2005 - Feast of the Epiphany to Easter Sunday

Sunday 2 January, 2005

Feast of the Epiphany Read the signs of the times for the presence of God

Imagine Prisoners of War, any War, returning home after years away. They yearn for the first sight of an identifiable landmark, in this case the temple in Jerusalem (Isaiah 60:1-6). And there it is, for sure, all lit up with candles shining in the darkness. Isaiah foretold that there would be trouble for Jews and destruction of their fortune, not only in the near future, but down through the ages. That is, until God's grace moved enough men and women of the world to follow his ways of justice and peace.

Then a new order, built in the minds and hearts of humankind, based on Jesus' Gospel and Church tradition, would be like, in Isaiah's time, all the nations on pilgrimage to Jerusalem as the seat of wisdom! There's still a bit too much Jerusalem 'jingoism' in this passage for Christian readers. Early Christians thought Jerusalem would become the centre of the universe of faith, hope and love. Paul took up collections around the world to ensure the stability of Jerusalem Christianity. But soon Christians had to give up this narrow idea of centralism and recognise in each local church, as a Eucharistic assembly, an effective sign of the universal gathering. Central bodies are at the service of local assemblies (congregations) as well as the source of their unity. In order to understand well this Gospel reading, we have to keep in mind that it belongs to a kind of literature very much in vogue among Jews of that time, when history and fiction were intertwined so as to teach in a figurative way.

The three wise men (Matthew 2:1-2) weren't kings but priests of an enlightened, if pagan, religion revering a Prince of Peace called Zoraoaster. Its base was in Persia. It had been around at the time of Abraham just as had Buddhism and the Greek philosophies. The remarkable thing is that these religious outsiders from the Jewish point of view, could detect from natural sources what the Jewish priests could not from the sacred scriptures!

Here is a warning to modern Catholics, especially of the revisionist persuasion, not to pooh pooh secular humanism as altogether devoid of the Spirit of God. This lesson is good for all times: Jesus is saviour of all nationalities and sub cultures and not only of those who belong to a church. The star reminds us that God calls each person according to his abilities, his own personality. Jesus called fishermen of Galilee after a fishing trip: these three astrologers after stargazing. God knows how to communicate with us 'where we are' as they say today. As Vatican II, God bless it, taught; 'Read the signs of the times for the presence of God.'

Sunday 9 January 2005

The Lord will bless his people with peace

The book of Isaiah and his disciples is the most important of the prophetic writings. It is the one that Jesus and His apostles will always recall and quote. Isaiah's records are found in chapters 1-39 of the book bearing his name. The second part of the book, namely, chapters 40-66, brings together the words of other prophets who wrote a century and a half later.

Today's first reading (Isaiah 42:1-4) provides part of the first of what's known as the songs of the servant of god. This first song may have celebrated Cyrus the Persian, chosen by god to save the Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity. This conqueror appeared on the middleeastern scene when, for two centuries already, the people of the region had endured sufferings impossible to describe: endless wars, repression, killings and torture, and also constant hunger for the small nations crushed by Assyria and Babylon in turn. Cyrus was able to gather them all together into one empire and was able to earn their trust through his respect for the beliefs and customs of every nation. In Cyrus, the prophet saw the initiator of a new age when God would reveal himself to humankind and he considered Cyrus as little less than Messiah! All he said about Cyrus can, of course, be applied to Jesus Christ, the real Messiah, and when the age of the Gospel arrived, the apostles recognised the prophetic proclamation of Jesus and his plan of salvation in this poem Isaiah (for example, in Matthew: 12,18).

Responsorial Psalm 28, also a song, links our two main readings: The Lord will bless his people with peace.

