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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?

Palm Sunday 'A'

Saturday March 15, 2008

Live as if you know the whole story

With great skill he portrayed the struggle between good and evil in the soul of one man and humanity’s struggle toward liberation.

It’s a wonderful story not just about one man but about humanity and the possibility of redemption.

Though completed in 1861 it was not until Boublil and Schonberg’s now legendary musical version of Les Meserables that we have been able to enter the story not only as if we were there but also as if there were here.

The combination of lyrics and music creates a mood and a mindset opening doors to human miseries and mysteries not easily understood by strangers living the drama of life from the inside out—from the soul. But the mix can help us to grapple with our struggle to be fully human.

Caught by the combination of story and song and captured by the acceleration of the predictable events as they move toward melodramatic resolution, we discover that we are there with Fontine, Cosette, Jon Vier and Javer—not just to be entertained but also to enter the experience and risk the possibility of reform and transformation.

Unwittingly, ‘Les Mes’ provides a bit of insight into the sacred story that unfolds again this week. It’s not a new story, mind you, but our world is in flux and there are days when it seems it is about to explode or more likely to implode. And so we filter the story through the lens of our reality. Can we bear the news of one more hero with clay feet? or more political fog as candidates campaign more like horses racing to the finish line.

At times such as this, we may succumb to feelings of depression, desperation and even despair, people without hope who no longer believe that there is a God who cares.

Today we enter the mystery of the crucified, buried and risen Christ. We do not commemorate Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem as if we do not know the whole story. The liturgical events this weekend and those to be celebrated during this holiest of weeks have as their purpose the ‘holy remembrance’ in the sense of anemnesis, as if we were there and as if there were here and now.

Even during the solemn commemoration of Jesus death, the liturgy pulsates with the rhythm of Jesus’ entire life. Jesus is the new paradigm and, in the words of Karl Rahner, the perfect exemplar of what we can become in our time and place. Jesus is victorious over sin and death. This vision ought not sanitize the passion and death of Jesus, but energize the believer toward greater determination and faithfulness.

Palm Sunday is the doorway to the ‘great week’ as it was called in the ancient Christian writings. We are here in loving discipleship with palm branches but also aware of our dread fear and strong desire to run away from the crosses — personal and communal — that face us daily. Yet, we do not process with hymns and songs and palm branches as if we do not know the rest of the story. Jesus is addressed as the Son of David. This triumphant procession hints of the day when all people of every color and culture will process with Christ into the New Jerusalem. Sin remains a reality in our lives but we know even as we sin, that God is already forgiving us because God cannot do otherwise.

It is true; the passion narrative is our version of the ancient exodus of the Israelites and the dramatic telling of the most significant event in our Christian tradition. It requires that we become fully engaged to the extent that the story becomes our story. We are there and there is now! “Take up your stress and follow me;” pick up your pen and write your gospel! The death of Jesus was the result of his radical fidelity to a life and to a love he could not resist. Jesus could not do otherwise.

If we live in Christ, then we can no longer separate ourselves from the horrors of war, the hungers of humanity and the deprivations that result from exploitive socio-economic or unjust political systems or from the integrity that cries for recognition and redemption. An inevitably expanding global economy cannot be allowed to ride roughshod over poorer nations and our Church must lead the way in divesting itself of privilege giving title not just to those who wear the cross but who carry the cross.

The time was never more ripe for reform than now! So live as if you know the whole story.