Keynotes for February 2008

February 3, 2008
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Zephaniah2:3,3:12-13
1Corinthians1:26-31
Matthew5:1-12a

God's glory and peace on earth are two sides of the same coin. All of man's efforts to bring about justice (hence, peace) are empowered to give glory to God. And this unfolding glorification, in turn, is what enables man to work for justice and peace. Pope Benedict XVI puts it this way:

God's glory and peace on earth are inseparable. Where God
is excluded, there is a breakdown of peace in the world; without
God, no orthopraxis can save us. In fact, there does not exist
an orthopraxis which is simply just, detached from a knowledge
of what is good. Benedictus. Magnificat, 2006. p.392.

Our doing the right thing must first be preceded by our knowing what is good. Orthopraxis, the habit or practice of always what is right presupposes our unfailing recognition of that which is good. Now through reason alone it is beyond man's natural ability to discover all that is good; much has to be
revealed to him. Thus, that which God reveals of Himself to man systemically reinforces the just, righteous and peaceful works of man. Conversely our
striving for justice in the fullest sense is how we give glory back to God. His glory again and again enlightens and energizes our craving for justice. These
two act from and upon one another reciprocally as cause and effect.

We are asked this Sunday to ponder three phenomena: remnant, boasting, and beatitude. Each of these three exhibits the mutual augmentation of glory and justice. Zephaniah preaches humility to his people as a shield from the Lord's wrath. But the Lord takes the opposite approach. He anticipates that His faithful ones will dwindle to a small band, "the remnant of Israel." These will lead lives free from sin and deceit, peacefully tending to their flocks. His method is not to threaten anyone with anger or to expand his following into a vast nation. By starting over as it were, with a handful, a meager but model community, He facilitates a glimpse of a peaceful society, abiding by fairness as He conceived it, the quiet beauty of which redounds back to and discloses a little more of His own resplendent image. The remnant of Zephaniah provides a window for us to observe and grasp the interactivity of this relationship.

Paul first reminds the Corinthians how devoid they are of wisdom, power and nobility, only to assure them that their despised status, their being weak, lowly and foolish, is precisely what endears them to their Lord. Boasting for Paul means a kind of orthopraxis turned upside down. When we accept Christ Jesus for having given us righteousness, sanctification and redemption, then the worth, value and merit of everything else changes. Once we know the source of goodness in all that is real, we credit all things back to that source, which is another way of saying we glorify God. Then the alterations of our behavior begin to formulate a new orthopraxis for our lives. These are articulated by specific beatitudes. People who practice meekness, mourning and mercy may be doing so on a mostly natural level, but because these habits must precede their efforts toward justice and peace, they are not without divine assistance or godly consequence. Jesus promised that hillside audience that theirs would be an inheritance of the land, of compassion and of mercy bestowed. If we too can learn the kind of boasting that comes out of meekness, mourning and mercy, then we too will be laying the groundwork for a practice of justice and peace. More candidly Jesus promises that our thirst for justice will be satisfied, and if we are willing to submit to persecution in seach of that justice, then our reward too will be the kingdom of heaven itself. The strong convictions that bring peace into our midst and equities among our fellow men become our admission tickets into His radiant presence. There we shall revel in the poverty of our own spirits, for with hearts purified by reverence we shall see God.

There we will enjoy the new title of the promise:
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the children of God.

Jesus is careful at this point not to introduce into his teaching anything about glory to the Father, or any notion of glory to himself. He wants us to focus on the tremendous potential that our good works have for changing many lives,
our own and others, and thereby making the world we live in a better place. But he does keep reminding us that his hand in each one is a blessing, an assistance freely given. He helps us to realize that all those other victories and kudos we collect, all other wealth and achievement, power, pleasure, prestige and fame are really empty of anything to boast about. All these pale by comparison to acts of mercy or meekness or mourning, when for each the moment is ripe.

