tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12014080488846341382024-03-19T03:07:43.375-07:00The Assumption ExaminerThis blog is an on-line venue to augment our Sunday morning conversation in the front parlor of the Assumption convent for the alumni of the spiritual exercises. The word "Assumption" in the blog's title is a reference to the role that the Religious of the Assumption play in bringing us together. And "Examiner" is a reference to the role that the Examin plays in our ongoing Spiritual Exercises.Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-74757042585154272612014-04-09T11:15:00.000-07:002014-04-09T11:15:17.669-07:00On Joy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After a long absence, I have decided to again use this site to supplement the reading and issues we discuss at our Sunday morning gathering.<br />
We are examining Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation of November 2013, and joy is a major theme.<br />
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What follows is a homily by James Casciotti S.J. on joy. <br />
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Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.</div>
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I should title this homily, "Reflections of a Melancholic," because l for one do not bear up well under joy. Recollected, somber emotions seem somehow more remand better suited to long-term use.<br />
Yet, the Liturgy of the Church insists that joy is at least as much a part of being a Christian as sorrow. We celebrate, not seven Sundays after Easter, but seven Sundays of Easter; indeed, every Sunday is supposed to be a "little Easter."<br />
The Easter Prefaces pound home the message: "the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world." It does? St. Augustine tells us that "We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song." Sis Boom Ba. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.<br />
Today we will reflect on what Christian joy means and requires -and why many of us are uneasy with it. One reason we reluctant cheerleaders find it hard to be caught up in joy for very long is that we live in an aggressively secular, news-bite culture which gives us little help with sustained communal celebration.<br />
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Advent is filled with shopping and socializing. Christmas is over on the 25th. Holy Days long ago became holidays, the celebration of which has lost an} connection with religious belief or practice.<br />
The very concept of celebration has been trivialized to a babe and a Bud from its original meaning: "to make significant." We celebrate with play. Play is like work in that it involves effort and skill and follows certain conventions -like ballroom dancing or golf or putting on a good dinner or a High Mass.<br />
Unlike at least some work, play is something you want to master. something you like to do. Increasingly, we are forgetting how to play, choosing instead to loaf, to passively expect to be entertained.<br />
Celebration requires relaxed but active reflection. a sense of leisure. of being at ease. Celebration requires savoring our time at play, savoring the presence of God in word and sacrament and in the people you care about and who care about you.<br />
Joy is also a difficult attitude to form because it has been too often misused to deny pain or to manipulate others into not bothering us with their troubles.<br />
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Who among us has not tried to confide in a friend only to find ourselves being bludgeoned by joy and lectured on our negative, misguided feelings, on the dangers of self-fulfilling prophesies, etc.? While such advice may be well intentioned, it may say more about the unwillingness of the dispenser to share in the burdens of others.</div>
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Like most advertising, the shallow theology of joy foisted upon us by some liturgists, especially at funerals, promises more than it can deliver and invites us to ignore or repress suffering rather than face and work through it. As Simon Tugwell, a Dominican, comments:</div>
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Is it not all too probable that the insistence on Christian "Joy" is, to a considerable extent, only a pious version of the social pressure on us not to be weak or ailing? And if this is so, the rule of cheerfulness is but another instance of the way in which fallen humanity disowns its true emotions, and allows only selected, programmed, surrogate feelings to emerge into its consciousness.. .Those searing and humiliating moments when we are too distressed to accommodate ourselves to the requirements of our unsympathetic world, when even the Church tends to confront us with its wooden-faced puritanism of "joy," these are the very times upon which the Lord pronounces his Benediction.2</div>
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Another reason that joy is hard for us is that it is often comes mixed with envy and the fear of abandonment. It takes a secure friend to really rejoice when something great happens to you or you achieve something.</div>
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Even in a group of Jesuits, if one is highly praised, the others will either become quiet or begin to nod and make clucking sounds of agreement while deftly changing the topic as soon as possible.</div>
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Misery loves company, but when you get engaged or promoted, when you get your life together, will there still be room in it for me? Will I be left alone again when you don't need a shoulder to cry on? Or will I find you "boring" or "narcissistic" when you don't need to depend on me like before?</div>
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If you have been hurt or disappointed or betrayed in the past, the onset of joy or hope soon fills you with foreboding, anticipating the fresh pain sure to follow. As Violetta says in Traviata when her lover's disapproving father catches up with her, "I have been expecting you. I have been too happy."</div>
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The empty cross, the empty grave. Great Jesus, you've risen from the dead, you're all finished with suffering. But what about us? We're still here; the marriage, the bills, the kids, AIDS and divorce and homophobia and abortion and watching those we love die. You on the cross, we can relate to!</div>
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Indeed, for most of us, growing in faith happens more in tough times than happy ones. One of the few things I say to God when I pray is, "You alone 0 Lord!" I always catch myself saying it sincerely at the moment.</div>
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However, I know that as soon as things are going well, I will become distracted at prayer, irritated with the foibles of others, and increasingly unfocused until things get bad enough for a new spurt of piety.</div>
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The fact is, that for a fickle human like myself, being too happy is a bit of a temptation. I think of the wonderful prayer from compline with which the Episcopal Church ends the day:</div>
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Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity he afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake.</div>
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Our Lord and I understand one another, just because I am fickle doesn't mean I don't love him. He knows he has to shield me when things are going well. This is from "Torch Song Trilogy." The protagonist is a female impersonator:</div>
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I'm strictly torch. While all the other kids were listening to the Beatles, San the Sham and the Dave Clark Five, I was home lipsynching Billie Holiday, Jane Froman, and Helen Morgan. As I got older I switched to Lucia Di Lammermoor, Tosca, and Manon. But is was always tragic stuff. Something about taking all that misery and making it into something.. .Anyway, the audiences like it. I guess getting hurt is the one thing we all have in common.3</div>
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Let's go back to the gospel now and see what we can learn about how better endure joy. The Risen Lord has not disappeared from us, not sloughed off and transcended his human existence. He has not gone back to heaven like a tired commuter to put his feet up and smoke a pipe.</div>
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In this extraordinary encounter, Jesus is still with us-not a resuscitated corpse, but not a ghost, in a transformed body-the body we will one day have. All that happened to him in the body and therefore all we experience in ours -suffering, frailty, loneliness, physical and mental handicap, even the evil done to us or by us-is finally not wasted, finally not a cruel trick.</div>
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All will be transformed by a Lover, whose sheer energy and passion we only begin to imagine.</div>
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Moreover, we recognize Jesus when he says, "You got anything here to eat?" Boy could Jesus pack it away. So many other times in Luke's gospel we've seen Jesus at table, at play, enjoying food, enjoying people and conversation.</div>
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Real Christian joy is anchored in these memories and living experiences of being here at table with Jesus and our ability to sustain it in our lives depends on our willingness to truly celebrate the Sacred Mysteries of faith and friendship and family-at other tables.</div>
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We recognize Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread. That Jesus is risen means that the boundaries of other bodies don't matter any more. Gentile or Jew, slave or free, woman or man-no more.</div>
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Indeed we become more ourselves by being vulnerable and open to others entering our lives, by identifing ourselves with others beyond boundaries of sex, age, race, culture, preference.</div>
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Jesus is still and ever being broken and shared and given to us. He enters us and we are in him. We are the Body of Christ. Because Jesus is risen, he is, in a new and intimate way, still suffering in and with us in our illnesses and anguishes, in our weaknesses and betrayals-still dying in our dying.</div>
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Paul says that we are make up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ and that Christ's death; that is, Christ's self-emptying, transforming love is at work in him. True joy is not the opposite of suffering, nor its denial, nor its absence.</div>
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Even now, suffering born with hope and dignity has the power to purify, strengthen, transform those both those who suffer and those who dare to share their burden.</div>
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We have all been attracted to people whose lives are seen to be difficult and yet who approach life with humor and joy. Some work with the poor and the dying. Some are terminally ill themselves. The lives of others would give them every excuse for bitterness, yet they are not. As Beverly Sills said:</div>
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I'm not happy, I'm cheerful. There's a difference. a happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman had cares but has learned how to deal with them.4</div>
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Paul Tillich put it more theologically:</div>
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Joy has something within itself that is beyond joy and sorrow. This something is called blessedness.. .It makes the joy of life possible in pleasure and pain, in happiness and unhappiness, in ecstasy and sorrow. Where there is joy there is fulfillment. And where there is fulfillment, there is joy.5</div>
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Recognizing the Lord present within and among us in the breaking of the bread is opens our minds and hearts to understand the necessity of Jesus' sacrifice and strengthens us to find meaning in the suffering we experience in our attempts to love and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven.</div>
