Breaking the Word

Monday, April 21, 2008

Monday in the 5th Week of Easter
Seeking the Eternal

Readings: Acts 14:5-18; Psalm 115:1-2, 3-4, 15-16; John 14:21-2614:1-12
Pictures: CC RomulusRueda

Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us eternal joy in this changing world…

These are the words with which we began our opening prayer at Mass today. They also present us with a useful starting point for our reflection on the readings. To begin with, they invite us to ask ourselves what is our instinctive reaction to novel situations in this changing world of ours. And how do our reactions compare with what we find in the first reading? Whatever may have been the actual situations in Iconium and Lystra, it’s quite clear that Paul and Barnabas represent change. They offer a new teaching that’s as provocative as it is powerful. And it’s very striking how diametrically opposed are the reactions they evoke in each of these cities respectively. They are almost stoned in Iconium and literally idolized in Lystra. What is it that prompts these two populations to react to change in such apparently opposite ways? One resists it to the point of violence, while the other embraces it to the point of worship. What is it that prompts these two extreme reactions, neither of which is adequate from a Christian perspective?

Is it not likely that opposite though these reactions may be, they actually spring from a very similar way of looking at things in our changing world? This is a perspective that tends to delight in fashioning false gods out of worldly things. Quite obviously, for those in Iconium, their preferred gods are threatened by the words and activities of Paul and Barbabas, just as those in Lystra have theirs confirmed. So, naturally, the former persecute while the latter worship. What is lacking in both these populations is the ability to see things not as gods in themselves, but as signs pointing to the One True God. As Paul says to the Lystrans concerning the marvels of nature: God did not leave himself without witness, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons… What we find lacking, as much in Iconium as in Lystra, is the ability, and the resolve, not to cling to the merely transitory, but to seek in it what is truly eternal. But how does one do this?

The process involves a meeting of two movements. We find a reference to the first in our opening prayer, where we spoke of our desire for what (the Father promises). And the second is found, of course, in the gospel, where Jesus speaks of how he and the Father will make their dwelling with us. For us who are Christian, the process of learning to see the eternal in the changing involves an experience of how our deep desire for God finds fulfillment only in Jesus the Lord. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him… This love is expressed in keeping Jesus’ word, in clinging to him who is the Eternal Word Made Flesh, rather than to any other transitory thing. It is not always an easy thing to do as it will often require us to release our grip on things that pass away. Yet, we are not left to our own devices. For, as Jesus reminds us, our love for him is lived in the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

How is this same Spirit empowering and enlightening us to continue clinging to Christ alone, and so to seek the Eternal in our changing world today?

1 comment:

AnonymousTue Apr 22, 07:55:00 am GMT+8
Just the other day, several colleagues were debating on why the turmoil and upheaval never abates in the organization I work for. It's because, they reason, we don't have core values that are perenniel and that endure in a changing world. Our world view, while it is resilient, at the same time corrupts and is susceptible to being corrupted. It is one thing to be able to adapt to a changing world and quite another to compromise what one believes in to survive.

I'm glad Jesus taught us His core values. Jesus' core values are durable and eternal and have withstood the test of time. And until the end of time as we know it, His core values will be in conflict with those of the false gods.

Holy Spirit, empower us to sense the eternal in the changing, and grant us companions on our journey together.
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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