Today's gospel according to St. Matthew (Matthew 3:13-17), is about Jesus' appointment by the Father as Messiah, the one who would lead Israel out of the spiritual desert, just as Moses had led their ancestors out of Egypt, thousands of years before. One of the first acts of Christ's public life was the baptism by John Baptist, and enrolment among John's disciples. John had already begun his fiery campaign of reform of Judaism. He had announced the beginning of the promised messianic times and the immanence of the judgement of God, separating faithful Jews from the unfaithful. In fact, Jewish tradition basing itself on texts like the one in today's first reading, expected that the Messiah and the 'new people' would manifest themselves by means of a special intervention by god's spirit. The descent of the Spirit, in the form of a dove, (perhaps recalling the dove of Noah's ark?) and the voice from the heavens, both focussing on Jesus, seemed to concentrate the birth of the people of the end times on the actual person of Christ. He was endorsed by His father This is my beloved Son as the Suffering Servant foretold by Isaiah. From this day, Jesus' itinerary was marked out. He would carry on his shoulders, a preview of the Calvary cross, all the disorder or sin of humanity. This sacrificial mission could be completed only on the day of his baptism in death.

Sunday16 January 2005

2nd Sunday of Ordinary time Church is meant to be the soul and noisy conscience of secular society

Like Oscar Schindler, of Schindler's Ark or List Fame, Cyrus of Persia was an honoured gentile as far as the Jews were concerned. At least, at first! He had released the Jewish prisoners of war his soldiers found in Babylon when they conquered it. He had sent back with them the temple treasures stolen by the Babylonians. He funded in part the restoration of the Jerusalem temple. But he also encouraged the building of pagan temples in Palestine. That blotted his copybook, as far as Isaiah was concerned.

Isaiah felt compelled to predict that someone or some group, other than Cyrus, would eventually clean up the whole spiritual mess, known as Israel. (Isaiah 49:3, 5-6). Maybe he was referring to the small group of staunch true believers who had kept the Jewish faith alive in Babylonian captivity. This group was prophetic when returned to Palestine. Its members roundly criticised those who had kept the home fires burning but had let Judaism slide into disrepair. But, together with this keep the faith stand, Isaiah also predicts that universalism will become a foundation stone of the new spiritual order we call the Kingdom. So, Church is meant to be the soul and noisy conscience of secular society. The prophetic few Catholics are meant to be that for the vast mass of Catholics who may not feel comfortable, spiritually, as citizens of the world.

The point of our Gospel reading (John 1:29-34) is this. By describing Jesus as the Lamb of God, John the Baptist recognised him as Isaiah's unique character, the suffering Servant, as portrayed in his prophetic writing. And, for the Baptist, the arrival of the spirit was a decisive proof of Jesus' messianic mission. Chosen by God, even Son of the Father, Jesus came to inaugurate the time of reconciliation with God and humanity. In an earlier time, we called this the forgiveness of sins. Even John didn't recognise Jesus, his cousin, as Messiah all at once. Neither did the disciples of John or of Jesus. They had to exercise, what is called in Catholic spiritually, 'discernment of the Spirit'. That's what Vatican 11 taught modern Catholics when teaching that we must learn to 'read the signs of the times'.

Catholics need to fall in love with secular society, to discern in contemporary people and events signposts of the Kingdom already among us. Just as Jesus was among his contemporaries, but unknown as God's last Word, so the spirit of God is already within secular societies, waiting to be discovered by church people in an unexpected and exciting journey of exploration. We need to be grateful to John the evangelist for making this the core of his fourth Gospel. This insight is at the heart of all missionary activity, whether at home or abroad. Sure, God is present within our worshipping communities. But, He is equally present in secular society.



23rd January 2005 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - God has moved in with us

Our first reading (Isaiah 8:23-9:3) contains a few verses of a poem probably composed in 732 when the king of Assyria destroyed the Jewish northern kingdom of Israel, captured its capital Samaria and deport the elite. There the darkness of captivity descended on them, sometimes literally, because frequently the eyes of captives were pulled out. In any case they were no better than people waiting for death already dwelling in the 'sombre land' or twilight zone (called Purgatory by Catholics much later, or even limbo). Against this gloomy background, Isaiah raised Jewish hope by promising the light of a Saviour or Emmanuel, God has moved in with us. Isaiah would become sceptical about the ability of Jewish kings to rely wholly on God instead of treaties with neighbouring military powers. If was he who predicted the final solution for Jewish chaos would be, far in the future, a king who would be also a suffering servant. We now know that Jesus of Nazareth would be both King and suffering servant. Local churches, claiming fidelity to Jesus, Messiah, are called to suffer at the same time as offering spiritual leadership in a dark secular environment.

