Sunday 19 March 2006
3rd Sunday of Lent - Lord, you have the words of everlasting life Last week we learned from Abraham who lived in the 1700s BC. Today we have Moses for our instructor. He lived in the 1200s BC. He received the commandments from God on Mount Sinai, in the Arabian Desert. These were edited, by religious leaders of the Jews, in the 700s and 500s BC. (Jesus would edit them again for the sake of his own contemporaries and for all posterity.) The Sinai covenant was sealed at a time when the Middle East was swamped with 'gods'. The Jewish immigrants struggled to be faithful to the One and Only God, but many were lured into accepting the local gods. We should be forever grateful to Jewish people for guarding this revealed truth of One God (Exodus 20: 1-17). This God wanted an intimate relationship with humanity and intended his own people, the Jews, to announce this Good News to all humanity.To lovingly respond to this Good News required faithful people to change their selfish behaviour to a morally higher form of conduct. So, worship of the One and Only God had consequences. These days there is a modern move to insist on ethical behaviour from public servants in the face of social chaos engineered by persons in high places.
Today's responsorial psalm 18 links our two main readings: 'Lord, you have the words of everlasting life'.
Jesus is God's last and defining Word. When we hear Jesus, we see and hear the one and Only God. This is the culmination of all sacred history, 2000 years of it, preceding Our Lord. He is the final solution to the eternal puzzle Ð how are God and humanity to live intimately together? According to John Jesus had not yet begun his public preaching (John 2: 13-15). Other Gospel writers put today's Gospel incident later in Jesus 'ministry'. He went to the Temple, the Heart of the Jewish religion. But, the Temple had become the place where corruption and lust for power had hold. In the Temple, ordinary people had to make use of the priest's services to offer their sacrifices to God. The priest's authority and power were derived from the Temple. (In our own day, we would call this practice of exclusion 'clericalism'). Jesus felt compelled to contest this unfair trading contaminating priests, sacrifice and the Temple itself. It was God's decision that Jesus alone should be priest, temple and sacrifice. The Temple priests never forgave Jesus' blasphemy. They would sacrifice this upstart priest and destroy his Temple or so they thought.
26 March 2006
4th Sunday of Lent - Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget You
The author attributes all the disasters that befell the Jews, from the sixth to the third centuries BC, to unfaithful Kings and Priests (2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23). The worst devastation would fall on the southern kingdom, Judah, especially Jerusalem, home to the Temple. And all because the kings and priests had lost the faith! But God surprising as ever, according to our author, raised up a deliverer, a messiah, in the person of King Cyrus, ruler of Persia. What a deep mystery this must have been for the Jews! The Insiders would be saved by the outsider, Cyrus, not Jewish at all! He became known in Jewish tradition, as the very modern model of a chosen servant of God and His ways.It is safe for us Christians to think of Cyrus as a Christ-like figure. This Old Testament author wants us to take good notice of the end of King David's dynasty by recording the unbelievable destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. A new Temple would be commissioned by God's beloved 'outsider', Cyrus. Worship, so this lesson goes, has to be about God not about a famous building and its officials!
Responsorial Psalm 136 reinforces, as will our Gospel, the central position of God in genuine worship and faith-driven moral behaviour: 'Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget You'.
John records, and interprets for us, Jesus' meeting with the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3: 14-21). Jesus revealed what was hidden from the eyes of the religious teachers, like Nicodemus and his colleagues Ð the presence of the Son of God as the final and divine solution for the human family. Thanks to John, we now know by faith, that Jesus is God's own last Word. Indeed, John alone calls Jesus, the Word of God. Nicodemus, a religious expert, presumed that he would be involved in a religious discussion with a fellow religious expert. Just that! Instead, Jesus invited him to journey to the centre of himself where Nicodemus would find the truth about his place in God's plan.
