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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?

Feast of Epiphany

Sunday January 6, 2008

Looking for a God with Skin

It has been sixty years or more since Pope Pius XII in his scholarly encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, affirmed his full support for the use of literary and historical criticism in the interpretation of the Bible. This document has served as a Magna Carta for Catholic biblical studies up to the present time. In essence, Pope Pius said that the Sacred Scriptures were to be interpreted within the context of the events occurring at the time in which they were written and in light of the literary styles used by the inspired authors of the Bible. In effect, this brought Catholic biblical studies into the main stream of biblical scholarship and paved the way for the incredible renewal that has taken place among Catholics “in the pew” since Vatican II.

Despite this revolution of thought and the new direction of biblical studies that followed, there is still a strong tendency to treat the Bible in general and the infancy narratives of Jesus’ birth in particular as if they were journalistic accounts that in modern times might appear on the evening news.

Second only to the story of the birth of Jesus in the “stable” at Bethlehem, the journey of the magi has captured the imagination of believers down through the ages to this very day. In fact, many church sanctuaries this weekend will display three gold crowns or three containers symbolizing the gold, frankincense and myrrh presented by the “three kings” to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. “We have seen his star in the east and have come to adore him.”

I was completing my final year of theological studies at Darlington Seminary in 1961 when one of our esteemed professors, old ‘Doc Shea’ dismissed the whole notion that there could be any interpretation of the journey of the magi other than the literal. His resistance was based on the fear that anything short of the literal acceptance of the moving star and the three kings would call into question the very truth of the inspired Word of God and even the divinity of Christ.

Biblical “literalism” continues to plague bible study groups and some commentaries even to this day, to say nothing of politicians and pundits of creationism.

When you stop and think about it, such literalism detracts from the authenticity of the full biblical revelation in the same way as if we were to read the great poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins or the Harry Potter series as a newspaper account instead of reflections on the deepest mysteries of the soul or the unveiling of hidden truths buried in the depth of the human spirit.

The feast of Epiphany is not so much about three kings or astrologers as it is about the search of all people of every age and rank for an experience of a God with skin; a God whom we can touch; a humble God who speaks our language from east to west, north to south; a God of our heart and soul; a God whose dominion is in this world but not of this world.

On the other hand, it is more about astrologers and us being sought by God. It is about a God of unfathomable love revealing a mystery, in the words of St. Paul, “hidden through the ages and now made manifest”—the introduction of a new cosmology of the heart that enables us to find God incarnate once again in every man and every woman.

The Gospel writers had it mind to write down stories about the life of this man of God, filled with God, Son of God, who tore down the barriers that had been established by the “religionists” and self-righteous legalists and politicians of his time.

Epiphany is a feast of inclusion not of exclusion. It is the manifestation of a God who is indiscriminate in his or her love. It’s about a God who will not rest until all hearts rest in God. It is about a mission entrusted to us “to build up what the nations destroy.”

Matthew’s Gospel is a celebration of the enfleshment of God in Christ in whom there is no east or west; no difference between Jew or Greek, male or female, black or white, Arab or African, Japanese or Guatemalan. All are one and when we finally come to the realization that our global village is precisely that, then perhaps we will come to terms of peace without weapons of war, open up our storehouses of food, sit down at table and break the bread and share the wisdom that enables us to see one another as brothers and sisters vested by God for the good of all humanity.

It is interesting in Matthew’s Gospel, the Magi are described as arriving from the East in search of the “newborn king of the Jews.” The title is not mentioned in Matthew again until the wooden placard is placed above the head of Jesus as he hung upon the cross. Matthew makes it clear that the power of God will be revealed but only in powerlessness—the powerlessness of a baby born in lowly state among shepherds and the powerlessness of a man executed for blasphemy.

And so Epiphany is calling out for humanity to join the ranks of those who seek to give voice to God’s agenda not through dogmatic exclusivity or vacuous claims of a franchise on truth but through an unambiguous commitment to the human right of every citizen of every nation to enjoy the fruits of the earth and the work of human hands without discrimination.

No one who brings food to the starving can be an enemy of God. All who open their hearts in generosity to those utterly bereft in soul and spirit are on God’s side.

The biblical ‘star’ remains but it is not in the cosmic heavens. It is in the concrete words and works of the believer. The gifts we offer are not gold, frankincense and myrrh but our works of justice and charity.

When we have taken this feast to heart as individuals and as a Church, “wise men and women” will continue to come from afar in pursuit of the star and we will indeed be recognized as God with us, Emmanuel.

Click website link for a meditation for Epiphany. It will help to put things in perspective. Click ‘Ride into Space,’ turn your speakers up and enjoy! Photos provided by NASA.