Breaking the Word

Monday, July 14, 2008

Monday in the 15th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Submitting to the Scan

Readings: Isaiah 1:10-17; Psalms 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23; Matthew 10:34-11:1
Picture: CC MacRonin47

Let’s suppose there’s a person who consults a doctor for some mild physical discomfort. The doctor is concerned and advises him to go for a scan of some sort. The person is reluctant. Apart from the slight discomfort, he’s actually feeling fit as a fiddle. But the doctor insists. So he goes and, sure enough, the scan uncovers something serious. An operation is scheduled. Now the person is really anxious and upset. His earlier calm is shattered. Thankfully, however, the disease is detected early. The operation is successful. And the person is restored to health.

A situation such as this is not uncommon. And it may help us to get a deeper insight into Jesus’ shocking words in the gospel today. Contrary to all our expectations – as well as those of his listeners – Jesus proclaims: It is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword… Yet we also know that in another place Jesus tells his disciples: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you… (John 14:27). In order to reconcile this apparent discrepancy, it may help to recognize that in that last passage, Jesus also says that the peace he brings is not as the world gives. The peace that the world can offer is often that of a superficial kind, an absence of conflict that is the result of ignoring, or even deliberately denying, the difficulties and differences that may be present. Like that person we spoke about earlier, we may experience discomfort, but we prefer not to pay any attention to it.

In such situations, Jesus’ presence, his words and his activities, act as a kind of scan, which uncovers the dust and debris that we may have swept under the carpet. And when that happens, the apparent calm that was there at first is shattered. Anguish and anxiety, as well as other negative emotions, may be experienced, but only as a necessary step towards a deeper reconciliation, a more lasting peace.

What Jesus the Physician does in the gospel, Isaiah the prophet does in the first reading. Here, on the surface, the people appear pious and at peace with God. They carefully observe the various feast-days, offering prayers and sacrifices in the Temple. But the prophet scans their hearts and their lives and finds serious inconsistencies. He shatters the calm of their complacency and arrogance by proclaiming: Your hands are covered with blood… For although their religious rites may be pious, their business practices are exploitative. They ignore the cry of the oppressed, the needs of the orphan, the plea of the widow. Their outward show of good spiritual health is illusory. Their illness is serious. An operation is needed.

And what about us? How truly peaceful are our relationships? How truly just are our business practices? What lies beneath the surface calm of our lives?

What might a scan uncover in us today?

1 comment:

AnonymousTue Jul 15, 08:08:00 am GMT+8
Yesterday's Straits Times carried a report of a new Customs non-contact full body scanner for air travellers who prefer not to be pat down. The scan shows up every minute detail, anatomical or inanimate.

As Catholics, we have the Sacramental Scan called Reconciliation but while I understand the merits of the Sacrament, I have difficulty submitting to the scan. I guess my problem lies in being a passive participant in the procedure. In MRI scans, the physician and technician do all that is necessary to set up the machine and to settle the patient down in position. You only have to lie still in what must be the most uncomfortable 15 to 30 minutes of your life. In the Sacramental Scan, you are in charge. Gulp.

To me, the most poignant and indicting scan is by the Divine Scanner Himself. When the Holy Spirit scours the inner-most depths of our being, nothing escapes His attention. Like the new airport scanner, every minute detail shows up - and we can see them for ourselves!!! For a well-formed Christian conscience, there are no if's and but's, just silent mea culpa's.
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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