During Lent, many, many people will imitate Nicodemus as they participate in the process of discernment of the Spirit known as 'adult initiation into the Church'. They will be invited weekly to search themselves, to make the journey to the centre of themselves. Finally they will be invited to a sacramental encounter with the Risen Lord at Easter. It is the happy duty of local churches, whenever someone else presents for initiation, to show the way that leads from mere good feelings, or even religiosity, to trace faith in the Lord's saving work and presence. That entails a commitment not only to doctrine but, also, to practice Gospel values and behaviour.
Sunday 9 April 2006
Passion (Palm) Sunday - My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Today's first reading (Isaiah 50: 4-7), to begin a week of intense conversion, for the entire international church and for each local faith community, is from one of the most quoted prophets, Isaiah the second. He writes of a character come to be known among Christians as the suffering servant. The description fits the prophet Jeremiah who went through hell on earth at the hands of compatriots. He had advised them not to resist a foreign invader! It was God's own message, he was a messenger. He was tortured, excommunicated and finally dealt with by a death squad following him to Egypt. The description in today's text also fits the minority Jews loyal to God's covenant in the midst of official and popular rejection of the religion of Abraham and Moses. Some of this minority were in Babylon, in captivity, others suffered equally in Jerusalem. So the suffering servant should be identified, as an individual, like Jeremiah, or a group, like the rejected minority loyal to God's way. Jesus, of course, would follow Jeremiah's example and pay for it. His disciples, the minority in Israel, would follow suit. That leads us to decide whether to take up the challenge of the 'suffering servant'.Today's responsorial psalm 21 is probably the most poignant of the year 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' Our Gospel from Mark (Mark 15: 1-39) is considerably shorter than the other versions. One salient feature in Mark's version of the Passion events is his emphasis on Jesus' isolation. Having already lost popular support, the ordeal triggers desertion by his own disciples and relatives. Whenever Matthew speaks of Jesus being 'with his own', we can be sure Mark will not use that phrase. Those who should have watched with him at Gethsemane fell asleep instead. At his arrest, the disciples ran away and, to make the flight more pathetic, Mark takes special interest in the young disciple who fled 'naked'. Jesus' isolation is evident throughout his trial before parliament (Sanhedrin). Then when false witnesses are produced against him and when Peter makes his denials, there is only one witness to testify twice (this detail is peculiar to Mark) in his favour as required by law Ð the rooster! Jesus' isolation is absolute. Even his own Father will seem to abandon him. And, his disciples will remain at a distance. The other special feature of Jesus' ordeal, according to Mark is Jesus' silence in the face of disgraceful conduct by the Jewish leadership and his own disciples. The silent isolation emphasises Mark's point of vindicating Jesus' Messianic dignity. The darkness is dispelled when an outsider, the Roman duty officer, calls Jesus 'Son of God'.
Sunday, 16 April 2006
Easter Sunday - This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad
The prophet Hosea had already preached the resurrection of all the dead members of God's chosen race. Jewish tradition had developed the idea that it could take three days for all those people to take possession of Jerusalem. In that context it was normal for St Luke to use this resurrection vocabulary telling the story of non-Jewish Cornelius and his household. Indeed, Luke clearly intended to teach that the resurrection of Jesus on the third day was the beginning of the resurrection of all the dead throughout time (Acts 10: 34, 37-43). According to these beliefs, the resurrection of the lord initiates the great resurrection, and the restoration of the true believers began with the installation of Christ as judge of the living and the dead.The conversion of non-Jewish Cornelius, as a direct result of the continuing mission of the Risen Lord, was a shock to many early Jewish converts to Jewish Christianity. It broke the chains that tied the early church to Jerusalem and Jewish conversion. Cornelius' conversion pointed the way to universalism, a dimension that had died at the hands of Jewish conservatives.
Responsorial Psalm 117 links the two main readings, 'This is the day the Lord had made, let us rejoice and be glad'.
