O let your shining orb grow dim,
Of Christ the mirror and the shield,
That I may gaze through you to Him,
See half the miracle revealed,
And in your seven hues behold
The Blue Man walking on the sea;
The Green, beneath the summer tree,
Who calles the children; then the Gold,
with pams; the Orange, flaring bold
with scourges; Purple in the garden
(As Greco saw); and then the Red
Torero (Him who took the toss
And rode the black horns of the cross -
But rose snow-silver from the dead!)
Filed under Religion
Our readings at Mass can often tell us about ourselves and our situation. The reading from the Book of Joshua for this Sunday is an example. It’s worth reflecting on.
If you remember your bible history, Joshua succeeded Moses as the leader of Jewish people when they came out of Egypt. A soldier, he led the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land, a disputed land then and a disputed land now.
The Book of Joshua is a litany of the battles this great general fought, beginning with the battle for Jericho. As the spiritual says, “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin down.”
Today’s reading concludes the Book of Joshua. Joshua’s an old man now, over a 100 years old the bible says, and he’s getting ready to die, so the old soldier calls together the different tribes and families of Israel to Shechem to speak to them for the last time.
Your work isn’t finished, he reminds them. Our journey isn’t over. The old soldier doesn’t speak of military matters or plans for new wars. Something more important is on his mind. He reminds the people that they’ve been called by God. “Are you going to listen to that call or not?” he says to them. You can ignore that call or drift away.
“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” Joshua says. And the people heartily join him in renewing their convenant with God.
“Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods. For it was the Lord who brought us and our ancestors out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slavery. He performed those great miracles before our eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among the peoples through whom we passed. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
Notice that Joshua and the people see God’s call not just as a personal call. They’re called by God as a people. When God called them from Egypt, he called them all, the old and the young, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, to make the journey together and they did.
That’s the way the bible describes it and that’s the way it should be, even today. No matter how sophisticated our society gets, no matter how difficult our circumstances are, God calls us to make the journey together.
This isn’t just the wisdom of the bible. A French geophysicist, Xavier Le Pichon, says that the world evolves the way it should when we respect the fragility of the earth and the fragility of our human community. We advance as a people when we take care of our weakest members; our earth community advances when we respect its fragile nature.
According to Le Pichon, who’s quoted at length on a recent NPR program, one important way we differ from the animals is the care we take of our weakest members. He adduces recent studies of our earliest ancestors, the Neanderthals, in whom this surprising trait appears over one hundred thousand years ago.
One study of a Neanderthal burial ground in Iraq revealed the skeleton of a 40 year old severely malformed male, who evidently had been carried from place to place by this group of hunters and buried with them. He was surely a burden to them, he must have slowed them down, but they carried him with them just the same. He meant something to them.
Unlike animals who cast aside their weak to die on the way, humans have developed a feeling for the weak, Le Pichon says. Like animals, they nourish and care for their young, but they reach further to the weakest. This sense of compassion separates humans from animals. It makes us humane.
Le Pichon disputes Darwin’s all embracing principle of the “survival of the fittest.” That principle, when applied to human evolution, does not take into account the spirit of compassion, he says.
Jesus, of course, taught the importance of this spirit of compassion when he told us that what we did for “one of these, the least,” you did it to me. You grow in love through your care of the least.
The thought of Xavier Le Pichon is worth following. Take a look at all the material on him at NPR.
Filed under Religion
The silent self
Silence is
sitting still
standing still
lying still
consciously
gratefully
breathing
inspiring-
being inspired with life
and love
from him from whom these
gifts do come-
the Lord of life and love-
the living Lord Jesus.
And in the stillness
knowing
and joyfully acknowledging
that in Jesus alone
the silence of life and love is found.
Then to humbly rest
sit
stand
lie
to bow the knee
in all that satisfying silence-
and be fulfilled.
Harry Alfred WIGGETT, The silent self, in: Nigel Watts, Most this Amazing Day, Fount , 1998
Filed under Religion
Today, the 20th Sunday (B) of the year, we continue to explore the 6th chapter of St. John’s gospel which centers around the important miracle of the Loaves and the Fish. Jesus says to the crowds that he himself is “living bread.”
When Jesus speaks, God speaks. When he says something, God says something, and in the gospel of John for this Sunday he says:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world.”
And so God says: “I am the living bread come down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.
God is bread, food for the hungry, for those who cannot live without food. That’s us, isn’t it? We can’t live without being fed.
God is our food, not temporary food, but food enabling us to live forever. God doesn’t limit himself to giving bread that perishes; God gives us a daily food leading to eternal life, to sharing in God’s life. So we say in the Our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Bread is such a simple yet profound description of God! It describes God, not as remote or detached from this world and from us. He cares for us with a daily care and offers us day by day the promise of eternal life. God’s care is simple, like a small piece of bread; steady like the daily food we eat.
