Monday, February 5, 2018

Temples, tassels and Tradition

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to change our attitude to the Presence of God in our daily lives.

 The First Book of Kings describes the dedication of the Temple of Solomon and the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to the Holy of Holies.
* [8:6–9] The transfer of the ark of the covenant into the newly constructed Temple building, God’s act of possession (8:10–13), and Solomon’s dedicatory prayer and sacrifices constituted the Temple’s solemn dedication and made of it the place of God’s presence in the midst of Israel for which David had hoped (2 Sm 6:12–15; 7:1–3). Later God expresses approval of the Temple with an oracle (1 Kgs 9:3–9).
The authority and power of God in Jesus is recognized by the people who seek healing through contact with Him in the Gospel of Mark.

 Jay Carney comments that the question that hovers over both of today’s readings is: Where does God dwell?
If only things were so neat! But Israel’s history is nothing if not messy. Solomon’s beautiful temple lasts 400 years but is ultimately destroyed by the Babylonians; its successor made it over 600 years but could not survive the Romans. Yet God is bigger than Israel’s checkered political history. God is bigger than our houses, our dark clouds, our holy of holies, and our abundant sacrifices. God meets us by Lake Gennesaret, where the sick and their friends literally “scurry about” to receive a healing touch. God meets us in the midst of persecution, as we learn from today’s patroness, the virgin martyr St. Agatha. God meets us in the glorified humanity of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, entering fully into and transforming our own humanity. God dwells wherever we seek him in self-giving love
The Franciscan Media description of the tradition around today’s patroness, the virgin martyr St. Agatha asks: Have we lost an essential human quality of wonder and poetry, and even our belief that we come to God by helping each other, both in action and prayer?
The scientific modern mind winces at the thought of a volcano’s might being contained by God because of the prayers of a Sicilian girl. Still less welcome, probably, is the notion of that saint being the patroness of such varied professions as those of foundry workers, nurses, miners and Alpine guides. Yet, in our historical precision, have we lost an essential human quality of wonder and poetry, and even our belief that we come to God by helping each other, both in action and prayer?
Don Schwager asks if we recognize the Lord's presence with us and the power of his word for our life?
Faith is an entirely free gift which God makes to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Believing and trusting in God to act in our lives is only possible by the grace and help of the Holy Spirit who moves the heart and converts it to God. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the mind and helps us to understand, accept, and believe God's word. How do we grow in faith? By listening to God's word with trust and submission. Faith also grows through testing and perseverance. The Lord wants to teach us how to pray in faith for his will for our lives and for the things he wishes to give us to enable us to follow him faithfully and serve him generously.
Friar Jude Winkler connects the cloud of the Presence in the Temple of Solomon to the overshadowing of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit at the Incarnation and her role as the new Ark of the Covenant. He invites us to see the Presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle and beyond.

 Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, presents Cynthia Bourgeault’s description of the connection between the “heart” and the ability to see God as taught in the Wisdom tradition.
The ancient Wisdom traditions all saw (I do not mean they theorized; they directly perceived) that the physical world we take for our empirical, time-and-space-bound reality is encompassed in another: a coherent and powerful world of divine purpose always surrounding and interpenetrating it. This other, more subtle world is invisible to the senses, and to the mind it appears to be pure speculation. But if the heart is awake and clear, it can directly receive, radiate, and reflect this unmanifest divine Reality.
Our ability to connect with the Divine Presence is a gift of the Holy Spirit that informs our heart of our existence in a powerful universe of Divine Purpose.

 References


(n.d.). 1 Kings, chapter 8 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/1kings/8:1

(n.d.). Mark, chapter 6 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/mark/6:53

(n.d.). Online Ministries at Creighton University. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/
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