an eye ethic, then, eventually all would be blind. Schuhmacher believed that sooner or later, people of reason, even those who did not believe that Jesus was Lord, would come to see that what He teaches in the Gospel, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, was the only way that humanity would survive.
Over twenty-five years ago, the American bishops (now chaired by Archbishop Dolan) offered three attitudinal changes that we can try to make in the New Year in Christ Jesus. 1) Ask for the Help in realizing that we are living in a new moment in world history. Think about, among other priorities, the problems of energy conservation and global warming and their impact on your children. 2) Ask for the Help to be consistent in defending life wherever anybody, anything, any institution usurps God’s right to take away the gift that only God can live. As Cardinal O’Connor taught us, “Be pro-life on every issue!”. Think of its impact on your children’s world in the future. 3) Ask for the Help to practice disarmament in our hearts, in our words and in our actions. As St John the Baptist implied, “Before the world or nations can change, individuals and families have to change.” (It’s trickle up.)
Epiphany, 2011AD, is a time to think of how seriously we take the message of the One Whose Birth was heralded by the Star. Wise men and women still try to follow in Christ Jesus the Star and the Vision it proclaims. Do we really buy it? 010211AD jfq

Reflection 031002AD

2010-12-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

Refelction 031002AD

2010-12-26T06:56:00.000-08:00

Could This Be You?
Long ago, biblical scholars saw two levels of the healing of the blind man in today’s Gospel. First, it describes the physical healing of a 39 year old man who was born blind. Yet, in the story, more than physical sight is given. The man born blind us brought to the illumination of faith by Jesus as he gradually comes to accept Jesus as the Son of Man, even more, the Lord.
The season of Lent has, as one of its origins, a 40 day period of intense preparation by catechumens (tyro-Christians) for the reception of the Sacraments of Initation, viz., Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, during the Easter Vigil from Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday morning.
Some of the names by which Baptism was called in early Christianity was the “Sacrament of Illumination and Enlightenment.” The custom of lighting the small baptismal candle from the Paschal Candle is the vestige of this former sacramental name.
Notice the story of the man born blind. The healing takes place bear a pool and it involves a washing with water. While Jesus only appears twice in the story, He is ever the Subject of the story because of the controversy over the identity of the Healer. While Jesus speaks to the man directly twice, the man only sees Jesus once because he was still blind in the first encounter.
Something curious happens as the story unfolds. As more grief is heaped upon the man, he calls Jesus “that man”, then, a “prophet”, then, “from God”, then,”Son of Man”, then, “Lord”. Like the Samaritan woman last week, the blind man’s faith develops because of the influence of Jesus. The blind man is a symbol of what we are all called to be as disciples of Jesus.
In the latter portions of the fourth Gospel, we start to hear of the “beloved disciple”, one who is the model disciple, the one whom we are all called to be. Much conjecture has been made about the identity of the beloved disciple.
Traditionally, the Fourth Gospel has been attributed to the Apostle John (hence, its unofficial name.) However, all the Gospels are anonymous documents as we are not sure of the identity of any of the evangelists. As a result, some thought that the Apostle John was humbly remaining anonymous in his self-description.
Another opinion is that perhaps, Lazarus, the dead man raised to life in John 11 was the bekoved disciple. (This last of Jesus’ 7 signs is the immediate trigger which results in the death and Resurrection of Jesus.)Neither Lazarus nor the beloved disciple had been mentioned earlier in the Gospel.
Still, another opinion is that, perhaps, it is our hero, the blind man, in today’s Gospel, who is the beloved disciple. He is favorable presented in the Gospel as a Jewish disciple who receives initial illumination and enlightenment from Jesus (Whom he cannot see) near a pool of water. As the pressure mounts, his faith in Jesus grows. Finally, in the closing scene today, he “sees” Jesus Who obviously loves him and Whom he obviously loves in return.
The question in the Gospel today is not, “Is the man born blind the beloved disciple?” Maybe yes or no.
Rather, the real question is “Am I the beloved disciple?” 031002 AD jfq

