Breaking the Word: Of Persons, Places & Presence

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Of Persons, Places & Presence

7th Sunday in Easter (B)

Readings: Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26; Psalm 102 (103): 1-2, 11-12, 19-20; 1 John 4: 11-16; John 17: 11-19

Picture: By Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

My dear friends, have you ever noticed how certain events in our lives have the power to turn a person into a place? What do I mean? Consider, for example, what happens in the early days of a romance… or when a baby is born… or when a loved one falls seriously ill. In each of these situations, doesn’t a certain person become the centre of attention for someone else? The partners in the romance for each other… the new baby for its parents… the sick person for the caregiver. It’s as if each of these persons becomes a place around which the life of the other keeps revolving. So that even when physically absent, the person still remains somehow present. If not at the top of the mind, then surely close to the heart. We might say that certain events in our lives have the mysterious power to connect persons, places and presence. And don’t the events we celebrate at Easter have a similar effect in the life of Jesus?

Somewhat like how the birth of a baby attracts its parents’ continuing presence to it, even when they may be physically absent, so too does the Lord’s Life, Death and Resurrection cause him to remain present to all those for whom he gave his life. So that, even though he is no longer with us in the same physical way that he was with his early disciples, we believe he hasn’t left us. As the opening prayer reminded us earlier, before his Ascension, Jesus had promised to be abidingly present among us, even until the end of the world. This is what we dare to believe: that God’s love for us is so strong and so enduring, that even now, centuries after his Ascension, even in this chaotic and uncertain world in which we live, Christ remains somehow present to us. Our challenge is to find ways to translate this belief into experience. How do we remain present to Jesus, who is always present to us? What can we do to let the person of Christ be the privileged place around which our lives revolve? These are questions our scriptures help us to ponder today.

One striking feature of the first reading is how the fate of Judas is described in terms of a change of place. Peter says that Judas abandoned his ministry and apostolate to go to his proper place. He left one spiritual place to go to another. And we know that this change of place was also a failure to remain present to a person. Judas betrayed and deserted the Lord. In contrast, the one prerequisite for Judas’ successor is that he must have been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling round with us. He must have remained in place, faithfully present to the person of Jesus. To remain present to the Lord, so that he becomes the place around which our whole life revolves. This was difficult enough for the disciples before the Lord’s Ascension, when they could still see and hear and touch him. What more now, when we can’t? How are we to remain present to Jesus, to allow our lives to revolve around him, when he is no longer physically with us?

The second reading provides a first response by telling us that God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. Even if Jesus is no longer physically with us, we can continue to experience his abiding presence, by allowing his love for us to draw us to live in love. By loving God, loving others, and loving even ourselves. Which sounds simple enough, but is by no means easy. Not only is it difficult to put love into practice, at times it’s hard even to know what love requires in a given situation. For example, when a spouse, or a close family member, or a boss makes certain demands of us, does love require us to always give in? Or could there be certain situations where the loving response might well be to say no? And, if so, then how do we recognise such situations? What would Jesus do?

To properly respond to questions like these, at least one thing is indispensable. We have to be able and willing to accept and act according to the truth. Even when it may be inconvenient or costly for us to do so. Isn’t this why, in the gospel, Jesus not only consecrates himself, he also asks his Father to consecrate us in the truth? To strive to live both in love and in truth. This is how we experience the Lord’s abiding presence to us. And this has important social implications. As the late Pope Benedict XVI taught, to live in love and truth is also to work for justice and the common good. For I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them… (CV, 6). And (t)he more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them (CV, 7).

Sisters and brothers, like the beginnings of a romance, and the birth of a baby, the Lord’s Dying and Rising has power to keep us in the Lord’s presence. What shall we do to submit ourselves more fully to this life-sustaining power 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, May 12, 2024

Of Persons, Places & Presence

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