Taking the holy Bread from the altar, we commune with God who brings us life, daily life, eternal life. Jesus Christ makes this God known when he says, “I am the living bread come down from heaven.”
Is there something else we can learn from this, about ourselves? We‘re best when, like God, we’re bread. Giving, instead of receiving; nourishing others, rather than seeking nourishment.
Our society is called a consumer society. We consume, we take. But isn’t it better to feed others, like bread. Isn’t that also the message from today’s gospel?
Shall we learn this message? Our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom calls us to a banquet hall to feed on this wisdom. Listen to the invitation:
“Let whoever is simple turn in here;
To the one who lacks understanding, she says,
Come, eat of my food,
and drink of the wine I have mixed!
Forsake foolishness that you may live;
advance in the way of understanding.”
We have had names for you:
The Thunderer, the Almighty
Hunter, Lord of the snowflake
and the sabre-toothed tiger.
One name we have held back
unable to reconcile it
with the mosquito, the tidal wave,
the black hole into which
time will fall. You have answered
us with the image of yourself
on a hewn tree, suffering
injustice, pardoning it;
pointing as though in either
direction; horrifying us
with the possibility of dislocation.
Ah, love, with your arms out
wide, tell us how much more
they must still be stretched
to embrace a universe drawing
away from us at the speed of light.
R.S.THOMAS, from: The SPCK Book of Christian Prayer, London, 1995
Filed under Religion
The feast of the Assumption celebrated tomorrow in the Roman church recalls that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was assumed body and soul into heaven to take her place besides her welcoming Son. In the Byzantine tradition the Feast of the Dormition celebrates this same mystery: Mary “falls asleep” in death and is brought bodily to heaven.
“Angelic hosts cry out: “Open your gates, and welcome the One who gave birth to the Creator of Heaven and earth; let us celebrate with hymns of glory her holy and venerable body which housed the Lord who is unseen by us. We also cry out: O worthy of all praise, lift up our heads and save our souls”. (Troparion, Feast of the Dormition)
The Feast of the Dormition marks the end of the year for the eastern church, which begins the new year with the Feast of the birth of Mary on September 8th. The mysteries of Jesus, then, take place within these two feasts of the woman who symbolizes the human race on its journey from this world to a new creation.
“Today, the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of your church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort
to your pilgrim people.” (Preface of the Assumption)
God looked on her lowliness and “raised her up to this grace, that your Only-Begotten Son was born to her according to the flesh and that she was crowned this day with surpassing glory. Grant through her prayers that, saved by the mysteries of your redemption, we may merit to be exalted by you on high.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Collect, Feast of the Assumption)
Icons of the Dormition of Mary, like the one above, invariably have Jesus standing over his mother’s body, carrying her soul in his arms. He will transport her body and soul to heaven. Through his grace she bore him in her womb and through his grace she is crowned with glory.
The apostles surrounding her body have been figuratively summoned from the ends of the earth to witness her death and resurrection, because the whole church recognizes that she follows her Son, “each in his own order.” (1 Corinthians 15, 23) As the New Eve, she has become “mother of the living” and Angels cry out for heaven’s gates to be opened for her.
Sharing in her Son’s resurrection, Mary also shares his desire that “all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” She joins her voice to his and intercedes for us.
“In falling asleep, you did not forsake the world, O Mother of God,
You were translated to life, O Mother of Life.
And by your prayers you deliver our souls from death.” (Troparion)
Filed under Religion
“Not only in Israel, but among the ancient peoples generally, a meal was much more than a meal, understood as an occasion of eating and drinking. A meal was a sacred occasion, something that is hard for us to understand in these days of ‘fast food’, when eating is little more that a biological function. Even a few decades ago, when grace before meals was quite common in Western countries, there was some sense that eating and drinking are not merely biological occasions, but carry ( or may carry) many connotations.
The fact that grace before meals has become something of a rarity nowadays is symptomatic of the change that has taken place. Even when people sit down together at table they are often in a hurry to get away so that they can get to some other matter, whether business or pleasure, that seems to them more important. Even when graces are said nowadays, it is often on the least appropriate occasions, lavish banquets in city halls, colleges, or similar institutions.
But the point I want to make is that the disapperance of grace points to the fact that there has been a loss of any sense of the sacred ina meal, any sense of gratitude to God who has provided for the maintenance of life in his creation, or even to those human beings whose labor brought the fruitfulness of earth to a form in which it can nourish the human race.”
John Macquarrie, A Guide to the Sacraments, 102
Matthew’s gospel has shortened the account we read today (Matthew 17,14-20) of a miracle reported already in Mark’s gospel. A man steps out of the crowd and pleads on his knees for his son, who is a “lunatic… always falling into fire and water.” From the boy’s convulsions, he probably had epilepsy, but the people of Jesus day believed his condition was caused by the moon.
