Visions and Virtue

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to welcome contemplation of visions of Divine Presence to inspire us to “Come and See” Jesus in action on our journey.

Come and See

The reading from the Book of Revelation presents a Vision of the New Jerusalem.

* [21:9–22:5] Symbolic descriptions of the new Jerusalem, the church. Most of the images are borrowed from Ez 40–48.

* [21:9] The bride, the wife of the Lamb: the church (Rev 21:2), the new Jerusalem (Rev 21:10); cf. 2 Cor 11:2.

* [21:14] Courses of stones,apostles: literally, “twelve foundations”; cf. Eph 2:19–20. (Revelation, CHAPTER 21 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 145 praises the Greatness and the Goodness of God.

* [Psalm 145] A hymn in acrostic form; every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Acrostic poems usually do not develop ideas but consist rather of loosely connected statements. The singer invites all to praise God (Ps 145:1–3, 21). The “works of God” make God present and invite human praise (Ps 145:4–7); they climax in a confession (Ps 145:8–9). God’s mighty acts show forth divine kingship (Ps 145:10–20), a major theme in the literature of early Judaism and in Christianity. (Psalms, PSALM 145 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of John, Nathaniel is invited to Come and See.

* [1:47] A true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him: Jacob was the first to bear the name “Israel” (Gn 32:29), but Jacob was a man of duplicity (Gn 27:35–36).

* [1:48] Under the fig tree: a symbol of messianic peace (cf. Mi 4:4; Zec 3:10).

* [1:49] Son of God: this title is used in the Old Testament, among other ways, as a title of adoption for the Davidic king (2 Sm 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:27), and thus here, with King of Israel, in a messianic sense. For the evangelist, Son of God also points to Jesus’ divinity (cf. Jn 20:28).

* [1:50] Possibly a statement: “You [singular] believe because I saw you under the fig tree.”

* [1:51] The double “Amen” is characteristic of John. You is plural in Greek. The allusion is to Jacob’s ladder (Gn 28:12). (John, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB, n.d.)

Cynthia Schmersal expresses gratitude for the miracle of being invited into the intimacy of a friendship with the Source of all, the Creator of the universe and of each of us.

This day, my great prayer is that each one of us may experience ourselves, like Nathaniel in today’s Gospel, as truly seen by Jesus and drawn ever more deeply into authentic friendship with Him. May this friendship continue to free and form us; may it transform us ever more completely into the fullness of God’s dream that we were created to realize, fashioning us more and more completely as harbingers of the goodness and glory of God’s kin-dom. (Schmersal, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “The Lord of Angels,” by John Chrysostom 347-407 AD).

"Do you see how he [Jesus] leads him [Nathanael] up little by little from the earth and causes him no longer to imagine him as merely a man? For one to whom angels minister and on whom angels ascend and descend, how could he be a man? This is why he said, 'You shall see greater things than these.' And to prove this, he introduces the ministry of angels. What he means is something like this: Does this, O Nathanael, seem to you a great matter, and have you for this confessed me to be King of Israel? What then will you say when you see 'angels ascending and descending on me'? He persuades him by these words to receive him as Lord also of the angels. For on him as on the king's own son, the royal ministers ascended and descended, once at the season of the crucifixion, again at the time of the resurrection and the ascension, and before this also, when they 'came and ministered to him' (Matthew 4:11). They also ascended and descended when they proclaimed the good news of his birth and cried, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace' (Luke 2:14), when they came to Mary and also when they came to Joseph... Our Lord made the present a proof of the future. After the powers he had already shown, Nathanael would readily believe that much more would follow." (excerpt from the Homilies On the Gospel of John 21.1) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Revelation 21:9-14 comments that each and every one of us is essential to the life of the Church and has a share in its mission. Just as Jesus sent out his first disciples, so today he is sending us out to serve the poor, to sacrifice for the sake of those in need, and to testify to the good news of salvation.

Remember the words you hear at the end of each Sunday Mass. Go and make disciples. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Go, you are sent forth. Go where and how the Lord sends you. And take courage in knowing that the great apostles, including Bartholomew himself, are supporting you and interceding for you.