Today's Gospel according to John (John 20:1-9) is dominated by the empty tomb. Every detail is meant to emphasise that something completely outside human experience is staring us in the face. We are enticed by John to 'feel' the emptiness wrapping us around. Peter, chief apostle, fallen so short so often of Jesus' challenge to exercise leadership, had to experience the purifying emptiness of the tomb. That experience would be both shocking and healing. John, younger and more intuitive, quickly concluded that Jesus' body had not been taken by others. He had risen, or better, been raised by the power of God, upon whom he relied utterly for vindication of his life's mission. So the empty tomb reflects the disciples' faithful deliberation about what happened to Jesus' body. It seems that the early disciples were convinced of Jesus' resurrection not by the tomb but by the appearances. Their belief made sense of the empty tomb. Easter is a unique time for parishes to share their sense of the empty tomb. Whenever a parish enters into dialogue with its secular neighbourhood, emptiness stares it in the face. It is as if God is dead out there. Maybe it is time for us to roll back the stone so that the world so loved by God can itself rise from the dead.
Sunday, 23 April 2006
2nd Sunday of Easter - Arise you Catholics from your slumber. Christ is, indeed, risen
It's always a thrill to hear about the stunning proofs, among the Jerusalem converts to the Gospel, of the presence and activity of the Spirit of the Risen Jesus. It's also a bit of shock because most of us have never experienced such powerful evidence of God's presence. Such evidence is given in today's first reading (Acts 4: 32-35) from the Acts of the Apostles (a history of the early Church). 'It seems to be a rather idealised picture showing clearly the essential and indispensable features of any local church: union of hearts, missionary witness, welcome, healing of those in misery (Glenstal missal).We should note here that the earliest Christians hoped to stay Jewish in culture but Christian in spirituality. They continued to frequent the Temple precincts after the death and resurrection of Our Lord. They felt at home there. Their community became even influential in Jerusalem society. They would have continued that way had not the Jewish authorities begun to persecute them with the same vigour used on Jesus himself. Peter and John had already been arrested once for appealing in public for Israel's conversion. They were ordered to desist from such rabble-rousing.
Today's reading is a timely summary, between arrests, of just how powerful was the influence of the Risen Lord on disciples under great pressure.
Easter is an annual reminder that all local churches, worth their salt, must look to the Jerusalem community as the benchmark for faithfulness.
Responsorial Psalm 117 links our two main readings: 'Give thanks to the Lord for His good Ð His love is everlasting'. Today's Gospel (John 20: 19-31) is about Jesus and the failed disciples. 'Easter proclaims and celebrates, not so much what God did for Jesus, but what God has done and continues to do for His followers'. (Francis J Moloney, Eureka St., 1992). The disciples experienced a kind of death Ð failure! The amazing thing is that God did not fail the disciples. Let's not forget that we are attributing to those disciples, in hindsight, a failure to understand. In fact, they had performed well enough for Jesus to continue to be their rabbi for three whole years. He, certainly, rebuked them often sometimes gently, sometimes angrily, for being slow to learn, because other peoples' salvation was at stake. The field was white with need for harvesting. That's why Jesus urged the disciples to learn quickly to give the Gospel, not only individually, but collectively, as Church. Thomas was one such slow learner. He was, also, passionate. He was good for the early church. Today's Gospel records, forever, his victory over doubt. He had been primed, for three years, for this moment of truth. What else could be exclaimed but 'My Lord and My God'.
Parishes, deaneries, dioceses have their highs and lows in living our Gospel witness and mission. This Gospel challenges us to shake off our doubts. We know who we are. We have the capabilities, all around Australia, to bring relief to many people, in material and spiritual poverty, brought about by engineered hopelessness. Arise you Catholics from your slumber. Christ is indeed, risen!
