Breaking the Word: Resounding Refrain

Friday, March 25, 2016

Resounding Refrain

Friday of the Passion of the Lord

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 30:2,6,12-13,15-17,25; Hebrews 4:14-16,5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

My dear friends, do you know what a refrain is? I’m sure you do. It’s that part of a song that keeps getting repeated. Over and over again. Usually, it’s something that the composer wants to emphasise. Well, if you were to compose a song today. A song about the Mystery we are celebrating. A song about the Passion of the Lord. What would you choose to emphasise? How would you phrase your refrain?

For a start, perhaps we could first consider what to put into the verses of our song. This shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s a song about the Passion of the Lord. So one way to do it is simply to include the events that happened. All that the Lord did between Holy Thursday evening and Easter Sunday morning. Or, more importantly, all that he allowed to be done to him.

We might begin by singing of his arrest in the Garden. Of how he submitted, even though he could have run away. Or incited his disciples to resist. To meet violence with violence. For he was able to make his enemies fall down. Simply by saying I am he. Yet, he refused to resist. He submitted humbly. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given? And he protected his friends. If I am the one you are looking for, let these others go…

We could sing also of his so-called trial. First before the Jewish authorities, and then the Roman governor. We could sing of how his enemies went all out to kill him. Even when Pilate could find no case. Of how, though innocent, Jesus submitted himself. First to mockery and torture. And then to condemnation and death. O, the injustice of it all. The injustice, and the shame. We could also sing of how he died. With his flesh torn and tattered. But his spirit unbroken and unbowed. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.… It is accomplished…

All these things we could include in our song. But what of the refrain? I’m not sure what you think, sisters and brothers. But I’m drawn to these words from the first reading: We thought of him as someone punished… by God. Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins… These words tell me not just what the Lord endured. But why he endured it. He did it for me…

He did it to help me do what the second reading encourages me to do. To never let go of the faith we have professed. But to be confident… in approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help…. He did it to give me hope. He did it for me…

I’m reminded of these words from another song about the Passion. I think you know it: Were you there when they crucified my Lord…. Were you there when they nailed him to a tree…. Sometimes it causes me to tremble… To tremble, when I remember that he did it for me. He did it all for me…

He did it for me. This is my refrain. Something that needs to be repeated over and over again. And not just with my lips. But also especially with my life. He did it for me… He did it for me…

My dear friends, what must we do to let this refrain resound, in hearts and in our world, in the days ahead?

1 comment:

Seeing Is BelievingFri Mar 25, 07:25:00 pm GMT+8
"He did it for me... He died for me - He gave up His life for me.."

Let this be my song, let this refrain keep on ringing in my mind and heart as I recall the depth of God's love for me..

Let this be a heartfelt experience of God and His love for me - let the love of God be deeply etched in my heart and in my being - let it not be just a superficial memory which fades with time..

O Lord of the Passion, let me never forget all that You are and all that You had done for me. Let me express my gratitude to You by the way I live my NEW LIFE in You. Amen.

Sih Ying
Good Friday 2016
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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