Sunday 19 November 2006
33rd Sunday of the year - Keep me safe, 0 Lord, you are my hope
We have to realise in the two centuries before Christ, this way of speaking about present events, as if God was discussing them with some famous person of the past, was very fashionable. So, they would tell of this eminent person's vision like Daniel's in today's first reading (Daniel 12: 1-3), predicting events actually happening in the present. What's more, you find the visionary doing his main job, interpreting the events and proving God's mysterious plan for humankind to be working wonderfully well! The 2nd Century BC Jewish person believed that Daniel was a prophet imprisoned in Babylon with the rest of the Jewish elite of the 6th Century before Christ. His message was, more or less: 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going!' The 2nd Century Jew needed to hear that message anew, because the Maccabee clan was leading armed resistance against Syrian occupation. The Jews were in deep trouble, but Daniel taught them to see through the current persecution to the guaranteed coming of the Kingdom of God. Those who died for the cause would assuredly be rewarded with resurrection. (Sounds like Bin Laden!)In our own day, the Church has many wounds, several self-inflicted, and could well do with Daniel-like encouragement from prophetic wounded-healers, preachers and writers. In today's Gospel passage (Mark 13:24-32), Mark remembers things said by Jesus in answer to the disciples' questions: 'When are all these things, like the destruction of our Temple going to happen?' There was much panic at the time Mark wrote his version of the Gospel. Thirty years after Jesus' death, the Jews rebelled against their Roman oppressors. The Roman army reorganised after initial defeat and, their flags adorned with images of their idols, approached Jerusalem, with evil intent. Then, many 'gurus' or 'messiahs' appeared claiming special knowledge of how to save the nation. Bit like us since 9/11! The more fanatical Jews locked themselves in Jerusalem waiting for God's intervention. They were so suspicious and divided: they fought among themselves. Those who fled the city because of hunger were caught by the Romans and crucified at the walls. In the end, when the Romans entered, burning palaces and the Temple: all Jews not killed were taken to Rome as slaves. It's these events, the end of the world, as His contemporaries knew it, that Jesus predicted. But, the end of one stage of history should be the beginning of another. Jesus pointed out a fig tree about to blossom. 'Keep watching', He pleaded 'Read the signs'.
These are the words of encouragement local churches need to hear, over and over from preachers.
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Feast of Christ the King - The Lord is King: he is robed in majesty
Next week starts Advent. It's like New Year for Catholics - we start all over again. So, today's feast, in preparation, is a 'wrap-up' of the twelve months since Advent 2006. We celebrate today, the one person who got us, spiritually, through 12 months - Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and of Mary.When, in 1925, Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King, his purpose was to warn against two contemporary extremes, emerging laicism and the dominant clericalism of previous generation. Things have changed since 1925 (or have they?). We can now regard the feast as a good opportunity to gain proper insight into a traditional doctrine essential to Catholicism and extremely relevant to the Church - World relationship today.
Old Testament visionary, Daniel, helps us in our first reading (Daniel 71:13-14). He had just 'seen' depicted as four beasts, the fall of the foreign empires, which had oppressed the Jews over 400 years. Later he 'sees' a deliverer who will guide the chosen people out of darkness into light. Whereas Jewish tradition expected the Messiah to emerge from king David's dynasty, exceptional but human, Daniel introduces another type of Messiah, transcendent, more than human. Daniel's optimistic visions encouraged 2nd Century BC Jews not to panic in the face of awful treatment at the hands of the Syrian army. They, like we, needed to trust a king whose reign would be endless, victorious and universally welcome.
Responsorial Psalm 92 links our two main readings. 'The Lord is king: he is robed in majesty.' Jesus left Pilate in no doubt as to the origin of his kinship, according to John (John 18:33-37). Unlike worldly authorities, like Pilate, Jesus had not gained his position by violence or election. He had been sent and anointed by God. That's the truth Jesus announced. Pilate, on the other hand, had been appointed by the Roman emperor. He owed his career as much to his ambition as to several protectors. If only Pilate could get Jesus to admit to being, in a political sense, king of the Jews, he could deal with him, control him. But, Jesus, ever alert, would accept the title of King only in the realm of the true kingdom of humanity, where people are in control of themselves, unrestricted by labels applied to them by authorities. To refuse to fall into Pilate's trap was, for Jesus, to stand up and be counted as the One on whom was conferred sovereignty, glory and Kingship of all people's nations and languages. This special Kingship is now celebrated in every corner of the earth.