In a few lines of today's gospel (Matthew 4:12-23), Matthew calls to mind several moves, all of which announce a beginning. The arrest of John the Baptist consecrates the beginning of a new relationship with God, or covenant. The preaching of Jesus in cosmopolitan Galilee, created the feeling around town that he was himself the light of the world, as predicted by Isaiah. The call of the first disciples began the Church's story of Mission. The first healings worked by Jesus revealed the effectiveness of the salvation he brought. Jesus took up John's call for repentance but he also announced That the Kingdom is among us. Whereas John wanted Jews to turn back t0o the laws and practices of Judaism, Jesus wanted them to turn inside out. His style of conversion went further than John's. He would dramatise the difference by leaving the scene of John's success, the south, and concentrate on the north, Galilee, where people were no more than Jewish in name. Local Churches have to make a deliberate choice to become open to citizens who don't feel at home with the Church or its message.

Sunday 30 January 2005

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time being poor in spirit

Because our gospel is Matthew's version of the 'beatitude sermon' we search the Old Testament for a text to suit the Gospel. Let's recall that after Solomon (about 931BC) civil unrest began to take its toll. Two Jewish kingdoms arose, Israel in the north, Judah in the south. The province of Samaria lay between them. The north was besieged by the Assyrians in 722BC. The Inhabitants were deported to Assyria (capital Nineveh on the Tigris river), and replaced with foreign colonists an early version of modern 'ethnic cleansing'. Down south, Judah counted its blessings but lapsed into economic and political apathy. It was in this atmosphere that Zephaniah saw the opportunity to teach a spiritual lesson. He read the signs of the times, discerned the spirit at work, and recommended the eating of spiritual humble pie (Zephania 2:3,3:12-13). Israel in the north should learn humility, the facing of facts, from the awful experience. Judah could learn the same lesson without suffering invasion and deportation for the minute. Their turn would come next century! Only true believers would survive spiritually. They would completely trust God and expect (hope) spiritual security no matter what economic or political disaster struck. The spiritual descendants of these people would prick up their ears when Jesus called to Him the 'poor in spirit'.

As compared with Luke, Matthew considered, head on, the effects the beatitudes should have in the lives of a Christian (Matthew 5:1-12). It isn't poverty as such which entitles one to enter the kingdom, but the fact of being poor in spirit, gentle and humble of heart. Matthew wrote his version of the Gospel to present Jesus as a spiritual giant, like Moses. Just as Moses had received the commandments on Mount Sinai around 1500BC, so Jesus would deliver his new Law on another hill. Matthew wanted the members of his early Christian community, all born Jews, relatively wealthy, maybe situated in Antioch, Syria, to accept spiritual law and order into their lives. He wanted to give guidelines as to how Christians should live together, forming the Kingdom of God in time and place. Jesus, according to Matthew, had not come to abolish Moses' law but to fulfil it. The fulfilment was universal 'brotherly' love in accordance with god's plan of salvation. It called for total abandonment to God's way. Jesus had personified total abandonment. He didn't just hand on a set of spiritual rules. He lived them totally and died to prove them. When we get together at Mass we celebrate His total abandonment and dedicate ourselves, individually and as a parish to follow suit.