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In the life of every disciple struggle and joy go together. The joy of belonging, of companionship, the joy of recognizing him in others, the joy of discovered purpose comes only at the cost of giving yourself away, of allowing yourself to be broken and shared.</div>
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No wonder the arrival of the Risen Lord caused joy heavily mixed with, as the Gospel said, "disbelief and wonder." Christian joy is really a form of asceticism, a form of play-it is something you choose to become good at because you want to. Fr. Pelton, a priest from Madonna House in Canada writes:</div>
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If I look at the face of a man or woman who takes the Gospel seriously, what do I see? I see someone who experiences keenly his or her own weakness, who carries more than the average share of the world's pain, who hears clearly the cries of anguish rising on all sides. But I also see someone radically committed to the asceticism of joy, to letting go, in faith, of his or her own darkness so that the Risen Christ can shed the light of his new creation into and through the heart that God has made his home. This decision is the great vehicle of love, which is the work and play of the new creation, because it hands over to the Lord of glory all that is still inglorious that he may make it as radiant as he is.6</div>
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The Easter Bunny is for one day only. The joy of the Risen Lord is for every day of our journey. Come, let us celebrate the Sacred Mystery of the Lord. Dead. Risen. Broken and shared.</div>
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Let us know him in the Breaking of the Bread.</div>
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Let us know him in and beyond joy, in and beyond sorrow. Let us know him in ourselves and in one another.</div>
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Shield us, 0 Lord-for we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.</div>
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1 Ouotations for the Christian World. ed. Edythe Draper. Wheaton, III: Tyndale House, 1992. 6548.</div>
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2The Beatitudes: Soundinqs in Christian Traditions. Templegate, 1980. p. 60.</div>
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3Harvey Fierstein. NY: The Gay Presses of NY, 1979. p. 97.</div>
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4Pearls of Wisdom. eds. Jerome Age! & Walter D. Glaze. NY: Harper, 1987. p. 45</div>
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SQCW. 6536.</div>
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6Robert D. Pelton. Circlinq the Sun: Meditations on Christ in Liturgy and Time. Washington: The Pastoral Press, 1986. p. 96.</div>
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Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-19527131851830288592012-03-29T13:11:00.000-07:002012-04-08T18:24:52.721-07:00the unwelcome revelation of God in Jesus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Jesus curses a fig tree (Mk 11:14) because it had no figs-- even though, as Mark is careful to point out, "it was not the season for figs." Certainly Jesus who used gardening events to teach knew it was not the season for fruit. The curse seems severe, "No one shall eat figs from you again!" and unwarranted. Our exegete, Dr. Sabin, tries to soften the severity by telling us "some scholars have suggested that the phrasing is more accurately rendered, "May no one ever eat fruit from you <i>to the end of the age."</i> "If one has been following Mark's view of Jesus," she goes on, "one sees that he always shows Jesus' power directed toward healing. So here it seems right to understand Jesus' reply (to Peter) as encouragement to have faith in the fig tree's restoration." If this were true, then why would Jesus have cursed the fig tree at all, since he could have used his power to have the fig tree bear fruit out of season-- rather than denying himself and everyone else the fruit of the tree for the foreseeable future. Creating fruit out of season would have demonstrated the power of prayer just as well and maintained Dr. Sabin's preferred image of him only using his power for healing. Then there is the matter that His Father could have responded to Jesus' curse by simply declaring this tree to be a non-fruit bearing variety of fig tree, like the non-fruit bearing cherry trees we have by the grace of God. There does not seem to be any intrinsic need to cause the tree to wither just because it bears no fruit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But then the revelation of God that this story and the surrounding stories were meant to convey would have been lost. It is an important revelation into the very nature of God and man that proves unwelcome even today --even among church going people. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.expository.org/mark11b.htm">Coty Pinckney </a>is more respectful of the </span><span style="font-size: large;">sacred text than our exegete, Dr. Sabin. He notes that the text says that Jesus </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>approached</b></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"> the tree to see if he could find any fruit on it (presumably knowing full well that it was out of season) but when he came up to it he </span><span style="font-size: large;">found nothing but leaves.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> "Many trees produce leaves and flowers simultaneously, and the fruit follows later. Figs appear to be an exception, but in reality they are not. Fig trees produce flowers simultaneous with their leaves, but the flowers are encased in a fleshy, protective covering that has the same shape as ripe figs, giving the false appearance of fruit. The fruit doesn't develop until after pollination occurs inside these coverings which requires the assistance of a special type if wasp. Then the fruit develops inside these flower coverings. The skin of the ripe fig is actually this exterior protective covering of the flower." When Jesus approached the tree, he found that the tree had neither ripe figs nor the flower modules-- the text says "<b>he found only leaves</b>." The tree seemed from afar to be flourishing, but in reality it was producing nothing of value. It was a non-fruit bearing fig tree. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Jesus curses the appearance of fruitfulness without the reality</span><span style="font-size: large;">. <i>God reveals this reality, which had been hidden, by causing the fig tree wither. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the middle of this story of the fig tree Mark tells the story of Jesus casting out the money changers from the courtyard of the Gentiles. He had scoped out the situation the day before, it was not a brash act. Dr. Pinckney points out that the fruit of authentic prayer had already been driven out of the temple by the money changers. The withering of the fig tree was the judgment of God and the precursor to the destruction of the prayerless temple. It is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ that like salt that loses its savor, and temples that only produce prayers for show, sin will have tragic consequences even though God continues to be gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 145:8). The parable that begins the next chapter in Mark is also about the judgment of God on useless vineyard. The vineyard produces grapes, but not to the benefit of the owner. "What will the owner of the vineyard do?" Jesus asks the temple authorities. Without waiting for them to answer he tells them. "He himself will come <b>and make an end of the tenants</b> and give the vineyard to others." The temple authorities, who offered prayer fro show and drove out authentic prayer to God, understood that he was speaking about them specifically. They get it, but this was an unwanted and unacceptable revelation. Rather than repent their sin like the Ninevites in Jonah's time , they preferred to kill "one greater than Jonah." The salt that looses its savor, the fruitless fig tree, and the profitless vinyard are used by Jesus to reveal the same eternal truth. The salt gets trampled under foot, the fruit tree withers, the tenants are killed, the foolish virgins are kept out of the wedding feast. And the teachers of the law (Mk:12.40-41) who take the best places at feasts, take advantage of widows robbing them of their home then make a show of saying long prayers." Their<b> punishment </b>will be all the worse!" he says. A God who loves sinners <b>also punishes </b>the unrepentant. It is precisely the <u><b>unwantedness</b></u> of the revelation of God in Jesus that nails him to a leafless tree. He tells us "my flesh is true food and my body true drink (John 6:55). The leafless cross is the tree of new life.</span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-12065436608366956862012-03-10T20:59:00.000-08:002012-03-11T09:00:43.819-07:00Essential Jew<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/465074/jewish/When-We-Became-Jewish.htm">Rabbi Naftali Silverberg </a>asks, </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 20px;">What is the significance of the name "Jew" Where does the word come from and what does it mean ?</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The word Jew (Yehudi in Hebrew) is a derivative of the name Judah (Yehudah). Jacob's fourth son; hence calling someone by this name would seemingly imply that the person is a descendant of that particular tribe. However, as is well known, Jacob had twelve sons, progenitors of the twelve Tribes of Isreal, all of whom comprise our great nation. Why, then, is the entire Isrealite nation known as "Jews"? </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">( The conventional answer to this question is that the majority of Jews today are descendants from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin-- the two tribes which comprised the "Kingdom of Judea." The other ten tribes, the members of the "Northern Kingdom," were exiled to unknown lands. There must, however, be a deeper reason for the fact that the Chosen Nation has been called this name for close to 2500 years!)</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps this question can be cleared up by analyzing the very first individual to be dubbed "Jew." The first instance of this word appears in the biblical Book of Esther, which chronicles the story of Purim: "There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai the son of Yair... a Benjaminite" (Esther 2:5).</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">That's right: the first "Jew" was actually from the tribe of Benjamin! An objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidable. The entire incident was a result of Mordechai's obstinate adherence to a code of behavior which was clearly outdated and inappropriate for the times. Mordechai was an elderly rabbi who yet recalled days-- more than half a century beforehand -- when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem and Torah Law was supreme. His snubbing of Haman might have been condign during that generation. But things had changed dramatically. The people of Isreal were in exile. How did Mordechai dare put his entire nation in danger of extinction by slighting the king's favorite minister? Apparently someone neglected to inform this sage that the ability to conform is the key to survival...</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Mordechai, however, thought otherwise; and he had a famous precedent supporting his "foolish" actions. Many years earlier a powerful Egyptian ruler wished to take his ancestor, Benjamin, as a slave. Benjamin's brother Judah wouldn't hear of such a possibility. In what would be his proudest and most defining moment, Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler-- who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph-- and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release. Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite <b>who must walk a thin line: While he must live at peace with his neighbors, following the laws and customs of the land, and "pray for the peace of the regime," he has the courage of his convictions to stand up against all the powers that be in order to defend his ideals. </b> In the words of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, "only our bodies were sent into exile; not our souls!"