Sunday, 3 December 2006
1st Sunday of Advent - To you, O Lord, I lift my soul
For Catholics, Advent is the opening of a new year of hearing and experiencing God's saving power at work.Our first reading today (Jeremiah 33: 14-16) is from the 6th Century BC prophet Jeremiah. He had become mixed up in Jerusalem politics, denouncing the King and government to such an extent that he'd been thrown into prison. But, as a prophetic person, he had the gift from God of being able to see through predicaments. He was able to predict that despite appearances, everything would eventually turn out all right. God had promised as much to David 300 years before, God's promises presumed the cooperation of others. Others had let God down, but the promises stood, waiting for a brave, faithful response from others. Jeremiah, from his own precarious position, predicted that a priest-king sort of person was waiting in the wings, so to speak, to reunite all 'true believers' those who would take God's promise of salvation so seriously as to live their lives totally committed to God's way.
We are the modern inheritors of God's promises. He relies on us to ensure those promises are fulfilled.
Psalm 24 gives us the kind of thoughts about God that David would have had in the many trials he experienced: 'To you, O Lord, I lift my soul'.
These are the same sentiments recommended by Jesus to those about to undergo some ordeal (as his compatriots were at the hands of the Roman army) (Luke 21: 23-28, 34-36). He used the vivid language of the times, the Middle Eastern culture, to warn all who would listen of the catastrophic nature of near future events.
Three years ago, in Iraq, holy men were predicting the awful consequences for Bagdad if the United States launched an attack. They were calling all Iraqi citizens to be alert, to sleep with their eyes open. The end of their world may be near.
We moderns have been warned of the terrible destruction awaiting us. If an earthquake struck a major city, as it did in Newcastle some time ago. Or if a meteorite found its way through earth's atmosphere! Well, what advice had Jesus to offer Jerusalem? He didn't just warn citizens. He reminded true believers living there that God had promised salvation to those who responded to God's promise. The end of Jerusalem would be the beginning of the new, spiritual Jerusalem, not built from stones and mortar but from living stones. Jewish Christians, previously tied to the old ways, would be forced into a strategic alliance with Greek Christians. The church would be forced by the Spirit to obey Jesus' command to spread the 'good news' to all cultures.
That divine task has only just begun.
Sunday, 10 December 2006
Second Sunday of Advent - The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy
Baruch was among the last of the books of the Bible to be written. That was during the last century BC, in one of the Jewish communities outside Palestine. Because it contained some paragraphs written in the venerable Jeremiah's style, this book was attributed to that prophet's secretary Baruch.Jewish exiles in Babylon needed to hear the encouragement offered by Jeremiah. They must keep faith with God, he preached, and everything would work out all right (Baruch 5: 1-9). Similarly, expatriate Jews, of the 1st Century BC, needed to hear from someone, like a Jeremiah or Baruch, that they would sooner or later return to Jerusalem after God had destroyed their unbelieving enemies. These were the clear expectations of any Jew brought up on a diet of exclusive nationalism so, the Christian inheritor of God's promises, as outlined by the main prophets, has to perform a little spiritual surgery on today's first reading.
We no longer look for a return to Jerusalem in Palestine. Others, unfortunately for the world, do!
We ourselves are the spiritual HQ, on earth, of God's kingdom. Devoid of nationalism, Christians do not look for the destruction of secular systems or ethnic groups. The authenticity of our membership of the Kingdom is measured by how valuable a part we play in secular society. Our only prophetic struggle is against injustice and poverty, whenever and wherever it flourishes unopposed.
