Breaking the Word

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Thursday in the 6th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Love is Clear-Sighted

Readings: James 2:1-9; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Mark 8:27-33
Picture: CC ul_Marga

Love is blind… At first sight, this may seem to be the lesson to be found in the first reading for today. For here James tells us that the right thing to do is to keep the supreme law of scripture: you must love your neighbour as yourself; but as soon as you make distinctions between classes of people, you are committing sin, and under condemnation for breaking the Law. It would seem then, that to love is to be blind to the distinctions between classes of people, especially those between the poor and the wealthy.

There will likely be those who will delight in taking this teaching against distinctions to its apparent logical extreme and argue for a kind of radical equality of persons and roles. If love is blind to all distinctions then how can we justify having people in positions of authority, whether secular or ecclesiastical? How can we continue, for example, to distinguish between clergy and lay, the governors and the governed? Shouldn’t love blind us even to distinctions such as these?

And yet, at least in the Catholic tradition, we continue to speak of a hierarchical church, i.e., a church that is ordered according to distinctive roles, just as the human body is made up of various parts. How to justify such distinctions except to realize that rather than blinding us, true love should help us to see more clearly the reality that is before us. And an important aspect of this reality is that we are many parts that make up one body (1 Corinthians 12). We are each blessed with distinctive gifts and are called to fulfill various roles for the common good. Love is not blind. Quite the contrary, love should make us more clear-sighted and desirous of facilitating the flourishing of the diverse manifestations of the Spirit’s powerful presence in our midst.

Even so, we cannot deny that there are ways of making distinctions that blind us to the common dignity that we are all meant to enjoy before God. The bias against the poor is but one of these. We might think also of the tendency – often all too unconscious – to consider the hierarchical church only in terms of honour and privilege. In our exercise of and deference toward authority, for example, how well do we truly appreciate that ours is a hierarchy of humble service and of obedient self-emptying? How deeply are we imbued with the Spirit of the crucified and risen Lord who, in the gospel today, speaks of being destined to suffer grievously…? To what extent do leaders listen as much as they teach? How much of our activity is truly motivated by service rather than self-seeking?

Clearly, what’s at stake in the readings today goes far beyond equal treatment for the poor and the rich. At root, it’s about the extent to which we live out the commandment of love. It’s about how we think and about how we see. Especially important for us is to listen anew to Jesus’ rebuke of Peter in the gospel of today: the way you think is not God’s way but man’s…

How clear-sighted is our love today?

3 comments:

AnonymousThu May 15, 02:24:00 pm GMT+8
If everyone were to play the same role, wouldn't we all slow down to the speed of a millipede? :-p

Fortunately, St Paul has written beautifully and clearly (in Rom 12 and 1 Cor 12) of the Church being "one body with many parts", how each one of us are given different gifts and therefore suited to play different roles. And Jesus has demonstrated on Maundy Thursday that leadership among His followers is supposed to be "servant leadership" and NOT for "lording over others".

Perhaps a more meaningful application of James 2:9 is to show basic courtesy and consideration to all, regardless of their position in society or church, OR apparent goodness, "bad-ness", likeability or not.
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AnonymousThu May 15, 03:01:00 pm GMT+8
It brings to mind the expression that all persons are made equal; yet some are more equal than others. If we are clear sighted surely this allows each of us to be different and yet honor each other for what we are. Love may be blind to a lover’s imperfections but surely not to the plight of fellow humans who suffer in the wake of disasters in China and Myanmar; where grief is clearly etched in the file photos.
Our Lord left us with one clear instruction – Love God and love one another. If we are all created by the same creator, how else can it be otherwise? What makes a person special other than the fact that the gifts endowed by God are meant to be shared with another? Service itself is self serving.
How easily are we blinded by what the world dictates and forget that it is paramount that we keep our focus on the present but cast our sight on the eternal, for that’s where our future lies. If we cannot see too clearly, we can get our bi-focal lens calibrated to see Jesus in everyone we meet.
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AnonymousFri May 16, 08:28:00 am GMT+8
We cannot be blind to the fact that the material world is ordered and structured: mountains and valleys; giraffes and geckos; towering Redwoods and mere weeds on the forest floor. In human society too: the rich and poor; young and old; strong and weak; smart and gullible; powerful and powerless. Each has its role and purpose in the grand divine design of things.

Love is blind when it chooses to see only what it wants to see.

Blindness follows from a hardening of the heart (albeit a medical condition yet unproven).

Love is clear sighted to the uniqueness of the individual, warts and all.

Clear vision is when the mind drives behavior because the heart is overflowing with eternal Love.
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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