The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today use striking images of wise choices and foolish selfishness to assist our contemplation of how connected we are to the source of life.
 |
| Life near running water |
The poem in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah paints wisdom as associated with living by running water.
True Wisdom d. [17:7] Ps 1:3.1
Psalm 1 continues the image of the destiny of the good and the wicked.
* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death.2
The Gospel from Luke offers the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus to alert our awareness of our possible disconnection.
* [16:30–31] A foreshadowing in Luke’s gospel of the rejection of the call to repentance even after Jesus’ resurrection.3
Larry Hopp asks what does it look like to truly follow Jesus?
Today’s Psalm provides crystal clarity to that question. We must avoid the council of the wicked and stop following the way of sinners. We must delight in the law of our Lord and keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus - day and night. We must never forget that there are eternal consequences for our choice of whether to follow God or to follow the ways of the world. It isn’t something we can fake, as the initial Luke passage reminds us – God knows our hearts and keeping His word requires total commitment.4
Don Schwager quotes “Creator of both rich and poor,“ by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"God made both the rich and the poor. So the rich and the poor are born alike. You meet one another as you walk on the way together. Do not oppress or defraud anyone. One may be needy and another may have plenty. But the Lord is the maker of them both. Through the person who has, He helps the one who needs - and through the person who does not have, He tests the one who has." (excerpt from Sermon 35, 7)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Psalm 1:1-4, 6 comments that Bible scholars would say the psalmist uses this image because, like trees, we need a “water source” in order to thrive and bear fruit. And this source is the Holy Spirit, who is often compared to living water.
This is a wonderful image of what it’s like to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. We can spend so much of our time worrying about how successful we are being in the spiritual life that we forget that the Spirit lives in us and wants to refresh us. His love is always flowing, always cleansing the soul of anyone who asks. So if only for today, take some time just to rest with God. Don’t be afraid to dip your toes into the stream of his love and let him quench your thirst.6
Friar Jude Winkler shares the technique of presenting blessings and curses in the poem from Jeremiah. The tree planted by running water has great fertility and life that flourishes. Friar Jude describes the gulf envisioned between the loneliness of those who choose self in life and those who are connected to the needs of others.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, cites Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) and James Hollis on the theme of the seed is in us. If it were tended by a good, wise and industrious laborer, it would then flourish all the better, and would grow up to God, whose seed it is, and its fruits would be like God’s own nature.
Yet, paradoxically, the very achievement of ego strength is the source for our hope for something better. We need to be strong enough to examine our lives and make risky changes. A person strong enough to face the futilities of most desires, the distractions of most cultural values, who can give up trying to be well adjusted to a neurotic culture, will find growth and greater purpose after all. The ego’s highest task is to go beyond itself into service, service to what is really desired by the soul. . . .7
Like trees near water, we thrive in the Life of the the Spirit that makes us aware of the death of loneliness that accompanies those who choose to focus on self.
Addendum
Pieter van der Horst is a scholar specialising in New Testament studies, Early Christian literature and the Jewish and Hellenistic context of Early Christianity. He addresses how the poor became blessed.
It would seem, therefore, that there is little reason not to take seriously the Jewish and Christian claim that charity is a divine commandment, and that the poor have to be regarded as God’s protégés. The religious motivation of charity, the strong association of love for God with aid for the needy, is so omnipresent in all the Jewish and Christian evidence that it would be unwise to belittle or ignore it. To give an example, in the Jewish book of Tobit, the protagonist states right from the start that his care for the poor is the most obvious mark of his Jewishness, and that almsgiving is an excellent offering to the Most High. Nowhere is that religious principle stated more forcefully than in the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, when he says to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked: ‘You did it to me’.8
References
1
|
(n.d.). Jeremiah, chapter 17 - usccb. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Jeremiah/17:5
|
2
| |
3
| |
4
|
(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved March 21, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
|
5
|
(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
|
6
|
(n.d.). 2nd Week of Lent - Mass Readings and Catholic Daily Meditations for .... Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/03/21
|
7
|
(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: March 2019 - Daily Meditations Archives .... Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/03/
|
8
|
(2019, March 14). How the poor became blessed - Aeon. Retrieved March 21, 2019, from https://aeon.co/essays/the-poor-might-have-always-been-with-us-but-charity-has-not
|
No comments:
Post a Comment