Sunday 30 April 2006
3rd Sunday of Lent - Lord, you have the words of everlasting life
Last week we learned from Abraham who lived in the 1700s BC. Today we have Moses for our instructor. He lived in the 1200s BC. He received the commandments from God on Mount Sinai, in the Arabian Desert (Exodus 20: 1-17). These were edited, by religious leaders of the Jews, in the 700s and 500s BC. (Jesus would edit them again for the sake of his own contemporaries and for all posterity). The Sinai covenant was sealed at a time when the Middle East was swamped with 'gods'. The Jewish immigrants struggled to be faithful to the One and Only God, but many were lured into accepting the local 'gods'. We should be forever grateful to Jewish people for guarding this revealed truth of One God. This God wanted an intimate relationship with humanity and intended his own people, the Jews, to announce this Good News to all humanity. To lovingly respond to this Good News required faithful people to change their selfish behaviour to a morally higher form of conduct. So, worship of the One and Only God had consequences. These days there is a modern move to insist on ethical behaviour from public servants in the face of social chaos engineered by persons in high places.Today's responsorial psalm 18 links our two main readings: 'Lord, you have the words of everlasting life'.
Jesus is God's last and defining Word. When we hear Jesus, we see and hear the One and Only God. This is the culmination of all sacred history, 2000 years of it, preceding Our Lord. He is the final solution to the eternal puzzle Ð how are God and humanity to live intimately together? According to John Jesus had not yet begun his public preaching (John 2: 13-15). Other Gospel writers put today's Gospel incident later in Jesus ministry. He went to the Temple, the Heart of the Jewish religion. But, the Temple had become the place where corruption and lust for power had hold. In the Temple, ordinary people had to make use of the priest's services to offer their sacrifices to God. The priest's authority and power were derived from the Temple. (In our own day, we would call this practice of exclusion 'clericalism'). Jesus felt compelled to contest this unfair trading contaminating priests, sacrifice and the Temple itself. It was God's decision that Jesus alone should be priest, temple and sacrifice. The Temple priests never forgave Jesus' blasphemy. They would sacrifice this upstart priest and destroy his Temple or so they thought.
Sunday 7 May 2006
4th Sunday of Easter - The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone
Two of the apostles Peter and John had confronted the people of Jerusalem with their collective crimes Ð accessories in the Jesus' execution (Acts 4: 8-12). These two apostles, like Jesus, were not only innocent of crime; they had done a good deed by curing a cripple. The priests were affronted. By what authority had the apostles performed this extraordinary cure? They were not accredited by the Temple authorities! 'So what?' Asked the Apostles. They claimed authority from God Himself through Jesus of Nazareth. When they claimed the name of Jesus to be all-powerful, let's be clear that 'name' of Jesus meant to Jews the influence exerted by a person's spirituality.Our churches invoke Jesus' 'name' regularly. But, are our churches spiritually enlivened, immersed in the spirit of His Gospel? Or are we just very good at the frequent use of the name Ð Jesus? If I had hair, it would stand on end whenever I catch a televangelist telling an audience that all you need to do to be saved is to invoke the name of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Dangerously that is the source of Christian Individualism and the graveyard of the Church.
Responsorial Psalm 117 links out two main readings: 'The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.'
Thank God for John's version of the Gospel. Only there do we find such insights into the mind of God and of Jesus. The Bible foretold a day would come when God would come to gather together the dispersed sheep, his people, to live in their very own spiritual land. We know Jesus was the promised shepherd come to accomplish what had been announced Ð but, not in the popularly expected way. The Jews thought wrongly, that the promised shepherd would restore material prosperity. That's why they hailed Jesus momentarily as special descendant of David, king of their Golden Age. They had never felt so proud, so nationalistic, as during David's reign. They really expected to be given by the whole world 'almost favoured nation' treatment when God installed an all-powerful Shepherd/King, the Messiah. Alas for them, Jesus insisted that his followers would not be nationalists. He would select from among the Jews, those few who would put all their trust in Him and His new order Ð the Gospel. He would select lots of sheep from other nations, other sheepfolds, to join the few Jews who trusted Him and His way (John 10: 11-18). This is the privilege of the Church throughout history, not to have land boundaries or cultural divisions, but to move freely throughout history, not to be confined to any one nationality or era or civilization.
