Breaking the Word: A More Liveable Place

Sunday, June 13, 2021

A More Liveable Place

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Readings: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 91(92):2-3,13-16; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

My dear friends, given a choice, where would you like to live? A recent survey has named Auckland as the most liveable city in the world in 2021. This is because of its success in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, while keeping its society open. So, if given a choice, will you move to Auckland?

The reason I ask is because our readings describe a place for us all to live. This place was not included in the survey. Actually, it’s not a geographical place, but a spiritual one. The psalm refers to this place as the house of the Lord. And, in the gospel, Jesus calls it the kingdom of God. What is it like to live in this place? How does one come to live there?

Pondering the readings, we find three aspects, beginning with humility. Humility realised in two ways. We may call the first way the humility of gift. In contrast to countries like our own, where foreigners are admitted based on merit or money, access to the kingdom can only be received as a gift. We see this in the first reading, where God chooses a shoot, and plants it on the high mountain. The shoot itself does nothing to deserve God’s choice.

Also, along with the humility of gift, there is a humility of growth. The first reading tells us that God is the one who stunts tall trees and makes the low ones grow. And, in the gospel, God causes seed, sown in the soil, to grow in ways that farmers themselves cannot explain. Which is not to say that our efforts are not important. Of course they are! Yet, it’s even more important to realise that, however hard we may work, we cannot make things grow. It always remains God’s prerogative to grant growth according to God’s time. What we need to cultivate is the humble willingness to start small and weak and fragile, as well as the perseverance to work hard, and the patience to wait upon God’s good pleasure.

The humility of gift and growth leads to another aspect, which is hospitality. Both the tall cedar in the first reading, and the fully grown mustard plant in the gospel have in common a wonderful ability to offer shelter to every kind of bird and every winged creature. Similarly, in the kingdom of God, a warm welcome is extended to all who require shelter, all who are in need of a home, regardless of race or class or gender…

Home. This is also the third aspect. The kingdom is not just a place in which to live, but a place to call home. So the second reading encourages us, even while we are still living in the body, to seek to make our home with the Lord. How? By always being intent on pleasing him. As a result, like St Paul, we become full of confidence, no matter how difficult the challenges we may have to face. Humility, hospitality, and home. These are more than just features of God’s kingdom. They are also steps by which God draws us to help make our world a more liveable place for all.

Sisters and brothers, especially at a time when the temptation is great to act contrary to the humility and hospitality of the kingdom, what must we do to continue making our home with the Lord 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, June 13, 2021

A More Liveable Place

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