Breaking the Word

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Tuesday After Epiphany
I Stand Amazed

Readings: 1 John 4:7-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:34-44

Over Christmas, I often found myself among people speaking in a foreign language. And there were occasions when everyone would suddenly break into laughter. Everyone, that is, except me. Not understanding what had just been said, I was left looking around blankly, waiting for someone to explain the joke to me in a language I could understand. And, of course, one can have the same experience even when one understands the language being spoken but doesn’t know the context that makes what is said funny. Whatever the case may be, we know how to tell whether or not we understand something humorous. If we get it, we will be moved to laughter.

Perhaps something similar happens at Christmas too. How do we know whether we get it? How do we know whether we are beginning to grasp the profound mystery of Christ’s coming among us? Of course, the first reading gives us the final answer in no uncertain terms: everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God… If we truly grasp the mystery of God’s love for us in Christ, we will find ourselves moved to love, and to love in a very specific way. In the words of the opening prayer, we will become more like him who became like us.

But that’s not all. Just as we only truly laugh when we react to something funny, so too do we only truly love when we are moved by a particular reaction to God’s love for us made manifest in Christ. One such reaction is amazement, the same amazement that the people experienced when the shepherds shared with them the good news of Christ’s birth on Christmas night.

Indeed, the story in our gospel today helps us to consider aspects of the Christmas mystery that could amaze us. For one, like Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five thousand, Christmas is also God’s response to a specific situation of difficulty. In the words of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, God gazed on the whole surface… of the world, full of people... going down into hell and decides that the Second Person should become a human being, in order to save the human race… (SpEx 102). The amazing thing about both these responses is their radical disproportion to the difficulty at hand. In the gospel, the hungry number no less than five thousand, and Jesus chooses to feed them with five loaves and two fish. In the Spiritual Exercises, the whole world is engulfed in the darkness of sin and death, and God chooses to be born as a helpless infant. The typical Singaporean might be forgiven for wondering whether other more effective, efficient, or impressive responses might not have been made.

But God’s response follows a different logic, the logic of love. Isn’t this precisely what makes it so amazing? For this is a logic of compassion: his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd… It is also a logic of collaboration. Jesus saves by challenging the sheep to shepherd one another: give them some food yourselves… And the abundance that results after Jesus has taken and blessed, broken and shared, is perhaps what brings our amazement to its climax: they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments…

How does the Lord wish to amaze us with his love today?

1 comment:

AnonymousWed Jan 09, 01:21:00 pm GMT+8
Last year, there was a TV ad of a pub / credit card (I forget which) announcing "Only the women get it". It was a play on the word "get" as in "acquire" when the other meaning is, of course, not missing the point, namely that the pub/credit card offerred special privileges to women. Which squares with Fr Chris' observation about a joke having its impact only when the language, culture and context are familiar. Did you get this: "The profound mystery of God made man"?

"Just as we only truly laugh when we react to something funny, so too do we only truly love when we are moved by a particular reaction to God’s love for us made manifest in Christ. One such reaction is amazement".

This Advent I was amazed by the choir I sang with as we rehearsed for the Christmas vigil Mass. It wasn't so much the (astounding) quality of the singing, as the depth, spontaneity and authenticity of the opening prayer before each rehearsal ... a praying from the bowels of the one praying, connecting with the Spirit in everyone, moving them to prayer as well. Each prayer left me visibly moved.

How amazing indeed this God of ours, to surprise us in the events and happenings of our daily lives when we least expect to encounter Him.
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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