“Jesus, I want to be like Bartholomew and answer your call!” (Meditation on Revelation 21:9-14, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the societal relationship with God proclaimed in the visions of the New Jerusalem from Revelation. Nathaniel, also named Bartholomew, experiences. Like Jacob, a struggle with God as Jesus recognizes him as a true child of Israel. Friar Jude reminds us that the secrets of heaven are revealed to persons of integrity.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces writer-activist Lydia Wylie-Kellermann who considers how children offer us an opportunity to both give and receive wisdom necessary for life to flourish.

Having kids has been one way for me to pour out my love in celebration of life. It has not made the grief lighter … perhaps it has deepened it. But it has also expanded my hope, my joy, my longings, and my insistence on what is possible in this moment. Community and imagination are powerful forces and gosh do these kids know how to call upon it. Don’t look away from death, but in its midst, choose life. Choose life. Choose life. (Rohr, n.d.)

We ponder the attitude that best opens our awe and wonder to the Presence of God and find it in the children we have been blessed to know.

References

John, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/1?45 

Meditation on Revelation 21:9-14. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://wau.org/meditations/2024/08/24/1059226/ 

Psalms, PSALM 145 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/145?10 

Revelation, CHAPTER 21 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/revelation/21?9 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Daily Meditations — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-wisdom-of-mentors-weekly-summary/ 

Schmersal, C. (n.d.). Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries. OnlineMinistries. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/082424.html 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Come and See. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 24, 2024, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=aug24a 

Wisdom and Life

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to receive Jesus as the bread of life, that is the Word made Flesh through which we act with Wisdom and Love in the relationships in which we are grateful to experience.

Bread of Life

The reading from the Book of Proverbs describes Wisdom’s Feast.

* [9:1–6, 13–18] Wisdom and folly are represented as women, each inviting people to her banquet. Wisdom’s banquet symbolizes joy and closeness to God. Unstable and senseless Folly furnishes stolen bread and water of deceit and vice that bring death to her guests. The opposition between wisdom and folly was stated at the beginning of chaps. 1–9 (folly in 1:8–19 and wisdom in 1:20–33) and is maintained throughout, down to this last chapter. (Proverbs, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 34 offers praise for Deliverance from Trouble.

* [Psalm 34] A thanksgiving in acrostic form, each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this Psalm one letter is missing and two are in reverse order. The psalmist, fresh from the experience of being rescued (Ps 34:5, 7), can teach the “poor,” those who are defenseless, to trust in God alone (Ps 34:4, 12). God will make them powerful (Ps 34:5–11) and give them protection (Ps 34:12–22). (Psalms, PSALM 34 | USCCB, n.d.)

The reading from the Letter to the Ephesians exhorts our duty to live in the Light.

* [5:15–16, 19–20] The wording is similar to Col 4:5 and Eph 3:16–17. (Ephesians, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB, n.d.)

The Gospel of John continues Jesus' Bread of Life Discourse.

* [6:54–58] Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: “munch,” “gnaw.” This may be part of John’s emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf. Jn 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning “eat.” (John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB, n.d.)

David Crawford comments that today’s scriptures have him thinking about food and drink, and with good reason.

The 19th-century food writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once stated, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”  As Christians, we have been given some amazing food and drink in the form of Wisdom, which comes from and brings us closer to God; and in the form of the Christ, God incarnate who brought (and still brings) love, mercy, forgiveness and healing.  Our food culture, so to speak, should be to partake of and share this wisdom, love, mercy, forgiveness and healing.  Like Jesus, who ate with the “wrong” people (i.e., sinners and tax collectors) as well as the “right” ones (e.g., the Pharisee in Luke 7), we should share what God has given us without discriminating.  In some instances, it is through our loving, caring, Spirit-led actions that others can taste and see that the Lord is good. (Crawford, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “Abiding in Christ,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

" Jesus recommended to us His Body and Blood in bread and wine, elements that are reduced into one out of many constituents. What is meant by eating that food and taking that drink is this: to remain in Christ and have Him remaining in us." (excerpt from Sermon on John 26,112) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 6:51-58 recalls that in 1975, while traveling to Saigon, Vietnamese Bishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was arrested and thrown into prison. His family sent him a bottle labeled “medicine,” which was actually wine, as well as some hosts broken into small pieces. With these essentials, he shared the power of Jesus in the Eucharist with his fellow prisoners.

