2007 - Feast of Christ the King to Feast of the Holy Family

Sunday Nov 25 2007

Feast of Christ the King - Let us rejoice to the house of the Lord

Before we look at today’s readings, let me sound a note of caution.
When in 1925, Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King, his purpose was to highlight and guard against two contemporary, extremes – modern laicism and the clericalism of previous generations. I can do no more, here, than bring the origin of the feast to your attention. The situation, now, has been eased but, some would argue, the struggle between the two continues.
Be that as it may, we can regard this feast as a good opportunity to gain proper insight into a traditional doctrine, essential to Christianity, and extremely relevant to church-world relations.
Our first reading (2 Samuel 5:1-3) is about how David brought peace to Palestine. He was king of the southern tribes of . . .

Sunday, 2 December 2007

First Sunday of Advent - All of us who observe Advent must dedicate ourselves to peace

The prophets of Israel are portrayed as men of exceptional character. They had outstanding faith in God and the human spirit. They were, also, God driven to endless conflict with the Temple Priests.
It’s exciting to note that the 6th Century BC, which produced the great Jewish prophets, like Isaiah, also gave birth to other great religious leaders. For example – Confucius in China, the Buddha in India, Zarathustra in Iran – and in Greece, the founders of European philosophy.
Isaiah was an optimist. Even though Jewish kings since David and Solomon, had fallen far short of the combined humility and wisdom God wanted, Isaiah predicted that, sooner or later, a true descendant of David would emerge to lead the Jews to spiritual maturity.
Isaiah was, also, a Universalist. He foresaw, as in today’s reading (Isaiah 2:1-5), a new and missionary Judaism, not locked into history and territory, but a spiritual movement bringing God’s Word of peace and justice to all civilisations and cultures.
I recall, again, Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral. Many world leaders assembled to pay respects to a Jew who had once been a militarist, but had been converted to a missionary for peace in Palestine. Most Aussie service personnel brought home for burial died as peacemakers, not militarists.
Isaiah’s prophecy won’t be fulfilled immediately, as he himself learned with sorrow, but it will be so. All of us who observe Advent must dedicate ourselves to peace.
Our Gospel (Matthew 24: 37-44) is from Matthew. For him, Jesus was first and foremost the Teacher of humankind. His teachings and parables show us the way to perfection and lay down guidelines for community sharing in a church of the poor, where everyone is equal.
John the Baptist dressed like Elijah the prophet. Many Jews expected Elijah to return to Palestine to prepare them for Messiah’s arrival. He preached like Elijah. His message of conversion was so powerful that despised tax collectors and prostitutes and some members of the Roman occupation force came to john to start a new life. Words of repentance weren’t enough for John. Candidates for conversion had to be immersed by him in the river Jordan.
The Jewish religious system already allowed for ‘do it yourself’ purifications rituals.
John’s procedure insisted a baptiser was necessary to show publicly that God was involved with a person’s conversion. John’s many converts became some of Jesus’ first disciples.
Just being a faithful Jew wasn’t enough anymore. Even being a priest, as were the Sadducees, wasn’t a ticket to the Kingdom. John & Jesus would insist on a complete change of mentality flowing into a new way of living and attitude towards, especially, society’s outcasts.
Catholicism is in a perpetual state of conversion, a state of sin and repentance.
Advent provides yet another chance for individuals and communities to start afresh.

Sunday, 11 December 2007

Second Sunday of Advent - Jesus warned his contemporaries to wake up or else!