Sunday 6 February 2005

5th Sunday of Ordinary Time - We are the world and we are for the world

After David and Solomon, the monarchy didn't work well for the Jewish people. Today's first reading from the third part of the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 58:7-10) indicates that leadership of the Jews will pass from the occupant of the throne to a spiritually mature group of Jews led by a special agent of God, the Messiah. Indeed, the prophet seems to go much further by promising that a 'converted', not just 'reformed', nation of Israel will be God's instrument for the salvation of all the nations on earth. That was God's plan from the beginning but it had been frustrated time and time again over a whole millennium. The prophet, true to his role as corrective influence, had the courage to criticise two key Jewish practices over-regulated liturgy and the observance of fasting for its own sake, not for any deep spiritual motive. Some Jews approved of fasting on certain occasions, because they thought it a more sincere expression of conversion than for instance liturgical sacrifice. Fasting indicated a desire for conversion. It was justified when carried out for love of God, or love of fellow humans through works of charity and social justice or in expectation of the final times. During our Lent we don't imitate the Islamic Ramadan, heroic as it is, but we may be better off by joining with secular programmes of assistance to the obviously growing ranks of disenfranchised people, both locally and globally, post Tsunami.

Our responsorial psalm 111 was written before Isaiah but, happily, anticipates his challenge: A light rises in the darkness for the upright . . . the good man takes pity and lends . . . open handed, he gives to the poor.

Today's gospel, according to Matthew (Matthew 5:13-16), continues, as is appropriate, the spiritual insight developed by Isaiah, i.e., we must create a community of justice and sharing among ourselves. Christians need a special view of history and geography to grasp the broad sweep of God's saving plan for humanity and the natural environment. We can't understand Jesus' gospel without understanding the core message of the Old Testament. We are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, called by Jesus to take up the mission and vocation of the people of Israel. So today, we Catholics should expect to hear from our preachers how we can be modern salt and light in a secular environment. Catholics are called by the spirit continually to enkindle in the world the desire and struggle for true justice and perfection and not to allow human societies to become satisfied with the mediocrity, otherwise known as politically correct policies. To think of the Church and all Christians as light and salt, as witnesses of faith, hope and love in the midst of secular societies is to emphasise the essence of Christian identity and the absolute value of the Gospel. Christianity is a light to all people because it is the fullness of the presence of the saving God and His communion with mankind. It isnt the vocation of church people to live in a self enclosed set up. We are in the world and for the world.

Sunday 13 February 2005

1st Sunday of Lent - Catholics are called to recommit themselves to the struggle against evil within our social milieu

During Lent, the Old Testament readings recall the history of salvation, including the continuing struggle between Good and Evil. That struggle began, to use biblical language, with humanity's breaking its friendship with God, emancipating itself, so to speak, from the Creator all this at the urging of a third party, the Tempter (Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7). Biblical imagery again ! Adam found himself shut out by God and immersed in what became known as the human predicament. The big question facing humanity from the beginning to now became 'Will it be possible, should we want to find our way back to God? What path shall we take?' Let's recall that Genesis was written partly in the 10th Century BC and partly in the 9th. Later Jewish priests added some beautiful passages, like the creation of the world in seven days. History doesn't matter much in most of Genesis but religious truth does.

Not surprisingly the Babylonians had already inherited a story about creation, including the garden and the tempter. These graphic images were appropriated by Jewish writers, purified and used as ways of expressing God's work of creation and redemption. Especially important, as a revealed truth, is that God made us co-creators of the universe. That makes us co-respondents in any complaint about tsunamis or bushfires. We are to cultivate not only the natural environment but also, the spiritual. We are 'spiritual greens'! Some of us are edgy about the state of spiritual chaos into which humanity seems to have slipped. Let's read the Gospel for a hopeful answer.

Our Gospel passage today (Matthew 4:1-11) provides three tests or temptations by Satan, implying his doubts about Jesus of Nazareth: 'If you are . . .' The Word of God Himself threw at the Tempter three pieces of scripture. Was this just an incidental joust? No! It was part of Jesus life-long struggle and one dramatic example of humanity's endless combat with our 'ancient foe'. In that desert experience, Jesus had foreseen and lived out all the trials of his future ministry, of the Church throughout history and, even, of each true believer. We should remember here that Jesus' ancestors and ours had been tested earlier through forty years in the desert. It was the same tempter at work! His frustration is never ending. Our beloved Church has been tested by the same evil influence, sometimes within, throughout 2000 years of history. Read a decent history of our Church for overwhelming evidence of the test and triumph. I recommend William J. Bausch's history of the Church. It's easy to read and full of hope. Or Eamon Duffy's Faith of our Fathers. In our own day the evil axis is especially social and political. It includes such forces as the North/South division along poverty lines, torture, oppression, consumerism, land mines, pollution and, yes, terrorism. The desert of our times is secular society, including Western civilisation not the natural wilderness. So Catholics are called to recommit themselves to the struggle against evil within our own social milieu.

