Breaking the Word

Monday, September 18, 2006

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Walking in the Way of Peace

Reading: Isaiah 50:5-9; Psalm 115; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

If there is one thing for which probably every person of goodwill prays it is peace. We know how much this gift is needed in our world, in our communities, in our families, in our hearts. We also know how elusive it is. But what does this peace look like that we are seeking? Is it really the same as that which God offers us, the same peace that Jesus promises his disciples, that which the world cannot give?

It may seem puzzling at first to speak of peace today. None of our readings contain this word. However, we can be confident that we are not barking up the wrong tree. Consider the second opening prayer for Mass today. Notice how the word peace is mentioned no less than three times. In the introduction, we are invited to pray for the peace which is born of faith and hope. In the body of the prayer, we declare our Father in heaven to be the source of our peace, and we ask that we may share in the peace of Christ.

Indeed, closer attention to our readings rewards us with renewed appreciation of this peace. What does the way of peace that is born of faith look like? Consider the second reading. As James reminds us, true faith – the kind that brings God’s peace – is expressed in and accompanied by good works, by care for the needy. Is this not why in our efforts at attaining peace for ourselves we seem inevitably to be ushered upon the road of charity and justice? Indeed, has it not been said there can be no peace without justice?

Still, as we well know, the way of faith is not one of pure activism. Even good works can be done for the wrong reasons. The way of faith is also the way of peace only because it is a way that is traversed in the presence of God. As the psalmist says, I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. We find this travel motif in the gospel today. In their travels with Jesus, in their walk in the presence of the Lord, the disciples are brought to a very important place: the villages around Caesarea Philippi. This is a place that all of us have to pass. Of course, we don’t all have to visit the Holy Land. But, in one way or another, we all pass through this place. For more than just a geographical location, the villages around Caesarea Philippi represent a milestone in the spiritual journey. This is a special place – a place of crisis and of contradictions. It is at once a place of praise and rebuke, a place of recognition and puzzlement, a place of consolation and challenge.

This is the place where we answer the question who do you say that I am, the place where we acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one, our personal and communal Lord and Savior. This is the place where we commit ourselves to walk in the presence of the Lord. And this is the also place where we are challenged to continue following even when the Lord turns to us – as he did to the first disciples – and invites us to renounce ourselves and take up our cross. This is when our desire to continue walking in the presence of the Lord is put to the test. This is when we begin to realize that the way of faith that brings peace is also the way of hope – hope against all hope, hope even in the face of death and destruction. This is the same hope we find in the words of Isaiah: I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed. It is the hope that makes the way of the cross also a way to glory and peace.

Is this the peace for which we seek? Will we be contented with this peace? Do we wish to walk in this way, even if we struggle along it, even if we sometimes stumble and fall? Or will we look elsewhere?

1 comment:

AnonymousMon Sept 18, 11:43:00 pm GMT+8
Your reflection touched a raw nerve. Increasing difficult to find peace as when one gets older, one is absorbed by time.
One can either take time or kill time. The former to reflect, the later to idle. To find a balance as in Zen, one need to manage time both in prayer and good works. Alas my motives and agenda are often called into question.
How can I not stumble and fall??
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 43-44

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19