One single action that is truly fair, just and equitable will trump our whole load of trophies every time. For in this new orthopraxis we are slowly discovering first the glimmer, then the gleaming, then the full meaning of His glory. When we shine, He shines. And what satisfaction can be more galvanizing to us puny ones than that of our giving glory back to our most loving, most mighty God?

Whenever we experience something enjoyable-- when any joy comes into our life--we should question whether Jesus is present in that joy. If he is, then it is his glory that infiltrates our efforts to effect justice and peace, even as our orthopraxis enhances his glory. Such is the message from Pope Benedict:

This was the new joy Christians discovered: that now, beginning
with Christ, they understood how God ought to be glorified and
how precisely through this the world would become just. That
these two things should go together--how God is glorified and
how justice comes--the angels had proclaimed on the holy night:

"Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill
toward men" (Lk2:14) Magnificat, ibid. p.392.

February 6, 2008
Ash Wednesday

Joel2:12-18
2Corinthians5:20-6:2
Matthew6:1-6,16-18

The ashes on our foreheads today announce to all observers that "We are ambassadors for Christ." As the Corinthians were appointed by Paul, so likewise are we invited to diplomacy school. Jesus first takes to himself the pivotal role of ambassador.His is both the task of ingratiation, pleading with the Father to take us back, and the arduous assignment of entreating us to accept God's terms. To master the skills of emissary we must, in similar fashion, look in both directions. We learn to draw forth our neighbors to bring them to God, but not before we give ourselves over to God first. Paul took his role as liaison seriously, and he would implore us no less than he did his contemporaries: "in Christ's name: be reconciled to God!"

Our job as ambassadors is to bring about a mutually desired change in those to whom we are sent. In what he did for us, Jesus was striving to effect the desired change first and foremost within ourselves, that we might thereafter bring it about in others. But the extreme to which he went was incredible. The gist, as Paul expresses it, should make us gasp:

For our sakes God made him who did not know sin, to be sin
so that in him we might become the very holiness of God.

What an astonishing means to an otherwise unbelievable objective! Jesus consented to become the most vile of scapegoats, a reproach among men, a loathsome outcast, a worm and no man, so that the rest of us could rank among the sanctified. As the meaning of the Pauline paradox begins to sink in, it should cause us to blanch and squirm. The exchange was so outrageous that some denied its possibility. Does this mean that as ambassadors for Christ we have to be purged of all of our sinfulness? Moreover, are you and I expected to make expiation for the sins of others? If Jesus had to suffer those terrible agonies and death itself in order to be the envoy of perfect atonement, what will it cost me to follow in his footsteps? Must I too submit to torture? No, Jesus'answer, right there in the gospel, is amazingly less demanding. All he asks is that we give our alms in secret, pray to our Father in private, and keep our fasts hidden.

In one of the pre-lenten Sunday gospels, Jesus bids us to let our lights shine before the world. We are the salt of the earth, he tells us. But now he is instructing us to act in ways UNseen? Yes, but there is a distinction, not a contradiction. Our good works in general are meant for prominent display. Potentially these are of a great variety. In this Ash Wednesday gospel, on the other hand, he specifies three religious acts, performances of which are wasted if done for men to behold or be impressed by. These must be carried out in secret, before the unseen Father, so that they can count as our diplomatic overtures. These demonstrate the inner change that is taking place in our souls; these are acceptable to appease, assuage, and molify the Recipient. Such is the tenor of our lenten schooling; so must we practice a diplomacy of spirit if our imperfect atonement is to satisfy the Father.

Joel the prophet summons the assembly, gathers the congregation, calls for fasts, offerings and libations. His petitions offer new hope to us novice ambassadors.

For gracious and merciful is he,
slow to anger, rich in kindness,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent,
and leave behind him a blessing. . .

Today we can chant this prayer with confidence as we begin to share in Jesus' work of reparation, which was the offering of himself. Yes, often we shall doubt that we are of any merit in God's eyes. Stubbornly we will even deny our gifts and skills at dealing and negotiating with others, let alone God Himself. After all, how can a creature so impotent as myself soften other men's minds, let alone change the mind of infinite wisdom? Yet this is in fact what happens once we acknowledge that our works and petitions are wrapped in the sacrifice of Jesus.