</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Mordechai "the Jew" was a proud student of his great-uncle Judah. He knew that Torah law forbids a Jew from bowing to Haman (and the statuette which dangled from a chain around his neck), and for him that was the final word. Indeed, Judah's and Mordechai's actions were vindicated as events unfolded-- no harm came to either of them as a result of their brave conduct. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Leading by example, Mordechai succeeded in implanting this sense of pride in the hearts of the masses. When Haman issued his decree of annihilation, not one Isrealite even considered abandoning his religion in order to be spared death. At that moment, we all became "Jews." Accordingly, the Book of Ester is the first place where our nation as a whole is referred to as Jews. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The name stuck. Because the next 2,500 years would repeatedly test our "Jewishness." Under countless regimes-- both friendly and, as was usually the case, hostile-- we struggled against friends and enemies who wished to impose their will upon us at the expense of our relationship with G-d. Again and again we proved ourselves true to G-d, earning the name Jew through oceans of blood and tears. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The grand story of history concludes in similar fashion as the Purim story: we are here to tell the tale and our enemies aren't... The Joy of Purim is greater than any other holiday because it tells the story of the nation who never allowed its soul to be shackled-- the story of the Jew.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/1451/jewish/Why-We-Didnt-Succumb.htm">Rabbi Manachem Schneerson</a> deepens this story considerably. The first step to real understanding of G-d and the deeper aspects of life is realization that <b>we cannot and must not make our own understanding a prerequisite condition of our practicing the Divine precepts.</b> In other words, we cannot say to G-d, Let us first understand your laws; then we will follow them. When our people came into being, on receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, they declared: "We will do (first), then we will (try to) understand." This proclamation has remained our guiding light for all times and at all places. The Jew must observe the Mitzvoth whether or not he understnads their deeper significance; his experience of the Mitzvoth eventually will develop the faculties of his understanding, and in this he has Divine assistance.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Jews have, likewise, always realized that our history is not shaped by understandable natural laws or forces, but by Supreme Providence, which is above and beyond our understanding. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> A case in point is the festival of Purim which we celebrate today. Ahasuerus, an absolute ruler, had signed, sealed and delivered the decree to annihilate the entire Jewish population in all the 127 provinces of his vast empire. There seemed not a glimmer of escape. The Jews could not logically understand why such a terrible decree was hanging over their heads. Haman had accused them of adhering to their own laws and way of life. But, if he was right, then precisely for this reason they should not have become exposed to such mortal danger, inasmuch as the Torah is a Torah-Chaim, a law of life and a way of life, not death.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Yet, during the entire year that the decree was pending, the Jews remained steadfast in their faith and loyalty to G-d, although there was but one avenue of escape from certain death, as our Sages tell us, and that was precisely the opposite: abandonment of their way of life and merging with the non-Jewish population. But not a single Jew or Jewess chose this apparently "logical" solution. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Their salvation also came through a miraculous chain of events which completely turned the wheel of fortune from destruction to renewed life, physical and spiritual, and from mourning to gladness.</span></span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-87771118327922025992012-02-26T12:12:00.000-08:002012-03-11T08:50:31.113-07:00Blessed are the Meek<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Jesus had a calling, a vocation, which preceded his conception in Mary's womb. In many ways his vocation determined who were to be his parents, what ethnicity and gender he would be, when and where he would live in the course of human events. The Magi, following their vocation, being attentive to the Holy Spirit who is at work in foreign lands, could discern something of this infant's vocation before Jesus himself could perceive it. The same Holy Spirit that had brought Jesus into this world leads each of us if we are attentive </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">to fulfill our vocation</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">. Sins against the Holy Spirit, to say the least, present the only real problem for the individual and his community. "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod," he tells his disciples as they sin against the Holy Spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Scripture tells us that Jesus was like us in all things except sin (Heb 4:15). We all, like Jesus, have a vocation given by God before we were conceived in our mother's womb. We all have a role to play in bringing about the Kingdom- a calling which determines when and where and to whom we are born, and whom in the course of our lives we come to interact. This is true whether we are born to Jewish parents, Muslim parents, Catholic parents or to confirmed atheists the purpose of our vocation is the same as Jesus' -- the coming of the Kingdom of God. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The beatitudes which Matthew records in the Sermon on the Mount describes the coming of the Kingdom of God. They describe essential attributes that bring about different facets of the Kingdom, attributes that belong to the Messiah, attributes of Jesus -- as he reflects the attributes of God. "For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth," he told Pilate. " <b>Every one</b> who is <b>of the truth</b> hears my voice (John 18:37)."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">In Mark Chapter 7 (our reading for this week) we see Jesus living out this calling of bearing witness to the truth, the same truth rendered in Matthew's the Sermon of the Mount. First he responds to the inquiry from the Pharisees and scribes as to why some of the disciples did not keep the tradition of the elders but ate with unwashed hands. This was for these inquiring Pharisees and the scribes a spiritual problem. Jesus identifies for them the real spiritual problem-- what is in their hearts. Jesus enlists the prophet Isaiah's witness to their inquiry. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus simply said, "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God." Here in Luke we can see Jesus defining for the Pharisees and scribes, and later for a crowd generally, and still later to his own particular disciples --the truth behind this beatitude. The beatitudes are facts-- true, whether we know them or believe them -- true before Jesus identifies them as the way to the Kingdom and bears personal witness to them in his life and death. Jesus teaches them both forthrightly and in parables because a genuine appreciation of the truth behind the beatitudes fosters that metanoia essential to the coming of the Kingdom in our personal lives and in those we encounter through the working of the Holy Spirit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Which brings us to the woman "Syrophoenician by birth" who implores Jesus to cast out a demon from her daughter. Jesus addresses her inferior status as a gentile. The woman is not put off, or accuse him of bigotry but rather pursues that good for which the Holy Spirit directed her there in the first place. Jesus comes to realize in that moment what his vocation calls him to do for her, what the coming of coming of God's Kingdom requires. It is the faith in her heart rather than the circumstances of her birth that matters to the coming of the Kingdom. Unlike the faith of the Jewish woman who stole a miracle without asking, by touching the hem of his garment, this foreigner woman's persistence in beseeching Jesus makes concrete her faith and advances the Kingdom. Both women are meek but in very different ways. The first doesn't seek to push her request of Jesus above all the others who are pressing in on him. This woman foreigner takes no umbrage at Jesus recognition of her interior birth but presses on with what the Holy Spirit has led her there to do. It is her vocation. And by being "Syrophoenician by birth" Jesus is able to reveal something about the coming of the Kingdom that could not have been revealed if she were Jewish. She has a different vocation from the meek Jewish woman but to the same end. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth through the grace of God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The beatitudes are interrelated since they express different facets of the same Kingdom. You can see the relationship between the purity of heart missing in the Pharisees and scribes and meekness of the Syrophoenician woman. The Pharisees and scribes are ostensibly descendants of Abraham, they know God's will through the testimony of the prophets and pray they psalms, and wash their hands before eating yet they are farther from being agents of the coming Kingdom than the Syrophoenician woman who follows her vocation and beseeches God's Messiah.</span></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-50315608338006115682012-02-04T12:00:00.000-08:002012-02-26T13:29:50.332-08:00“Take care what you hear... "<br />
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<span style="color: #fce5cd; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">On
March 3, 2011 I made an entry to this blog titled, “Be careful
then how you listen..” It was based on a quote in Luke 8 where Jesus presents
the parable of the sower and the lamp stand, which we find in this
weeks reading from Mark 4. The entry I made then is still well worth
reading. </span>
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<span style="color: #fce5cd; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In
both Luke and Mark he says, </span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Whoever
has ears to hear</i></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
ought to hear,”</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
but he explains that he speaks in parables so that, “The
mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you [his
disciples]. <i>But to those outside</i> everything comes in parables, </span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">so
that </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">‘</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">they
may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not
understand, in order that they may not be converted and be
forgiven.’” [ there are other biblical passages like this </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Is
6:9</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">; </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jn
12:40</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">; </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Acts
28:26</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">; </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Rom
11:8</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
] Dr. Sabin in her <u>Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark</u> (2005,
p.46) states that Mark was quoting Isaiah 6:9 in this passage, and in
Isaiah the passage was “clearly ironic.” But John 12:40 clearly doesn't consider
this passage in Isaiah to be ironic, nor do most <a href="http://www.textweek.com/prophets/isaiah6.htm" style="text-decoration: none;">commentaries</a>. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.42in;">Even
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_4">Wikipedia</a> provides a better explanation of this passage. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 0.42in;">Dr.