Weekly Reflection -- Holy Family Sunday, 122610AD

2010-12-24T06:32:00.000-08:00

A Dad (and Dads) for All Seasons
Scripture studies are discovering new insights about the role of St Joseph, the foster-father of the Christ Child. Usually, we imagine him as the “Strong Silent” Type, because he speaks no words. However, the adage had to be true then as it is now, “values are caught, not taught”. Though taciturn, St Jospeh did a great job with his young Ward!! What might St Joseph have taught Jesus?
First, of all, we know that St Joseph was an observant Jew. We know that the Holy Family went up to Jerusalem to celebrate annually the Passover. We know that Jesus was part of an extended family, because relatives traveled in the caravan. Since St Joseph went to the Temple, it is a safe presumption that he went to synagogue every Friday evening. He would have observed other big feast days as well, such as Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth. The adult Jesus was very comfortable in synagogues, a religious locus. The young Jesus, in addition, knew lots about the Scriptures. Recall when he was with the teachers of the Law.
In addition, most of the people back then seem to have been tenant farmers, ‘people of the land” “Ame Haaretz” . (Some say that nearly 90% of the population addressed by Jesus were in this category.)
However, St Joseph had a trade and worked with his hands. The correct translation of the word used for his occupation in Greek is tektonos. It means craftsman. However, its usage is not limited to that alone. While it can present a picture of the Holy Family, comfy at home in Nazareth with a carpentry shop attached or nearby, there are alternative possibilities.
Some think that the word can also be translated as craftsman, artisan, even hardhat, viz., a construction worker. We know now that much building was done in the area near Nazareth. Within a few miles was the city of Sepphoris (not even mentioned in the Scriptures). Some speculate that if St Joseph were, indeed, a construction worker, he would have brought Jesus along as a tyro, a novice, a rookie to work on construction sites. Jesus and His foster father would have had a broader experience of the world than just Nazareth. Jesus saw a bigger picture.
In addition, St Joseph would have shared with Jesus what we call the Noble Truths of Human Life. 1) Life gets tough (in Nazareth and in all other places, even here and now, as the world sadly learned in the fall of 2008! ). Don’t expect the good life to maintain itself. 2) God would be acknowledged by Jesus (as by St Joseph) as the Central Point of Reference of Jesus’ universe. 3) Jesus’ Life was not about Him; He was about life (and death and Resurrection!!)
Probably, it was Mary and Joseph who taught Jesus the Third Way of Conflict Resolution, viz., try to create a Win-Win scenario rather than revert to reptilian brain, Fight or Flight.
As we celebrated Mary’s conception in the womb of her mother, St Anne, we realized by a special grace that Mary passed on no baggage or junk to her Child. (By extension, St Joseph could be saluted the same way, by God’s grace, as well.)
Obviously, the Foster Father of the Child Jesus was an extraordinary role model for his Young Charge. The first person called Abba (Dada) by Jesus would have been St Joseph. Jesus later teaches us (here and now) to address God Our Creator, Mainstay and Goal by the same term, Abba!!
Today, St Joseph would have taught Jesus to love and acknowledge God 24-7-365. He would have taught Jesus to be both righteous (knew His place in relational matrix, called the universe today). He taught Him the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Mary and Joseph would have not passed on any baggage to Jesus because He does not pass any on to us. With God’s Help, can all Dads (and all others) try to do the same in 2011AD? 122610AD jfq

Christmas, 2010AD

2010-12-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

Why Do We Celebrate?
The Jesus Movement gathers this weekend, as we have gathered for 1800 years, to celebrate today the Birth of the Messiah. God became human when the Second Person of the Trinity took flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary. What is that all about?
Father Karl Rahner wrote, in the mid-twentieth century, that each person needed to realize that the Holy Mystery of Transcendent God is the answer to the human question. We discover who we truly are, when we realize God’s place as our Origin, our Sustainer and our final Goal. Everybody is oriented to Transcendence, to Mystery, to the Absolute. Everybody is created with a certain freedom, not an absolute freedom, but a freedom relativized by the freedom of everybody else. Everybody is, however, contingent. All that we are and have is a gift and/or the result of a gift to us, which none of us has a right to demand. Christ Jesus tells us that this is the human situation and that with His Help, we walk with and in and through Him each day.
Jesus teaches that everybody is a “work in progress”, a “text in travail”, a “mass of contradictions”. God is not finished refining us until we breathe our last breath in this life.
Into our human situation, compulsed and enmeshed in addictions that are too big for us to handle on our own, God has sent His Son to straighten out the chaos. We see in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, God’s plan for all creation fulfilled for all of us. Christ Jesus is the Archetype, the Paradigm the Exemplar of what every human person is called to be. Through our association with Him in the Church, the Christ Quantum becomes a reality for all of us and, through us, for everyone with whom we have dealings.
First and foremost, Christ Jesus was born into the world to teach us to participate in the Paschal Mystery in, with and through Him. Death and resurrection is the reality of the universe, dictated by a God Who loves us. Through His death and Resurrection, Jesus teaches us not to fear but to live reality in a transformed way. We learn with and through Him to “surrender, let go and trust” the Divine Mystery at work in your life this very moment. We learn “to bear the pain” that is part and parcel of every human life at one time or another. We learn that, in the end, “less is better” because “more clutters” our orientation to Transcendence, to Mystery, to the Absolute.
Christ Jesus teaches us to learn from Him as we live our lives. He teaches and imparts humility to those who care for it. Humility is the ability to remember ultimately that we are dust and, until dust, we shall return. He teaches and imparts obedience. Obedience is when we respond to the call of the Transcendent built into us whether we know it or not. Christ Jesus teaches and imparts the ability to pour ourselves out for others as He did. First and foremost, this means our families and our friends, but, in the long run, all men and women are family.
Mohandas Gandhi taught that the world that we envision at its best should be should be replicated in the way we live our lives each day. We should be, first, the type of person that all should be. Then, the paradox of Jesus’ words take on a deeper meaning. Yes, we realize that the Kingdom will not come in all its fullness in our lifetime and so we pray, “Thy Kingdom come”. However, we will understand that, yes, the Kingdom of God is already in our midst.
We live in “in-between”, threshold time. On the one hand, Marantha! Come, Lord Jesus; on the other hand, Emmanuel! God is with us now. Celebrate the paradox!!!!
How much God loved us when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us! God gave the greatest gift of all to you and to me. No wonder Catholics celebrate! Let’s have a party! Merry Christmas. 122510AD jfq