For our final exam we are handed an instruction from the Ash Wednesday Vespers:

Work with anxious concern to achieve your salvation. It is God
who, in his good will toward you, begets in you any measure of
desire and achievement. In everything you do, act without grumbling or arguing; prove yourself innocent and straightforward, children of God beyond reproach. (Phillipians2:12b-15a)

WORK. ACT. PROVE. The followers of Joel proved their worthiness. Bride and bridegroom left their chamber, priests and ministers chanted their lamentations, the elders assembled and families gathered to fast and weep and plead for mercy. And "the Lord was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people." Today the gospel bids us do likewise. As reconcilers, the hiding of our prayers, fasting and alms inculcates a self deprecating frame of mind. It strips away our self defenses. It disposes us to act without grumbling or arguing. Thus do we come to grips with the rigors of our lenten training and matriculate toward diplomacy. Thus do we work together, as Paul advises, adapting ourselves to the bewildering role of Christ himself, discovering that our inner measure of desire and achievement comes from him, and realizing with excitement that the day of salvation is now.

February 10, 2008
First Sunday of Lent

Genesis2:7-9;3:1-7
Romans5:12-19
Matthew4:1-11

We have all heard the remark, "God isn't finished with me, yet," or "I'm still a work in progress." Each human being can be seen as a kind of artefact that, from birth to death, the Creator molds and sculpts and reshapes into the form of His final intention. Given this analogy, we might conclude that death was never meant to be withheld from humanity. Death was designed to put the natural period to every material creature's time of formation. If Adam and Even had not eaten the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, yes, they supposedly could have escaped death. But curiosity, daring and ambition being natural drives within the human spirit, would their descendents not have waxed each more curious, more daring, more ambitious, until one, and then many, did disobey and eat? The immediate consequence of sin for Adam and Eve was to find themselves vulnerable and defenseless in the face of all the rigors of this world, reported in Genesis as:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized that they were naked.

Instead of a "la la land" where they naively took for granted that God was there for THEM, to be seen and talked to whenever THEY wished, a fait accompli sans toil so to speak, the first parents suddenly realized they were going to have to be inured to HIS presence through a long and difficult struggle, through an ordeal of hardships called "life." INURED, another French word from oeuvre, WORK. Yes, it looks as though from the beginning God had a plan to work and rework the earthy, material component of our nature until, in the end, we would be worthy of His companionship. When God is ready to settle for the persons you and I have turned out to be, death puts a stop to all the rehearsals, experimentation, practice, drill, laboratory testing, trial and error.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, seems to have a problem with God's sense of fairness, saying in effect that God is punishing all of us with death just because one man sinned. Remember in grade school how one culprit would pull a stunt, and the teacher would threaten to punish everyone in the class unless someone fessed up? That seems to be the implication in Paul's protest of

But death reigned from Adam to Moses
even over those who did not sin.

Nevertheless, the theme of Paul's letter,
But the gift is not like the transgression,

is more insightful, I believe, than even Paul himself realized. "The gift" would be like a hero coming to the class's rescue and delivering a reward much greater than anyone in the class ever merited. The abundance of grace, the justification through Jesus Christ became the new "life" by which every human being is made righteous. The Paul I read in this letter is anticipating Tielhard's observation that

we are not human beings going through a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings going through a human experience.

The point is proven, I believe, by the way Jesus responds to the three
temptations of the devil in Matthew's gospel. Notice not only what Jesus says, but that each reply is a quotation prefaced with "It is written." The ancient Hebrew scriptures were an ample revelation of the mind of God. Deuteronomy may have been a complex and puzzling hodge-podge of rules, but from Moses forward the rules were extricated from the limitations of a strictly oral/aural culture and set forth in a code of ten simple statements; they were objectified, made permanent in perpetuity, independent of any living being's speaking them or any listener's remembering them, and made universally accessible from that point in time. How well early man understood the mind of God has always been in question. But there is no question about the understanding in Jesus'adversary. The devil knew the rules lucidly and thoroughly. He knew from his inception that creatures live by every word that God utters, that they do not put Him to the test, and Him alone are they created to serve and worship. The devil knew these rules from all eternity; for him they didn't need to be in writing. Jesus in the desert is setting straight that spiritual being whose whole existence was, is, and ever will be one single opportunity to accept or reject God.