“I spent nine years in solitary confinement, and during that time I said Mass every day at three o’clock, the hour of Jesus’ death on the cross. . . . They were the most beautiful Masses of my life.” (The Road to Hope)

After thirteen years in prison, Bishop Nguyen Van Thuan was released. Named a cardinal in 2001, he died a year later. All his life, Jesus in the Eucharist was his “true food” and “true drink” (John 6:55). May the Eucharistic Lord always be ours as well!

“Jesus, Bread from Heaven, nourish and sustain me all the days of my life!” (Meditation on John 6:51-58, n.d.)

Peter Edmonds SJ takes us through Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, in which Jesus speaks of himself as ‘the bread of life’ and explains how it functions as a homily, referring to and weaving together a rich assortment of Scriptural texts.

In a sense, the discourse is finished. Jesus is the bread from heaven in terms of life, of wisdom and of revelation. But the synoptics (Mark 14:22; Matthew 26:26; Luke 22:19) and Paul (1 Corinthians 11:24) identify Jesus as the bread of the Eucharist. And the Johannine community would have shared this belief. They would have looked for this teaching in the account of the Last Supper but instead they found there the washing of the feet (13:1-12). In John, the Eucharist doctrine is found here, in Jesus’s teaching after feeding the five thousand: ‘My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.’ (6:55)

A parallel is to be found in the Emmaus story in Luke (24:13-35). Jesus first reveals by explaining the scriptures, then the disciples recognise him in the breaking of the bread. This structure of word and sacrament is preserved in Eucharistic liturgies until this day.

The bread of life is now the Eucharist. We meet new words: flesh, blood, eat, drink, and a new definition of the bread: it is Jesus’s ‘flesh for the life of the world’. Sarx (flesh) emphasises the physical reality of this bread. This bread is for the world (3:16). Now we find hints of the cost of this gift: it is the death of Jesus as the Son of Man. It is ‘the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many’ (Mark 14:24; Matthew 26:28).

The response of the Jews is hostile: they ‘began to fight among themselves’. A fourth ‘Very truly…’ saying repeats previous teaching in the context of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man. A new word is used for eating (trogo), one that is extremely physical, implying chewing or munching. Blood, an obvious Eucharistic word, occurs for the first time. This eating and drinking is now a condition for possessing eternal life, for being raised on the last day, and for mutual abiding in Jesus.

Thus, to possess eternal life one must:

see and believe in the person of Jesus, the bread of life (6:40);

hear and believe the revelation that Jesus embodies as that bread (6:45,47);

eat and feed on bread of the Eucharist (6:51,54,58). (Edmonds, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the portrayal of Wisdom as a woman in the Hebrew Testament and the attribution of human qualities to God that existed at the end of the universe. The text from Ephesians emphasizes prayer and our mission to live according to the values we have learned. Friar Jude reminds us of the realized eschatology of the “Bread of Life” and the connection to future eschatology at the end times.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that we need someone to be in solidarity with us, so we can learn what it means to be in solidarity with ourselves, and eventually with others. Have we forgotten how Jesus formed his disciples? 

We can read all the words of Jesus in the Gospels in a matter of hours, but Jesus spent three long years discipling the people who followed him. What he gave them was not so much his words but his example and his energy, his time and his touch. “Where do you live?” said the first two disciples of Jesus. “Come and see,” he replied, “so they went and saw where he lived, and stayed with him the rest of that day” (John 1:39). What a telling account! In John’s Gospel, one of his disciples even laid his head on the breast of Jesus (see John 13:23–25). They knew how energy was passed: not primarily by sermons and books, but by relationships and presence. (Rohr, n.d.)

We contemplate the relationships on our journey that have brought us life and wisdom as we connect to Jesus as the “bread of life” that energizes our compassion and charity in bringing life to our environment.

References

Crawford, D. (n.d.). Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries. OnlineMinistries. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/081824.html 

Edmonds, P. (n.d.). The Bread of Life. Thinking Faith: The online journal of the Jesuits in Britain. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/bread-life-john-6 

Ephesians, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ephesians/5? 

John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6?51 

Meditation on John 6:51-58. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://wau.org/meditations/2024/08/18/1053862/ 

Proverbs, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/proverbs/9?1 

Psalms, PSALM 34 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/34?2 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). A Helpful Relationship. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-helpful-relationship/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). He Who Eats This Bread Will Live Forever. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=aug18