Breaking the Word

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Thursday in the 2nd Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Children & Peacemakers

Readings: 1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7; Psalm 56:2-3, 9-10a, 10b-11, 12-13; Mark 3:7-12

In today’s gospel, we once again find Jesus doing something he has been doing earlier. He enjoins silence about himself. Especially in Mark’s gospel, Jesus regularly seems reluctant to broadcast his status as Messiah or Son of God. The exact reason for and significance of this so-called Messianic Secret continues to be an issue for scholarly debate. One possible reason to consider is the likelihood of misunderstanding. Even if people were to address Jesus by the right title, even if they were to apply to him an appropriate label, what difference would it make if they did not really understand what it all meant? Worse still, what if their understanding was less than accurate, or even warped? Isn’t it sometimes even dangerous to have the right answers but not know what they mean?

What then might it mean that Jesus is Son of God? To find the answer, at least the answer in the gospel of Mark, we’ll need to continue paying close attention to our readings each day. Even so, perhaps attention to the first reading might help us in our meditation on this very question. Here, the person of the moment must surely be Jonathan. There are several noteworthy things about him. In particular, he is the king’s son and he is also very fond of David. Jonathan is both son and friend. These two aspects of his identity put him in the best place to do what we see him doing in the reading. Jonathan intercedes with Saul on David’s behalf. And it’s also important to notice how the process is described in Jonathan’s own words: I will go out and stand beside my father in the countryside where you are, and will speak to him about you… The result? Saul has a change of heart, and the son and friend becomes a peacemaker.

As we listen to the story of Jonathan the peacemaker, do we not find ourselves reminded of the story of Jesus? He who was Son did not cling to his equality with His Father, but freely chose to stand with us in the countryside of our exile. The only difference, albeit a crucial difference, is that the one in need of a change of heart is less the Father than those to whom Jesus is sent. Jesus comes to urge us to turn again to the Father. And isn’t this what he is doing in the gospel? Isn’t this the deeper significance of all his preaching and healing and exorcizing? As Jonathan speaks with Saul about David, so does Jesus speak to us about His Father, urging us to a change of heart. Isn’t this how Jesus shows us what it means to be Son of God? To be Son is also to be friend and peacemaker.

There is perhaps one other important similarity, and difference, between the stories of Jonathan and Jesus. After their reconciliation, we are told that Jonathan brought David to Saul and David served him. Isn’t this also what Jesus does for us too? After our change of heart, Jesus ushers us into the service of His Father. The difference is that the relationship is a much closer one than that between David and Saul. For, as we are told in the Beatitudes of Matthew’s gospel: blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God (Matthew 5:10). As we enter into the Father’s service, Jesus’ identity becomes ours by adoption. We become peacemakers and friends and children of God.

What opportunities for peacemaking are there for the children of God 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 24, 2008

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