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Daily Scripture

+ 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Keep hope alive!

Readings: Revelation 5:1-10 Psalm 149:1-6, 9 Luke 19:41-44

_As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “if this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” [Luke 19:41]

In Christian liturgy and literature, he Church has often been referred to as “the new Jerusalem” and heaven as “the new and eternal Jerusalem.” I think it’s a good simile. If you have ever been to the old section of Jerusalem, you surely would have noted the appropriateness of this comparison. Ancient Jerusalem is still very much in evidence if not literally, surely in its ambiance. A walk from the site of the ancient praetorium to Calvary – now well within the city limits – will surely give you a sense of what it may have been like when Jesus made that last fateful journey.

Today Jerusalem is truly an international city and bears within its womb and walls, the extremes of every race and religion. Jews still narrate the story of the great exodus and Christians break the bread of Eucharist while Islamic temples broadcast their ancient chants from minarets that echo through the streets in the wee hours of the morning.

This is the city over which Jesus wept not because it did not make him king but because it did not recognize its day of visitation, that is to say, its moment of opportunity. In reading a passage such as this, we need to put away preconceived notions about our understanding of Jesus’ messianic role in the light of its Christological evolution in Christian teaching today. Jesus was not about establishing new religious structures but about announcing the universality of God’s love – for Jews and gentiles, male and female, of every race and nation.

Would it be accurate to state that Jesus is weeping not just over Jerusalem but over our war torn world? And yet one cannot fail to see signs of hope on the horizon. Bernard Lonergan, Carol Rahner and Carl Jung support this very Christian notion that it is in our moments of deepest despair that a new wisdom emerges leading to a common vision of a new world in which love and respect overcome evil and injustice. Is it possible that in the midst of the turmoil in which our world seems enmeshed people of good can bring that vision to reality not through confrontation but through collaboration?

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

Sunday August 19, 2007

We are surrounded by so great crowd of witnesses.

But who are they? for what do they stand? and where do we stand?

These are not the kind of readings we like to hear during the ‘dog days’ of August. We are still in ‘Ordinary Time’ getting ready for the ‘last flling’ before summer ends, but the readings are far from ordinary. In fact they seem to conjure up the names of all prophets who went against the grain of the season, upsetting the flow of the status quo of the political and religious establishments of their times to say nothing of the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of the individual members of the societies in which they lived.

Primary among those who are be named as heroes of another age is Jeremiah whose testimony has condemned him forthrightly even if unjustly. Because of his candor Jeremiah got into deep wells, stuck in mud, and suffered isolation from mainstream thinking that happens to preachers and prophets who speak out of turn. Though initially sympathetic to his message and relieved by his ‘ransom’ from the well, it is possible that upon careful study, we might have been among those who would have preferred him cast into the well or shall we state less crassly, at least to have him silenced and cloistered for a bit of counsel and rest until he get his head together.

Ironically, Jeremiah was a reluctant prophet. “I know now not how to speak; I am too young,” the Lord answered me, say not, “I am too young.” To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you out shall speak. Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.. See I place my words in your mouth! This day I set you over nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to tear down to destroy and to demolish to build and to plant.”

These are words of assurance and confirmation of the fact that Jeremiah was not speaking on his own authority or even using his own words but on higher authority.

The situation was dire. Babylon was about to overtake Jerusalem and Jeremiah was in effect calling the takeover part of God’s plan suggesting that any attempt to avert this would be tantamount to a rebellion against God.

He charged that the take over was the result of Judah’s internal rebellion against God by the leadership and the exploitaton of the powerful against the poor. He made no bones about his proclamation, parading through the city with a yoke around his neck as symbol of the yoke that was soon to be placed upon the nation by Babylon. I suppose in the eyes of many he was making a fool of himself.

Can you imagine the outrage not only in King Zedekiah but also among his advisers, insult upon insult. Though he was from a priestly caste, they felt they had no choice but to dispose of him so he was handed over to the military guard and cast into an empty cistern where it was hoped he would die and his unpopular message would be silenced.

But Jeremiah never gave up faith and thanks to the intercession of a foreign court, he lived to tell his story and speak for God again though in the end, he succumbed to his ultimate fate.

Jeremiah was one of many in a long line of Old Testament prophetic voices from whom contemporary Christian disciples can take heart in the face of adversity when the going gets rough times.

And here is a list of some of the names closer to our own era:

Thomas More, Joan of Arc, Mohandas Gandhi, Maximilan Kolbe, Teihard de Chardin, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, Ita Ford, Maura Clark, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan. All of them died in the service of Christ, some among them as martyrs.

But there are others still living who speak to power and pay the heavy price of silence or isolation that in some respects is more painful that martyrdom.

Sr. Helen Prejean will not allow us to forget the unjust “justice” called capital punishment. Bishop Tom Gumbleton continues to question the authenticity of the Church’s witness to the world and more recently has joined the ranks of those seeking greater accountability from his brother bishops for the pastoral administration of the Church.

Victims’ advocate, Fr. Tom Doyle continues to be a strong voice in the wilderness on the issue of Church accountability and the sexual abuse crisis.

What is your reaction to any or all of the above? How do you read their ‘prophecy?’ Nice people but a bit misquided?

Do we write them off as eccentrics? or as people born for another time—but not out time?

The Gospel is shocking to the ears of civilized people and despite the fact that it is employing a wide use of hyperbole; it is apparently describing what was actually happening in the early church experience. However, this text is out of synch with all the other texts and teachings of Jesus Christ. Is this really the way Christ wanted his followers to deal with their differences?

Several years ago Bishop Joseph Bernardine, cardinal archbishop of Chicago proposed a forum wherein theologians and proponents of disparate opinions in the Church might gather periodically to dialogue on a level playing ground to dialogue and synthesize the core of truth in each opinion and thus come to some common ground of understanding.

He was roundly criticized by some of his peers and even condemned. it was not long after that when he was accused of sexual about by a young man who later recanted and at whose death bed the Cardinal offered Mass. Shortly after that the Cardinal himself succumbed to cancer and now stands as testimony of faith.

It often happens that prophecies are not authenticated or validated until long after the death of their proponents. Perhaps this is just another oxymoron of life.

But then again, perhaps our Church is being challenged to make a difference this time.

Priest sociologist and founder of the National Parish Life Center in New York many years ago Father Phil Murnion was one of the inspirations behind ‘Common Ground’. He himself having contracted terminal cancer Bill whispered these three words as he drew his last breath: “Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.”