Responsorial Psalm 125 sings: 'The Lord has done great things for us we are filled with joy'. In musical terms God's plan of salvation can be described as 'Variations on a Theme'. That theme is Universalism. Luke was a universalist: salvation is offered to all, woman and man poor and rich. Samaritans and Romans will accept the plan, according to Luke, even before priests and temple attendants. God had promised that Abraham would be 'father of the nations'. That can be dated at the start of the second millennium BC. The theme had been strongly struck. Variations on the theme had emerged many times even as God's chosen people retreated into protective nationalism. During the 600 years of Jewish monarchy, Jeremiah, Isaiah and other leading prophets had clearly restated the theme of Universalism.
John the Baptist was Jewish to his sandal-straps but, as we hear in today's Gospel according to Luke (Luke 3: 1-6), he launched an initiation procedure for all who were brave enough to realign Judaism with God's original plan of salvation, embracing all humanity. Jesus personified that plan. He developed a band of true believers who would eventually be forced to go and find God at work in every culture and period of time.
We moderns are called to further develop the theme.
Sunday, 17 December 2006
3rd Sunday of Advent - Cry with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel
Around the year 630 BC, Zephaniah's voice broke the silence of seventy years during which the Jews had not heard a word from God. Isaiah had concluded his mission in 690 BC and, after that, faithful Jews went through more than 50 years of persecution during the reign of Manasseh, a very corrupt king of the Jews.The first part of today's reading (Zephaniah 3: 14-18) from Zephaniah is full of foreboding. The Assyrians were still on the prowl. Their superstitious practices were observed by Jews in preference to orthodox worship of the God of Abraham. In the second part of our first reading, Zephaniah brightens up! The Assyrians were retreating from Palestine. 'Good' king Josiah had succeeded Manasseh. Someone found a book of reforms lying around in the plundered Temple precinct. We know it as the book called 'Deuteronomy'. Isaiah accepted this book as a direct revelation from God. He made it his charter for reform of all Jewish civil and religious institutions. For Zephaniah, Josiah was like the promised Messiah. So, the second part of our Advent reading is a call to joy directed at Jerusalem. There will be a great celebration says the prophet, with nothing but dancing joy and exultation!
To link our two main readings, we have today, not a psalm, but several verses from chapter 12 of Isaiah: 'Cry with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel'.
Those prophetic verses, written 700 years earlier, came true with the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth. But, someone had to alert the Jews to the appearance in their midst of the promised Messiah. Such a person was John Baptist. Today's reading, according to Luke (Luke 3: 10-18) shows John doing his job, preparing people for conversion.
So far, so good. But, you and I should be spiritually mature enough to detect the hint of a later event, the Annunciation, when the festival will no longer be centred on a city but a person. People, anxious to obtain God's forgiveness, came to John from every group, even the social (and, therefore religious) outcasts - prostitutes, tax collectors and soldiers of the Roman occupation force. John rejected none, but he did demand a personal commitment from everyone to justice. John invited his listeners to share, that is, to build a society which cared and was concerned about giving to everyone, what was necessary. John's listeners appear to have reacted immediately -'what should we do?' In reply, John could not approach the height of virtue later preached by Jesus. He called simply for a decision to remove 'self' from the central position in one's living. That would be a good, first step towards, the Kingdom.
Sunday, 24 December 2006
4th Sunday of Advent - Lord make us turn to you; let us see your face and we will be saved ...
Micah was Isaiah's contemporary (700s BC). He spoke about the same hostile political environment and yet it is easy to see a striking contrast between the two: Micah a man from the 'bush', Isaiah distinguished and learned. Micah was from a village at the edge of the lowland through which all the armies of Assyria and Egypt passed. He was well acquainted with the suffering and destruction of war and also with the accompanying exploitation of peasants. One day God called him and gave him strength, justice and courage to go and denounce Israel's sins of infidelity to God's way. He was the spiritual heir of Isaiah and, as did Isaiah before him, announced a drastic judgement from which a select 'remnant' would emerge, in whom God's promises would be fulfilled.Our first reading from Micah (Micah 5: 1-4) reveals that the Messiah would come from the line of King David whose roots were in Bethlehem. David's father Jesse was a Bethlehem man. So was his famous ancestor Ruth a Bethlehemite. It is not clear that the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem, in spite of the fact that Micah seems to contrast this peaceful, shepherd-king, born in the 'bush', with the useless kings from the capital, Jerusalem. Later, many believed that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, not just come from there. Thanks to Micah, we feel more comfortable with the descendant of the king-shepherd of Bethlehem as future guide of his people than with a descendant of the glorious King David of the royal city.
