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Daily Scripture

+ 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Every day is a gift and a blessing.

Readings: I Corinthians 1:1-9 Psalm 145:2-7 Matthew 24:42-51

I give thanks to my god always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gifts as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [I Cor 1:4-5, 7]

My mother used to say that every day is a gift and a blessing—an opportunity for grace indeed, many graces.

I suppose it’s all according to one’s perspective. The greatest challenge in life is to find something to be thankful for every day. This is particularly difficult during stressful times and certainly during illness of one kind or another.

I think I may have shared difference between a hermit and a nightclub performer. The hermit wakes up at dawn and says, “Thank you, God!” The nightclub entertainer wakes up at noon and says, “Good God, morning?”

There is so much going on in the world at large and in our own particular worlds to bring anxiety and stress. It’s hard work to maintain balance. An active spiritual life based on the confidence that nothing can happen today that can defeat us if we are grounded in the belief that God’s presence is abiding but it’s difficult and sometimes terrifying to let go.

I still remember the first time I road my two-wheeler bike without my dad holding on to the seat. We started off—I, confident that he hand was firmly attached to the seat. I had ridden almost a full block before I realized that he had let go and there I was, gliding down the street. It’s that way with God. We just need to remain conscious that God’s ‘hand’ is not a crutch but that God’s grace within us is real.

Some days it seems as if we are starting all over again.

Third Sunday of Advent 'A'

Saturday December 15, 2007

Not to lose heart

Ever felt trapped? Perhaps it was because you WERE trapped—in an elevator between floors, on the top of a Ferris wheel or in a subway between stations. However, these “adventures” are nothing compared to the experience of being trapped in a life and death situation such as a fire, a sinking ship or a life-threatening illness.

But there is another kind of imprisonment that can trap the soul in a life threatening situation of confusion, anger, guilt, depression, self-hatred and a sense of alienation from self, family and friends. It may be rooted in unhealed wounds such as physical or emotional abuse or it may arise from the raw memory of wounds we have inflicted on others.

Some people turn to self-help books and seminars designed to build self-esteem but which often do little more than damage control.

Psychotherapy can be very helpful and indeed is essential in many instances in order to expose deep wounds that must be quarterized in a safe environment.

But there is even more to healing than the care of the psyche. It requires what Richard Rohr calls, “soul work” and I would add, “soul food.”

Twentieth century psychologist, Carl Jung believed that most psychological and emotional derailments are rooted in a spiritual disconnect or fragmentation at the level of the unconscious or as Jung calls it, in the shadow of our being. It is where many of our demons reside. It is where we have buried our hurts, those inflicted on us as well as those we have inflicted on others. But this is also the place where we can confront those demons of fear, shame, self-hatred or pride. Ironically, it is where we also encounter God in the midst of the mess. It is where the healing of the soul begins, leading to a restoration of shattered dreams and the reintegration of broken relationships.

As a people in exile, the Israelites were experiencing both physical and spiritual alienation when Isaiah addressed these words to them: “Be strong, not powerful; fear not! Your will come and save you! God will be your power.”

More than likely, these words were written during the Babylonian exile by someone other than Isaiah, long after his death but in his name so that people would pay attention. For him, their liberation would be like a new Exodus. The Exodus is for Jews is what Calvary and Resurrection are for Christians—the watershed experience of liberation and salvation, personal and communal.

Interpreting the mind of God, Isaiah said to the people of Israel: Don’t fret! God is going to restore you to your original blessing, that is, back to who and what you were before the hurt or the sin. “For you shall see the glory of the Lord.” Glory is another word for the awesome presence of God such as Adam and Eve experienced before the fall.

Incidentally, the sin of Adam and Eve was not that they wanted to be like God but that they failed to see that they were already like God. “In God’s image he created them; male and female, he created them.” Their sin was culpable blindness.

We Catholics tend to get stuck in the notion of original sin but our powerful theology of justification calls us back to original blessing. We differ from our Protestant sisters and brothers in this regard. Justification by God is not a cover up of sin but a radical restoration to original blessing as though sin never happened. Though we slip and slide into sin, the advent of God in Christ was definitive, making sin temporary and eternal life possible and permanent. And what is eternal life but the restoration to original blessing in this life.

In poetic and metaphorical language, Isaiah emphasized further that the signs of God’s intervention would be miraculous. “The eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

We in the Christian tradition view the Exodus and the liberation of the Jews from Babylon as the foreshadowing of God’s ultimate intervention through Jesus, an intervention that was not just directed to one people or to one nation but to all people of every nation.

John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order and the first prophet of the new order who, as Isaiah, alerted the people to a higher order that would prevail with the imminent arrival of the Messiah. It is puzzling, nevertheless, that John who baptized Jesus in the Jordan, identifying him as the “Lamb of God” was still unsure of the identity of Jesus as Messiah. Otherwise, why did he send his own disciples to ask Jesus if he were indeed the Messiah?

Take note of Jesus’ response: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.” It is stated as fact, not as promise. His words were both literal and metaphorical. These are the signs of the God’s incarnate intervention in the person of Jesus, the “Anointed of God,” the Christ, the promised Messiah. Not a king with a gold crown or a warrior with spear and shield but a shepherd with a staff as symbol of service.

John could not have foreseen the cross and therefore, would not have understood the full implications of Jesus’ messianic role until he himself experienced the cost of fidelity through his own martyrdom.

We who live in the new order as the ‘people or assembly of God,’ the ‘Body of Christ’ have been liberated individually and as a community, untrapped, as it were, freed from the exile of spiritual dysfunction and the paralysis of pride—thinking that we are the center of the universe; or of self-hatred—thinking that we are unworthy of the love of God. We believe this happened definitively at our Baptism but the effects of God’s intervention continue as long as we as individuals and as a community of faith continue to struggle with our demons of self-hatred or pride.

I think that we as Catholics are not always as serious about religion as we are about politics and economics. We practice our religion but we don’t always live our faith. Religious practice can mechanical all too easily. Living the faith is more than adherence to rules and rituals. In the words of St. Paul, it is putting on the mind and heart of Christ, doing what Jesus did in our own time and place.

In recent years we Americans have become vulnerable as a nation and more recently as a church. For a variety of reasons, many Catholics have left the pews

We don’t solve our problems by walking away from them but by reinvesting in what we believe as Church and reshaping it according to the mind and heart of Christ whether our leaders like it or not. What we believe is more than dogma, doctrine, or discipline. Our theological tradition is broader than definitions and our spirituality deeper than liturgical rules and rituals can express.

James tells us in his letter this morning to be patient and not to lose heart and not to grumble against one another but listen to the prophets, ancient and contemporary, and pay special attention to the voice of Christ who is the mark of integrity and truth.

But we need to be a listening Church rather than a Church of rules and regulations. Our leaders need to listen. We need to listen to one another. More and more parents tell me that their grown children no longer go to church. I tell them to listen to their children, not just to the words they speak but also to the beat of their heart. We need to listen carefully before we speak, pursing wisdom and understanding under all circumstances. Together we can find a new truth that can free our church from sin and bring genuine healing.

The decisions we make at every level of life as individuals and as a church have ripple effects in the world community. If we claim to be disciples of Jesus, the Body of Christ, then the proof of our liberation and of God’s presence will be clearly visible and it will be said of us as it was said of Jesus: The blind see what they never saw before; the deaf will hear what they never heard before; the lame walk, and the poor have the good news brought to them, all in the present tense!