Breaking the Word

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Wednesday in the 17th Week of Ordinary Time (I)
Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
What It Feels Like

Readings: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99:5, 6, 7, 9; Matthew 13:44-46

If on Monday we were led to consider what the coming of God’s kingdom looks like, today we are invited to reflect upon what it might feel like. Perhaps we often have the sense that religion has much to do with sacrifice. And the Ten Commandments that we heard some days ago might even have confirmed us in this view: thou shall not this and thou shall not that… What then might the coming of God’s kingdom feel like if not sacrifice?

Of course, sacrifice does have a large part to play. We notice, for example, how in the first reading, the glow on Moses’ face causes him considerable inconvenience. People avoid him. He even has to put on a veil to cover his face. And the two people in today’s gospel make a considerable sacrifice in selling everything they own. But the accent in today’s readings is not on the feeling of having to make an unwelcome sacrifice. Despite being inconvenienced, Moses continues to enter the tent of meeting. And although the people in the parables sell everything they do it very eagerly and joyfully.

I’m reminded of a story I heard recently about the university undergraduate who was rather lazy. He was often too busy to help when his mother needed him to run an errand at the neighbourhood grocery store or when his younger brother needed some help with his homework. Then he met a new girlfriend. And suddenly, even though the girl lived on the other side of the island, he’d think nothing of visiting her everyday just to run errands for her mom and to tutor her brother. The difference falling in love makes…

Isn’t this what the coming of the kingdom feels like? Not so much the obligation to make sacrifices as the love that motivates it. And haven’t we more than ample reason to fall in love? After all, it is God who has first loved us in sending us Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice that takes away our sins (see 1John 4:10).

In the oft-quoted words of the late Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (27th Superior General of the Society of Jesus):

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

2 comments:

AnonymousThu Aug 02, 03:59:00 am GMT+8
Yes, falling in love does make a big difference. But STAYING IN LOVE is the challenge.

It's easy to fall in love - so natural and heady and what a rush! After awhile, reality sets in and you discover other aspects of your partner and/or how life together really is. And it's normal to get jaded and tired.

I think that this same phenomenom also happens for our faith. We're so fervent and enthusiastic at the start, but it often fades over time.

Let's try to rediscover the love and love more!
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AnonymousThu Aug 02, 08:04:00 am GMT+8
How does the Kingdom of God "feel" like? Fr Chris postulates it's like "falling in love". The less romantic among us may be more inclined to 'visualise' the Kingdom in the metaphors Jesus Himself used: mustard seed, the sower, the lost coin, the prodigal son, etc., etc. Whatever the imagery, I venture to assert that it is impossible to describe the Kingdom. In my own feeble perception, the Kingdom is a hotch potch of the good, bad and indifferent, but always edifying, always surprising, always enriching. You sense the Kingdom through the grace that is in you.

St Alphonsus Liguori is, of course, the founder of the Redemptorist Order. The Redemptorists in Singapore are well known for their zealous, Bible-thumping preaching, to wake us all up to the reality of God's Kingdom within and around us.

Let us pray for Redemptorists every where but especially in Singapore, that their witness and their ministry will be true to the aspirations of Alphonsus and palpably bring about God's Kingdom here and now.
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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