Sunday 20 February 2005

2nd Sunday of Lent - Lent is the season of spiritual transfiguration

For the majority of Catholics who attend Mass, the Scripture reading and sermon are the only source of spiritual inspiration they receive in a week. So, we have to make the best of it.

Our first reading (Genesis 12:14) establishes Araham as the father of Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths. There is only one God, protest these three faiths 'of the Book'. We must listen to Him. Abraham's forte was that he did just that. This reading ignores the influence on Abraham of the great pagan civilisations dominant in the Region at that time. A pity! We should never underestimate the impact on all of us of the environment or culture in which we are immersed.

The authors of Genesis preferred to ignore these factors and attribute Abraham's faith only to the contemporary intervention of Yahweh, God. Abraham left Ur in Chaldea and travelled towards Palestine, then landed in Egypt. (In our own day, Archaeologists are lamenting the destruction of invaluable relics from the second millennium BCE, in and around Babylon). The point is that all people of faith will be called upon to leave the familiar and risk the unknown, all for God's sake. The three great religious movements born in the Arabian desert and spiritually fathered by Abraham, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are today called upon by all humanity to develop themselves, under God, into three great, modem, spiritual movements for the salvation of our human race. Science and technology will run off on their own, as is their custom, unless religion can reform to run with them, if not slightly ahead. In our Gospel passage (Matthew 17:1-9), Matthew boldly depicts Jesus as the 'second Moses'. Moses, alone, met the desert God Yahweh, shrouded in cloud, hearing God's voice. Just so, there is a cloud and voice on the Tabor hill. Matthew's task was to convince first generation Jewish converts to Christianity that Jesus had Moses' blessing and was in good standing with Elijah. These two venerable and ancient Jewish heroes had given the seal of approval to Jesus, whom the Jewish authorities had rejected. It was time for the specially selected cadre, Peter, James, and John to see through Jesus of Nazareth. They needed to experience Jesus as someone more than their friend and colleague. They needed to get serious about their relationship and discipleship. They would be together again at Gethsemane garden in contrasting circumstances. No shining light there - just blood, tears and sweat. On our contemporary way to Gethsemane, the Lenten season of 2005, we are accompanied by Moses and Elijah. (Mother Joseph and Monsignor Collins for South Catholics)!

We need all the deliverance and prophetic zeal we can get. Lent is the season of spiritual transfiguration. After it's over, just as with Jesus, we shall look the same. But, we, like Jesus, will have a burning insight into self, our mission and friends.

Sunday 27 February 2005

3rd Sunday of Lent - Lent reminds us to get our priorities right

Lent is about recovering the spiritual advantage. After 12 months immersion (baptism) in our natural, secular environment, the edge may well have gone from our spiritual appetite. Jesus noticed that the Samaritan woman was spiritually sharp, but not quite sharp enough to qualify as one of His disciples at least, not yet. So Jesus talked water with her.

That introduction over, let's take a look at the Old Testament first reading (Exodus 17:3-7). Here we have a key concept, spirituality and its symbol water, to unlock the Old Testament text from Exodus. By the way, the Bible simplifies reality when it produces a beautiful picture of the Exodus of a whole enslaved nation. However, historians have proven that several nomadic groups went in and out of Egypt, over many years, and the group gathered by Moses formed just one such group. It left Egypt by night, in about 1260 BC. It took the route popular with fugitive slaves, around the south of Mount Sinai. Water was always a problem. So was fluctuating spiritual resilience! When Moses' group reached Massah and Meribah, two desert locations, probably already sacred to nomadic tribes, morale was low. (It was from these nomadic people and sacred sites that Prophet Muhammad's first disciples came, 2000 years later!) God intervened. Moses struck or wounded a rocky outcrop. Water gushed forth. Later, Jewish tradition would recall this salvific wounded of God's image, the rock.. Jesus, wounded healer, would personify this revelation.

