Breaking the Word

Friday, March 14, 2008

Friday in the 5th Week of Lent
Shelter in the Storm

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 18:2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7; John 10:31-42

We’ve been seeing plenty of rain and thunderstorms this week. I was caught in one a couple of days ago while accompanying some visitors to a local park. Thankfully we found a convenient shelter before the drizzle had developed into a downpour. It was just a simple little gazebo with a few benches in it. Nothing much to look at. And we had to share it with quite a few others. But we were grateful for the refuge it provided. Even so, it’s probably true that, if not for the storm, we would have probably ignored it completely, and happily continued on our way. Isn’t it interesting how one tends to take these shelters for granted until one really needs them?

We can probably say the same too, of our readings today. When we hear the psalmist profess his love for God who is my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, isn’t it easy to miss the significance of his words? Isn’t it all too easy for us simply to pass them over, just as my friends and I would probably have passed by the shelter in the park? Isn’t it interesting how one tends to take shelters for granted until the onset of the storm?

Which is why it’s important to notice how both our readings are set in a gathering gale, a storm of a very particular type. The winds and rains, the lightning and thunder, come in the form of persecution and alienation. And what makes the storm most unbearable is probably its source. In the words of Jeremiah: all those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. It is none other than his friends, the very people whom he has dedicated his life to helping, who are now his oppressors. The same is true for Jesus. I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me? Can we not hear the pathos that accompanies this cry? A terrible storm is brewing in the lives of Jeremiah and Jesus, a storm that will isolate them from all earthly help and assistance. And it is at this crucial time of their loneliness and desolation that they bear eloquent witness to us of the fidelity of God. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God; from his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.

But that is not all. Our readings speak of more than just the experience of two men who find shelter in God in the midst of the storm. For, as the gospel reminds us, although Jesus is human, he is also God. In his experience we see more than just a man who is vindicated because he entrusted his cause to the Lord. Rather, in his life, death and resurrection, we actually witness God’s marvelous response to our cry for help. Engulfed as we are in the terrible storm of our own guilt, blinded as we are by the torrential downpour that is the effect of our sin, God does not stand passively by, waiting for us to stumble upon the safe refuge that he provides. Instead, in Christ, God braves the winds and the rains to bring us to safety. Isn’t this the substance of the incredible works that Jesus speaks about in the gospel, works that culminate in the Mysteries that we will celebrate most especially over the Easter Triduum? In Christ, God comes to us in our need. In him, the Shelter comes looking for us in the midst of the storm.

What is your experience of finding and providing safe shelter today?

1 comment:

AnonymousFri Mar 14, 07:45:00 pm GMT+8
This morning I experienced a storm of another kind, sitting in the dentist chair having my teeth cleaned, an inconvenient necessity.
My whole body involuntarily tensed, my hands clasped in anticipation of the worse. How can we seek relief whilst the dentist probe and scrap near your gums? It has to be endured in solitary discomfort.
Here my mind jolts me to the fact that pain is a necessary part of healing and has to be endured. Very often we neglect the basic discipline to look after our teeth, until we have need for the hut when it is raining.
In serendipitous moments we are reminded that in all ways we must acknowledge that God is working in our lives, come rain or shine.
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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