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Daily Scripture

+ 3rd Week in Lent

We are guided by perennial truths and live by perennial values.

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9 Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20 Matthew 5:17-19

Teach them to your children and to your children’s children. [Deuteronomy 4:9]

Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. [Matthew 5:17]

Indeed, Jesus did not abolish the ancient law and prophets. The ‘rule of law’ remains in effect and contain perennial truths to guide us as we make our way along life’s journey.. It is true that the commandments are summed up in the law of love – love of God and love of neighbor.

Though we begin each day with the firm intention to live that law of love, it is not as simple as it sounds in the midst of confusing realities and conflicting values. Instead of telling the truth, we often slip into prevarication to hide the truth. Some politicians are good at this and not a few churchmen have been guilty of the same. On one hand, few people hold us accountable when we tell someone we love her new hat though in truth we may consider it the most ugly hat we have ever seen. On the other had, integrity makes greater demands on our moral comportment. Respect for the goods, rights, services and property of others, public or private is very demanding and is rooted in the fifth and seventh commandments and the list goes on.

A friend of mine starts his day with a wonderful ritual. Making the sign of the cross on his forehead, his heart and his lips he prays, “Lord, help me to think good thoughts of my neighbor, to speak well of others and to have positive feelings that lead to good deeds.” Amen!

PS At the conclusion of Mass this morning, I acknowledged that women do not wear hats any longer so I suggested replacing it with, “I love your new wig”… then I thought in the interests of gender equality, I should have added “hair piece.”

A bit of humor in the midst of a challenging day can help to make our burden’s lighter.

Beware, beware beware!

Friday September 12, 2008

Ideas in Passing from Joan Chittister

Editor’s note: As many of you know, Joan Chittister is a member of the Benedictine Sisters in Erie, PA. She is a bit of a prophet and therefore controversial among many. She speaks and writes without guile and without rancor. She speaks clearly and when you read her twice or thrice, her message resonates with increasing numbers of Catholics in the pew. There is indeed a new Catholicism emerging that is rooted in Christ rather than in institutional rigidity and liturgical bric-a-brac. This does not mean that Church laws and liturgical protocol do not have their place. It means that Jesus remains the norm for what is right and just. Conscience remains the hallowed space where God speaks the loudest to the sincere believer. KEL

There is a revolution going on in today’s Church. Very ordinary people are discovering the energy, the insight, and the power that comes with a real spiritual life. And, as it happens when the Holy Spirit steps out of the chanceries of the world, quite ordinary people are being spiritually empowered to make decisions on their own.

They know they have been sent to live the beatitudes in a world where two-thirds of the people are deprived of the basics of life. They know they have been sent to be the sign of the call, the gospel commitment, in a world that wants power and profit instead. They know they have been sent to become the Christ-figure in a world that says, “You get them before they get you!” In a Church that says some of us are inadequate images of Christ. They know they have been sent to turn the world around, one part at a time.

A folk tale may explain it best.

Once upon a time a priest announced that Jesus, himself, was coming to church the following Sunday. How the people turned up in large number, of course, to see him.

Everyone expected Jesus to preach. But he only smiled. And everyone offered him hospitality, but he refused. He wanted to spend the night in church, he said. “How could he!” everyone thought. But the next morning, by the time the church doors were open, Jesus had already slipped away. And to their horror, the priest and the people discovered that their church had been vandalized.

Scribbled everywhere on the walls was the single word, “Beware!” No part of the church was spared; the doors and the windows, the pillars and the pulpit, the altar; even the Bible that rested on the lectern. “Beware!” Wherever the eye rested one could see the word, “Beware!” Shocking! Yet, confusing. Hauntingly terrifying! What were they supposed to be aware of?

The first impulse of the people was to wipe out every trace of this defilement, this sacrilege. The only thing that stopped them from doing it was the awareness that it was Jesus, after all, Jesus, himself, who had done this deed.

But the days went by. That mysterious word, “Beware,” began to sink into the minds of the people each time they came to church. They began to beware of the Scriptures, so they were able to profit from them without falling into bigotry. They began to beware of the Sacraments, so they were sanctified without becoming superstitious. The priest began to beware of his power over the people, so he was able to help without controlling. And everyone began to beware of religion, which leads the unwary to self-righteousness.

They became law-abiding, yet compassionate to the weak; they began to beware of prayer, so it no longer stopped them from becoming self-reliant; they even began to beware of their notions of God, so they were able to recognize God outside the narrow confines of their church. Finally, they inscribed the shocking word over the entrance of their church and as you drive past at night you can see it blazing above the church in multi-colored neon lights. The message is a simple one: Beware! Beware of power without spirituality and beware of any spirituality that does not empower. Beware. Beware. Beware. For the sake of the Church, and the sake of the children, I’m begging you, beware.

– from “Empowerment and Spirituality,” by Joan Chittister,Creation magazine, March/April, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1990

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