At Parish level, there are few hired hands, most of whom deeply care. All of us however are called to be good shepherds, especially to the marginalized, the 'Lost Sheep'. Who, exactly, are they? How can I help?
Sunday, 14 May 2006
5th Sunday of Easter - I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people
As far as Paul was concerned, his close encounter, on the road to Damascus, with the Risen Christ was as intimate and definitive as the original apostles had experienced (Acts 9:26-31). Yet, he had a hard time convincing the Jerusalem church, led by Peter, James and John, that he was able to be trusted despite his previous vocation as exterminator of Christians. Until Paul's appearance on the scene, the Church, led by and made up of Jewish Christians, had not gone beyond the Jewish people. Paul was, himself, a Jew but had been educated outside the Jewish environment. He enjoyed Greek culture as much as Jewish. Because of that, and his own exceptional personality, he was to become apostle to the Greeks and the other 'foreigners'.For three years after conversion, Paul had lived (and preached?) in the Arabian region of Nabatea, which ran south through Transjordan to Sinai, centered on Petra. He was already going his own way. But, he did not separate from the Church, as today's first reading proves. Rather, he went to meet the apostles, especially Peter, at Jerusalem. Still he preserved his independence as he awaited the prompting of the Spirit. Barnabas was the 'broker' of an agreement between, the Jerusalem church and Paul. Thank God! Otherwise there would have been no Catholic Church as we have inherited.
Modern local churches need to be on the alert to recognize and welcome people, like Paul, who can inculturate the Church and Gospel in unsympathetic environments.
Responsorial Psalm 21, links today's two main readings: 'I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.' Today's Gospel passage (John 15:1-8) comes from part of Jesus' intimate speech at the Last Supper. Those who had been close to Jesus for several months would soon need to discover another, equally intimate, way of living with the Risen and present, even though invisible, Lord Jesus. He had already disclosed to them the closeness of the relationship between himself and the Father. That kind of unique relationship would be offered to anyone willing to keep the 'new commandment' Ð 'love one another as I have loved you'. So we know for sure that such a relationship, such spirituality, has to be productive. It has to produce results to be authentic.
Jesus, ever the best of teachers, used an image well known to his friends Ð the grapevine. All Jews saw the vine as a symbol of their nation, under God. Planted from selected, stock cared for by the Lord, it should have produced results of justice and peace, for not only the Jews, but all God's children. The health of the vine cannot be measured by just how big it is. It can only be judged by the excellence of the grapes, the results. Too often, the divinely planted vine, diseased by absorbed national infidelity, produced 'sour grapes'.
Just so, modern secular societies judge Christians by the social results we produce, especially in the area of justice and peace. Secular society might not like, always, the Church at work. It does, however, at its most honest, welcome social criticism from Christian citizens.
Sunday, 21 May 2006
6th Sunday of Easter - The Lord has revealed to the nations His saving power
We haven't many more chances of hearing proclaimed the Acts of the Apostles because, this year, those readings are confined to the Easter season. So, let's make the most of this exciting and inspiring book, popularly attributed to Saint Luke. Today's passage (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48) highlights an extremely important fresh intervention of the Holy Spirit. Because of it, the early church would break out of the Jewish world and the Gospel would reach other cultural groups. So to our story Ð Cornelius was a naturally good man, a foreigner (not a Jew) who was inclined to believe in the one God in whom the Jews put their trust. We don't know if Peter would normally have hesitated to baptize a non-Jew such as Cornelius. Be that as it may, his hand was forced by a strong intervention of the Spirit, and someone of a race, other than Jewish, was baptized!Universalism was up and running. In many places today, our Church runs the danger of being confined to a closed social group. Fortunately for our Australian Church, many different ethnic groups have immigrated. I was in a parish last week with members from fifty different nationalities! Local churches must sacrifice prejudices to welcome these beautiful people to the Australian catholic scene. It will be even harder to find a willing and humble form of outreach to old and new Australians with no Catholic background at all. You could say that this large group of people, like Cornelius all over again, challenges us to identify their natural goodness. We could join them in so many ways in their concern for a better world. That could persuade them to join us in World and Sacrament.