Weekly Reflection, Dec 19, 2010AD

2010-12-19T06:29:00.000-08:00

It’s Foster Father’s Day
Every Advent, we pause on reflect on the Fourth Sunday, just before Christmas, to reflect on the fulfillment of the Prophet Isaiah’s words in the Greek Old Testament, “The virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son. His name will be Emmanuel, viz., God with us.” However, this year’s Gospel is St Joseph’s reaction to the news of the Virgin Birth.
Joseph’s dilemma concerned his love for Mary and his righteousness as an observant Jew about Mary’s status as a putative outlaw of the Torah. His decision was to divorce Mary quietly, so that they both could get on with their lives.
However, in days of stricter Torah interpretation, Mary would have been in really big trouble. Theoretically, her violation could have brought public humiliation and execution. (Not Nice!!) (In the news today, we hear how women in some cultures are treated more punitively than men, when caught in an illicit liaison.)
St Joseph’s dilemma was his love for his bride and his commitment to Torah. St Matthew tells us that compassion was intended to triumph over Law because of his plan. However, the Annunciation to St Joseph in today’s Gospel obviates the problem. This was, indeed, a good man.
Child psychologists tell us that children’s earliest ages (from birth to 5) can be most formative in terms of self-imagery, God-imagery and one’s place in the world. There is no reason to think that such was not the case with St Joseph and his foster-child. The first person that Jesus would have addressed as Abba, Dada, was St Joseph, his foster father. Later, Jesus was so comfortable with the word that He teaches us still to address God as Abba. Jesus must have had a very positive self-image and God-image, somehow mediated through the love and care of his foster father.
Theologians tell us that the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of St Anne (dealing with Mary’s conception without original sin in the womb of her mother) is really an expression of the idea that Jesus turned out so well, that it had to be due to the positive environment in which He dwelt in Nazareth. One might add that the use of the word “righteous” by St Matthew in today’s Gospel is an inspired way to say the same about the positive influence of Jesus’ foster father. (The only other person called righteous in St Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus Himself when Mrs Pilate tells her husband to have nothing to do with that righteous man.
During His Youth, we can be certain that Jesus would have caught the values of Mary and Joseph big time.
Certainly, St Joseph had to have taught Jesus the Three Noble Truths. 1) Life was going to get tough for Jesus (as it does for everyone!) 2) Life did not revolve around Jesus in Nazareth. 3) Life is a process of ascent, descent and Transformation. ( We Christians call it the Paschal Mystery”). (He certainly did not teach Jesus the Religion of Nice.)
Many comment on the beating that fathers frequently take in conventional wisdom these days. Many feel that many traditional institutions, such as marriage, have undergone a scrutiny that would not have been imaginable before 1968, seen as a critical watershed year early on.
A few years ago, a book appeared, entitled Fatherless America, which theorized that the fading role of some Dads, for myriad reasons, was a germane problem to American culture because it ultimately was concerned with the traditional family, the cell of any society.
No doubt, the Holy Family was a-typical. No family could match the triad of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. However, it is appropriate that we see the husband of Mary, the foster father of the Son of God Incarnate, as an admirable example of spouse and head of household. St Joseph was righteous and compassionate, with compassion on the ascent. As most cultures know, the role of the father is formative of the child’s self-imagery, God-imagery, and one’s role in life. In the baptismal liturgy we all hear that the father, with his wife, will be the first teachers of the children in the ways of faith and hope. How important it is for parents who seriously want a religious formation for their children to realize that values are caught, not taught, particularly in the home, hopefully called the domestic church. Sad when parents drop kids off at religious education and then, drive off at dismissal time without any participation in the Sunday Eucharist. Even sadder are examples of when families attend Mass as a group, only when grandparents are visiting. Saddest of all is when families hint that religious life is a burden to be endured for the time being.
Values are caught, not taught. What happens when someone raised on the Religion of Nice, Catholic Style when the crises of life set in as they do in the life of every person?
St Joseph would tell us to listen to the seriousness of those words. He did the best he could in sharing His view of reality with the Young Jesus. He must have done a great job, because Jesus teaches us to call God Abba, the exact time that Jesus would have used for St Joseph. 121910AD jfq