Sabin doesn't appreciate the revelation of God expressed in
<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A21-22&version=NIV">Luke 10:21</a> and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+11%3A25-30&version=NIV">Matthew 11:25</a> which needs to be taken into account by all scholars of the sacred texts. While the gospels of Matthew and Luke
were not written until after Mark<u> the truths of the gospel that they
express</u> were present in the oral tradition of the early Christian community at the time of
Mark because they were primarily based on the real Jesus event which
preceded the written gospels. It is frequently hard for scholars to fully appreciate that they are not privileged interpreters of the revelation of God. They are just as likely as anyone to have hearts impaired by those elements Jesus describes in the parable of the sower. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-60134985961341726732011-11-25T08:21:00.001-08:002011-11-27T20:31:00.077-08:00Laurence Freeman on Simone Weil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dom Freeman's account of Simone Weil's conversion is seriously flawed in a number of aspects, but none more serious than his assertion that she refused baptism. Diogenes Allen and Eric Springsted's <u style="font-style: italic;">Spirit, Nature and Community</u> provides testimonial evidence that refutes this assertion. You can read the first chapter entitled "The Baptism of Simone Weil" on the publisher's <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-1892-spirit-nature-and-community.aspx">website</a>. Eric O. Springsted's earlier work, <u style="font-style: italic;">Simone Weil and the suffering of love</u> published by Cowley corrects other aspects of Dom Freeman's account of Ms Weil's rich appreciation of faith and the love of God. The chapter on "The Love of God in Daily Life" is especially well worth reading.</span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-28177012161383494912011-10-22T09:55:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:37:01.631-08:00Brennan Manning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After hearing Carey talk about reading Brennan Manning's <u style="font-style: italic;">Ragamuffin Gospel</u> I found this youtube video of Brennan Manning presenting his main idea at of conference in Philadelphia in 1999. </span> </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Patheos.com has chosen Brennan Manning's latest book <u style="font-style: italic;">All is Grace </u> as it's book club selection, and published this rather personal review <a href="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Blessed-Are-the-Poor-in-Spirit-Mark-Yaconelli-10-16-2011.html">http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Blessed-Are-the-Poor-in-Spirit-Mark-Yaconelli-10-16-2011.html</a> I shared it with Sr. Clare who thought it was "quite impressive"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">so I thought I would share it with you. </span></span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-5614144868027441562011-10-22T08:24:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:25:18.424-08:00Laurence Freeman's Way<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I thought that since we are reading Laurence Freeman's <u style="font-style: italic;">Jesus: the Teacher Within</u> you might want to hear the introduction to his Bere Island Easter Retreat. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Other videos from this retreat can be found at <a href="http://www.wccm.org/category/category/laurence-freeman">http://www.wccm.org/category/category/laurence-freeman</a></span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-14127933456503413272011-08-16T13:14:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:26:28.398-08:00A Oneness Created by a Giving of One's Self<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Šĕmaʿ Yisĕrāʾel Ădōnāy Ĕlōhênû Ădōnāy eḥād. </b> Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). The One, the Holy One, the object of this sacred text is the Creator of the entire universe according to the story in Genesis. When it says that God made us in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27) we had a share in that attribute, that oneness with God that was paradise. It was fractured by sinfulness only to be regained in that new covenant of Jesus, the Christ. This covenant is a consecrated, physical, "<b>bodily</b>" covenant. Christ says, Take and eat, this is my body, which will be given up for you and for all <b>that sins might be forgiven</b>. Do this in memory of me. In receiving the body of Jesus into their bodies Christians pledge to give their bodies in chastity, poverty and obedience to the Church's spouse who is one with his Father. This is the oneness spoken of in the Shema Israel. We call the Church "catholic" which denotes the universal oneness of God in the requited love of His kingdom within and among us. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Deuteronomy continues:</span><br />
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</span></b></td><td style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: top;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>7</b> and <b>thou shalt teach them diligently</b> unto thy children,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, </span><br />
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</span></b></td><td style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: top;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>8</b> And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes.</span></td></tr>
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</span></b></td><td style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: top;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>9</b> And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Because the Church isn't just theoretically wed to her spouse, but bodily wed, she doesn't change her teaching on sex or divorce or the nature of marriage itself. They are integral to her being who she is. We each have the particular bodies that we have in order to fulfill a vocation God has for each of us. We were given physical bodies with a spiritual purpose, called by our Creator to make visible, to "incarnate" our love for Him in our daily lives. We live a covenant with God, whether single or married, which is the essence of her teaching on chastity. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When the pagan and secular world press the Church to change its teaching on these matters, she holds steadfast<b> </b>because to do otherwise would be to deny her very essence. Some of those who press for change are very learned and sincere people. Jesus thanked his Father for hiding these things from the wise and learned and revealing them to little children (Matthew 11:25). </span></td></tr>
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</div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-71267111846590224652011-08-05T08:39:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:27:00.562-08:00Further reflections on the body given<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is a very <b>bodily revelation</b>. Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit over two millenia ago, <i><b>is </b></i> the revelation of God. In his words and what he did, and in his very bodily presence among us, Christ revealed God and God's will for us. “For this I came into the world, to bear witness to the Truth,” he told Pilot. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Jesus, the revelation of God, is also, the kingdom of God -- our sharing in God's life. The effect of the revelation of God on those who live their faith in him, is to bring about the kingdom within them and among them-- a sharing in the very life of God (what Catholics have traditionally called "sanctifying grace") in the Mystical Body of Christ. This body conceived, as was the physical body and soul of Christ of Nazareth, by the Holy Spirit -- <i><b>IS </b></i> the kingdom of the God who shares his very life with those who give their life to him. "Those who seek to save their life, will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will have eternal life."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Catholic Church doesn't have a philosophy although many through the ages have practiced philosophy with considerable passion. Nor does the Church have a theology although many have engaged in that kind of discourse. What the Church has is Jesus himself, the body of Christ, --the revelation of God-- and the kingdom of God. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">The Church does not so much have a mission (as if "mission" were one among a dozen other things the Church does) but rather the </span><span style="color: black;">mission God has for mankind, has a Church to bring it about. </span> In and through the Church's prayer life the Word of God is incarnated in the life of our world. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">At the center of the Church's liturgical prayer is the Mass. And at the center of the Mass is the consecration, where Jesus says, take and eat, this is <b>my body</b> <b>which will be given up </b>for you and for all that sins might be forgiven. It is his <b>body</b> given by God for a purpose. But not a physical body only, for a body is a symbol of more than a physical being but of a whole life. In so far as we </span>through faith accept his bodily gift we enter into a covenant which claims our bodies in chastity and our very souls; so that, as Paul says,<b> </b>we carry about in our body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body (2 Cor.4:11). <b> </b>At each Mass the Church celebrates her wedding and vows to remain faithful.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Church’s teaching on such things as premarital and homosexual sex as well as contraception is integral to her core being - the revelation of God in Jesus. These teachings are not going to change over time, no matter how many are scandalized by them. </span> The Church knows and appreciates that God still actively hides from the learned what is revealed to children just as he did Christ's time. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Sex is intrinsically about the giving of our bodies as a symbol of our selves (even by those who don't intend or appreciate the symbolism God has attached to these acts from the very creation of the world.) The revelation of God in Christ to his Church is the Pascal Mystery of a body given and our salvation. When Christ was asked about divorce (see Mark: 10) he referred them back to the eternal truth about marriage as it was “from the beginning.” Even his disciples balked at this. But Moses, the prophet of God, allowed for divorce they pointed out. Was Jesus less compassionate than Moses-- or was the acceptance of divorce more costly to the immortal souls of people than they appreciated? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">John the Baptist bore witness to the unchanging meaning of marriage to Herod, though it cost him dearly. Jesus also bore witness to his Father's will. “Not my will but thine be done,” he said. <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Blessed</span></span> John Paul's catechesis on this giving of the human body in his Wednesday audiences provides substantial philosophical and theological support for what he Church has always taught on these matters. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Pascal Mystery is our invitation to live the chaste life of God in Christ, who gave up his body for the forgiveness of sins. The members of his Mystical Body have a vocation each in their own way that contributes to the saving passion of Christ. </span></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-2778140724224497452011-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:27:33.787-08:00A Body Given Up For You<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Two weeks ago my nephew lost a leg and a foot in <st1:country-region _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. He had wanted to serve people in a more substantial way than as a manager of a bar which had been his prior occupation. So he joined the Rangers and became a medic. He learned to apply tourniquets, and to perform emergency tracheotomies, inject intravenous fluids to keep soldiers alive and get them off the battlefield and into a medical facility. To do this work he had to put himself in harms way. He played a kind of "catcher in the rye".</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdIXsOwS5mekMhUIJKmBFiuaD0hYBKsNrWNxM70thYvvrd0AXpb-mJUktutoDmk91Ob_OEmpisLpawDTidhNXJmM1F_5gD18ou5oz4mZo9yAe0tPrdrpqwS9ciZKRqBlNiTGdprhifVcA/s1600/CSA-2006-06-28-0930292.