Breaking the Word

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Tuesday in the 1st Week of Advent
Advent Advocate

Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Luke 10:21-24

Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever…

As was the case yesterday, the response to our psalm for today also provides a useful focus to our reflection. For in a sense, Advent is all about time, about the coming of the Lord’s time. And, as we will recall from previous years, Advent is a curious time, when we find ourselves in between the two comings of the Lord: his first coming at his birth and his second coming at the end of time.

We eagerly watch for this coming because, as promised, it will be a time of justice and peace, a time when God will decide aright for the land’s afflicted and when there shall be no harm or ruin on all of God’s holy mountain. These promises sound particularly poignant this week when, here in this land in which I find myself, a group of farmers will be completing their foot-march of 1600 kilometres, from their province to the country’s capital in order to garner support for their bid to have their ancestral lands restored to them. Indeed, our celebration of Advent should remind us that we are all still waiting for a time when people will no longer have to go to such lengths to see justice done. And as we wait, do we not also find ourselves called to work in the cause of justice and peace?

But the in-between nature of Advent also means that waiting and working cannot be our only preoccupations. For the time of the Lord is also already upon us. Isn’t this the reason why, in the gospel, Jesus can joyfully offer a heartfelt prayer of praise and thanks to the Father for what the Father has already done? Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike… If it is true that the time of the Lord, the time of justice and peace, has already arrived, then Advent must also be for us a time of revelation, recognition and rejoicing.

Even so, it’s necessary to acknowledge the challenge that we face. It is not easy to wait for something we need urgently, just as it is not easy to see and to recognize something that seems to remain hidden. For the first requires courage, and the second, wisdom. Isn’t this why our readings today suggest to us the need for a companion on our Advent journey? We don’t often hear about this companion except when Pentecost comes around. And yet, both our readings today speak about the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit in whom Jesus is anointed and under whose influence he rejoices. Isn’t it also only in the Spirit that we can receive the courage and wisdom we need to spend this season fruitfully?

If Jesus is the reason for the season, and the Father’s house its destination, then the Spirit must surely be our much-needed advocate, our companion on the way.

How might we better open ourselves to the Spirit’s influence today?

1 comment:

AnonymousWed Dec 05, 08:52:00 am GMT+8
Hi Chris! Welcome back from your spiritual hiatus. I am sure many of your readers must have missed your spiritual insights. I know I did.

May I share with you what I shared with the people at Mass yesterday?

God love you,

Luke

1st Week of Advent (Tue)

God has a great love of giving the underdog a chance. There are a lot of us who love to see this kind of thing happening in the stories that we read and the movies that we watch. You know – the kind where the poor girl who had a tough childhood and has her dream come true in the end, or the ugly guy gets the pretty girl, or the down and out who wins the state lottery. God loves that kind of turnout as well. He must be the champion of the champions of the underdog.

There is a certain tension that is prevalent in both of today’s readings. The divide between the learned and clever, juxtaposed against the ‘mere children’. Jesus, who reveals who God is for us all (a loving Father), is the one who actually straddles and stands between the two seeming extremes. And not just here in today’s gospel, where the learned are opposed against the ‘mere children’. Elsewhere in the gospel too, we see Jesus holding that tension between opposites. He is the bridge between the healthy and those who are infirm; between the rich and the poverty stricken; between the chosen and the gentiles; between the saved and the sinner. Where before there was no own who would stand there and bridge that gap, now stands Jesus, who really is the “messiah” who would not only do the unthinkable, but the downright necessary. Fr Richard Rohr’s writings helped me to see that even at his death, he holds the ‘tension’ at Calvary, where he hangs right there, between the good thief and the bad thief. Pure genius.

How else then, can the opposites live side by side in the new ‘home’ where even opposites will no longer see conflict and division but in Jesus, a new kind of harmony. Isaiah images this in a very graphic way. Opposites no longer fighting and devouring one another, but co-living in a new harmony. Wolf and lamb; panther and kid; calf and lion; cow and bear; lion and ox; infant and cobra. We all have people in our lives where we have not been able to hold the tension well. At most, we tolerate. That’s not the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is more than tolerance. It is a new level of living. And only when we usher in the Messiah into our lives can this level of living be realised.

Jesus is the only one who makes this possible. But it’s not for all to see, for even some prophets and Kings could not, apparently. In my poverty of spirit, I am the pauper justaposed against the prophets and Kings that Jesus metions. And here, Jesus stands between us, bridging once more that great divide. He allows me to see and hear something that others cannot. I am the underdog given that chance. Jesus is giving this unworthy underdog that chance. Jesus told his disciples this in private, and he tells us too. If the old prophets and Kings could not hear and see, we, baptised as Priests, Prophets and Kings have heard and have seen. The adventure in Advent is to take this from private to public. And do it with joy. There’s an ‘advent’ in advent-ure. Let the adventure begin.
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