Breaking the Word

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Thursday in the 1st Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot
Turning the World Upside Down

Readings: 1 Samuel 4:1-11; Psalm 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25; Mark 1:40-45

Have you ever done a handstand or a headstand before? It’s not really a pleasant experience. The blood rushes to your head, and the world looks disconcertingly different. But then, there are some who claim that there are health benefits to the practice. I bring this up because our readings today call to mind the following verse from another part of the bible. In the Revised Standard Version of Acts 17:6, we find this accusation leveled against Paul and Silas by the Jews of Thessalonica: These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also…

If our readings today have anything in common, this seems to be it. In the first reading, the Israelites are used to experiencing God fighting on their side, especially when the ark is with them. Isn’t this why they raise a mighty shout at the arrival of the ark from Shiloh? They are confident that God will fight on their side and lead them to a great victory against their enemies the Philistines. But their world is turned upside down when they are made to suffer two disastrous defeats. Their feelings are poignantly expressed in their question: why has the Lord permitted us to be defeated today by the Philistines?

At least in the context of the first book of Samuel, the answer seems clear. God has forsaken them because they have first forsaken God. In particular, the priestly family comprising Eli and his two sons has been unfaithful to God. As such, in handing the people of Israel over to the Philistines, God is, in effect, fighting for them against a far more dangerous enemy. God turns their world upside down only so that they might acknowledge the error of their ways and turn back to God.

Doesn’t Jesus do something similar in the gospel? In a culture wherein lepers are shunned, Jesus turns the world upside down by allowing his compassion to move him to heal a leper by touching him. But that’s not all. Isn’t Jesus turning the world upside down in even deeper ways? In a culture that places great emphasis on honor and shame, Jesus shuns apparently positive publicity because he judges it to be contrary to his mission. His compassionate touch quickly turns into a stern warning: see that you tell no one anything… In a culture that considers suffering as a punishment for sin, or otherwise as a curse from God, Jesus willingly suffers for the sake of love. Not only does he touch and heal the leper, he actually ends up taking the leper’s place at the margins of society. We’re told that he remained outside in deserted places. Does this miracle story not turn our minds to the bigger picture of what Jesus comes to do? Does it not remind us of how, by his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Jesus comes to turn our world upside down so that our hearts might be turned back to the Father? And is this not the same mission that we are invited to share, as Paul and Silas were?

As we reflect over our Mass readings today, perhaps we might consider the different ways in which God might be nudging us into a handstand.

How does God wish to turn our world upside down today?

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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

Thursday, January 17, 2008

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