We Catholics haven’t conformed entirely to secular society’s requirements. We still follow, in liturgy, our own calendar of events in what we call the Year of Grace. For secular societies, now is the end of the year. For us, though, it’s the start of the Year. Advent, meaning ‘arrival’, gives us four weeks to prepare, yet again, for the liturgical celebration of the Birth of Our Lord. As today’s Gospel points out secular society slips easily into the “Noah syndrome”. We all seem to go about business, blissfully ignorant of the time bomb ticking away at the centre of our world.
Although, let’s be honest, September 11th seems to have changed that apathy in so many of us.
In the Old Testament story (Isaiah 11:1-10), Noah warned his fellow citizens to change their ways or else! The prophets continued that warning throughout Israel’s history. Jesus assumed all the key Old Testament roles – prophet, priest and king, warning his contemporaries to wake up - or else.
The Church continues to warn each generation. It’s not a popular job. It never was, nor shall it ever be.
The ongoing UN discussion about the legitimacy of pre-emptive strikes against ‘rogue’ nuclear states or movements has the touch of prophecy. So, too, has the Australian national discussion about the morality of 100,000 abortions recorded annually. Many Australian Catholics will have shrugged their shoulders on hearing this statistic. But, surely, in that case, we resemble, sadly, those ancient scoffers who just wanted a quiet life.
Theirs, too, was a free society. If Noah wanted to make a fool of himself and his family, he was free to do so. So long as his foolishness wasn’t made compulsory for all!
Jesus really loved his Jewishness, with all it’s off and on loyalty to the one and only God. He truly grieved over the impending end of the Old Order, epitomised by the splendid city of Jerusalem. The fall of Jerusalem, around 70 AD, however, did enable the Church to free herself from Judaism, to initiate, at long last, a spiritual cult and embrace her universal mission.
Is this not a sign that the process can be looked upon as a ‘coming of the son of Humanity? To the uneasiness of the apostles in the face of a catastrophe, Jesus attached watchfulness, a quality that discerned, in the turn of events, the evolution of the Kingdom of the Risen Lord. It is this Christian virtue of vigilance, which is praised in the second part of today’s Gospel, the parable of the householder and the thief (Matthew 3:1-12). ‘Be alert, but not alarmed’.
At every moment of her history, the Church is in danger of missing the approach of the thief, the Lord Himself. He is a noisy thief, intending to awaken the Christians to the voice of the Spirit. In our own time, the Australian Church, and individual Christians, also, still have a vigilant and prophetic role to play – to arouse a slumbering nation in immanent danger of losing its soul.
Social philosophers of which there are a few among us to the recent signs of the hardening of the Australian heart against outsiders and domestic underachievers, even imprisoned aspiring graduates. This Advent, let Catholics, at least, learn to listen to a ‘whispering in our hearts’, especially in the cases of indigenous people, refugees and other involuntary underachievers.

Sunday, 16 December 2007

Third Sunday of Advent - Jesus aimed at the re-creation of the entire human family, then and forever

Jesus and the apostles quoted more from Isaiah, the prophet, than from any other book in the Bible.
While most of the people around Isaiah fulfilled their religious duties, especially observing the Law of Moses, they did so from routine rather than conviction. They lacked what matters most to a religious/spiritual person – a close encounter with a living God.
Isaiah claimed to have had just such a personal meeting with God. So intimate was this encounter, that Isaiah’s conversion, in mind and attitude, was overwhelming. It became the raw material of which genuine prophets are made.
Isaiah’s vocation became his mission. So complete was his spiritual makeover, this was like an ‘Exodus’ experience. The Great Exodus out of Egypt, made up of several waves of migration seeking the Promised Land, was already engraved on the collective Jewish (Hebrew) memory.
Just so, for Isaiah, hundreds of years later, for the returning exiles from Babylon, the judgment of God, a day of vengeance on the wicked, joy for the afflicted, sick, the ‘little ones’, this looked like a new Exodus.
God, according to Isaiah, builds and rebuilds his kingdom, again and again (Isaiah 35:1-6, 10). If the current king of the Jews was no good as a leader, Isaiah expected him to be replaced by a descendant who would govern well, but under God’s influence. As each royal successor proved as bad as others, Isaiah still expected an eventual Messiah, one who would create a glorious environment for the returning exiles. They deserved as much.
Today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 11:2-11) is meant to convey an exciting image of paradise regained. But, it also recalls the confusion throughout Palestine, about the ‘new brooms’, Jesus and John the Baptist. It’s not disloyal to John to admit that he was, indeed, confused about Jesus. The Baptist had begun his crusade, to purify Judaism, by inviting everyone to repent or be damned.
He recognized Jesus as Messiah but he wasn’t impressed by the emphasis Jesus placed on forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. He was in prison and mulling over the strange way things had worked out. John’s disciples were still loyal to him. But he knew his time was up and sent them to experience ‘the Jesus experiment’, up close and personal. Most would stick to the ways they had learned from John. They were comfortable with his brand of reformed Judaism. Jesus was too extreme for them.
Jesus’ Gospel programme was a challenge launched not just at Judaism’s strictest purity regulations, or even at the Mediterranean’s patriarchal combination of honour and shame, patronage and clientage, but at humanity’s eternal inclination to draw lines, invoke boundaries, establish hierarchies and discriminate.
Jesus’ Gospel didn’t invite a political revolution but envisaged a social one at the imagination’s most dangerous depths.
John and his disciples meant to reform Judaism, as had all the prophets.
Jesus, on the other hand, aimed at the re-creation of the entire human family, then and forever.

Sunday, 23 December 2007

4th Sunday of Advent - We become veritable partners. That’s the enduring meaning and promise of Christmas.