Now we see why the gift was NOTHING like the transgression. The angels' rebellion brought instantaneous and everlasting punishment. Banishment from God's presence for those who had once experienced it had to be the most extreme kind of hell. Yet for ones so knowing and willful, the retribution did fit the offense. Out of human rebellion, on the other hand, comes the redress of a most astonishing, most unwarranted GIFT. Instead of condemnation to eternal hellfires, mankind is rewarded, not only with chance after chance, seemingly ad infinitum, to repent, make amends, and reconvert, but also by the Son's conquest of death, mankind is given the gift of inurement, a myriad of opportunities to be groomed and polished for the Grand Event, a face to face dwelling with our Lord for all eternity. I cannot speak for how others feel, but given the spiritual component that my nature shares with the angels, I seize and treasure every second of my human existence, knowing each tick of the clock to be another opportunity to enhance my final compatibility with my Maker.

February 17, 2008
Second Sunday of Lent

Genesis12: 1-4a
2Timothy1:8b-10
Matthew17:1-9

It must be a much harder task for Jesus to coax out of man's nature the light
that was originally implanted there, than it was for him to have kept hidden the natural light shining within himself. This is a conclusion I draw from a passage of Bishop Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ:

In the Garden of Eden, we know that man and woman were naked
but not ashamed. This is because the glory of the soul before sin
shone through the body and became a kind of raiment. Here too
in the Transfiguration, the Divinity shone through humanity. This was probably much more natural than for Christ to be seen in any other pose, namely without that glory. It took restraint to hide the Divinity that was in Him.(p.176)

If the situation was such, then we might say that every day of Jesus' life on
earth was in fact a transfiguration day, but on all except one he repressed his inner light. His public life spanned a thousand days at most, yet on only one of these did he allow his full glorification to shine forth. Why? I think because rather than draw us to himself with the Light external to ourselves, he was more interested in rekindling the light originally implanted in man's nature; and more particularily in each of us, in mingling his light with ours, and sharing our inner lights.

From the light of the traveling star at his first Epiphany to his instruction to us on Ash Wednesday, we have been watching Jesus, week by week, converge with the dawn of grace in a humanity ever more slightly aglow with hope. From Isaiah we heard "I formed you. . . a light for the nations"(Isaiah 42) at Jesus' baptism, then "I will make you a light to the nations "(Isaiah 49), "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light'(Isaiah 8), about to encounter the "wisdom from God" (1 Corinthians), and discover "the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. . . then light shall rise for you in the darkness"(Isaiah58) during the second through fifth Sundays in Ordinary Time. All of these prophecies were a prelude to Jesus flat telling the apostles "You are the light of the world," and then teaching us, on the first day of Lent, how to go one-on-one with God Himself. Today as we encounter Jesus on the mountain top, where his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light, hope within humanity reaches its peak. At one pinpoint in the universe, for one moment in all of time, Divinity blazes forth unrestrained. As with the bodies of the first humans, light from within became His outer garb.

After the Eden fiasco, God did not give up on humanity, nor let man go his
own way, for God never relinguished his desire for intimacy with mankind.His new pact with Abraham served as a starting over. When he sends Abraham off to another land to build a great nation, and promises to make his name great and shower him with blessings, God is setting Abraham up as the light that Isaiah subsequently kept referring to, a light by which

All the communities of the earth
shall find blessing in you.

