Breaking the Word: Reviewing Reception

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Reviewing Reception

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Readings: Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 17(18):2-4,47,51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-40

My dear friends, do you know the difference between good and bad reception? Back in the early days of television, before the arrival of cable, the quality of reception could mean the difference between a powerful movie experience, and an annoying struggle with a screen-full of static. Nowadays we might say the same about wifi.

This contrast between good and bad reception is also what we find in our Mass readings today. For when Jesus teaches that the greatest commandment of the Law consists both in loving God with one’s whole being, and loving one’s neighbour as oneself, the Lord isn’t really saying anything new. The first part of his teaching is already found in the book of Deuteronomy, and the second in Leviticus.

So why then do the Lord’s enemies want to kill him? If they know the Law so well, why are they unable to keep it? Isn’t this a question that we could ask ourselves too? Don’t we know the Law well enough? Why then do we fail to make time in our busy routines for God, and for the many who are in need of our help? Also, some say that our world already knows what is needed to eradicate hunger, and to address the global ecological crisis? Why then are we so slow to act?

The readings help to answer these questions by presenting us with a contrast between good and bad reception. In the first reading, God doesn’t just tell the people to be kind to the foreigners, widows and orphans living in their midst. God also tells them how to find the motivation to do so. By following God’s example. For God allows the cries of the needy to move God to respond mercifully. If he cries to me, I will listen, for I am full of pity. Isn’t this an example of good reception?

In the second reading we’re told that it was with the joy of the Holy Spirit that (the Thessalonians) took to the gospel. Or, in another translation, they received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit. And because the Thessalonians received the gospel in this way, it becomes for them more than just empty words, but an invigorating power, energising them to do what is right. Another example of good reception.

In contrast, the gospel says the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees… They heard about the power of the Lord’s teaching. But instead of welcoming the message, they choose to find fault with the messenger. An example of bad reception. And just as good reception brings not just knowledge of the Law, but also the power to keep it, bad reception leads to hypocrisy. The failure to practice what we preach. The inability to faithfully live what we claim to believe.

In the award-winning film, Scent of a Woman, a blind retired army colonel, played by Al Pacino, utters these poignant lines: Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard... Sisters and brothers, many are saying that our world too has come to a major crossroads. What must we do to improve our reception, so as to take the right path 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, October 25, 2020

Reviewing Reception

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