Breaking the Word

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tuesday in Holy Week
Lead On…

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5ab-6ab, 15 and 17; John 13:21-33, 36-38

We have been speaking of Holy Week as a journey, as the sojourn among us of the God who empties himself for our sakes. We have been emphasizing the need, especially during this sacred time, first and above all, to remain focused on Jesus, to remain by his side, to gaze unflinchingly upon all that he says and does, all that he suffers and endures. For, very likely, our attention to Jesus will begin to raise questions for us, personal and communal questions that will probe our minds and our hearts, our lives and our world. Even as we watch Jesus walk the terrible way of the cross, for example, aren’t we challenged to examine the path that we ourselves prefer to take? Where are we going? Whose road are we traversing? The right questions, the truly authentic ones, arise only to the extent that we are willing first to focus our attention on the Lord.

And as we continue to do so today, our readings present yet another metaphor to help us penetrate more deeply into the significance of what we are witnessing. Especially in this week, all that happens to Jesus is to be seen not just as different stages of a journey. It is also something more. The first reading indicates what this more is with these words: The Lord… made of me a sharp-edged sword… He made me a polished arrow… The images evoked are those of battle. Indeed, in this week, not only is Jesus making a journey, but he is also fighting a war, he is engaged in a fierce conflict. What we are witnessing in this week is how Jesus allows himself to become the powerful weapon wielded by God in the perennial battle between light and darkness. I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.

But lest we misunderstand, lest we be too quick to apply worldly standards in evaluating what is essentially a cosmic battle, it is important for us to pay careful attention to how this war is waged. We need to consider the surprising strategy that God adopts. We need to see, for example, how God’s preferred weapon is the power of a suffering servant, someone whose training leads him to think that he had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength. We need to contemplate the way in which God’s light triumphs by first submitting humbly to the terrors of the night, the same night that falls when Judas leaves the upper room to betray his master. We need to allow these divine tactics to sink into our consciousness, and to transform us. For, like Peter, we are too much influenced by the ways of the world to follow the Lord into battle. We are still too much prone to deny the One we profess to follow, to desert the Captain at whose side we have sworn to fight. We need the training that Holy Week and the Easter Triduum afford us. In the excitement and exhilaration, the desolation and despair, of our daily strivings, we need to gaze upon Christ and allow his example to remind us that my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God… Only then can we begin to fight triumphantly by our Master’s side, and so to sing of the Lord’s salvation.

These reflections bring to mind memories of an image and a verse. The image is from The Two Towers, the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Just as the foul army of Sauron is on the verge of overwhelming Helm’s Deep, from the east Gandalf leads reinforcements to the rescue. And thus is victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Light triumphs over darkness. The verse is from the late John Henry Cardinal Newman:

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me…

On whose way are we walking, on whose side are we fighting, today?

2 comments:

AnonymousTue Mar 18, 03:31:00 pm GMT+8
As godfather to one of the Elects this Easter, after a year's chequered journey, I get to light the Easter candle and pass this on to my "godson".
At each stage of the Rites (acceptance, election and the scrutinies), all of us are being subjected to some form of soul searching on an individual level. Are we focused on the One, the very reason why we are here at all?
We are often drowned by the hustle and bustle of life that robs us of this one essential thing.
It also helps me to remember a wise Chinese proverb that says, "Do not curse the darkness, light a candle." Jesus is the candle that provides that light. Our effort is to light it.
Fr Chris as our S.D. one year, your illuminations renewed the fire in my belly.
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AnonymousWed Mar 19, 08:23:00 am GMT+8
During Holy Week, my mind drifts to Jesus' Passion and Death so graphically portrayed in Mel Gibson's epic Passion of the Christ, and I get rather emotional. After I snap out of it, I'm glad that I still feel for another human being, more so one Who was unjustly condemned to a horrific death. Then, I remind myself that Holy Week is beyond emotions. It is about will. It is the will of the Father and the Son to vanquish evil once and for all. And evil didn't take that lying down. But in all this, God is in charge.

This Holy Week, my mind also turns to the global financial upheaval caused by greed, mismanagement and imprudence, and which impacts the lives of everyone. My heart goes out especially to colleagues who, just yesterday, were told that they have been laid off. In all this, God is in charge.

36 hours to the holiest time in the Church's liturgical calendar. May we profit from the outpouring of graces this Easter Triduum.
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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