Breaking the Word: The Power of Recognition

Sunday, April 14, 2024

The Power of Recognition

3rd Sunday in Easter (B)

Readings: Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19; Psalm 4: 2, 4, 7, 9; 1 John 2: 1-5; Luke 24: 35-48

Picture: By juana la loca on Flickr

My dear friends, do you ever worry about being scammed? It’s natural to be worried, since it has been announced that, in 2023, there were a record-breaking 46,563 scams reported. Almost forty seven percent more than in 2022! So what can we do? Perhaps it helps to begin by stating the obvious: Scams are the result of a failure of recognition. Victims mistake a lie for the truth, and surrender their valuables in exchange for false promises. How then might we strengthen our power of recognition, improve our ability to distinguish the authentic from the fake, the truth from the lie? This is also the question that our scriptures help us to ponder today.

In the first reading, after healing a lame beggar, by invoking the name of Jesus, Peter addresses a crowd of astounded onlookers. And isn’t it striking how he speaks to them as if they have been scammed? He begins by reminding them who they are, and what they’ve done. They are descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And yet, they’ve handed over, disowned, and killed Jesus, the faithful servant of the God of their ancestors. They have surrendered the Holy One, the Just One, the One of infinite spiritual value, in exchange for a lie. And they’ve done all this in ignorance, out of a failure of recognition. So Peter helps them uncover the lie, and repent from their sin, to recognise and turn to the God of truth.

What Peter does for non-believers in the first reading, we find John doing for disciples in the second. Like Peter, John begins by reminding his readers who they are. In Christ, they are already children of God. But they still need help to distinguish truth from lies. To remember that Christ’s disciples are recognised not by what they say, but by how they live. For we Christians know God only by keeping his commandments. It’s through obedience that God’s love comes to perfection in us. Otherwise, we are living a lie, refusing to admit the truth.

And if Peter and John are able to help others recognise and reject lies, isn’t it only because they’ve both been taught to recognise and follow the One who is Truth itself? In the gospel, when the Crucified and Risen Christ suddenly appears among his disciples, they fail to recognise him at first. Despite his gentle greeting of peace, they still mistake him for a ghost, and are plunged into a state of alarm and fright. An understandable reaction, considering all that they have endured since Holy Thursday. It’s only when the Lord patiently shows them the wounds on his hands and feet, that their alarm turns to joy. Allowing him to open their minds to understand the scriptures. To accept that, in the trauma of the Cross, lies the sure path to peace and fullness of life.

Isn’t this the gift we are offered anew every Easter? The experience of how the wounds of love are our reliable touchstone for recognising Truth. And isn’t this gift more precious than ever today? When the prevalence of scams has become a sign of our times. An indication of our dire need to strengthen our power of recognition. To keep improving our ability to distinguish truth from lies. So that we might resist the temptation to surrender our valuables, in exchange for empty promises. Valuables, such as deep authentic peace of heart, or safe life-giving interactions at home and at work, out on the streets and here in church, or the ability to show tender care and concern for those in greater need, including our ailing planet… And empty promises, like luxury and material success, comfort and a carefree existence, power and control over others, or popularity and worldly acclaim…

As mentioned at the start, during his Passion, Jesus told Pontius Pilate: For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice (Jn 18:37). Sisters and brothers, could it be that there are far more dangerous scams than those that put our money at risk? What can we do to allow the Risen Lord to strengthen our power of recognition, so that we might follow, ever more closely, his voice and no other, today and every day?

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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, April 14, 2024

The Power of Recognition

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