Breaking the Word: Riding the See-Saw of Care

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Riding the See-Saw of Care

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Readings: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Psalm 85 (86):5-6, 9-10, 15-16; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-30 or 43

Picture: Jessica Wilson on Unsplash

My dear friends, does anyone still remember what it’s like to ride a see-saw? Not the newer modern ones, but the older retro ones, made up of little more than a long plank anchored to the ground in the middle. There’s a certain skill required to play with a see-saw like that, right? We need to know when to lift our feet up, and when to put our foot down. Otherwise there’ll be no seeing and sawing. The plank will just remain stuck in the same position. And where’s the fun in that?

What possible connection does this have with our scriptures today? To see it, we need first to recognise that our readings have a preferred audience. They are likely addressed first to all those who groan. Those who see, suffer, and lament the terrible effects of evil in our world, and can’t help wondering why God doesn’t seem to do anything about it. Does God not care that we are perishing? That our world often looks like it’s going to hell in a hand-basket? Or maybe God isn’t in control, doesn’t have the power to change things, after all.

To those troubled by such questions, the readings offer assurance that God does indeed care, for every thing and every one. God is at once all-powerful and all-merciful. Slow to anger and abounding in love and truth. If God sometimes seems slow to act, it’s not out of ineptitude or indifference, but because removing evil prematurely may do more damage to the good. When you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. God’s apparent slowness is just another expression of God’s care. God is prudent and patient enough to wait till the time is ripe, before dealing with evil in a way that protects and advances the good. In other words, God acts like people playing on a see-saw, knowing when to lift their feet up, and when to put their foot down. Which is a great consolation for us, since evil isn’t just something out there in the world. It’s often also in here, in my own heart.

And if this is what care looks like in God’s kingdom, then our readings have a second preferred audience. It is those entrusted with the responsibility of caring for others in some way. Which is far from easy to do, right? Not least because there can be a very fine line between patience and negligence, between leniency and complicity. For example, what does care look like when I discover that my colleague or boss is accepting bribes, or embezzling funds? Or that my spouse is abusing our helper or our children? Or that a leader or minister in my parish is behaving in ways that endanger others? … However I choose to act, it’s important to prioritise the protection of those more vulnerable. To take a so-called victims-first approach.

Knowing when I need to wait, and when and how I have to act. When to lift my feet up, and when to put my foot down. As recent events in the local news have shown, this is a gift of great importance. Something for which we need to pray persistently in the Spirit, confident that our plea is in accord with the mind of God. Sisters and brothers, what must we do to help one another beg and receive from God this precious gift of the see-saw, not just for fun, but so as to truly further the good of all?

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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, July 23, 2023

Riding the See-Saw of Care

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