Through Abraham God was giving the whole world a second chance to be
saved and called to a life of holiness, an opportunity through many generations that would prequel the intervention of His Son. As their salvation was "not according to [their] works but according to his own design," (to borrow Paul's words), so must our lives down to the present time be lived in imitation of that Son who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

The gospel, like a torchlight handed down, continues to kindle those tiny inner human flames at baptism, in generation after generation. Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus so as to confirm his lineage with the ancient prophets. But we are not made privy to what they say, nor does Jesus pay any attention to Peter's proposal for tents, as these would distract from the purpose of the transfiguration. The event which so pleases the Father is not for the sake of showing forth divine glory, but for igniting in man a conviction that he, too, is resurrectable. So that he can anticipate a glory from within himself blazing forth. So that after "the Son of Man has been raised from the dead," he can stand forth like his first parents, naked but not ashamed, for then shall his body's raiment no longer shroud but augment the light of his soul.

February 24, 2008
Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus17:3-7
Romans5:1-2,5-8
John4:5-42

Are there terrorists living among us? Criminals banded together in stealth and secrecy, bent on destroying our citizens for reasons (and by means) known only to themselves? This specter raises an even more urgent question out of today's gospel: are there still Christians living among us? Early in his ministry Jesus showed excitement that so many were about to experience the new life of God:

. . . look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is
already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so
that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.

Conversion to this euphoric state was a heady experience for the earliest Christians. Watch the woman at the well and see how the wonders of an
interior change sweep over her like waves, as Jesus puts her through a kind of primer of what she must know and do. First she is apprised of the living water, then told everything about herself, and finally introduced to a new form of worship. Jesus uses Jacob's well as a suitable venue to put the sacramental nature of baptism out front. He leads the Samaritan woman right to her question:

Sir, you do not even have a bucket, and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?

A visible, external sign of the invisible, inpouring of God's grace, water
inundates and saturates the soul of the neo-natal Christian with a new existence that will never end, precisely because it is a dose of divine life. The woman suddenly realizes this water has to be extremely more desireable than the ordinary well water she is drawing. Next Jesus shows her that he knows all about her marital relationships, even though he has never met her before. That stroke of revelation later prompts her to acknowledge to her peers, "He told me everything I have done." Subconsciously she is being wooed by, and starting to give herself to, the omniscient triune God of all creation. Lastly Jesus defines for the fledgling Christian what her new posture to the Supreme Being must be:

But the hour is coming, and now is here, when true worshipers
will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father
seeks such people to worship him.

Again, this is more than can sink in all at once. Notice that after Jesus has told her he is the Messiah, she still raises the question with the townspeople, "Could he possibly be the Christ?" as though she has not yet shaken herself free from some lingering doubt. As stages through which every convert must pass, these events likewise fill Jesus with elation. In archetype, the catecumenate is a honey moon of bride and bridegroom.

But who among us today are Christians such as these? the ones truly worthy of the name? How do we identify them? The answer lies right there in Paul's letter to the Romans. A true Christian is one who is willing to give up a measure of his earthly life, in whatever way the Lord deems acceptable, so that others might gain a share of His eternal life. Here is the way Paul puts it: Indeed only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though
perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Now a terrorist is one who delivers death wholesale, by whatever weapons of mass destruction he can commandeer. Conversely, a Christian is one who aids and abets Christ with a thousand small personal sacrifices, all subversive of the world, the flesh and the devil, so as to have these bring divine Life to the many--yea, to those very masses ripe for harvest.

The Israelites trudging behind Moses through the desert, suffering from
extreme thirst, stricken with panic and fear for their dying animals, these were the poor exiles who hunkered down at Massah, the place of "quarrel with God," and Meribah, the spot where they put Him to the test. Agony and despair forced them to cry out, "Is the Lord in our midst, or not?" There are days when we too feel pushed beyond endurance.Threats of violence inconceivable only last week might cause us to look about anxiously and cry out, "Do any Christians still live among us?"

Todd Beamer and his pals were willing to risk the action they took in an effort to save the passengers on their plane. Yes, enemies abroad--and even in our homeland-- are bent on hijacking the redeeming efforts of Christ himself. But with each day come new opportunities to rally in response, fists chenched, "Let's roll!!"