Breaking the Word: Beyond the Shell

Sunday, August 09, 2020

Beyond the Shell

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9,11-13; Psalm 84(85):9-14; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

My dear friends, have you ever wondered why something as soft and smooth and sweet as durian should come wrapped in such a hard and thorny and scary-looking shell? I don’t know the exact answer to this question. But, thankfully, even without knowing why durian has such a hard shell, I can still enjoy eating it all the same.

And what is true of durian may well be true of God as well. At least this is what we find in our Mass readings today. In each of them, the presence of God comes wrapped in a tough shell of trial and tribulation.

In the first reading, Elijah experiences God’s coming as a gentle breeze, but only after the prophet has endured first a typhoon, and then an earthquake, and then a fire. And it’s worth noting that these natural disasters, which engulf Elijah externally, also mirror the interior symptoms of burnout that the prophet has been feeling for quite some time.

Similarly, in the second reading, Paul writes about his own interior trial, his own sorrow and mental anguish, at the thought that his fellow Israelites might be cut off from the grace of God. And yet, at the beginning of the reading, Paul seems eager to assure his readers that the turmoil he endures is also an experience of God. What I want to say now… I say… in union with Christ… in union with the Holy Spirit…

We find this same close connection, between the sweetness of God and the bitterness of tribulation, also in the gospel. Quite strikingly, the reading tells us that it was Jesus himself who made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead… And it was also Jesus, who then scared them out of their wits, by coming toward them, amid a raging wind and the turbulent tide, walking on the waters like a ghost.

Why did the Lord do this to his friends? Why does God sometimes insist on coming to us wrapped in struggle and strife? Why does God allow Covid-19 to afflict our world? Curiously, the readings seem less interested in answering this question why than in addressing the question how. How to find God in times of turmoil and terror? How? …

When suffering engulfs you, and God seems absent, try to be like Elijah… Enter the cave of your heart, and wait there in patience and hope for the signs of God’s coming. For his appearing is as sure as the dawn (Hosea 6:3). When the waves of doubt and despair, and of death and destruction, threaten to drown you, try to be like Peter… Cry out to the One who has the power to save you. Let him hold onto you firmly. Let him strengthen your faith, and deepen your trust. Then sail with him across the turbulent waters of life, in the boat that is his Body, reaching out to help others as well.

Sisters and brothers, even before we discover why life is often so tough and thorny, we can still learn how to penetrate its hard shell, and savour the sweetness inside. In our own lives, as individuals and families, as a Church and as a nation, is there perhaps a durian that needs opening today?

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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

Sunday, August 09, 2020

Beyond the Shell

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