Even today people claim some lunacy come from a full moon.
“I took him to your disciples and they were unable to cure him.” the father tells Jesus. In response, Jesus complains of “this perverse and crooked generation’s lack of faith.” Nor does he exclude his own disciples: they could do more to relieve those like the poor boy if they prayed and fasted more.
“Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.”
I don’t know why Matthew left out the touching response the boy’s father makes to Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” There’s something beautiful about his words that confess the measure of unbelief we all have and also our desire for a greater faith.
He speaks for us all. Help our unbelief.
Filed under Religion
A friend from Belgium, Father Harry Gielen, has been collecting poems on the Passion of Jesus for years. He sent a selection of them to me recently and I hope to offer one each Friday.
Pilate Remembers
I wonder why that scene comes back tonight,
That long-forgotten scene of years ago.
Perhaps this touch of spring, that full white moon,
For it was spring, and spring’s white moon hung low
Above my garden on the night He died.
I still remember how I felt disturbed
That I must send Him to a felon’s cross
On such a day when spring was in the air,
And in His life, for He was young to die.
How tall and strong He stood, how calm His eyes,
Fronting me straight and while I questioned Him;
His fearless heart spoke to me through His eyes.
Could I have won Him as my follower,
And a hundred more beside, my way had led
To Caesar’s palace and I’d wear today
The imperial purple. But He would not move
One little bit from His wild madcap dream
Of seeking truth. What wants a man with “truth”
When he is young and spring is at the door?
He would not listen, so He had to go.
One mad Jew less meant little to the state,
And pleasing Annas made my task the less.
And yet for me He spoiled that silver night,-
Remembering it was spring and he was young
William E. BROOKS, in: Chapter into Verse, Oxford University Press, 2000
Filed under Religion
One of our blessings in recent times is a better understanding of the bible, thanks to scholarly studies of the last century or so. Historians, archeologists, linguists are giving us a clearer picture of these ancient books, their meaning, when they were written, their historical context. New discoveries, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, have increased our knowledge of this book, which is really a library of Christian spirituality.
We know more about the scriptures today than we’ve known for centuries. Our new knowledge helps us to know Jesus Christ better, of course, so shouldn’t we be more acquainted with these readings? Unfortunately, Catholics are still slow to go to the bible for their spiritual nourishment, even though our liturgies have been enriched by readings from scripture since the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
What bible should you read? Visit a book store like Barnes and Noble, go to the section where they’re selling bibles and you’ll find a bewildering collection of editions available today, going back to the old King James version.
The King James Bible is still the most popular bible read in the English-speaking world. For some fundamentalists it’s the only “Word of God.” But the King James version, for all its historical and literary qualities, has serious drawbacks. Since the time it was published in 1611, scores of ancient versions of the bible have been found, earlier than those on which this translation was based, and significant progress in biblical studies has also been made.
Because of this, many new translations of the bible have been published which take advantage of the new biblical resources. There are at least 30 new translations on the market today. In 1989, the New Revised Standard Version, a revision of the highly regarded Revised Standard Version, was published enlisting scholars from the major Christian denominations and authorized by these denominations. A fine translation.
In March 2011, a revised edition of The New American Bible (NABRE) was published. It’s a bible approved by the Catholic Church and closely related to the readings in its liturgies. The last edition published 20 years ago was revised to take account of the new resources.
I like this bible myself for a number of reasons. For one, it’s available online free, so it’s always available if you have a computer, iPad, or iPhone. I appreciate especially the notes and introductory material, which may not be found in other versions of the bible. They are concise, clear and based on the latest scholarly research.
Another bible to take a look at is The Jerusalem Bible.
Catholics and other mainstream Christians hear the scriptures regularly from the lectionary during worship. The lectionary breaks down the books of the bible into parts, but there’s one drawback to reading the bible this way, I believe. We can read these parts in isolation, without enriching our reading with a fuller, more complete view that comes from reading the entire gospel or epistle, or prophet.
This month’s Sunday gospels from the 6th chapter of John, which begins with the miracle of the loaves and the fish, is an example. On the following Sundays we read sections of Jesus’ dialogue with the crowd, which is triggered by this powerful sign. Separated as they are from this key event, the readings can become disconnected from miracle and the overall themes that surround it.
There’s something to reading from the bible itself, rather than settling for selections in the lectionary.
Filed under Religion
 | scripturelife on A Love like God’s |
 | Bill Barnett on A Love like God’s |
 | Gloria on The Feast of St. Barnabas |
| Gloria on Feast of the Sacred Heart |
 | vhoagland on Corpus Christi |
