Faith acting through the body

Good Choices are inspired

Ancient blessing bearing fruit in Laudato Si

Laudata Si and how our eyes see Creation

See the change and honour the Spirit

Advent of Shalom

A Vision of Shalom

The Roman Catholic Lectionary uses texts today which focus on the hope for peace which will be a theme for Advent. The passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is used in the Christian Prayer known as the Liturgy of the Hours. The mountain of the Lord is where the authority of God will end all dispute between peoples who will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Friar Jude Winkler discusses the hymn which Isaiah and Micah share about the profound shalom which brings peace to all nature. The image from the Gospel of Matthew of Jesus and the Roman Centurion together as an agent of the pagan occupying authority asks a favour of the Jewish rabbi and is praised for faith which will put him in the company of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is truly a source of hope that we have the ability to see that God is present and works in those we place on the outside. Pope Francis has returned to Rome from a visit to Istanbul where he gave witness to the deep desire for profound peace by pausing to face Mecca while in the Blue Mosque and by bowing to seek the prayers and blessing of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. The shalom of Isaiah comes when authority bows to service and the Will of God invites us to reconcile and begin to make pruning hooks from our spears.

Disciples lose self

Disciples reviewed

The Text from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today offers a reflection on the nature of discipleship. Fr Robert Barron asserts the world changing consequence of Paul’s decision to follow the Spirit to Europe. This short preview from the video series Catholicism captures the mission taught Paul by Jesus. Friar Jude Winkler comments on how Paul countered problematic Corinthians by serving all in whatever manner they needed. The letter to the Corinthians tells how he made himself a slave to all. The Gospel from Luke declares the relationship Jesus shows between teacher and disciple. Don Schwager understands that the healing necessary for the disciple to see the blank in his own eye comes from the Divine Physician. Maureen McCann Waldron quotes Pope Francis who challenges the disciples of Jesus to stop being gossips. A look within ourselves will reveal gifts from God which when brought to serve others will reduce our hypocrisy as we strive to walk in Jesus steps.

Ideas in conflict

The texts today from the Roman CatholicLectionary offer us some sobering reflection on how we are mislead by our slavery to our ideas and our personal position to act in ways completely foreign to the Way of Life. Yeshua Ben Sira, Jesus son of Sirach, was a scribe living and teaching in Jerusalem a couple of centuries before the birth of Jesus who,Friar Jude Winkler tells us, was writing to show, in part, that Jewish philosophers and heroes were every bit as great and powerful as the Greek persons who were promoted during the dominance of Hellenistic rulers and culture in the region. The elegy today to David is not an historically balanced account of his rule. As Friar Jude notes, it omits any reference to the murderous and adulterous transgressions of King David. The difference of opinion between King Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, and John the Baptist, who is portrayed in the Gospel of Mark today as being of interest to Herod as a holy man with challenging ideas, means he is beheaded as a consequence of a series of actions in which a hasty promise is carried out so that Herod may not lose face among his courtiers. The Wisdom, which in our religious tradition has been so treasured, vanishes as we rush to defend concepts, ideas and assumptions which we hold very tightly. A recentmessage of Pope Francis to world youth asks them to focus for this year on the happiness which is ours when we adopt the lifestyle of the Beatitude which exhorts us to be poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) and to know the Kingdom of God. The pope links the poverty of spirit to the description of Jesus to the Philippians as the One who emptied himself (Philippians 2:1-11). Pope Francesco invokes the life of his namesake, the Poor Man of Assisi as one who embraced poverty of spirit. In the recent action of the Pope to reach out to Muslim believers he is acting, according to Dr. Akbar Ahmed, a foremost Islamic scholar, in the tradition of St Francis who befriended a Muslim Sultan during the Crusades. It is difficult for us to open our mind. A simple illustration is in the comment from Eileen Wirth of Creighton University about the difficulty Catholic liturgists have with the life and joy in simple congregational singing that we find as a witness to life in Protestant communities. The sobering reality of violence rooted in a clash of ideas is offered a counterbalance of happiness for those who are poor in spirit.

Popular piety

The evangelizing power of popular piety is a theme in the apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, the Joy of the Gospel. There are great traditions of popular piety associated with the celebration of the Presentationof the Lord today. The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today carry themes of great joy and some fear and trepidation. The Messianic Promise of God is delivered to the people in the words of the Prophet Malachi and this brings hope of the return of the majesty of the Davidic Kingdom and at the same time the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap remind the people that their lack of observance of the ancient command to put God first may demand they change and be purified. The Letter to the Hebrews deals with the Son of God who comes to fulfill the Promise of the Messiah chooses to be humbled as human who submits to rejection by the people to the point of death to free people from death and to be the perfect sacrifice to expiate sin. Popular piety today traditionally includes processions and blessing of candles (Candlemas). This day, until recent times, marked the end of the Christmas Season. Scholars, like Robert P. Heaneyof Creighton University, find in the structure of the Nativity Narrative in the Gospel of Luke to be framed between two bookends of elderly couples in the Temple astounded by miraculous birth. (Zachariah and Elizabeth; Simeon and Anna). The actions of the Holy Family described in the text from Luke indicate observance of the purification rules in Mosaic Law involving pregnant women forty days after childbirth and the offering of the first born son to God. (Some scholars suggest that Luke, a Gentile, may have been somewhat ignorant of Jewish traditions) Perhaps the beeswax candles with which we will celebrate Church (or home) liturgy in the next year will be blessed today and we will have a sign of the Incarnate present to us and maybe we will be called to deepen our experience with the guidance in the Sacred Texts and in some way the message which is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:23 ) will be our lived experience and our popular piety will be in collaboration with the exhortation of Papa Francesco.