The setting for our Gospel (John 4:5-42) is a well named after patriarch Jacob. The patriarchs most revered by nomadic Jews were, naturally, those who built or discovered the best wells! Because we're hearing today from John, we must expect deep spiritual insights. So, we hear of links between the water of the well and the spirituality that, like water, will make all the difference to thirsty disciples. Indeed, water became for us Christians the first sacramental experience called baptism or immersion. We regularly bless ourselves before worship as a reminder that we gather as fellow baptised persons. Water is at the doors of our churches because water is used in initiation into CHURCH. Christian spirituality is like living water bubbling up into everlasting life. The jug of water is a symbol of the people gathered around the baby or adult candidates for reception into Church. All those family members and friends together with parishioners assembled, are themselves the water, the spiritual environment in which the baby or adult are to be immersed. Jesus also compared, in today's passage, food for the body with spiritual food. He was tired and hungry, says John. The disciples begged him to take nourishment. But, Jesus, ever vigilant for a teaching opportunity, warned them to be more concerned with spiritual nourishment. Sandwiches could wait 'til later. Lent reminds us to get our priorities right.

Sunday 6 March 2005

4th Sunday of Lent

The Lord is my Shepherd. There is nothing I shall want

Before we do anything else, let's have a quick look at today's Gospel. It's a cautionary tale about the least likely believer finding the least likely God. That's the key to unlock our first reading from the Book of Samuel. Saul was the first king of the Jews, ruling from 1027 until 1012. He was about 40 years of age when anointed king by the prophet, Samuel. Samuel had misgivings about the Jews having a king at all. They already had God as King. What more did they need? Today's struggle in Iraq is similar. Should Sharia law rule or secularism? Despite his solid religious loyalty to God, Saul suffered great psychological distress. Our first reading (1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13) shows the result. God ordered Samuel to replace Saul with one of shepherd Jesse's sons. Jesse's family was camped at Bethlehem. Samuel, inspired by God, anointed the youngest, David to take Saul's place. So begins the third key concept of the Old Testament the dwelling of God in the individual human heart. Muhammad would rediscover that much later. God had already created the material world. He had, also, created a people, the Hebrews, who would carry His torch throughout salvation history. God then took His place in the heart of a key person, David. God hid Himself in the shepherd king, David, just as he would in the good shepherd Jesus, a thousand years later, beginning where we started today's journey at Bethlehem.

Psalm 22 is our responsorial psalm: 'The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I shall want'.

Today's Gospel passage (John 9:1-41) is a perfect reflection for Catholics 'doing' Lent. Let's observe the Jewish people's reactions to the miracle cure of the man born blind. Some open themselves to the light, by which John means faith. Others prefer their own ways of seeing things. Then, we have the blind man, who immediately understands the significance of the cure. We have, too, the fearful and pragmatic parents. The least attractive players are the Pharisees, the religious know-alls, who do nothing but judge and are unaware that they condemn themselves in the very act of judging. The blind man didn't have an easy time of it. He was cured, sure enough, but needed another meeting with Jesus to make the leap of faith. (Even Paul of Tarsus when cured, needed time.) His parents valued their place in society more than anything else. So, they refused to see the light. They preferred spiritual darkness presided over by blind religious leaders. It was safe and predictable. Here's a cautionary note for new converts to Catholicism. You may sometimes experience a setback when confused to find no obvious presence of Jesus Christ in theological or moral teachings, or even, in liturgical assemblies. That's why reception of converts, at Easter, places a heavy burden on local church communities to faithfully support newcomers with a palpable, spiritual environment within which faith, hope and love can flourish.

