Breaking the Word

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Thursday in the 18th Week of Ordinary Time (I)
National Day of Singapore
Why?!

Readings: Numbers 20:1-13; Psalms 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Matthew 16:13-23

My guess is that few of us will find it difficult to resonate with the question that the Israelites pose to Moses at Meribah. Why did you bring us out of Egypt, only to bring us to this wretched place? … There is not even water to drink! Why indeed! And the question becomes even more pointed when one considers who the Israelites are. They are not enemies upon whom the Lord might desire to wreak vengeance. Neither are they individuals of no consequence about whose welfare the Lord might be indifferent. No! Quite to the contrary. As they themselves rightly observe, they are the assembly of the Lord. They who were once no people, individuals scattered and oppressed, have now been liberated and gathered together, assembled, by God and promised a new and fuller life. Why then have they been led into this wilderness to suffer? Why… why… why…?!

This might well be the same question in the mind, if not on the lips, of Peter in today’s gospel. The place has changed: Meribah gives way to Caesarea Philippi. But isn’t the situation strikingly similar? Isn’t Peter being led by Jesus into a wilderness of sorts? Shortly after professing his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Peter finds himself having to wrap his mind around the news that Jesus is destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously… Shortly after he sticks out his neck and commits himself to following Jesus, Peter finds himself being led by Jesus to an apparently wretched place. Why?! As with the Israelites, the question becomes even more pointed when we consider what Jesus says of Peter: you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. The parallel with the situation in the first reading is quite striking, especially when we consider that ekklesia, the Greek word for church, means assembly.

Each in its own way, the two readings present us with situations in which God’s chosen ones find themselves being led to a place of trial. They suffer hardship precisely because they have allowed themselves to be assembled by God. Is it at all difficult for us to identify with these biblical situations? Do we not also have similar experiences of meeting difficulties precisely because we decide to follow the Lord, precisely as a result of trying to live out our identity as church, as members of the assembly of the Lord? And when this happens, do we not find ourselves spontaneously asking the same question? Why?!

It’s possible to come up with various answers to this terribly poignant question. It’s possible, for example, to say that God is helping to wean the people from the death-dealing waters of Egypt so as to help them acquire a taste for the life-giving waters of Meribah. And this may well be true. But what seems more important to note is that, in the first reading, God doesn’t offer a direct answer to the question. Neither does Jesus in the gospel. Instead, in the first reading, God simply responds by making water flow from the rock, so that the people might assuage their thirst. The early Fathers of the Church saw the rock at Meribah as a figure of Christ on the Cross. Just as water flowed from the rock when it was struck by Moses’ branch, so did blood and water flow from the side of Jesus when it was pierced by a centurion’s lance (see John 19:34).

When we do find our throats burning with thirst and our parched lips mouthing the question why?!, perhaps we might ponder the mystery of Meribah and Caesarea Philippi, and in the process, find ourselves acquiring a taste for the waters of life.

2 comments:

AnonymousFri Aug 10, 08:12:00 am GMT+8
Those of us who watched the annual National Day Parade yesterday would have been moved by the pomp and pageantry. This is what we have grown accustomed to expect - and nothing less.

The reading from Numbers speaks directly to us on the occasion of Singapore's 42nd anniversary of independence.

- as He did the Israelites of old, God assembled a people in the Lion City out of disparate ethnicities and religions. He is still doing it today.

- He purified the Israelites for forty years to prepare them for the land that He promised them. In the bounty that Almighty God has lavished on all who lived in Singapore for the last 42 years, what may our trials have been? Or have we been so de-sensitized by the material well-being that we missed the opportunities for growth?

LORD God, we thank you for your all your blessings on our country and home, and pray that you will continue to shelter us under the shadow of your wing.
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AnonymousFri Aug 10, 03:31:00 pm GMT+8
Water flowing out of the rock.....

I am reminded of Singapore's lack of natural drinking water and a newspaper article about a Palestinian official's quote about their late President Arafat's respect for the Singaporean people. That although we are a small nation and lacked natural resources, we a disciplined people who make a living scrapping out of rocks.

Let us not forget God's forgiveness, mercy and His loving hand in our survival and that He will always be able to find enough upright people (at least 10 ???) in the land (Gen 18:16-33) as we walk in this globalised world.
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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