Breaking the Word: Entering the Embrace

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Entering the Embrace

Feast of The Baptism Of The Lord (A)

(Catechetical Sunday)

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4,6-7; Psalm 28(29):1-4,9-10; Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17

Video: YouTube Chris Lee

My dear friends, do you ever feel like you are badly in need of a hug? Ever feel lost or lonely or depressed? Or perhaps discouraged by a significant failure? Or maybe anxious at starting something new? Whatever it is, you’d like nothing better than for someone who cares for you to give you a hug, a long, loving, reassuring embrace… Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps you’re feeling it even now…

A long, loving, reassuring embrace. That is what comes to mind when I ask myself the question that some of you may be asking too. Why do we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord so soon after Christmas Day? After gazing so intently, for the past two weeks, at a tiny helpless baby, isn’t it more than a little jarring to see him suddenly all grown up? Why shift so quickly from the newborn infant lying in the manger to the young adult emerging from the water? What do you think? …

This Christmas, I received two similar images of the Holy Family. Both of which I like very much. They are simple and yet beautiful. Beautiful in their simplicity. They each depict the child surrounded by his parents, in a way that makes the whole scene look like an embrace. With the baby Jesus at the centre. Can you imagine it? Perhaps you’ve seen something similar. Mary wraps Jesus in her arms, and Joseph enfolds both Mary and Jesus in his.

A long, loving, reassuring embrace. This is also something like what the gospel describes for us today. After Jesus is baptised by John, we’re told that the heavens opened, and the Lord is immediately enfolded, both by the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and by the voice of his heavenly Father saying, This is my Son, the Beloved, my favour rests on him.

Don’t you find it striking, my dear friends, that both at his birth, and again as he is about to begin his public ministry, Jesus allows himself to be enfolded in a long, loving, reassuring embrace? And notice that the Lord enters this embrace in a very particular way. In a way that may be fittingly described as an immersion. Not only does Jesus immerse himself into the waters of the river Jordan, he also immerses himself into the reality of our human condition. Humbly taking upon himself all our weakness and sinfulness, all our suffering and pain.

But that’s not all. In submitting himself as much to the embrace of God as to that of his earthly parents, Jesus also assumes the identity and mission of the servant, described in the first reading. The Lord comes to us as one whom God sends to bring true justice to the nations. To usher everyone into the peace and joy of right relationship. Right relationship with God. Right relationship with others. Right relationship with the whole of Creation.

So that not only does the Lord’s life and mission proceed from an embrace, he himself reaches out to embrace others. Indeed he himself is the Ultimate Embrace, offered by God to everyone. Jesus is the embodiment of that consoling message that Peter proclaims to Cornelius in the second reading… That God has no favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him. Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, God reaches out to gather everyone into God’s long, loving, reassuring embrace.

And isn’t this what the Christian life is really all about? Isn’t this what it means to be baptised? Isn’t this what we celebrate specially at Christmas, but also every time we gather for the Eucharist? To be a Christian is nothing more or less than to enjoy and to enter more deeply into right relationship with God. And to do this by imitating Christ, by continually and courageously allowing ourselves to be immersed in the often challenging and painful reality of our world. Reaching out to help usher others – especially those most in need of a hug – into the loving arms of God.

And isn’t this also the work that our brave and generous catechists will soon be committing themselves to undertake in a few short moments? Their task is not so much to convey the doctrines of our faith in the same way someone might post various pieces of information on social media. No. By dedicating themselves to the work of catechesis, they are choosing to fulfil in a perhaps slightly more formal way the same awesome responsibility that we all share by virtue of our baptism. The responsibility to usher others into the same embrace in which we have all been enfolded by God in Christ.

I’m reminded of these words from an old hymn that we still sometimes sing…

O let the Son of God enfold you with his spirit and his love.

Let him fill your heart and satisfy your soul.

O let him have the things that hold you,

and his Spirit like a dove,

will descend upon your life and make you whole.

Sisters and brothers, as we bring our celebration of Christmas to an end, what will you do to continue allowing yourself to be enfolded in God’s long, loving, reassuring embrace today?

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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

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Entering the Embrace

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