Sunday 13 March 2005

5th Sunday of Lent - I am the Resurrection and the Life

Today's gospel is about Our Lord's raising Lazarus from the dead. It's also, the key in the search for the meaning of our Old Testament reading Ezekiel may have been a young priest taken to Babylon in Chaldea (modern Iraq), along with 10,000 Jews, after the siege of Jerusalem in 598BC. There he was called by God to predict the total destruction of his country, but also its eventual, but definite, resurrection. His prophecy is famous for the vision of a valley of dry bones, representing the destruction of Israel. But bones are, as we know from Auschwitz and the Tsunami, the only human remains that survive death. So thanks to Ezekiel a theology developed about the remnant, the remains of God's people, coming back to life!

Today's verses from Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:12-14) are full of hope. Before the Chaldeans attacked them, the Jews had destroyed themselves by splitting into two kingdoms following Solomon's death. Many societies die from within before natural disasters overtake them. The seed of national spiritual death had been planted. Israel couldn't fulfill its mission to the nations while she, herself, was disunited. Even today, Israel is the key to Middle East and World peace! All the prophets had called for reform, again and again. They planted the seeds of resurrection.

Some commentators see the same process occurring throughout Church history. There's unfaithfulness one generation, a return to Gospel values the next. How does our diocese, our parish measure up?

Thanks to our religious educators, most of us are familiar with the Gospel story of Lazarus. 'I am the Resurrection and the Life'. This statement in John's version is at the centre of the Gospel of 'the raising of Lazarus' (John 11:1-45). To believe Jesus is Messiah and Son of God is already to have within oneself eternal life, which death cannot destroy. Jesus himself was under a death threat from the religious authorities in Jerusalem. They couldn't easily carry out that threat, unless Jesus came to them, in Jerusalem, where they had power through strong organisation. Jesus avoided them, as long as He could, by staying on the far side of the Jordan. But, he broke cover to visit his three friends, Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Bethany a short distance from Jerusalem. For John the Gospel writer, Lazarus represented and personified the person wounded by sin who is in the process of dying, spiritually, unless Jesus calls him to life. This noticeable miracle only foretells the real resurrection, which does not just prolong life but transforms our whole being. This is a spiritual resurrection, but physical, too. It begins when faith moves a person to give up wrong ways of living to become open to receiving God's own life. Australian Catholics, inheritors of this revealed truth, feel sad, like Jesus at Lazarus' graveside, when confronted with secular society's totally inadequate, and soul-destroying, culture of death and the Church's occasional lapse into self-destructive behaviour.

Sunday 20 March 2005

Passion Sunday - Local churches must be open and alert to God's spirit

The trials and tribulations of Jesus, as narrated in today's Passion Gospel, are the key to understanding the first reading from Isaiah. This prophet is the most important of them all. Jesus and his disciples often quoted from his writings.

Isaiah's own words are found in chapters 1-39 of the book bearing his name. The second part of the book, namely chapters 40-66, brings together the words of other prophets who wrote a century and a half later.

In today's passage (Isaiah 50:4-7), the speaker may be the prophet himself or a minority group of exiled believers, struggling and suffering to keep the true faith in the midst of awful loneliness and alienation. The invader had rolled through Israel, the northern kingdom and turned on the south, Judah, and its capital, Jerusalem. Miraculously, Jerusalem was saved. Isaiah insisted God would save the loyal, spiritually alert and robust servant (sometimes an individual, sometimes a faithful minority group). Such a person (or group) will be able to encourage others to stand firm because he, himself, will listen 'every morning' and 'keep his ears open'. JP2 does it. So does a mother or lover. To sustain others who are tired, spiritually, we must be trained by God: the true prophet is a prayerful person, open to God's own spirit.

