Breaking the Word

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Tuesday in the 5th Week of Lent
Drawn Upward

Readings: Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-2; John 8:21-30

Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him… Don’t we find it surprising that this should have been so? What, we may ask, was so attractive and convincing about Jesus’ words in the gospel of today that they prompted many to believe. And to believe in nothing less than the unbelievable, to accept that human though he was, Jesus was also divine. You will realize that I AM. You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. Do we feel the same attraction? Are we uplifted by the same inspiration as we listen to these same words in the gospel? Perhaps what is needed is for us to deepen our meditation, to consider more closely the import of what is being said.

We might begin, as St. Ignatius of Loyola often suggests, by situating ourselves within the scene. And the first reading proves helpful in this regard. The context is a people on a journey, and a rigorous and hazardous journey at that. The people are tired and hungry and thirsty, and their destination seems nowhere in sight. Can we not identify with such a situation? Whatever our particular circumstances, do we not know the feeling of being somehow tested to the outer limits of our endurance? Do we not know what it feels like to be worn out by the rigors of life? What happens then?

For Jesus, there are, broadly speaking, two ways in which one could respond. The first is the way of those who are from below. The Israelites provide only one example of what this can look like. Their complaints are not just expressions of concern, or requests for clarification. They lose faith both in Moses and in God. They forget God’s mighty action in their recent past, how God freed them from slavery in Egypt. They lose sight of God’s commitment to their future, God’s promise to lead them to a land where milk and honey flow.

In contrast, the singularly attractive feature about Jesus, what indicates so convincingly his origin from above, is the way in which he walks his earthly journey. In the midst of trials and tribulations, of pain and persecution, Jesus remains steadfast in his focus on his Father’s will. Although he suffers anxiety and anguish, although he cries out to his Father, he keeps walking the way that has been marked out for him. He does not water down his message. Neither does he run away. He keeps walking among us here below, until he is lifted up on a cross for the life of the world, just as Moses lifted the bronze serpent in the desert.

And isn’t this the reason for the attractive power of Jesus words in the gospel today? When we listen to them in faith, don’t we find ourselves drawn to gaze upon Christ on the cross? Aren’t we reminded of the extraordinary journey that Jesus walked for our sakes? Don’t we, who are from below, find ourselves drawn upward with Him who came to us from above?

As we approach Holy Week, how are we being drawn upward today?

1 comment:

AnonymousTue Mar 11, 10:34:00 am GMT+8
Your picture perfect photo caption takes me to my regular Saturday trek up Bukit Timah Hill where we exercise, have fellowship and reflect when situation allows.
Weather conditions change but occasionally the sound of silence is deafening within a fleeting moment. Nature demands a hearing.
In Christian meditation we learn to be still, simple and silent and in that midst discover the source of our being. We become nothing in order to be something.
To be in this world and yet to be out of it so that God can continue to work in my live is a practice I find relentlessly demanding. Yet if we open the eyes of our heart, we can see God in all things.
My journey is stretched with the need to be drawn upwards and yet fastened below by the very nature of who I am.
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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