Presence becomes personal

The passage today in the Roman CatholicLectionary from the Second Book of Samuel continues our opportunity to reflect on the role of the Presence of God in the life of the early kings of Israel, especially Saul and David and how this Presence is experienced in varying degrees by David. In the episode today, the Prophet Nathan brings awareness to David that God is aware of the sins of adultery and murder which David has committed with Bathsheba and Uriah. The idea that we have secrets from God can strangely seem possible to us when His Presence is taken for granted. Pope Francispreached yesterday on the theme of how  Christian mediocrity leads to loss of sense of sin. Friar Jude Winkler notes how David is brought to seek reconciliation with God through the intervention of Nathan. Who might be acting as prophet to us now as we may be neglecting to act in accord with the will of God? DanielPatrick O'Reilly of Creighton University recalls how his wife brought the Presence of God to his personal situation. When we are moved, or in great moments, overcome by gratitude and thanksgiving, we are sometimes able to see the Nathans of our life who have brought us back to the path of faithfulness. DavidWilkerson suggests that David, when confronted by Nathan, becomes fearful of the loss of the Presence in his life. David witnessed the decline of Saul when God was no longer part of his life. The disciples in the text from the Gospel of Mark are described by Friar Jude as fishermen who are accustomed to speaking harshly when a person on their boat is sleeping as the forces of nature appear to be focused on sinking their craft. They had forgotten in their distress that Jesus was bringing Presence to them in the deep personal way which meant that they would get through their difficulty. We are not guaranteed that the passage through difficulty takes us to the destination we would pick. The nature miracle of calming the waters was both a cause of relief that they had avoiding drowning and at the same time fear for their inattention to Presence with power over life, death, good and evil. Our need is to buck up and move on with the faith in the continuing guidance of His Presence.

Da Jesus surprises

Psalm 144 in the texts from the RomanCatholic Lectionary today praises God as the rescuer of his servant David. The context of the psalm is a deliverance from enemies in battle. The passage from the first Book of Samuel tells of the battle between the giant of the Philistines, Goliath and the shepherd boy of the Israelites, David. The role of Divine Providence in this battle may be slightly different than we assume. The decision of David to engage Goliath, who was armed as heavy infantry, with the deadly accurate weapon of the Middle East ‘slinger’ is described by MalcolmGladwell as a strategic advantage for David especially considering that Goliath exhibited some symptoms of a medical condition which made him slow to react and likely caused double vision. There are more surprises associated with the Gospel today including the choice of Pope Francis to reflect on this episode from the Gospel of Mark as translated by the Da Jesus Book, which is a Hawaiian version of the New Testament written in Hawaiian Pidgin. Friar Jude Winkler comments on how the observance of the Sabbath for Christians, in the light of Jesus example in the Gospel, is to love through service. Our very busy work weeks point to Sunday as a time to be of service to those who will benefit from our presence and kindness to bring them restoration now. Our tendency to procrastinate for a better or more acceptable time is brought to question by Jesus, Who would have likely avoided the controversy if He decided to quietly help the man with the withered hand. Friar Jude declared that Jesus would not wait any longer to restore the man to health. Our need to seek Divine Providence in how we act to protect unborn children is emphasized by Jeanne Schuler from Creighton University as she cites Annie Dillard, an English journalist, observing the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta who perceived that the sisters had decided that in all circumstances life is sacred.  The sanctity of life stands as a truth which challenges us to act without waiting any longer to restore health to a society which treats termination of life as a personal choice, a military collateral damage, a judicial necessity, a social economic consequence and a release from burden for the elderly. The shepherd boy moves with God to reveal great strength. Pope Francis in his apostolic letter on the Joy of the Gospel encourages the learned to seek the Gospel lived by the poor and marginalized. The victory of truth is guided by God.

Two rebellions with modern lessons

The texts today in the RomanCatholic Lectionary from the Gospel of Luke and the Book of First Macccabees show us two rebellions against two conquerors of the land of Israel and give us an opportunity to consider what determines our course of action against the forces which may be opposing our Life in the Spirit. Some of the people in the time of the priest Mattathias, who out of zeal for the traditions of the people of the Covenant murders the offenders and begins a rebellion, looked at the adoption of Hellenistic rules and regulation about religion as a kind of modernization, according to Friar Jude Winkler. This acceptance of the regulation of the state of religious practice is too present in our so called modern time. The grief of Jesus over the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans after another rebellion about 200 years after Mattathias is used by Andy Alexander, S.J. of Creighton University to recall the recent lament of Pope Francis at Lampedusa that the modern world is losing any ability to live the grief of those suffering because of our political, social and economic attitudes, processes and decisions. How will our zeal to live the invitation of Jesus to intimacy with the Divine present itself in the battle against forces which work on our indifference to the human cost of the way the modern world is conquering our sense of basic justice. Our zeal to provide the necessities of life to our brothers and sisters should motivate our action. The tension is between using the plough or the sword as it was for Isaiah (Isaiah 2:4) and Jesus. Let us begin in the model of Jesus with prayer and weeping.