Breaking the Word

Monday, September 10, 2007

Monday in the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (I)
Joyful Effort

Readings: Colossians 1:24–2:3; Psalms 62:6-7, 9; Luke 6:6-11

Love is effortful. So says the late M. Scott Peck, the psychiatrist and author of the best-selling book The Road Less Traveled. I’m not sure what you think of this insight. But I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us were to respond with a collective groan or sigh. Of course, love is indeed effortful. Who can deny it? Love is less about romance than it is about commitment. To love is to commit one’s time and resources, and indeed one’s very self, to the beloved. We know that.

And our readings for today confirm the insight. We notice, for example, what the author of the letter to the Colossians goes through in order to achieve his aim of binding his readers together in love. He speaks frequently of having to struggle and to struggle wearily on… Jesus doesn’t seem to have it any easier in the gospel. His healing love for the man with the withered hand as well as for the scribes and Pharisees is met with misunderstanding and furious rejection. Yes, in the scriptures too, love is effortful.

But does being reminded of this fact make it any easier to love? Does it provide us with the energy we need, for example, to remain faithful to a spouse who is consistently absent – physically and emotionally – from the family home? Does it lighten the burden of the one who silently bears the implicit responsibility of caring for aged and ailing parents while her siblings raise their own respective families?

Which is why it’s important to notice something else about our readings and how love is portrayed in them today. For in addition to highlighting the effortful character of love, the readings also speak to us of love’s mysterious power. Quite amazingly, for example, in the midst of his struggles, the author of the first reading can actually write these stunning words: it makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now… Strangely, although love clearly places a burden on him, it is equally undeniable that love also provides him with the energy he needs to bear this burden with joy. And the source of strength by which he struggles wearily on is nothing less than the power of Christ driving him irresistibly. Moreover, not only is this the same power that Jesus manifested in the synagogue two thousand years ago, but it is also the same power that the crucified and risen One makes available to us even today. As we are reminded in the first reading: the mystery is Christ among you…

Our readings today do not simply remind us once again of our obligations and commitments. More importantly, they also encourage us to keep searching for and to remain connected to the power of Christ among us, the same power that helps us bear the burden of love with hearts filled with joy.

How might we seek and find this power today?

1 comment:

AnonymousTue Sept 11, 04:58:00 am GMT+8
One of the most important lessons I got from a Quest youth program was "Love is a Decision". Love is not a feeling, although it may seem so when you just fall in love and everything is new and fresh.

Love is hard, and sometimes it is difficult. This holds true for love between spouses, and love for children/parents.

I'm encouraged when I see old couples as I think that if they can do it, the rest of us can too. More and more, the family unit is under onslaught, it's much easier for a couple to split when there are no children, perhaps that's why the Pope is lamenting the dearth of children in Europe.

Children are the most obvious signs of a couple's love for each other, and God's love for us. Kids are also alot of work, and keep couples together because the job of raising them is not easy to take on alone!
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Breaking News: Easter

The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one "great Sunday." These above all others are the days for the singing of the Alleluia. The Sundays of this season rank as the paschal Sundays and, after Easter Sunday itself, are called the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sundays of Easter. The period of fifty sacred days ends on Pentecost Sunday. The first eight days of the Easter season make up the octave of Easter and are celebrated as solemnities of the Lord. On the fortieth day after Easter the Ascension is celebrated, except in places where, not being a holyday of obligation, it has been transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter (see no. 7).[R4] The weekdays after the Ascension until the Saturday before Pentecost inclusive are a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 22-26

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