The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate the meaning of the promises and signs of God that may be dismissed as foolish in our post-Christian society.
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| Signs of a spiritual corner |
The reading from Trito-Isaiah promises a world renewed in abundant life in the grace of God.
* [65:17–18] The new creation (cf. 66:22) is described with apocalyptic exuberance: long life, material prosperity, and so forth. As the former events in 43:18 are to be forgotten, so also the new creation wipes out memory of the first creation.1
Psalm 30 gives praise and thanks to God for deliverance and restoration.
* [Psalm 30] An individual thanksgiving in four parts: praise and thanks for deliverance and restoration (Ps 30:2–4); an invitation to others to join in (Ps 30:5–6); a flashback to the time before deliverance (Ps 30:7–11); a return to praise and thanks (Ps 30:12). Two sets of images recur: 1) going down, death, silence; 2) coming up, life, praising. God has delivered the psalmist from one state to the other.2
In the Gospel from John, Jesus return to Galilee is highlighted by a sign of the healing power of His Presence.
* [4:43–54] Jesus’ arrival in Cana in Galilee; the second sign. This section introduces another theme, that of the life-giving word of Jesus. It is explicitly linked to the first sign (Jn 2:11). The royal official believes (Jn 4:50). The natural life given his son is a sign of eternal life.3
Eileen Burke-Sullivan recalls the experience of Ignatius of Loyola and concludes that to be a fool for God is to be among the wisest of all creation – for in believing in God’s promise of a Reign of Justice and Mercy means laboring with Jesus to bring every Divine promise to fruition through the power of the Spirit of Love.
At La Storta, as Ignatius prayed, God granted his deepest desire – both by placing him at the side of Jesus and the Cross – and by promising that he and his companions would flourish in their work of serving God’s reign. Ignatius is known to have challenged his closest companions with the fact that their hopes were too low, that their expectations for the fulfillment of God’s promises was not nearly ambitious enough. Now he received God’s own promise that he and those who chose to companion him would be companions of Jesus – in helping ameliorate the sufferings of the world – and being agents of fulfillment of God’s promises. It remains hard to believe today.4
Don Schwager quotes “Christ our physician is present to bring healing and restoration,” by Gregory the Great, 540-604 A.D.
"I see only one thing that I need to explain to you: why the one who had come for a cure heard the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe.' The one who was seeking a cure for his son surely believed; he would not be seeking a cure from one he did not believe could do it. "Why, then, did he hear the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe,' when he believed before he saw the sign? But recall what he was asking, and you will see that his faith was in doubt. He asked Jesus earnestly to come down and heal his son. He was asking for the physical presence of the Lord, who is nowhere absent in his spirit. He had little faith in one he thought could not heal unless he was physically present. If he had believed completely, he would have known that there was no place where God was not present. He was considerably distrustful, then, since it was not the Lord’s greatness he esteemed but his physical presence. He sought a cure for his son even though his faith was in doubt, since he believed that the one he had approached had the power to cure, and yet he thought he was not with his dying son. But the Lord whom he asked to come revealed that he was not absent from the place he was invited to. He who created everything by his will performed the cure by his command alone." (excerpt frpm FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 28.24)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 65:17-21 comments that especially when it comes to matters of the heart, God is infinitely creative. He knows where we need renewal—in our prayer life, in our habits, and in our troubling relationships—and he is working to bring it about.
You may see yourself as a work in progress, but God sees you, as well as everything he creates, and calls it “good” (Genesis 1:31). As Isaiah promised, God has a wonderful future in store for you, one that will bring you joy and amazement (65:18). So welcome the ways that God is making you new right now, and have faith that he’s not finished yet!6
Friar Jude Winkler locates the text from Isaiah to the time after the Exile in Babylon (539 BCE) when a universal blessing is anticipated from God for all. The Gospel of John uses signs to point us to a greater reality. Friar Jude invites us to go beyond the narrative of the Gospel to appreciate the message of the healing we find at any time in centering our contemplation on the Presence of Jesus.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares that true life comes only through many, many journeys of loss and regeneration wherein we gradually learn who God is for us in a very experiential way. Letting go is the nature of all true spirituality and transformation, summed up in the mythic phrase: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Following Christ is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world, not a requirement for going to heaven in the next world. Fr. Richard’s good friend and Franciscan colleague Sister Ilia Delio writes:
God is radically involved with the world, empowering the world toward fullness in love, but God is unable to bring about this fullness without the cooperation of humans. Human and divine cannot co-create unto the fullness of life without death as an integral part of life. Isolated, independent existence must be given up in order to enter into broader and potentially deeper levels of existence. Bonaventure [1217–1274] speaks of life in God as a “mystical death,” a dying into love: “Let us, then, die and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings. With Christ Crucified let us pass out of this world to the Father.” [1] [2]7
Paul addresses the Corinthians that (1 Cor. 1:23) “… we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” This truth is a salient feature of being a fool for Christ.
References
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(n.d.). Isaiah, chapter 65 - usccb. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/65
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(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 30 - usccb. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/30
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(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections - OnlineMinistries - Creighton University. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
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(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
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(n.d.). 4th Week of Lent - Mass Readings and Catholic Daily Meditations for .... Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/04/01
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(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: April 2019 - Daily Meditations Archives .... Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/04
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