Breaking the Word

Friday, May 16, 2008

Friday in the 6th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Supplements Or The Complete Meal

Readings: James 5:9-12; Psalms 103:1-2, 3-4, 8-9, 11-12; Mark 10:1-12
Picture: CC Ayres no graces

Blood donors are often offered iron tablets after making a donation. As I understand it, the pills are meant to help their bodies to replenish the blood that has been drawn. They are offered only as supplements. No donor in his/ her right mind will view them as a complete meal. Imagine what would happen if someone decided to live solely on iron tablets and nothing else! Quite unthinkable, not to say laughable!

And yet doesn’t something similar seem to happen in discussions over spiritual matters? It’s quite undeniable, for example, that we live in a culture that is too much focused on the practical and the functional, to the extent that people often lose touch with who they are and why they do what they do. The danger in such a mentality becomes obvious, for example, when questions arise over how to deal with the aged and infirm, those who don’t seem able any longer to contribute to society in any practically useful way. In such a context, it’s quite understandable that many spiritual advisors have taken to reminding us of the distinction between being and doing. The idea is that we must not forget our inherent human dignity, our identity as daughters and sons of a loving heavenly Father. Surely this is a valid and even crucially important reminder. But it’s also important to remember that this advice is a supplement offered to repair a perceived deficiency. It would be quite ridiculous for anyone to think that we are meant only to be and so try to stop acting altogether. After all, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, acting follows upon being (agere sequitur esse).

This too appears to be the problem that the author of the first reading is facing today. The polemical tone of the reading is quite obvious. This is the way to talk to people of that kind, that is, people who emphasize faith as an adequate substitute for good deeds. Don’t such people bring to mind the foolish blood donor who tries to subsist on a diet of iron tablets alone? No, the point being made in the first reading is that one shouldn’t treat a supplement as a complete meal. Faith without good works is dead.

But that’s not all. Isn’t James’ argument itself also a supplement prescribed for a perceived deficiency? Shouldn’t we be careful about interpreting the reading in such a way as to treat good deeds as a complete meal? Consider, for example, someone who might be very busy with all sorts of charitable activities, but whose personal and familial life is in shambles. No doubt, for such a one, there may indeed be many good deeds to show, but might we not be forgiven for wondering at the extent to which they are truly manifestations of faith?

Clearly the same principle applies in the spiritual realm as in the medical: supplements are not meant to substitute for the complete meal. And it’s providential that, in the gospel today, Jesus reminds us what this meal is, the same meal in which we are partaking at this Eucharist. If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself take up his cross and follow me… For… anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it… Calling oneself a faith-filled Christian is insufficient if one isn’t willing to lose one’s life. Just as losing one’s life is inadequate if it’s not done for the sake of Christ and the gospel.

How are we being invited to continue feasting on the complete meal today?

1 comment:

AnonymousFri May 16, 06:26:00 pm GMT+8
There is this gnawing question: Can something good come out of charitable deeds, no matter how misplaced the intention? It’s hard to read into people’s heart, let alone your own.
Having said that, it behooves us to be circumspect and be wary of those who may either take advantage of one’s generosity (whatever the reason), or those who may just hope for assistance instead of pulling up their own bootstraps.
Sola fides and sola caritas (not sure if it’s an appropriate expression) cannot exist but in juxtaposition. One without the other does not resonate. The vertical dimension of the cross is not complete without embracing the horizontal – our fellow creatures.
A holistic approach to life takes us into loving self, loving others as an expression of loving God. The God of love expects no less.
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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