Spiritual guide to be disciples

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with words and phrases that describe crucial choices and conditions of discipleship.

“The same God that died upon the cross for our sins is the same God who created human beings as rational animals.” https://t.co/22SAehsNze

— St. Peter's List (@StPetersList) February 10, 2018

The Book of Deuteronomy declares the choice before Israel of life or death. In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus proclaims conditions of discipleship.

* [9:23] Daily: this is a Lucan addition to a saying of Jesus, removing the saying from a context that envisioned the imminent suffering and death of the disciple of Jesus (as does the saying in Mk 8:34–35) to one that focuses on the demands of daily Christian existence.

Some of our commentators today will underline dualistic phrases of life and good, death and evil, winning, losing, gaining, forfeiting, rejection and crucifixion, defeat and condemnation, and victory and freedom. A metaphysical structure of Emanation, Exemplarism, Consummation is also connected to a renewed life or “resurrection”.

Larry Gillick, S.J. understands Lent as a time to prepare to greet those entering the community as authentic disciples of Jesus who will not be a disappointment to the new members.

Winning, losing, gaining, forfeiting are frightening terms when applied to “life.” Here is the Lenten call. “Life” is a gift which is not gained or won. At our reception of the Eucharist we are celebrating our poverty with empty, open hands. What a dramatic gesture. What is even more dramatic is that Jesus enters that poverty and invites us to take It in for “life” and live all the moments of our days in generous gratitude.

Don Schwager reflects on the language of opposites implied in the Gospel where usually rejection and crucifixion meant defeat and condemnation, not victory and freedom as he quotes Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) in a dualistic exhortation of how God calls us to conversion.

"God calls us to correct ourselves and invites us to do penance. He calls us through the wonderful gifts of his creation, and he calls us by granting time for life. He calls us through the reader and through the preacher. He calls us with the innermost force of our thoughts. He calls us with the scourge of punishment, and he calls us with the mercy of his consolation." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 102, 16)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the path of Life and the path of death in the dualistic text from Deuteronomy If we choose the wrong path then we are going to suffer. Sin carries in itself its own punishment. One aspect of sin is loneliness, a little bit of hell.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, explains how St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217-1274) invited us into a positive notion of history as a slow but real emergence/evolution into ever-greater consciousness of a larger and always renewed life (“resurrection”).

In Bonaventure’s writings, you will find little or none of the medieval language of fire and brimstone, worthy and unworthy, sin and guilt, merit and demerit, justification and atonement, even the dualistic notions of heaven or hell, which later took over.

Christopher M. Cullen describes the Natural Philosophy of Bonaventure in metaphysical language.

According to Bonaventure, metaphysics, as a branch of natural philosophy, is concerned with the truth of “things”. But unlike physics, which investigates things insofar as they change, metaphysics goes beyond motion and quantity to investigate things simply insofar as they exist or are “beings”. This investigation involves reducing things back to the most fundamental concept, namely, being. It has three main parts: (1) how things came to be from the First Principle, that is, why there is something rather than nothing; (2) how things reflect ideas or “exemplars” in the divine mind, in other words, how things are what they are and are intelligible; and finally, (3) how things “return” to their source, or, the ultimate meaning of things. These three aspects constitute the three parts of metaphysics: emanation, exemplarism, and consummation.

Our experience of life may or may not be close to the sense of Augustine or Bonaventure yet our contemplation will help provide a direction for our preparation to be disciples of Jesus to those we “evangelize” during Lent.

References

(n.d.). Deuteronomy, chapter 30. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/deuteronomy/30 

(n.d.). Luke, chapter 9 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/9

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from https://cac.org/richard-rohr/daily-meditations/daily-meditations-archive/

(n.d.). Natural Philosophy : Bonaventure - oi. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195149258.003.0004