The Responsorial Psalm links out two main readings. 'The Lord has revealed to the nations His saving power.'
Again, we turn to John, for help in discovering the Risen Jesus. He takes us back to the Last Supper. Jesus, according to John, made a long and deeply moving speech. Today's excerpt (John 15:9-17) is about permanent union between the disciples and Jesus and the means of preserving and developing that relationship. For the purpose of our discussion, let's translate the word religion as relationship. In this sense of the word, Our Lord can be seen to be the founder of new religion, which is all about a unique relationship between God and humanity. However, in the sense that the Old Testament itself describes, over and over again, God's loving advances to specially chosen individuals and to Israel as a people, Jesus' style of religion isn't new. Sadly, since love had gone out of the affair between God and Israel (no fault of God's!) and because ritual and regulation had usurped God's central position, then Jesus was a new beginning, a new testament. A dominant, spiritual feature of this loving relationship was, and is self-sacrifice.
A Christian is obliged to become totally dependant on the Lord and His was by interiorizing Jesus' attitudes. We call this process our spiritual life. That is what 'keeping my commandments' means. Local churches (parishes) and spiritual movements are called by God to ensure that ritual observance and law and order are subservient to the highest spirituality of sacrificial love.
Sunday, 28 May 2005
Ascension Sunday - God mounts his throne to shouts of joy
Today's passage (Acts 1:1-11) is a beautiful summary of Luke's Gospel; right up to the incident we celebrate today. It even mentions the confusion, still in the Apostles' minds, about the real purpose of Jesus' mission. Some still expect Our Lord to inaugurate an earthly kingdom, with them playing lead roles in government. This confusion had to come to an end. The apostles had to face up to their responsibilities and get on with the job. So, it was essential to draw to a definitive close the physical presence of Christ on earth. Other incidents of the Bible, such as the ascension of Elijah and also, the glorious presence of God leaving the Temple, suggested to Luke the spatial imagery he used to tell of our Lord's departure. The Lord would be 'seated at God's right hand', meaning He alone would be in control of the continuing plan of salvation, through the Spirit, unrestricted by time, space or culture.The Ascension and Pentecost, together, mark the beginning of the universal mission of the Church. The Church is provisional, so to speak, the pilot light of the Kingdom. 'Our attitude to Church should be neither the admiration nor criticism but belief because we do not yet see the Kingdom' (Guide to the Christian Assembly).
Our Responsorial Psalm 46 links our two main readings. 'God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets to the Lord'.
We should be glad Jesus is no longer physically present among us. It means he has entrusted to us, the Church, the Father's work of salvation for all. Probably, today's Gospel account of the apparition to the eleven (Mark 16:15-20), fuses into one episode, a whole series of experiences and discoveries during the 'forty days' after the resurrection. It includes a selection of the marvels already wrought by the apostles, and account should be taken of the readiness of spectators, culturally to accept 'magical' things. This analysis, of the final New Testament text about the Ascension, offers an opportunity for reflection on the attitude of the earliest churches towards the Ascension and the strength of their faith. These church communities needed to summarise all that had happened to them since the disappearance of Jesus.
Baptism of converts, preaching by the apostles and their successors, missionary adventures among other than Jewish villages Ð all these were noted as faithful, essential activities of churches under the influence of the risen ascended Jesus. The early Church was gradually 'institutionalising' itself. Mark is very blunt in his presentation of Christ's message. Are there members of my family or circle of friends for whom simple kindness is, indeed, great love?
Read this Sunday's reflection or reflections from other Sundays by Father Maguire