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdIXsOwS5mekMhUIJKmBFiuaD0hYBKsNrWNxM70thYvvrd0AXpb-mJUktutoDmk91Ob_OEmpisLpawDTidhNXJmM1F_5gD18ou5oz4mZo9yAe0tPrdrpqwS9ciZKRqBlNiTGdprhifVcA/s320/CSA-2006-06-28-0930292.jpg" width="182" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This got me thinking. We had just read over the last couple of months the gospel of Luke. Twice in that gospel Jesus says that those who seek to save their lives will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake will save it. And so I asked myself, “what does it mean to lose one’s life for His sake?” In any case, we only have our bodies temporarily and parts of our bodies might be even more temporary. But what does it mean, to lose one’s body for Him? Did Chris, my nephew, loose his leg and foot for Him? He put himself in harms way to provide an essential service to those in his unit who might become casualties of war. He didn't want to become one himself. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“This is my body which will be given up for you and for all that sins might be forgiven,” He said, before becoming a casualty of that spiritual war in which we are all combatants. Love, that much over worked word, love is about giving up one’s body, not primarily in sex acts, but in the day to day service offered to those we care about. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Catholics believe that the Creator made a gift, a bodily gift in handing of dominion of creation over to mankind. And again He made a bodily gift-- in the incarnation of his Son, conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was Christ’s body, but in a way, it was His Father’s body too, in so far as he could have a body, that was given up to accompany us. “This is my body which will be given up for you and for all that sins might be forgiven.” He said this after spending a few years teaching about that grand narrative of which our lives are but a part. "Do this in membory of me," He said. We remember this each and every time Mass is said in the many venues around the world including on battlefields.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #29303b; font-size: large;">The giving of His body, is not about His body only, but a body that is a symbol of more than just the physical- but of His life itself. If, through faith, we were to accept His sacrifice we would enter into a kind of covenant with our Creator. Jesus called it "a new and everlasting covenant." Our life would be an act of worshop "in spirit and in truth" as he told the Samaritan woman at the well. Paul observed that "we carry about in our body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be<b> manifested in our body </b>(2Cor4:11)." We hold our treasure in earthen vessels that are subject to a kind of breakage but not annihilation. Could the limbs my nephew lost in the course of his service to his Ranger unit be construed to be such a sacrifice? Could his body bear a kind of stigmata acquired in his playing a catcher in the rye in real life?</span></div>
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</div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-90598055609324687542011-04-03T12:20:00.000-07:002011-11-27T20:28:00.623-08:00Struggling with the truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Barbara Nicolosi, the founder of the <a href="http://www.actoneprogram.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Act One</a> screenwriting program, has said that one of the primary storytelling principles they teach their students is, <b>"It isn't telling people the truth that saves them; it's getting them to wrestle with the truth that saves them." </b>It seems to me that Luke (20:9-18) describes Jesus, the master storyteller, doing just that with the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders who have come to interrogate him. After telling the parable of the tenants, Jesus asks them, "What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?" It is a rhetorical question. He doesn't wait for them to answer. "He will come and kill those men, and turn the vineyard over to other tenants."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> When the people heard this, Luke tells us, they cried out, <b>"Surely not!!</b> Jesus has them struggling with a profound truth embedded in the very scriptures these learned men have studied since their youth, in Psalm 118, but they were unable to discern its real meaning. Jesus is grateful that his Father hides from the learned what is revealed to children. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> When a cold-blooded hitman bursts into a hotel room to execute someone, the intended victim does something unexpected: he asks the hitman for a moment to make his peace with God. The hitman lowers his gun as the victim takes a chain with a crucifix from around his neck, holds it tightly in his hands, kneels down with eyes closed, and begins moving his lips in silent prayer. Now peaceful and resigned to his fate, the victim opens his eyes, looks squarely at the hitman, and says, "I forgive you." The hitman hesitates, looking confused at a peace he's never seen before, but then pulls the trigger anyway.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> That's how <a href="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Hitman-a-Priest-and-a-Confession-Tony-Rossi-03-30-2011?offset=0&max=1">Tony Rossi</a> describes the beginning of the new online web series <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/227229/the-confession-chapter-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">on Hulu.com</a> called The Confession. When the hitman, played by Kiefer Sutherland, enters the confessional he recalls words from his childhood: "Bless me Father for I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed. I confess to Almighty God and to you, Father. It's been thirty-five years since my last confession." When the priest asks if he's sorry for his sins, he says, "No," and goes on to explain he killed a man last night. The hitman isn't there for forgiveness, but rather to understand the peace he witnessed come over his victim the night before. You will recall that Augustine was disturbed by the joy reflected in the face on an uneducated poor man. God causes us to struggle with the truth.</span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-22631723972472697332011-03-03T11:41:00.000-08:002011-04-03T17:06:16.296-07:00Be careful then how you listen...<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Be careful how you listen,” Jesus tells his disciples, “ because whoever has something will be given more, but whoever has nothing will have taken away from him even the little he thinks he has.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jesus explained his parable about the seed, “word of God,” to these disciples “but <b>to the rest</b> it comes by means of parables, so that <b>they may look and not</b> <b>see</b>, and listen but <b>not</b> <b>understand</b>.” The Church asserts that Jesus, himself, is the "Word of God," the seed, the transforming "Revelation of God" hidden from some, revealed to others.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Be careful then how you listen... lest the devil come and take the message away from you, or the time of testing come and you just won't care enough to endure; or the worries, riches, and pleasures of life will choke off the revelation's meaning for you so it doesn't bear fruit. Eventually, of course, “everything that is hidden will be brought to light” but only the wise virgins who listened, cared to bring enough oil and will partake in the wedding feast. The foolish, though they belatedly obtained the needed oil, will knock too late and be locked out. Be <b>careful</b> then how you listen, Jesus warns his disciples.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
<a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhItQm_681Bd2qnAknEj-gxcQRwl1wnHoEQGM4Ph7fNTCsTAp0S4W3WDvm_IxwpwuQeblJl52xpptuTqai8y9BNgox74sI7ynyWUDjma_Cj2E946uRAwzFoNclzzvv9J4b6stfgQZOpVWI/s1600/kulhanek_job.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhItQm_681Bd2qnAknEj-gxcQRwl1wnHoEQGM4Ph7fNTCsTAp0S4W3WDvm_IxwpwuQeblJl52xpptuTqai8y9BNgox74sI7ynyWUDjma_Cj2E946uRAwzFoNclzzvv9J4b6stfgQZOpVWI/s320/kulhanek_job.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In this same chapter of Luke Jesus drives a legion of evil spirits from a wild man who lives in a foreign land. It is powerfully rendered from the possessed man's point of view, in Tim Melton's<a href="http://sacrosanctgospel.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/crazy-bill-revisited.mp3"> poem</a>. Well worth a listen.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jesus tells this man, who wants to become a disciple, to “go home and report all that God has done for you.” Jesus who could see into these people's hearts that they were not wanting to hear what God did for him. Like a sheep among wolves he sends his disciples. Jesus also raised a 12 year old girl whose Jewish parents were worried that she had died. He tells them “not to tell anyone what had happened.” <br />
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To the foreigner he says "go home and tell what God has done for you," to the Jewish couple he says "don't tell anyone what has happened." To his disciples he explains the parables, to others the meaning is purposely hidden. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
Be careful then how you listen... Shema Isreal...</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div align="RIGHT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kser22D0F0E&feature=related"><b>ג</b> אַשְׁרֵי עֲנִיֵּי הָרוּחַ כִּי לָהֶם מַלְכוּת הַשָּׁמָיִם׃</a> </span> </div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kser22D0F0E&feature=related"><br />
</a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-1863821786217753902011-02-24T09:01:00.000-08:002011-10-23T10:50:26.896-07:00the faith of a foot washer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In John 12, Mary of Bethany washed the feet of Jesus and anointed his feet with expensive oil, presumably in gratitude for having raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. Jesus, the anointed one-- for that is what the designation "Christ" means--accepts this anointing from her in anticipation of his death and burial. In John 13, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples revealing the very intimate nature of God's grace. He instructed them to do for each other what he had done for them. Those who would share the very life of God would need to incarnate the faith that God has in us, knowing our sinfulness. Again <b>in Luke 7</b>, Jesus said to his host, a Pharisee, “<i>Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair..</i>. <i>So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." </i>He said to her<i>, "Your sins are forgiven."</i> The others at table said to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" But he said to the woman "<i>Your <b>faith</b> has saved you; go in peace." </i></div>
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Jesus had earlier warned his followers that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees they could not enter the kingdom of heaven. It was <b>not</b> for lack of prayer, or alms giving, or even following the commandments as they understood them, that the scribes and Pharisees could not enter the kingdom, they took great care to do all those things. They did not lack the abundant love of God for them. He sent his only son to be their revelation, their teacher. But they lacked the simple faith of this sinful woman foot washer, a faith like that faith which God himself has for us, a faith in sinners-- that we will change our ways over time with his help. The scribes and Pharisees firmly believed that prostitutes and tax collectors needed God's forgiveness in a way they did not. They read the scriptures to fit their on prejudices and purposes, but were not open to hearing what the the scriptures really meant. Jesus, in the last chapter of Luke's gospel, shares with a couple disciples on their way to Emmaus what the scriptures meant. </div>
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<a name='more'></a> Jesus demonstrated in this exchange with the woman who Simon, his host and a Pharisee, knew to be a sinner (Luke 7); as well as in his exchange with the paralytic man in the previous chapter; that he can forgive sins <b>by simply declaring</b>, "your sins are forgiven." So why then go through a crucifixion? Why does Jesus say , "This is the cup of my blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be given up for you and for many <b>that sins might be forgiven</b>. Do this in memory of me?" Is it not enough for our sins to be forgiven to enter the kingdom? Is it not enough to be loved by this merciful God, whom he taught us to call our father?<br />
The revelation of God in Jesus is that God loves us all -as we are, even before we repent, even before we commit ourselves to acting faithfully. It is not for lack of God's love for them that Jesus tells his disciples that the scribes and Pharisees can't enter the kingdom of heaven, or that the foolish virgins are locked out of the wedding feast, or that a forgiven debtor has his debt reimposed. It is precisely because he loves each and every one that <b>he is constantly revealing who can not enter the kingdom</b>. The revelation of God on Calvary is that <b>sin really matters</b> even beyond the forgiving love of God. We need to and can <b>"do this</b> in memory of me<b>." </b>What this?<b> </b><br />