Our first reading (Isaiah 7:10-14) gives yet another insight into the turmoil experienced by Jews in the 8th Century BC. They were divided already into two separate kingdoms, north and south, Israel and Judah. Now they, blood brothers, were going to war! See how far from God’s plan for them had His people strayed.
Ahaz, descendant of David himself, was facing a coalition of fellow Jewish Israel and foreign Aram. These latter two intended to attack Jerusalem and replace Ahaz with a non-Davidic king of their choice. The prophet Isaiah was sent by God to re-assure Ahaz that everything would be alright, despite appearances. At worst, predicted Isaiah, Ahaz’s heir might provide leadership appropriate for those troubled times. At best, God would work the greatest wonder of all time by re-creating humanity via a second Adam!
Later than sooner, the true believers of Judah, personified by an exquisite young woman of marriageable age (translated into English by the word ‘virgin’) would bear a son.
He would rightly be described as ‘God moving in with us’ or Emmanuel, in Hebrew.
Isaiah’s contemporaries, naturally and sadly, didn’t understand all this.
It’s only with time that the many meanings of this ‘sign’ of Emmanuel would be understood. The word ‘sign’ as used by Isaiah, can, also, be safely translated as ‘a marvellous event’.
We Catholics at Christmas, especially this year, after such frequent demonstrations, of inhumanity, celebrate this ‘marvellous event’ by imitating it in our space.
We must be with humanity as intimately as God is with us.
Our Gospel passage from Matthew (Matthew 1:18-24) finishes where we began, with Isaiah’s words over seven hundred years earlier: 'The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel'.
Unlike King Ahaz of Isaiah’s time, Joseph put his trust in the rather disturbing sign of Mary’s mysteriously conceived child. Thanks to Joseph a descendant of famous David, Jesus would belong to the original royal line, for Jews, the seal of approval. And, because of his faith, it was Joseph who gave the child his rightful name – Jesus, which means God, saves.
Moreover, the angel’s intervention was to tell Joseph about one of his roles in God’s plan: 'You will give him the name, Jesus, and receive him as your own son'.
Joseph had earlier decided the best thing for him was to get out of the way, do the honourable thing’, let God’s work go ahead through Mary. He knew himself and he knew Mary – neither was capable of infidelity. All he wanted to do was God’s will, whatever that entailed. And, true to form, God responded by giving Joseph the unique job of fostering Jesus.
A point not to be missed, amid the hullabaloo of even a Church Christmas, is that God reveals himself, once again, as a divine negotiator. The salvation of the human race isn’t just God’s work. People don’t become just completely passive instruments in His hands.
We become veritable partners. That’s the enduring meaning and promise of Christmas.

Sunday, 30 December 2007

Feast of the Holy Family - Jesus would come out of Egypt, just like Moses, to free those of us enslaved by subtle racism

Ben Sira, author of our first reading (Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14), was brought up in the 1st Century BC rural culture of Palestine. In that environment personal success depended on one’s connectedness with one’s community.  Family, clan and village made one’s whole social and cultural milieu stable. All duties were seen in this framework, so was marriage relations, interactions between parents and children, attitudes and obligations towards one’s neighbours.
Ben Sira was a family man and a success in business. He was, however, afraid of the corrupting influence of the recent Greek cultural invasion. That could be more dangerous to Jews; he worried, than the military invasions suffered by previous generations. So, he compiled a handbook, a 'do it yourself' guide for his god-fearing compatriots, seeking renewal of confidence in the 'old days' based on Moses’ comprehensive laws.
In our own society, horizons are considerably widened, for better or worse who knows? People are living less and less in traditional forms of community. Nowadays we have all sorts of artificial communities, real and virtual, based on city, profession, trade union or shared special interest.
The family still plays a central role, but must share importance with these new groups. So, tension exists as it did for Ben Sira, between children who share more than one grouping and parents who want to keep everything as they inherited it.
Local churches can be 'brokers' in these difficult areas of intimate human relationships, especially between children, parents and grandparents.
Our Gospel passage (Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23) should be read without too much emphasis on the miraculous and marvellous.
Rather, we have here the story of a child who God watches over carefully, in a family at the mercy of the historical and political crosscurrents of the time.
It’s important for our spiritual development not to mythologise the flight into Egypt. Otherwise it will be unable to touch our own experiences of families in flight.
Ask any refugee family what it’s like to be chased away from home, to try and settle in a culturally alien community.
Australia is presently engaged in a morally questionable approach to refugees, especially, but not only, so called 'boat people'.
Many journalists and social philosophers have emerged in Australia, who perform the noble service of alerting 'middle' Australian society to the injustices inherent in our policies of both on and off shore detentions.
Our bishops have not been slow to add their prophetic voices to the discussion. Almost every parish in the Archdiocese is blessed by the presence of multicultural migrant groups.
Opinion polls and radio talkback shows regularly prove to us that the 'white Australia policy' is alive and kicking.
While we wait patiently for secular society to become enlightened towards outsiders, Catholics are well placed to lead the way, to follow the star, towards universalism.
The theological point of today’s Gospel reinforces this point. Jesus would come out of Egypt, just like Moses, to free those of us enslaved by subtle racism.