Weekend Reflection 121210AD

2010-12-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

Jack the Dipper, Encore!
Once again, this weekend, as we near our celebration of the Birth of the Messiah, we hear from Jesus’ Warm-Up Act, St John the Baptist (aka Jack the Dipper). He warns people (then and now) that the System, as it is, is not exactly what God has in mind.
Apparently, many were, indeed, responding to John’s call to repent, viz., snap out of the trance, get a (new view of) life, smell God’s coffee. “The times, still they are a-changin’”.
Flavius Josephus, a Jewish-Roman historian, wrote an account of Jewish history in which both John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth were mentioned. Josephus wrote that while the famous story of Herodias’ wife and her daughter, Salome, was quite true, there was another reason why Herod imprisoned John. It was the very simple reason that people were listening to John’s message. The long lines of people who were baptized by John, indeed, did snap out of it. St Luke tells us that soldiers and tax gatherers were those who heard John and, apparently, did start to clean up their act and behaved in a human way in the dealings with one another. King Herod’s system was based on intimidation and injustice and some of his henchpeople were hearing what John said and acted upon it by cleaning up their act.
In today’s Gospel, John, in prison, tries to get the buzz on Jesus. Of course, John would have known that Jesus had been baptized by John himself. However, John’s message was fire and brimstone, with no guarantee that God will relent from settling the score. Things cannot go on thus.
Jesus’ message was much different. His Good News was, indeed, that God has forgiven the people. What we had to do is to step forward and subscribe to God’s Alternative Wisdom (subversive) to the System, known as God’s New World Order, a New Consciousness, God’s Kingdom, incarnate in Jesus Himself. It was not for nothing that Jesus was crucified. If people were listening to John’s tough message, how would they respond to Jesus’ easier message. “Something is happening. Don’t be afraid. God is with us. Try to behave as you took all of Jesus’ Message seriously.”
This week, the imprisoned Baptist sends two of his representatives to ask Jesus whether or not Jesus is the “One Who is to come.” Jesus gives a typical response by reminding John’s envoys what has been happening with Jesus’ arrival. In fulfillment of the vision of Isaiah in our first reading this weekend, “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk”. However, Jesus adds two others. “The dead are raised and the poor hear the Gospel”. One would expect that the mightiest acts of all would be mentioned last. What is mightier than the dead being raised? Yet, there is, according to the young Jesus, “the poor hear the Gospel.”
Now, anthropologists help biblical scholars understand the world out of which the Scriptures, both Hebrew and Christian, emanated. In Jesus’ world, probably as high as 95% of the population were sharecroppers and/or tenant farmers. Most people lived from hand to mouth. They had less than warm feelings for any of those who controlled the situation, whether it was the Romans, their collaborators in Herod’s clique or their flunkies, who did the clique’s bidding.
Jesus’ outreach was to the 95% who lived a tough existence daily. (Their lot in life has been compared to the majority of people who live in Central America and many poor in affluent nations.) It was to such, then and now, that Jesus proclaimed the Gospel (Good News??) to them. Jesus teaches that in His arrival and establishment of God’s Kingdom, things could and would ultimately be different.
Things could be different already in one’s own mind and heart if one followed what Mohandas Gandhi said, “If you want the Kingdom even sooner, try to be the person who lives the Kingdom values daily.”
Apparently, John the Baptist developed a critical mass of change agents that King Herod found threatening. Apparently, Jesus did as well because the System read into the implications of the Kingdom of God, as opposed to the Empire of Caesar. Good Friday (and Easter Sunday) was the result. (cf. the inscription over His Head.)
Gandhi meant to be encouraging, but sadly, many would feel discouragement. One should be reminded that when we are young, we want to change the world. As we mature, then, we hope to change ourselves. What John, Jesus and Gandhi tell us, try it and see! Rev. Jim Wallis would probably agree. What would Glenn Beck say? 121210AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 120510AD

