Breaking the Word

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Saturday in the 1st Week of Ordinary Time (II)
I Still Haven’t Found…

Readings: 1 Samuel 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1; Psalm 21:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Mark 2:13-17

If homilies or reflections are permitted to have theme songs, then the one I’d choose for today is probably U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. The choice seems obvious, especially when we consider Saul’s experience in the first half of the first reading. We’re told that he sets out to find his father Kish’s lost asses, but despite scouring the hill country of Ephraim, the land of Shalishah, and the land of Benjamin, (yes, please sing it with me) they still didn’t find what they were looking for.

But the fruitless search is only half the story. The other half is really about finding. Saul sets out in search of asses, and ends up finding a kingdom. The handsome herdsman stumbles upon his destiny and becomes a kingly hero. For in him Samuel and the people of Israel discover the ruler they’d been looking for. What at first sight appears to be a fruitless search thus bears fruit in a surprising way.

Something similar is waiting to happen in the gospel, at least for the Pharisees who were watching Jesus in order to find something to criticize. Jesus goes out along the sea looking for disciples, but ends up eating with tax collectors and sinners. Another failed search? Not quite. At least not for Jesus. For he did not come to call the righteous but sinners. Instead of Jesus, it is the Pharisees who haven’t found what they’d been looking for. They are disappointed in Jesus. They are hoping for a Messiah, but Jesus doesn’t seem to fit the bill. To really find that for which they are searching, something in them must change. But what?

We get a hint of an answer from the story of Saul. But being only an excerpt, the first reading doesn’t quite give us the whole picture. We need to refer to the Bible. There we witness two interior shifts. The first takes place in the heart of Kish, Saul’s father, and it is expressed in these words addressed to his son: The asses which you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the asses and is anxious about you (1 Samuel 10:2 (RSV)). Understandably, when his son fails to return, Kish comes to see that he values his son over his asses. What we have here is a shift in desire, or rather a realization of a deeper desire. The second interior shift is similar and even more crucial to the story. It takes place in Saul himself. It is expressed in the following words, which Samuel uses to help Saul to shift his desires from the asses to the kingship of Israel: As for your asses that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have been found. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father’s house? (9:20). And this shift in Saul is perhaps even better expressed in 10:9, where we are told that God gave him another heart.

Isn’t this the kind of shift that needs to take place also in the Pharisees? In order to find what they are looking for, truly looking for, they need first to examine and reassess their desires, and to consider carefully who Jesus is and what he is offering them. They need to be willing to allow their hearts to be changed.

And what about us? What shifts do we need to undergo in order to find what we are looking for?

1 comment:

AnonymousMon Jan 21, 08:37:00 am GMT+8
Fr Chris, you have raised the bar of religious blogging several notches high! Praise be to God the Ultimate Blogger! First, your blog site had soothing music, then delightful visuals and graphics. And now ... who would have imagined U2's short video on YouTube!

As far as I'm concerned, I've found my daily Scripture reflection site! :)

My take home message from Fr Chris' reflections today is to be completely open to possibilities and opportunities even as we search, and not be closed to situations and events through which God may be gently leading us. Dare we make that dis-comforting change in our lives?
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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