Responsorial psalm 79 links our two main readings: 'Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
And we are allowed to see the true 'face' of the Messiah in today's second reading (Luke 1:39-44) as we trace the steps of a humble, pregnant young woman, Mary, as she visits her older, cousin Elizabeth, wife of a priest rostered for duty in the Temple of Jerusalem. Luke's whole Gospel is like a commentary on Jesus' life as if it was mainly one long journey to Jerusalem. So today's Gospel language, in the ear of anyone versed in Old Testament images, clearly compares Mary with the Ark of the Covenant and, even, with Jerusalem itself! Mary can be seen, in today's Gospel, as the woman who assures her people of final victory over evil, and inaugurates the messianic era in which sin and unhappiness will be no more. Mary is assuredly the dwelling place of God among men and women. Luke has shown her to be such by comparing her with the Ark and with Jerusalem (Zion) itself. No more does God live in a temple of stone, but in living persons. After the example of Mary, every Christian is a sign of God's presence in secular society: his or her attitudes and involvements build the dwelling place of God on earth.
Here is the root of lay spirituality.
Sunday, 31 December 2006
Feast of the Holy Family - How happy are they who dwell in your house, O Lord
The Book of Samuel divided in two, marks the third stage of what we call sacred history after Genesis and Exodus. In the Book of Samuel we are able to discover the work of God in human hearts and how people cooperate with God as ruler. Here we are shown, in a very calm manner, the good and bad behaviour of King David; his life, similar to that of any of us, seems mysterious. (I'm reminded of a book I saw in the Catholic Bookshop entitled: 'How good are we expected to be?') At the end of his life, though, we find that God was present in everything that happened to David who established among the Israelites something that would not perish. We know of two famous people who preceded David - Samuel and Saul. In today's first reading (Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28) we hear of Samuel's remarkable birth (reminding us of John Baptist's birth).Samuel was the last of the governors of the nomadic Hebrew tribes. These leaders were called Judges. He was also the prophet who would anoint Saul and then replace him with David. His mother, Hannah was certain God gave Samuel to her in response to prayer. That's why, with her husband, she made him over to the service of the Lord. The same would happen over a thousand years later at the birth of John the Baptist. In the case of Mary and Joseph, Jesus would reveal that his true home is with his Father, God.
Christian parents take their children to church for re-births as children of God and the Church.
Responsorial Psalm 83 links our two main readings: 'How happy are they who dwell in your house, O Lord'.
All true believers form an extended spiritual family. Indeed they are the living stones, with Jesus as keystone, out of which God's house is built. This is the other family sought after and served by men and women of deep faith. Of course, the human family of mother, father and children is a blessing to people fortunate enough to have such a family. There the minds, hearts and bodies of all members are best nurtured. Samuel owed a lot to his mother, Hannah, and father, Elkanah. They encouraged him to spend his life in the service of God's extended family. John Baptist, likewise, was blessed with a mother, Elizabeth, and father, Zachary, spiritually mature enough to identify him as the special servant of God's kingdom on earth. In today's reading, according to St Luke (Luke 2: 41-52), twelve years old Jesus of Nazareth paid his respects to God in the Jerusalem temple. But, there he showed his understanding, limited as it was, of his calling to serve his Father, God, in building another Temple, not made by human hands. This journey by Jesus to Jerusalem foreshadows, as always in Luke, the final one. In the Jerusalem temple, where Israel sought to discover the face of God, Jesus revealed the nature of his own search. In him humanity will be aligned, absolutely with God's plan. But, not without anxiety and confusion for all.
Read this Sunday's reflection or reflections from other Sundays by Father Maguire