2010-12-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

Just Before The Main Attraction
John the Baptist is the Messiah’s warm-up act, He challenges us to realize that we need to snap out of it if God is not recognized as the Center Point of Reference of our existence. The Messiah will show us how to do so and enable us at the same time to recognize reality as it really is.
John, one of our familiar Advent companions, makes his annual appearance in our Liturgy of the Word today. We do not hear from Jesus in our Gospel today, but His warm-up man is on the scene, setting the stage. St John the Baptist is back to remind us that complacency is a pax perniciosa, viz., a dangerous peace, an evaporation of faith, a comfortable faith, a middle class faith, what has devolved today into “The Religion of Nice, viz., Therapeutic, Moralistic Deism.
Not so long ago, someone said that when Jesus spoke His parable of the guests invited to the wedding banquet, all the excuses that were offered by those declining the invite were perfectly normal and typical. One man bought a field, another, some oxen, another was on his honeymoon. Yet, the Host of the banquet was annoyed because sometimes, legitimate excuses can get in the way of what one needs to do. It is a temptation to which many of us succumb. Our lives become self-absorbed and we lose sight of what is ultimately most important. Our lives become so goal-oriented (legitimate goals) that we lose a sense of priorities. Sometimes, we indulge a senseless sense of urgency that we lose sight of what is truly important.
Our culture is rapidly changing in the Third Millennium. Yet, most people are so busy and occupied with the frenetic pace of life. (This season of Advent has deteriorated into the Christmas Rush, as usual. Is this December that different for most of us than Decembers past, except maybe for bigger sales?)
Good people get caught up in the “pax perniciosa”. We are moving with such momentum that we do not even know it. We even have great excuses because of the fast pace of our lives. Still, the Baptist challenges us with the need to get our acts together; Jesus provides the Energy and the Agenda for what we need to do. In his recent encyclical, Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope), the Pope rues the fact that religion has become so individual and lost our communal ramifications. What happens with the roof falls in and one has to take a walk in the woods, as he or she experiences the left hand of God (aka the Paschal Mystery)? Perhaps, St John’s blasting and Pope Benedict’s lament can turn us on to the Gospel of Jesus (maybe for the first time).
John Lennon, whose murder occurred thirty years ago this week in NYC said wisely, Life is what happens while you are making your plans!” We all learn the meaning of those words if we don’t know them already. God has a different sense of reality than we have and, more importantly, a different sense of priorities. What we see as absolutely irrefutable and undeniable might be seen by God in a different light. We cannot expect God to fulfill all our expectations; if we try to do so, we might very well end up angry, bewildered, cynical, depressed, ambushed. Sound familiar?
Recently, a theologian spoke on the value of ancient myths in understanding the human psyche. We described God as human imagery. What else could we do? The one who reversed that was the God of Moses. When Moses experienced God’s Presence in the burning bush, atop Mt Sinai, he apparently had an awesome awakening to God’s Presence. Consciousness of this Presence, Moses was told to remove his sandals for he was standing on holy ground. Then God related how God had heard the Hebrew cries of suffering, saw what they experiencing in an unjust social and economic setting and knew what they were experiencing. (We all recall that the biblical sense of “knowing” was not just intellectual, but rather an intimate awareness.) God meant to deliver them from their plight. When Moses asked God’s Name, God replied YHWH, translated in various ways, including both God of Existence and/or God Who cannot be named. We can never crack the Divine Mystery. We can try but don’t expect success!
This sums up the message of John the Baptist today. Someone is doing something in the universe and we don’t know what. Personalizing it, Someone is doing something with me and I am not sure what. Whatever it is is not trivial and unimportant. The stakes are high.
“I have to get ready for Christmas”, a sad response such as stepping up one’s efforts to shop until you drop, rather than slow down and feel the Presence even now, but not yet. During Advent, we are all called to fervent, expectant, patient and longing for what that Someone is doing with me. We need John the Baptist today, more than ever. Hence, his appearance, this weekend and next.120510AD

Weekly Reflection 112810AD

2010-11-25T11:38:00.001-08:00

The Writing on the Wall
There is a small park across from the UN, named after Ralph Bunche, one of the earliest parts of the USA delegation. (The park is used for demonstrations against unpopular leaders visiting the UN.) The edge of the park is a wall on which are inscribed words from our second reading today. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation shall no longer lift the sword against another, nor shall their young men will no longer learn war.”
Almost 20 years ago, graffiti was smeared over the inscription. What should be done? Should the graffiti be sandblasted? Or, should the graffiti remain on the inscription because this is what people and most governments have done to the inspired, visionary words of Isaiah? Recall the folksong, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
The inscription was sandblasted. The vision of Isaiah still proclaims the hopes of so many. As we enter a new Church year, it is curious that the Isaiah vision is the very first reading we hear in the beginning of a three-year cycle of Sunday readings. We need to hear of the vision now more than ever. As the prophet Habbucuc wrote “If the vision delays, wait for it, it will surely come.”
As a nation at war, where 55% of American Catholics polled said that it was more important to them to be American than to be Catholic, the vision of Isaiah speaks again. What do American Catholics think of the words? Once again, in whom do we trust?
As we begin the season of Advent (known to some as the Christmas Rush), ads appear now for video games based on real war situations. There is a video game entitled “Vietnam”. Other video games in which zapping and nuking are ways of besting one’s opponents are clearly out of place when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. (You can’t make this up!!)
While we continue to pray for the swift and safe return of American military personnel from overseas and for those not so lucky to come home alive or post traumatic stressed out, we are proud of the efforts of most to do a good job. During the Christmas Season, it is inappropriate to buy military and/or camouflage clothing for children, even if they want it.(Some get their own, free of charge, because they are too poor to do anything else.)
When St Paul wrote the excerpt from our second reading today, he felt that the Spirit of Jesus in these 15 or so tiny Roman house churches, maybe 25 people each, in time, would be enough to transform the world. His timing was off because he thought it was going to happen sooner rather than later. We await the Great Convergence. He wrote to the then capital of the world words that resound here, the present capital of the world, “Let us throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light…put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh”, viz., indulging compulsive and addictive behavior (something that we cannot not do, think about it.) Cultures can get addicted too.
Catholics tend to see these Advent Sundays as a New Year of Grace, associating Resolutions with the New Year. 1) Try to make sure that we attend Mass every Sunday. In addition, do yourself a favor and come and sit in the church for about 20 minutes each week in down time. The custom is to visit Santa in the malls. Come, visit the “Reason for the Season” on His home turf.2) Try to be on time for Mass. Sadly, too many consistently come late to Mass and frequently miss most of the readings (the Liturgy of the Word). It is almost as if one is saying by such consistent behavior that one does not need to hear this. I know it already. However, it could also be construed as a disregard for the Word or a disregard for others who are there on time to hear the Word. (Young parents with children, we are not talking about you here!!) 3) Make every effort to receive Holy Communion weekly. 4) Get to confession during the Advent season. (Surprisingly, many younger folks have not been to confession in 20 or 25 years sometimes, although they are regular Churchgoers. (Don’t be afraid!) We offer opportunities for penance throughout Advent. Parents, bring your kids! Kids, bring your parents! The Sacrament of Penance here is “user friendly”.
Our human family is still a long way from the fulfillment of the vision in our first reading today from Isaiah. Remember we can’t change the entire world; with God’s Help, we can change ourselves.
Jesus speaks, “Stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” The way things are not necessarily the way that God wants them to be. (Trust Isaiah and Paul and Jesus on that one 112810AD jfq