Jesus, the anointed-- by God time and again reveals that we need to live a<b> faith</b>, like the faith that God himself has in us, if we are to share in God's life and breath. We can, with the help of his holy spirit, live the faith of the foot washer, the hem touching woman, the paralyzed man, the repentant crucified thief, and come to share his very life and breath with us. We can eventually live that poverty of spirit, that chastity of the flesh and obedience of will that Jesus lived. Then <b>God's</b> kingdom, not ours, will come, <b>his</b> will- will be done in us, <b>on earth in same way</b> it is in heaven. </div>
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<br /></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-29527208981459663262011-02-16T13:31:00.000-08:002011-02-16T20:08:17.336-08:00Healing the Paralytic--A Dilemma ExploredFebruary 13, 2011<br />
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Ann,<br />
<br />
May I pick your brain on a dilemma that I have long wrestled with in the story of the healing of the paralytic?<br />
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Let F = forgiving and H = healing.<br />
Let us assume that doing the easier cannot prove that I can do the harder, only the reverse: if I can do the harder, I can do the easier. Even children in the playground often try to outdo each other in feats and accept this assumption as self-evident.<br />
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When Jesus asks the Pharisees which is easier, F or H, we are not told what they answered. We are told only what Jesus says: but to prove to you that I can do F, I’ll do H. Sometimes I think the little word “but” holds the clue as to what the Pharisees said, but I can’t quite figure it out.<br />
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Here’s the dilemma (or mine, tiny poor Pharisee that I am):<br />
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If F is easier, doing H proves that I can do F, but now I am famous mainly for doing H, the harder, i.e., performing a physical miracle, a variety of the 2 miracles (turning a stone into bread and leaping unharmed from the parapet) I rejected in the desert when tempted by Satan. I have played to the crowd. Another way to put it is: if F is easier, what’s the point of proving F? We normally try only to prove things that are difficult, unless we want to say that F is still difficult but easier than H. If F and H are equally difficult, then Jesus is asking a question impossible to answer.<br />
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If H is easier, doing H doesn’t prove that I can do F. The easier cannot prove the harder as any child knows.<br />
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Many commentators have pointed out that F is easier because F takes part in the heart of the paralytic and is not subject to verification by the eyes. When he stands up and picks up his bed, H can be seen by all. But then F is easier and we are back to the dilemma.<br />
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The reason all this puzzles me is that, the more I think about it, the more I see myself becoming a Pharisee. Ah, I’ve caught Jesus in a logical flaw. So help, if you can, Ann. Sorry to dump all this on you.<br />
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The one thing that doesn’t puzzle me is the incredible irony in the Pharisees’ question, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They don’t see that Jesus IS God and has all authority to forgive. Matthew’s version ends nicely by saying that the crowds glorified God for giving humans the authority to forgive sins. Jesus certainly meant us to forgive each other as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. This indeed can be hard as we read on the front page of today’s Inquirer.<br />
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Yours,<br />
<br />
Ron<br />
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February 14, 2011<br />
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Dear Ron,<br />
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This is quite the knot you've tied! I'm not sure if I can help or not. The short answer: I've been understanding H as the manifestation of or expression of F, like the definition of a sacrament "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." Isn't the interior healing always more difficult? Don't we complain about modern medicine's tendency to treat the disease not the person? I guess I think Jesus's miracle exposes the Pharisees' concern with the superficial and outward. They don't care about either F or H. They want to pin us all to our beds and keep us in a horizontal position. (Yesterday, I was realizing that that's the Pharasaic tendency I have to watch for the most -- where am I keeping others pinned down by my judgments. labeling, or expectations?) <br />
<br />
For the paralytic, He provides everlasting healing. As Todd said, the paralytic's first reaction might have been disappointment. He wanted Jesus to say outright "get up and walk." But Jesus sees the inner need, the sense of guilt and perfectionism (this is Lytta Basset's interpretation) that may be the true source of his paralysis.Christ provides a mini-resurrection, a harbinger of his own, just like the raising of Lazarus. As usual, Christ turns the tables. The Pharisees might think F is easier. Jesus is saying that true H depends on F. The healed body will still die. The forgiven (healed) soul has eternal life. <br />
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I'll mull on this more. <br />
<br />
Have you been reading the Barclay book? He seems to address your question as well. <br />
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Maybe you should post your dilemma on the blog and seek others' insights (alerting us by e-mail that it's there.)<br />
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Have a wonderful week.<br />
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with love,<br />
<br />
Ann<br />
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February 16, 2011<br />
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Dear Ann,<br />
<br />
Thanks so much for your thoughts now and in the future. I know you are a writer and must be very busy so I appreciate your taking the time for this interlude. Because you write, I thought you would be perfect for understanding the flow of the Gospel story. Maybe your husband can help us with the Greek. Has it ever happened to you that you are reading along gleefully and then, bam, a phrase or grammatical tick gets in the way? This is exactly what happened to me. When Luke didn't say what the Pharisees answered to Jesus' questions (I like the way they ask him 2 questions and he answers by asking them 2 more), I started to guess what they might have answered: F or H or "we don't know" or "equally easy" or something else. Then the famous "but" with which Jesus responds. To what does the "but" refer? Is it a "full turn" or "half a turn"? When I try to think of all the possibilities, the knot tightens. This might be because I am going in circles while the answer is as plain as day (yes, Ron Day!).<br />
<br />
I like your insight into the internal/external person and the idea that guilt often paralyzes many people physically as well as spiritually. Jesus chooses to heal the whole person just as he did immediately before with the leper. I like to imagine Jesus looking directly into the eyes of the leper and paralytic and relating to them in an island of peace and joy while observers are left to draw their own conclusions. I'm glad you mentioned "mini-resurrection" because it makes me think that F ultimately means also that Jesus must die on the cross, something much harder than a medicine-man trick of telling the paralytic to stand and walk. When the Pharisees ask "Who can forgive sins but God alone?", they are onto something and their own actions will ultimately result in the Passion.<br />
<br />
But for the presence of the Pharisees, this story would be a simple healing miracle. F followed by H. Hopefully the paralytic would be grateful and live out his days as a disciple of Jesus. With the Pharisees present, however, we now have interjected a major league conversation between the Lord (no longer a 12-year old boy asking interesting, non-threatening questions of his elders) and those who think they can control the religious life of the people. For God easier and harder are not categories that apply. God can turn stones into bread. God can raise up children to Abraham from stones. Gabriel says to Mary in the Annunciation that for God all things are possible. But when God becomes incarnate, F can only occur globally when Jesus dies on the cross. The miracle of the Resurrection would mean nothing without the Passion. It would be like the paralytic walking about today with artificial legs and still feeling unforgiven inside. Jesus always chooses love as when he addressed the Good Thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise".<br />
<br />
Thus, my current feeling (it could change) is that both Jesus and the Pharisees agree that H is easier than F but for different reasons. The Pharisees believe that only God can do F because only God is almighty. Jesus knows he must die on the cross to do F because sacrifice is the only true way to win people's hearts. Doing H at the moment is a reluctant "easy" bow to our fallen nature, which must "see" and "know" by physical evidence. But how long will that proof last? On his deathbed the healed paralytic, many years later, will still have to die and have faith once again in the saving love of Jesus. So H is easier and can't prove anything. Only faith and love triumph. <br />
<br />
Suppose the story ended with Jesus saying, "your sins are forgiven"? Would the paralytic have enough faith to accept his physical condition as well as forgiveness? Suppose the Gospels ended with Jesus dying on the cross? Would we have enough faith to believe in him still? Am I a heretic?<br />
<br />
RonRon Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00961545898627145408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-8643527389739737192011-02-08T13:35:00.000-08:002011-02-08T14:58:03.975-08:00Baby Hope Rose Brintnal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmhyVIsvW8BdcA2vaAkFryXjaJie9i0CxFuZ3Z-v-TkaAUKjkCq-t1kTid0FejeJEvieCrZkxphkWhYS22mDx5muDlXSVTnWO9xpIXdpI3qeIPC6aUnaYUnOX8j2B0KMlmkhtMWwkiVc/s1600/Picture+117.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmhyVIsvW8BdcA2vaAkFryXjaJie9i0CxFuZ3Z-v-TkaAUKjkCq-t1kTid0FejeJEvieCrZkxphkWhYS22mDx5muDlXSVTnWO9xpIXdpI3qeIPC6aUnaYUnOX8j2B0KMlmkhtMWwkiVc/s400/Picture+117.jpg" style="clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is Ignatius' new baby wearing Sr. Charlotte's hand crocheted baby blanket and Anne Joseph's hat. Much love and the prayers of John Paul II accompany this gift. Here's hoping for another miracle Like our Mother Foundress' for baby Reesa in the Philippines. </div>sister charlottehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04564916028017391736noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-29447334674372680972011-01-31T05:57:00.000-08:002011-01-31T05:58:23.743-08:00volunteers<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuwrsT1kPwGv6AZunzROxCMrF37PiFCjgqMzs3c3KZ6dovQqiMwJtqvhpKmHuZPw5GKvUPpJmzJTlFqUaAgjfXXsvVBXIVJ_U71TffAmlbVnBDijzRWZSNjzPXYWYhkURoY-3G6ItOaV8/s1600/IMG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuwrsT1kPwGv6AZunzROxCMrF37PiFCjgqMzs3c3KZ6dovQqiMwJtqvhpKmHuZPw5GKvUPpJmzJTlFqUaAgjfXXsvVBXIVJ_U71TffAmlbVnBDijzRWZSNjzPXYWYhkURoY-3G6ItOaV8/s400/IMG.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: #c27ba0;"></span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-6998233063770710672010-12-11T15:51:00.000-08:002011-02-24T12:15:05.358-08:00It is all about the prayer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div align="left" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZII_Q_4CpVTqhYyxvmXfz8DX_w2wm8-I42D6jhnBAcXeQzSdet_KhWxJzL7stCTwrvp7bAVXnAV2h9blj8HBDmRTnYUIYOX5rOdmGuSV5jJSf8INLuldhly3e8T4F-K7exsvWsjVdl8/s1600/the-reader-kate-winslet1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZII_Q_4CpVTqhYyxvmXfz8DX_w2wm8-I42D6jhnBAcXeQzSdet_KhWxJzL7stCTwrvp7bAVXnAV2h9blj8HBDmRTnYUIYOX5rOdmGuSV5jJSf8INLuldhly3e8T4F-K7exsvWsjVdl8/s320/the-reader-kate-winslet1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="left" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;"> </span></span> </div><div align="left" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,<br />
the LORD God called to the man </span> </div><div align="left" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and asked him, “Where are you?”<br />
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;<br />
but </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I was afraid, because I was naked</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,<br />
