Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Listening for Action

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today offer us a theme of our response to being called or being called back to God.

 The text from the First Book of Samuel relates how Eli instructed Samuel to become aware of the calling of God and the need to be open to that call.

 In the account of Jesus day in Capernaum in the Gospel from Mark, the Evangelist points to the connection between Jesus and the Father in prayer.

Michael Kavan comments that prayer all begins with listening.
As we go through our day, upcoming weeks, and year let us take some time to turn off the chatter – there is a lot of bad news out there both nationally and internationally. Tune out the noise and tune in to taking the opportunity for prayer and reflection. Truly listen and allow God’s words to guide us toward making a positive difference in the lives of those around us and even the world in this New Year.
Don Schwager quotes Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD) to show that the one who prays always is always heard. 
"Jesus prayed and did not pray in vain, since he received what he asked for in prayer when he might have done so without prayer. If so, who among us would neglect to pray? Mark says that 'in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed' (Mark 1:35). And Luke says, 'He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray,"' (Luke 11:1) and elsewhere, 'And all night he continued in prayer to God' (Luke 6:12). And John records his prayer, saying, 'When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you"' (John 17:1). The same Evangelist writes that the Lord said that he knew 'you hear me always' (John 11:42). All this shows that the one who prays always is always heard." (excerpt from ON PRAYER 13.1)
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the initial encounter of Samuel with a call from God that would lead to Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba coming to know that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord. The eyewitness nature of this day of Jesus in Capernaum points to the close association of Peter and Mark in writing this Scripture.

The Gospel of Mark may be an eyewitness account given by mentor Peter as J. Warner Wallace, a Cold-Case Detective, a Christian Case Maker, and the author of Cold-Case Christianity, suggests.


Before we begin to look at some of the internal evidences for Peter’s connection to the Gospel of Mark, we ought to recognize Peter and Mark’s relationship as it is described in the New Testament. Mark is traditionally considered to be the “John Mark” mentioned as a companion of Paul in the Book of Acts. If this is true, Mark was a cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10) and originally fell from favor with Paul when he failed to continue on an evangelistic journey with Paul and Barnabas as a young man. This caused the two older men to separate; Barnabas continued on with Mark and Paul continued with Silas (Acts 15:37-40). Mark eventually became a close associate of Peter; this is evident in two pieces of Biblical evidence. First, it appears Peter was part of a Christian group in Jerusalem that met in Mark’s home. When Peter miraculously escaped from jail (assisted by the angel of the Lord), he returned to this group to tell them the good news:

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, explores contemplation quoting William Blake that If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to [us] as it is, infinite.
We need a contemplative, non-dual mind to accept or even have an elementary understanding of what is meant by Jesus being fully human and fully divine—at the same time. Western Christianity has tended to overemphasize his divinity, and we thus lost sight of how Jesus holds these two together. When we couldn’t put together this paradox in Jesus, we couldn’t recognize the same truth about ourselves and others. We too are a paradox, a seeming contradiction that is not actually a contradiction at all. Yet we ended up being “only” human and Jesus ended up being “only” God. We missed the major point!
A third testament is a book by Malcolm Muggeridge as a modern pilgrim who explores the spiritual wanderings of Augustine, Blake, Pascal, Tolstoy, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky.
Considering them as a group, it became clear to me that, althoughthey were all quintessentially men of their time, they had a special rolein common, which was none other than to relate their time to eternity.This has to be done every so often; otherwise, when the lure of self-sufficiencyproves too strong, or despair too overwhelming, we forget that men need to be called back to God to rediscover humility and with it,Hope.
A theme of relating our time to eternity runs through the texts today. Prayer and contemplation preface action in which our daily experience opens doors to contemplate our connection to all of creation.

References
(n.d.). 1 Samuel, chapter 3 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/1samuel/3
(n.d.). Mark, chapter 1 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/mark/1:29


(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
(2014, January 28). Mark's Relationship With Peter Was the Foundation for His Gospel .... Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/marks-relationship-with-peter-was-the-foundation-for-his-gospel/
(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

(n.d.). A Third Testament: A Third Testament: A modern writer explores the .... Retrieved January 10, 2018, from https://selah.diet/files/attachments/third-testament-muggeridge.pdf
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