In our own times, Catholics are called by God to encourage our fellow Australians, themselves spiritually tired. Local churches must be open and alert to God's spirit. Prayer and worship must be hotly pursued in case organization and business matters assume top billing. Each version of Jesus' ordeal and death has a particular, special point to make. Matthew's account (Matthew 27:11-54) gives us the beginnings of an elaborate theology of fulfillment. For Matthew, nothing involving Jesus was accidental. It formed a destined part of God's plan for each and every one of us. So true is this, that he was able to make of the Passion the end of the old era and the beginning of the era of the Church. The collapse of the old economy of salvation was heralded, according to Matthew, by the torn curtain in the Temple, the arrival of the spiritual age by the earthquake. Similarly the Boxing Day Tsunami could be the beginning of a new era of tolerance in the Indian Ocean. The conversion of the centurion was the first good result, pointing to the conversion of unlikely people throughout the ages. The priests, when they handed over Jesus' body to the disciples, showed they were giving up spiritual leadership, leaving the Church to be the sign of Christ within secular society. For Matthew, Jesus had won the title of Messiah by fulfilling the scriptures. It was Matthew's unique mission, as a converted sinner himself and old time religionist, to present to other 'old guard' Jews that they need look no further than Jesus of Nazareth for the fulfillment of genuine Judaism. After the Resurrection, he would write his version of the Gospel for convert Jews. They would need constant reassurance that they had kept the best of the old faith by accepting Jesus as Messiah of the God of Abraham and David and Moses.

We Vatican 2 propagandists didn't reassure strongly enough the 'old time' religionists between 1955 and 1975.

Sunday 27 March 2005

Easter Sunday - Christians must experience the emptiness of the world, secular society

Faith and hope in Jesus as Messiah didn't have an easy passage in the apostles' minds and hearts. While He was alive up to his death on the cross, that is the apostles wavered from belief to its very opposite. They never, at least, gave up trying to believe.

Our first reading (Acts 10: 34, 37-43) illustrates that point perfectly, because it shows Peter, a waverer until the finale on Calvary, presenting himself with such confidence and in public, that an explanation is called for. The explanation, that Jesus is alive and influencing his church even now is the core of the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Apocalypse. That's not the only point made in today's reading. There's another God has no favourites! The leaders of the early Church of Jerusalem, ie, Peter, James and John had naturally expected Christianity (the Way as it was first called) to be confined to the Jews. The Spirit intended otherwise. Cornelius, captain of the Italian Battalion based in Caesarea, himself not Jewish, called for Peter to visit him. Such a visit broke Jewish ritual laws. Imagine a gentile US Marine in a Baghdad mosque! Peter rightly discerned that the Spirit was using him to question Jewish prohibitions, even regarding non-kosher foods! Jesus had previously put the Sabbath law in its place, now Peter was to do likewise with discrimination involving ritual cleanliness. The reaction of the Jerusalem Christians shows us what a revelation was the baptism of Cornelius. If we're blessed, our own parishes will open up to neighbourhood outsiders.

John's gospel, today (John 20:1-9), is all about the empty tomb. It's just part of the story of the apostles' pilgrimage of faith in the Risen Lord. Up to this time, God had been referred to as Lord. From this earliest time in Church history, the Father will be called God and Jesus will be called 'Lord' to show the Church's earliest grasp of the unique divine relationship between Father and Son.

Mary Magdalene has been called 'apostle to the apostles' for her unique role in bringing good news from the tomb to Peter and others. She was the first to find the tomb empty. She was the first to whom Jesus appeared, according to the scriptures. (To be honest, this doesn't impress all Catholics). Another salient point is that Peter, himself, had to experience the emptiness of the tomb before he, too, was accorded the comfort of a personal encounter with the Risen Lord.

There is, of course, a lesson here for the Church in every generation. Christians must experience the emptiness of the world, secular society. Maybe, even, the emptiness of church. Spare a thought for Christians, following vocations, exercising missions, within secular society. We need to support them with prayer and pastoral care. They suffer deeply when confronted with the spiritual emptiness of public life. Even some parishes may experience, hopefully temporarily, the death of God among themselves. Someone, or ones, will always be called by the Spirit to 'roll back the stone' so the Risen Lord may again take His place at the centre of such local churches.