Breaking the Word: Beyond the Frying Pan & the Fire

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Beyond the Frying Pan & the Fire

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Readings: Ecclesiasticus 27:30-28:9; Psalm 102 (103):1-4, 9-12; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35

My dear friends, what does it feel like to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire? To try to avoid a bad situation, only to end up in an even worse one. Such as when someone changes jobs on impulse, perhaps to spite an unreasonable boss, only to find that the new boss is much worse. Bad idea, right? But does this mean then that whenever I encounter a bad boss, I should just keep quiet and suck it up?

Jumping out of the frying pan, only to fall into the fire. Doesn’t this sound like what the scriptures are warning us against? The first reading tells us that resentment and anger… are foul things… On its own, of course, anger isn’t sinful. It’s our natural reaction to being hurt. Our way of coping with pain. Consciously or not, when someone or something hurts me or mine, rather than simply suffer the pain, I focus instead on the anger. But it’s possible to take this natural reaction too far. To nurse the anger, as I might a stiff drink. To cherish the resentment. To let them flow outward into vengeance, or inward into depression.

When I try to jump out of the frying pan of pain by clinging to my anger, the anger itself becomes a deadly fire that consumes me. For anger doesn’t just numb my pain, it also makes me forget some important truths, about myself and about God. I forget that I am not the almighty Creator, but only a fragile creature, for whom pain is an unavoidable part of being human. I also lose touch with the Lord, who is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy.

But does this mean then that whenever I or those I care about are hurt, I should just stay silent and suck it up? Simply try to forget the hurt? Is this what I should do if, for example, I suspect that my kids are being abused by their teacher? Certainly not. On the contrary, what the readings call us to do is not to forget, but to remember. To remember not just our own creaturely fragility, but also and especially, how tenderly our Creator looks at and treats us. Seeing fit even to take on our human condition, sharing our pain, even suffering death on the Cross for us. So that, whether we live or die, we now all belong to Christ. Who always remains present and accessible to us. And who, by his Dying and Rising, transforms our pain into a crucible of life in God’s kingdom.

Of course, in practice, for us to feel the effects of this transformation will usually take time. Which is what both the debtors in the gospel beg from their creditor. Give me time. But it will be time well spent. For to recall the mysteries of our faith in this way, as we do whenever we gather for Mass, is to let the Spirit heal and broaden the horizons of our hearts. Enabling us to gaze beyond the narrow options of retaliation and apathy, to consider what the Lord might be calling and empowering us to do, here and now, for the greater good.

Sisters and brothers, what shall we do to better allow our merciful God to transform the frying pan of our pain into a true crucible of eternal life 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, September 17, 2023

Beyond the Frying Pan & the Fire

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