so </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>I hid myself</b></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.”</span></span></span></span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span> </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 13.7pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">This past couple of months we have been reflecting on <b>The Confessions of St. Augustine</b>. Augustine, although aware of his sinfulness, does not attempt to hide himself from God like Adam, but rather lays bare his most intimate self. He does so, not primarily for his readers, but for God to whom his prayer text is directed. Augustine permits us to overhear his prayer in the same way that Christ permits us to overhear the prayer of the Pharisee and Tax-collector in Luke<b><span style="color: #24536c;">. </span></b>He writes down his Confessions to the same end that Christ relates his parable —to reveal just how the kingdom is coming about in his time and ours. <b> It's all about the prayer. </b></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 13.7pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 13.7pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-size: small;">Augustine begins with, and sustains throughout the confessions, a profound sense of repentance. The Mass maintains the same attitude, beginning with the Kyrie right through to the reception of communion where we say, "Lord I am not worthy to receive you." But repentance is not enough. We need hope for the future. God expresses his hope for us in the incarnation of his son, the Word made flesh. At the heart of the Mass we hear spoken the marriage vows of Christ with his Church-- “<span style="color: black;">this is my <b>body </b>which <b>will be</b> <b>given </b>up for you”</span> and “<span style="color: black;">this is the cup of my <b>blood, </b>the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It <b>will be</b> <b>shed </b>for you and for all that <b>sins might be forgiven.</b>” Those in the congregation who constitute the spouse of Christ, each in their own way, commits his or her body to this marriage -- sometimes to be born out in martyrdom but mostly to be born out in the everyday crosses and celebrations of life, but always born out in chastity. <a name='more'></a></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 13.7pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 13.7pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Many people criticize the teaching of the Church concerning our bodies, accusing it of being "hung-up" on chastity -- teaching against contraception, divorce, fornication and the practice of homosexuality. And many blame Augustine for what they believe is a distortion of the gospel. Little do they realize, as Augustine surely did, that it is at the <b><i>very core</i></b> of the Church's <b><i>being</i></b>-- this generous giving of bodies in the marriage covenant with God. To the secular mind the sacrifice required to become chaste is foolishness when it isn't tragically painful. To them the default position of the human condition is loneliness, and the chaste gift of God two thousand years ago in the pascal mystery means nothing really substantial to their well being. But to those who appreciate the reality of God's love, revealed in the life, teaching, passion and death, and presence of Christ among us still, the sacrifice required to becoming chaste is not too much to ask. </span><span style="font-size: small;"> <br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">The Church is not going to change it's teaching on sexuality because this sacred commitment of our bodies is of the very essence of the new covenant and the incarnation of the kingdom. The Church's teaching on sexual matters has been contentious from the very beginning. When Jesus explained to the Pharisees that although Moses allowed men to divorce their wives, it was still against the will of God, his own disciples balked. They much preferred the "pastoral" care of Moses who permitted divorce because of the hardness of human hearts to the revelation of God's kingdom in Jesus. They also balked when Jesus revealed that, "</span>unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you." Jesus didn't back down even when the apostles told him this was too hard a teaching. The gospel narrative tells us "as a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him."<br />
<br />
<br />
God, like Augustine in his Confessions, does not hide himself. The pure of heart can see God because they are willing to repent their notions of what God should be like if he really loved them, and model their life after the chastity of God-- revealed in Jesus. To those, Jesus reveals himself in the breaking of the bread-- and invites them to the wedding feast of the kingdom. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</div></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-41645260508927478132010-06-01T08:15:00.000-07:002010-12-11T15:54:25.991-08:00the Will of God and the Eucharistic presence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFhUkp7mKspQ980elfWxyM7l969tv4Wkl2btL-kft3ORzXI315RSPHvfLzvonA81xxLGHaXDlcfx_pzyLPJSv6_rhhwLjhuVJV3LMmIKOaiEAlIZuoYwe0Z-BGUXlM9QKXebRIzBMTSo/s1600/chaplain01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFhUkp7mKspQ980elfWxyM7l969tv4Wkl2btL-kft3ORzXI315RSPHvfLzvonA81xxLGHaXDlcfx_pzyLPJSv6_rhhwLjhuVJV3LMmIKOaiEAlIZuoYwe0Z-BGUXlM9QKXebRIzBMTSo/s320/chaplain01.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Everything we see and hear and feel is in some way the will of God. Ah yes, “in some way.” For “unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it" (Psalm 127:1). Indeed, to say that God creates the world is to say that God wills the world and so-- it is so. All that we ever know of God is the will of God (including how much we know that we don't know). </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All religious traditions attempt to answer the question, “What does God expect of me and us?” Conversely, to assert that there is no God, is to assert a belief that we are free from being subject to the will of God. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Christians believe that Jesus is the Word, the revelation of God. They believe that God discloses his will for us in the life, death and teaching <br />
<a name='more'></a>of this poor man from Nazareth. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is a living revelation embedded in sacred scripture which conveys to believers what they need to know, at the time they need it in order to do what needs to be done to bring about the kingdom of God. <br />
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The story of Jesus meeting the woman caught in adultery (John <a class="external text" href="http://bibref.hebtools.com/?book=%20John&verse=7:53-8:11&src=%21" rel="nofollow">7:53-8:11</a>), is principally about conflicting ways of discerning the will of God. The scribes and Pharisees who brought the woman to Jesus' attention believed that the books of Moses disclosed the will of God, instructing them to stone her. They had witnessed Jesus' compassion for prostitutes and tax collectors and felt that they could show that he disregarded the sacred texts. But Jesus knowing what was in their hearts and in sacred scripture considered the texts as a coherent whole and discerned that everyone requires the mercy of God. Both Jesus and his interlocutors agreed on the two great commandments found in the sacred texts (Mark 12:28-33). He said to them "let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." They realized that if they condemned her, they would be breaking the second great commandment to love one's neighbor as one's self. Jesus raised their awareness of the law. He didn't set it aside, so they left. <br />
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In the encyclical <i>Veritas Splendor </i>John Paul the Great<i> </i>describes how the Church, as the mystical body of Christ, discerns the will of God by accepting sacred scripture, the tradition of which it is a part and the Magisterium of the Church as a coherent whole to be the work of the Holy Spirit. This has always placed the Church at odds with the rationalizations of the elite and popular cultures of every age and place from it's very beginning. By this means Paul VI was able to discern the unacceptability of certain means of contraception, and John Paul II was able to see why neither he nor any future pope was free to ordain women to the sacrament of Holy Orders. Popular culture may succumb to utilitarian, or emotivist arguments, but the Church will prayerfully use the means at her disposal to discern and espouse the will of God. <br />
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What does all this have to do with the Eucharist and the coming of the kingdom which is actually the subject that we are currently studying? When Jesus declared that he was "the bread that comes down from heaven (John 6:51)" it seemed highly unreasonable to ask rational people to believe such a thing. But Jesus seeing they were balking at what he said, did not back down. Rather clarified what he said, "I am telling you the truth: <b>if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you</b>. Whoever eats my flesh an drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. <b>For my flesh is the <span style="font-size: small;">real</span> food; my blood <span style="font-size: small;">real</span> drink</b>." Many, even those who had witnessed his miracles, threw up their hands and said "This is too hard. Who can listen to it?"<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The theologan, Joseph Ratzinger, in his thin book <i>The Lord is Near Us</i> puts it all together when he says, "For man, the will of God is not a foreign force of exterior origin, but the actual orientation of his own being.</span></span> Thus the revelation of God's will is the revelation of what our own being truly wishes-it is a gift. S<span style="font-weight: normal;">o we should learn anew to be grateful that in the word of God the will of God and the meaning of our own existence have been communicated to us. <b>God's presence in the word and his presence in the Eucharist belong together</b>, inseparably. The eucharistic Lord is himself the living Word." The dynamic coming of the kingdom can be seen in the incarnation of the Word in sacrament and scripture.</span><br />
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"Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1 Cor 13:12)."</div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-52116784072695095622010-05-27T05:10:00.000-07:002010-05-29T11:27:30.249-07:00Better than chocolate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxJcfEezv8NY6ftMbv-dor1zDvwZQ5KN0IpG4IqXjA7QUqCjwWupsTNLL0rlsFTLtIuqAdbTvy2DT2iJwI6oBTvtFsSQAQxYDTy8FGmwk5I_KULFbD3jMIuOLV0NcYzt7oMxCcoWjxLE/s1600/book_-_drop_inrgb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxJcfEezv8NY6ftMbv-dor1zDvwZQ5KN0IpG4IqXjA7QUqCjwWupsTNLL0rlsFTLtIuqAdbTvy2DT2iJwI6oBTvtFsSQAQxYDTy8FGmwk5I_KULFbD3jMIuOLV0NcYzt7oMxCcoWjxLE/s200/book_-_drop_inrgb.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>Have you heard the story of the 9-year-old who asks her mother, “What’s sex like?”? While Mom hems and haws for an answer, the girl fires off a second question, “Is it better than chocolate?” Mom, happily relieved, says, “Yes, now go do your homework.”<br />
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Innocently, the girl has given herself and us a valuable clue. Although chocolate is an inanimate object without feelings, it gives intense pleasure on the tongue when savored in moderation. It is best as a treat or a dessert, not the main course--a lesson the girl may have to learn by getting sick a few times. Sex, of course, is better because the pleasure is reciprocal and grows with the increasing reciprocity between two free-willing adults. To give is to receive and to receive is to give. Children are a wonderful continuation of this reciprocity, through old age and the entire history of the human race, as the generations interact in many varied ways of giving and receiving. But everything begins with pleasure inside the bodies God gave us. We cannot think without bodies. We cannot love until we are loved. Blessed be God forever! Blessed be chocolate and sex, hopefully in combination with each other!<br />
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I notice that eating chocolate and making love are not opposites but on a continuum. The lesson of moderation is not abandoned but transformed into the lesson of reciprocity between equals. The wholly new element, however, is a second human being created by God, not by man. [And what a human being she is!<br />
<a name='more'></a>She can earn a Ph.D., cook, have children, write poetry, do taxes and run through the forest without her loins girt!] In Genesis when Adam named all the plants and creatures, he was still lonely, so God gave him an equal, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. [Maybe the story can be retold in reverse, in a non-sexist way.] As an equal she can refuse advances, initiate them or just let them happen spontaneously in the dance of love. So can he. It is frightening to “look” for a mate. I personally prefer love at first sight, which feels more like the gift God meant me to have.<br />