Reflection 112110AD

2010-11-25T11:30:00.001-08:00

Whom Do We Trust?
This is a strange Gospel for us to hear on Christ the King Sunday. The last (triple) temptation of Christ to save Himself and His response as a faithful Jew in quoting Psalm 31, “Into Your Hands, I commend My Spirit” hardly seem to fit. To an American Catholic, living in a milieu of Therapeutic, Moralistic, Deism (if God is that lucky...) however, this Gospel is most appropriate and necessary.
Canadian Catholic theologian, Ron Rolheiser, wrote that Western culture is addicted to 1)narcissism (self-love); 2) pragmatism (good if it works); 3) restlessness (never happy, running after more stuff). Such addictions occur both for individuals and groups.
Astro-physicists tell us these days that the universe iis made up of the basic elements of the periodic table, all by products of the collapsing of stars. The analogy is made between the letters of the alphabet and atoms.Just as the Library of Congress is composed of books that are a variation of the 26 letters of the alphabet, so also the universe is comprised of various configurations of atom. This is true way out there and way in here. It is true with you and me as well. As both scientists and theologians say now, “something is afoot in the universe.” Something is afoot in you too.
In traditional societies, many people expected initation rites to introduce their teens (particularly the boys) to life in the real world. There seem to be 3 basic realities that the young were taught in these rites. 1) Life can be tough, no matter what they tell you (cf Scott Peck). Enjoy while you can, but someday, know that sickness, accident, old age, disappointment and betrayal come your way. 2) No matter what anyone tells you, you are not the center of the universe. 3) Deal with it. Your life is not about you. You are about the Pattern of life and death and life restored, a universal, cosmic Pattern.
At the start of His public ministry, Jesus was tempted by the Devil three times to change God’s plan for Him (if Jesus were truly the Son of God.) Jesus maintained His faith in God’s plan for Him because it was God’s way of showing us (who had messed up since the days of Adam and Eve who “wanted to be like God”) how to live human life. St Luke tells us that Satan departed for an opportune time.
Satan attacked with the final triple temptation in the mockery to “Save yourself”. Jesus’ response at the end of His life was the same as at its start. “God’s will be done.”
These days, many comment on the fact that Christianity has undergone such a revival in born-again movements. What exactly does this mean? Many (politicians and churchpeople alike) frequently proclaim, “Jesus is Lord”, and then, go about their business as if what Jesus’ Gospel meant little or nothing. What about one’s attitude to the death penalty? To immigration? To economic justice? Are one’s opinions influenced by Jesus or by talk show hosts with a penchant for controversy, (even when they call for 40 days of prayer for the world.) (Whose world?)
In the first days of Christianity, St Paul told the Phillipians that “our true citizenship was in heaven”, not here. St Peter and St Clement (whose feast we celebrate this week) described the Church in Rome in the first century as “resident aliens in a world” that seemed to be religious.
When it was apparent that our nation was destined for war in Iraq, the Roman Catholic Church (both Pope John Paul II and the then, Cardinal Ratzinger, urged other ways beside unilateralism to solve problems. Interestingly, 55% of polled US Catholics said that it was more important to them to be American than it was to be Catholic. Sts Peter, Paul and Clement might legitimately ask them to comment on their putative “resident alien” status in this world. Passports are more important than baptismals to these folks.
Jeroboam was the King of Israel after the days of King Solomon. He came up with the “Jeroboam principle”, viz., say that you worship God once in a while and then, go ahead and to do whatever you want, also called “practical atheism”, viz., say that you believe in God, then, do whatever.) The Jews learned the hard way that this can backfire when, in 586 BC and 70 AD, they presumed that God would take care of them, no matter what stunts they pulled.
Many feel that St Luke’s Gospel and Acts of the Apostles might be the most beautiful book ever written. He portrays the Universal Savior as forgiving, other oriented, trusting in God alone. He lived and died that way. In Christ Jesus, we can as well. Do we want to try? In His life, death and Resurrection (transformed life) Whom (or what) do we really, really trust? 112110AD jfq

