Breaking the Word: Empowered & Formed for the Dance

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Empowered & Formed for the Dance

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, have you seen an air dancer before? Businesses sometimes use it to attract customers. It’s a giant inflatable tube, shaped like a person with long flailing arms, dancing energetically. The tube is made of soft material, and connected to a powerful fan. The air from the fan powers the dance. That’s why it’s called an air dancer. Without air there is no dance. The whole structure collapses.

I find it helpful to keep this image in mind, as we ponder the greatest commandment of the Law. Or rather, the inseparable twin commands to love God with all of one’s being, and one's neighbour as oneself. For when I hear this, I tend to think too quickly of obligations I need to fulfil. Which is not exactly wrong. After all, it is said that love should show itself more in deeds than words. And yet, isn’t it possible to be so burdened by obligations as to end up suffocating love itself? Isn’t this what happens to Jesus’ opponents in the gospel? Their obsession with fulfilling obligations makes them so judgmental and hypocritical, they end up plotting to have Jesus killed. This is, of course, a failure to fulfil the obligation to love. But could it be that even before it is an obligation, the call to love is first a channel of power? Could this be why Jesus says that upon this command hangs the whole Law, and the Prophets? Like an air dancer without air, separated from love, the whole of our spiritual life collapses.

So how then to stay connected to love, so as to keep dancing to its ever-shifting rhythms? The readings show us how by highlighting two spiritual locations where human weakness encounters God’s strength. In the second reading, this happens in the community of disciples, the Body of Christ on earth. Through which the Thessalonians received the gospel in the joy of the Holy Spirit, giving them power to turn away from the worship of idols, to become servants of the real, living God. And not just power. The community also provides formation, by offering living examples of what the love of God and neighbour looks like. Models both to imitate and to become for others. Power and formation, accessible especially when the community gathers for the Eucharist, as we are doing now.

But that’s not all. The encounter between human weakness and God’s strength isn’t confined to the community alone. It also happens wherever there are vulnerable people. Such as those in the first reading. The strangers and widows, the orphans and the poor. All of whom are still with us today. Not just migrants and refugees, but all those who, for whatever reason, don’t feel like they belong. And isn’t it possible to be widowed and orphaned not just by death, but also by overwork and other forms of idolatry and addiction? Even before it is an obligation, contact with and care for the poor is a privileged place to meet and be strengthened by the God of compassion, who chooses to identify with the poor.

Sisters and brothers, as people whose lives are often filled with many obligations, how shall we make space for God to empower and form us for Christ’s dance of love today?

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Breaking News: Christmas Season

Next to the yearly celebration of the paschal mystery, the Church holds most sacred the memorial of Christ's birth and early manifestations. This is the purpose of the Christmas season. The Christmas season runs from Evening Prayer I of Christmas until the Sunday after Epiphany or after 6 January, inclusive. The Mass of the vigil of Christmas is used in the evening of 24 December, either before or after Evening Prayer I. On Christmas itself, following an ancient tradition of Rome, three Masses may be celebrated: namely, the Mass at Midnight, the Mass at Dawn, and the Mass during the Day.[R6] Christmas has its own octave, arranged as follows: a. Sunday within the octave is the feast of the Holy Family; b. 26 December is the feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr; c. 27 December is the feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist; d. 28 December is the feast of the Holy Innocents; e. 29, 30, and 31 December are days within the octave; f. 1 January, the octave day of Christmas, is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It also recalls the conferral of the holy Name of Jesus. The Sunday falling between 2 January and 5 January is the Second Sunday after Christmas. Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January, unless (where it is not observed as a holyday of obligation) it has been assigned to the Sunday occurring between 2 January and 8 January (see no. 7). The Sunday falling after 6 January is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, nn 32-38

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 29, 2023

Empowered & Formed for the Dance

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