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Enter the apple, sin, fig leaves. You know the story. If only Adam and Eve had discovered chocolate before the apple, they might still be in paradise. As any child knows, there is no contest. However it happened, at some point our appetites became obsessions and our frolic became power games. We messed up big time. Eve is still working on her dissertation comparing eating to sex, and Adam is still in high school studying auto mechanics.<br />
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Now imagine an adult asking, “What’s the Eucharist like?” and “Is it better than sex?” Yes and in more ways than I can possibly say. I would have to be God to explain fully the gift of the Trinity within itself and to us. Hey, I’m not a Eucharistic theologian but just an average guy with a vivid imagination, so be suspicious of everything I say. <br />
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The Eucharist is an acquired taste. As a thin wafer and a sip of wine, it isn’t even food in the usual sense. If I were a daily communicant but had nothing else to eat, I would starve to death in less than 40 days. I might go straight to heaven, but I would be dust on earth. But let’s return to the girl and her mother. If the girl is lucky, her mother will teach her how sweet it is to share her chocolates with friends. If the mother is lucky, she will learn how rewarding it is to raise children after finishing her dissertation. Even in our sinful, relentless pursuit of pleasure, we learn with the Samaritan woman that the well eventually runs dry. We are dust and to dust we shall return. Thus, it is entirely appropriate that Jesus should meet us where we are and offer us a kind of food that is “anti-food”, i.e., heavenly food requiring faith. Since Jesus can make anything out of nothing, he can sustain us with nothing but faith. We can be baptized with water and a few words. We can be redeemed with a wafer and wine. One practical consequence of this is that salvation can be offered to the poor in all climates and situations, to the elderly on their death beds, to the injured in war zones. Among many other things, the Eucharist is the greatest environmental, technological miracle ever.<br />
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In the Alma Redemptoris Mater we pray:<br />
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To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,<br />
yet remained a virgin after as before.<br />
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If God can shrink himself into Mary’s womb, he can shrink himself into a wafer, die for us, and offer his body to us as eternal food. <br />
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If there is a hint of sacrifice in appreciating chocolate (through moderation) and sex (through reciprocity), it is perfected in the Eucharist in a thousand ways. God died for us sinners. Divine love is deeper and more powerful than human love. It can never be exhausted but is always refreshing. The new element here is not an equal but a superior, i.e. THE superior, who humbled himself to save an inferior, indeed, to raise us up to his level. Chocolate and sex are good things in and of themselves, but sin can pervert them. The Eucharist leads us only to freedom, salvation and glory by calling us to follow Jesus on the path of love. He enters our bodies like a whisper.<br />
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Ron Day<br />
ronaldeday@gmail.comRon Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00961545898627145408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-83935669308560442332010-05-20T10:45:00.000-07:002010-05-20T10:48:37.914-07:00Jesus is no tease<div>Words fail in writing about the Eucharist, but I can’t help myself. I want the Word above every other word, the Word made flesh, the Word that is before and behind every word and more profound than all the books that have ever been, or will ever be, written to gather dust on dusty shelves. As Eliot demonstrated in The Four Quartets, words are messy tools, but we have to work with what we’ve got.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jesus is no tease. He gives his all to all. Before the Eucharist, the greatest theologian is as humbled and as beloved as the illiterate peasant. Thus, the Eucharist is more democratic than the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Jesus is pure beauty, truth, goodness and compassion–and absolutely free for the asking. He is particularly kind to the poor, the ugly, the outcast–who in an instant are turned into princes and princesses. Since we are all subject to disease and death, is it not comforting to contemplate the Eucharist at any moment and be transformed?</div><div><br /></div><div>Imperfect analogies may help. When we gaze upon a famous painting, we are not all art experts, but we are all able to soak up quite a bit of the emotional content. We don’t have to be musicologists to appreciate a Bach fugue or Handel’s Messiah. Experts may see more than we do, but we, in our innocence, may see other things in our awe. When I was a hormonally saturated teenager, I dreamed about being married. Little did I expect that a particular woman from Poland would be my fulfillment.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Eucharist is always more than we expect. He is redeeming love for sinners. I cannot fix myself up to be beautiful or earn my own salvation. But I can ask Jesus to love me and he will not refuse. Without him I can do nothing. With him all is possible. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ron Day</div><div><br /></div>Ron Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00961545898627145408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-63030690781158481392010-05-10T12:58:00.000-07:002010-05-10T13:16:59.904-07:00Choosing BeliefDoug spoke yesterday of belief as a choice we make daily. His thoughts reminded me of this commencement address the writer David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. The full address, widely anthologized, has now been printed as a (slim) book of its own. The full text can be found at <a href="http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-kenyon.html">http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-kenyon.html</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote>This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.<br /><br />Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.<br /><br />Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.<br /><br />They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /></blockquote><blockquote>And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.</blockquote><br />The speech also poses love as the opposite of judgment, an antithesis that's been on my mind these last few weeks as we've read the letters of John.<br /><br />Wallace, sadly, suffered from severe depression and killed himself two years ago. God rest his soul.Annhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17191516795753978883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-88920657965969988962010-04-14T08:33:00.000-07:002010-04-22T06:31:33.928-07:00et verbum caro factum est<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VZdPZL1I28gK1pMDQMU1DE_M0cr3Qeh_4GY0H8fthEre0HI4WIgQj0XtBm6g0rBMnroCiu7wjKGAuh3eIHPG0CTjdBabpAOKN_EywIRAcpKq3IwbVKtrE8V9-3rGcRPtW9fTTFMiHPw/s1600/wound3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VZdPZL1I28gK1pMDQMU1DE_M0cr3Qeh_4GY0H8fthEre0HI4WIgQj0XtBm6g0rBMnroCiu7wjKGAuh3eIHPG0CTjdBabpAOKN_EywIRAcpKq3IwbVKtrE8V9-3rGcRPtW9fTTFMiHPw/s200/wound3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The Resurrection is the blossoming of the seed Jesus has always borne within him. In the Resurrection, that which had lain dormant from the beginning in the vital existence of the Son of Man and God becomes apparent. My existence appears to begin with my birth and ends with death. Before it lies a darkness so complete that it seems incredible that I ever could have begun to exist at all. After it, again a darkness. In Jesus this is not so. He does not begin with his birth, but rather "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh," and He knew it in his very bones. "Before Abraham came to be, I am" he told the Pharisees. (John 8:58) </div><a name='more'></a><br />
For Christ, death- however burdened and agonizing and essential- is only a passageway to fulfillment. "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things before entering into his glory?" he asks the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:26) The Resurrection is the blossoming of the seed he has always borne within him.<br />
In the gospel according to John, we are called to <b>realize</b> in our own lives what Christ's whole existence demands: faith. Then we understand that he did not come to bring us new but world-born truths and experiences, but to free us from the spell which the world has cast over us. This means that we measure him by the standards he himself has taught us; that he was not born to further this existence "My kingdom is not of this world," he tells Pilot. But rather a new existence is being born in him. "For this one purpose I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me." We are called to have faith, to no longer judge Christ with worldly eyes, but to see the world and everything in and around it with his eyes. "What is truth?" The Resurrection is the foundation of the true world. These glorious scars, these holes in his hands, feet and side, these holes are breaks in the integrity of the finiteness of existence. Here in these wounds, in this aperture into the heart of the world, the finiteness of the world ends. Here the uncreated Infinite Love of God is affirmed. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh. <br />
- adapted from Romano Guardini's <b>The Lord </b>p.408<b>, </b>and Jean Borella's <b>The Secret of the Christian Way </b>p179<br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></div>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-31567204033040276062010-04-05T10:05:00.000-07:002010-04-05T10:07:15.461-07:00An Easter poem<p><strong>Transport</strong></p> <p style="line-height: 28px;">The rose, for all its behavior,<br /> is smaller than the lifelove it stands for,<br /> only briefly brightening,<br /> and even its odor<br /> only a metaphor.<br /> Or so we suppose<br /> just as we suppose the savior<br /> we employ or see next door<br /> is only some hired man<br /> gardening.</p><p style="line-height: 28px;"> Marie Ponsot<br /></p><p style="line-height: 28px;"><br /></p>Annhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17191516795753978883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1201408048884634138.post-6164486004284373882010-04-02T08:48:00.000-07:002010-04-29T08:47:32.414-07:00How many crosses have been borne up and down in elevators of our buildings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqH8sXJq9gu0NHhNTvOL2i6dr3e_K7Tx66owq3g-h7Uiq0Ahz4I7Bi-PUb3aUmiXeCgf1VN2uRHtKWVdyd5qV46IeozOdpLWo7wAtJggq7xfQfGjwDz2MtvqUmzzpyHt0zGAePOioxww/s1600/elevator-ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqH8sXJq9gu0NHhNTvOL2i6dr3e_K7Tx66owq3g-h7Uiq0Ahz4I7Bi-PUb3aUmiXeCgf1VN2uRHtKWVdyd5qV46IeozOdpLWo7wAtJggq7xfQfGjwDz2MtvqUmzzpyHt0zGAePOioxww/s320/elevator-ad.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> Jesus did not invent the cross. He, like every person, found it on his journey. The newness in his message was to plant the seed of love in our bearing of the Cross. The element of love turned the way of the Cross into a way that leads to life. The Cross itself became a message of love: a means of transformation. Our cross is also the Cross of Jesus!</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">This cross first embraces each of us, and entrusts us with a duty in our personal life, in our families, among our friends and acquaintances - in sum, with whoever else's cross we encounter. I think of the many broken</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">families, the many illnesses which have not been accepted, of hardened hearts which have become embittered, resenting and brooding. How many crosses have been borne up and down in elevators of our buildings. How many cross-bearers walk up and down our streets, populate our cities!</span> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">There are crosses without a name, and often, without a hope. There are crosses of doom which, at best, are merely tolerated. Those who bear them live lives of quiet desperation and silent resignation.</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> From His Cross, Jesus invites each of us today to put all these crosses, and not just our own, into relationship with his own. Jesus invites us to do as he did, plant the seed of love and hope in the soil of each of the crosses we encounter.</span> <br />
- <b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">Carlo Maria Martini </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"><a href="http://www.passionists.com/Companions%2010.html">http://www.passionists.com/Companions%2010.html</a></span></b>Todd Kovichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09662447997252854421noreply@blogger.com1