Reflection 111410AD

2010-11-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

Why Is This Happening?
During the 1960’s, sociologist Will Herberg published an unexpected best seller, Protestant, Catholic, Jew. He said that the three principal religions in the US at the time were really three expressions of the same thing, viz., the American Dream. (How would Islam fit into that paradigm, according to talking heads who name reality?)
For different reasons, each of the three religions strive to show how American they were. Mainline Protestants, he said, gloried in the USA mainline culture (white & Anglo), based on the Puritan Ethic. Diligence brought success for all in God’s plan. For different reasons, Catholics and Jews saw commitment to the American Dream. This was to show how much like mainline American culture our religions make us. We are not that different from you; please like us; so, we stress similarities in sharing the vision that diligence brings success for all in God’s plan. Rather than challenging Herberg, they praised him for naming reality.
In the last fifty years, the religion of the American Dream has morphed into a new version of the same. It is called “Therapeutic Moralistic Deism”. It is therapeutic because religion exists to make me feel good about my life. If the religion does not do so, I am out of here (and guess whose fault it is.) It is moralistic because the American Dream has morphed into diligence brings success to all and in striving to achieve success, by being nice to one another. (The question remains what does “nice” mean?) Finally, it is deistic. It says that God exists, but God only has to be acknowledged on major holidays, when your family arrives at a notable event (usually joyful). All you have to do is to be like everyone else and use God’s Name when convenient and/or expedient. Does this sound familiar?
For the first three hundred years of the Jesus Movement, the Jesus Movement offered a different view of reality, the Kingdom of God. Some of our Christian ancestors were willing to die for that vision.
Then, on October 28, 312, reality changed. For whatever reason, the Emperor Constantine legalized the Jesus Movement in the Edict of Milan. Now it was licit to be a Christian. (By 395, the Emperor Theodosius that it was mandatory for be a Christian.)
The Jesus Movement came from the catacombs to the basilicas. It naturally brought a change in Christian point of view. Before, we were on the fringes; now we are mainstream. The Vision of the Kingdom of God became the conventional imperial wisdom, viz., diligence brings success for all who try. If your life is miserable now, it is God’s plan for you. Usually, the ones who said this did not find their own lives miserable.
One things that does not in this paradigm is the Buddhist principle of impermanence. Everything changes. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, stated the principle, “Everything changes.” You cannot stand in the same river twice. Scientists call it the “conservation of energy and/ or matter.” Nothing is wasted in the universe.
Christians call it the Paschal Mystery. “Nothing is impossible with God.” Every human suffering can be transformed. Look at what happened to God’s Son made human on Good Friday. Was God in that? Believers say yes. God transformed the worst thing in the world, the death of God’s Son, into the best thing, the transformation of all reality in the death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.
Suffering does not fit into the paradigm of Therapeutic, Moralistic Deism. Many are finding that out big time in the financial crisis triggered by world economic views that started to collapse in the autumn of 2008. Why has this happen to me? Why me? This is not in the gameplan.
Biblical prophets, including Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jesus Himself, challenged listeners to keep their religion honest and authentic. Don’t expect God to be flattered by church attendance (when you can fit in your busy Sunday schedule) and then, disregard God’s promptings when you return to the reality of the world that you have made for yourself. I tried to be nice; why me?
People throughout the years frequently lull themselves into thinking that since God is good, we are God’s people, that we are good. Therefore, others who see life differently are bad. God was not on their side!
However, God’s ways are not our ways. As the Scripture asks, “Who knows the Mind of God?” Who can predict how God acts?
Jesus proclaims that God runs reality, not us. The human drive based on unresolved childhood needs for security, esteem and control, tries to run reality. Sooner or later, we find out that doesn’t work. Without Jesus’ view of reality, Therapeutic Moralistic Deism collapses. This can’t happen to me. What next?
Jesus saw the temple today in the Gospel today. He knew the principle of impermanence, the Greek truth everything changes, the scientific theory of conservation of matter and/or energy, the Paschal Mystery (God can even raise the dead!). Our Father, not we, name reality.
The fact that this does not fit into the post-Christian religion of Therapeutic Moralistic Deism only bothers people when they are affected by it. Otherwise, feel good about yourself, be nice, tip you hat to God when you can fit God in. That is what culture (and many parents) share with posterity. A problem?
The kingdom of gold means running one’s own show ultimately by trying to obtain security, esteem and control for oneself. Try it and see (but, obey God’s game plan in the process.) However, the walk in the woods (the reality check) comes to each person. Why is this happening to me? The Jesus Movement responds by saying that everything in life rises and/or falls with the Cross of Jesus Christ. Put another way, our ultimate security is the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. 111410AD jfq

weekly reflection 110710

2010-11-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

Henry VIII – NOT!!
Many years ago, there was a popular song, “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am”, during the “1960’s British Invasion” spearheaded by the Beatles. Many people remember the song but it was a take-off on today’s Gospel reading.
A recent spin on this encounter, which most biblical scholars see as a view of what really happened that day, was the fact that in His rebuttal to the question, today, Jesus makes an early statement for the Christian relationship of husband and wife. The question of playing the wife off as the object passed from husband to husband is shot down when Jesus answers the question. Truly, our life with God in the future “for all the children of the Resurrection” (obviously including the wife in the story) cannot be described in human categories.
This is one of the few Gospel stories in which Jesus’ ultimate nemesis, the Saduccees, the Jerusalem aristocratic establishment, makes an appearance. These were the affluent families who had connections with the temple and who had a working relationship with the Roman oppressors. (One theologian said that when Jesus met His fate on Good Friday, it might have been a deal made between the Saduccees and Pilate that anybody causing problems during Passover was cooked.
As a group, the Saduccees tended to follow only the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. There was no reference to immortality and/or an after life in this old stratum of the Bible. Therefore, the Saduccees did not believe in these things. Hence, their question to Jesus was meant to ridicule whatever response Jesus make.
Never One not to confront a challenge, Jesus cleverly used the reference made by God where YHWH self-referred as the God of Abraham and Isaac, who were both dead, yet somehow, remained alive as far as God was concerned. Theologians say that this was a first in Hebrew thought where immortality was assumed by Jesus to have been in the ancient writings all along!
The mindset with which the Saduccees worked was that human intelligence is the final arbiter for what is or is not reality. In a sense, it was an advance notice of Western European Enlightenment theory in the 17th century, which said that human reason was the ultimate arbiter.
One German theologian, in the twentieth century, taught that while we can know things in the middle of reality, viz., the seasons, the length of a day, etc., the ultimate rim of reality as well as the innermost core of reality ultimately is mystery, “infinitely knowable”, in the sense that we will never stop learning things about reality. (One can never arrive at the edge of the universe; one can never break down an atom completely into its basic elements.)
The biblical question proposed throughout both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures is basically, “Who knows the Mind of God?” It is the humble and honest admission that we (or our brains) are not the center of reality. Transcendence and Holy Mystery are the core of all things and the humble, honest person bows one’s head in adoration. Hence, the need for faith.
One of the pivotal scriptures in Judaeo-Christianity (aka Yahwism) is the same Self-identification that Jesus used today in the Gospel reading. YHWH, the God of Abraham and Isaac, is God of Life, God beyond words, God of the Eternal Now. (All are legitimate translations of YHWH!)
The Christian Scriptures refine the definition through the ongoing effect of the Christ Quantum. Now, we know as well that YHWH is Love and those who abide in Love abide in YHWH and YHWH in them.
God’s job description is to create life and to bring it together in Christ Jesus. In God’s Reality, matter and energy and space and time that only matter to us, not to God’s ultimate purpose for reality. Space and time exist for us, not for God.
Jesus adds a great twist in His rebuttal of his antagonists. If, indeed, we are all children of God, then, we become as well “children of the resurrection” God does not have to make plans that are logical to Saduccees then and/or now. God’s categories do not have to jump through the hoops raised by the human intellect.
One Swiss writer said that Catholics profess our belief that we are Children of the Resurrection when we pray the Nicene Creed every Sunday at Mass. He said that the first article of faith in the Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” is simply re-stated in the fourteenth article of faith, “I believe in the Resurrection of the Body and Life in the world to come.” If God is almighty God of Life and of Love, then what is the problem with the almighty God of the Resurrection? Whose wife is she anyway in the Gospel today? Give Jesus a break!!! Next question, please! 110710AD jfq

Weekly Reflection 103110AD

2010-10-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

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

Weekly Reflection 102410AD

2010-10-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

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

weekly reflection 10172010

2010-10-18T06:10:00.001-07:00

No Ice Pack Needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Bulletin -- Oct 10, 2010

2010-10-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

Everything Old Is New Again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reflection -- Oct 3, 2010AD

2010-10-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

If Today You Hear God’s Voice…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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