Keynotes for January 2007

January 1, 2007
Mary Mother of God

Numbers6:22-27
Galatians4:4-7
Luke2:16-21

How much did Mary know? As the woman chosen to bear and rear God's son, she must have been privy to parts of the plan for salvation. But was she given to understand the whole plan in any sense? Probably not. As we review the events of her life it becomes clear that for each time there is a revelation to her, it intensified the demands upon her faith.

Did Mary know what had been told to the shepherds? Here the answer is an emphatic,Yes. Luke's account is very pointed is noting that "they made known the message that had been told them about this child." Mary must have not only listened intently to the shepherds' words but she must have, in her own mind, gone over the details a hundred times. Much speculation has been written about Luke's observation that "Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Much of this reflection was, no doubt, her personal attempts to reconcile the forecasts with the actual occurences. Like the shepherds, she was repeatedly amazed at what she first had heard or seen, whether from an angel or a prophecy or maybe just some interior voice, and then it actually happened right in front of her "just as it had been told to" her. She and Joseph knew they were to name the child "Jesus," for that too was requested of them "by the angel before he was conceived in the womb." So after eight days, at the ritual of his circumcision, they proceded through the formal naming ceremony, just as they were told. And there again it became evident to her how Jesus' name fitted into the plan as a whole.

Did Mary know why God, from earliest days, had bestowed upon Israel a "favored nation" status? Surely she had learned much from her Hebrew scriptures. Very likely she knew by heart the words of the blessing that the Lord allowed Moses to teach to Aaron and his sons:

The Lord bless you and keep you!
The Lord let his face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you!
The Lord look upon you kindly
and give you peace!

When the angel appeared to her, asking her to be the mother of the Lord himself, did this benediction perhaps ring in her ears? No doubt she was overwhelmed and humbled by the unimaginable privilege. But would the Mosaic incantation not have made her that much more gratified and reassurred? bestowed upon her the same urge to glorify and praise her Maker as the shepherds were filled with when they returned to their flocks? Whatever its effect, it took something like the echo of Moses for the angel's invitation to touch the depths of Mary's faith, and for her to muster the courage to respond.

Did Mary know that her role as mother would allow God to ransom the rest of us under the law, and take us back as His adopted sons? Perhaps not at first. Yes, she knew that her child was born not for himself, nor for herself or her family, nor even for her people, but so that he could fulfill whatever the Messiah was to do for the world at large. But at the end of Jesus' life what a revelation descended upon her when she realized that He himself had become the ransom, that is, he was not the child withheld for exchange but God's dearest treasure traded and bartered away. The definition of ransom as "consideration paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity" is exactly what her son conformed to. O most baffling of bargains, that what Mary would get in exchange was ourselves! Before being assumed into heaven, she must have mentally put this final piece of the puzzle into place. Surely the Spirit then caused her to cry, "Abba, Father," when she realized that millions in the many, many generations to follow would be reprieved under the law. Under her motherly care they would receive adoption as His sons. Yes, as Paul makes clear, this is the proof we have that we are sons.

Hard as the drastic events in Mary's life must have been for her, she kept holding fast to her faith. She kept believing, despite an onslaught of apparent perversity and mystery, that "all these things" were God's way of designing and carrying out the great plan. In the end her son's resurrection came to her as final proof that all was now fulfilled "just as it had (once long ago, early in her childhood) been told to" her.

January 7, 2007
The Epiphany of the Lord

Isaiah60:1-6
Ephesians3:2-3a,5-6
Matthew2:1-12

The management of abundance is of much greater difficulty than the management of scarcity, and leadership in times of prosperity is a far greater challenge than leadership in times of adversity.

If we could learn more about the Magi who visited Bethlehem, we might think of them as the asset managers of their countries. It would set us to speculating on how well they did manage their wealth. Did their prosperity push them to accept the challenge of being good leaders? We get a strong hint that their assets were more than abundant when we first hear Isaiah's prophecy to Jerusalem that

. . .the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.

The Magi apparently had ample means for transportation and travel, without much concern for such questions as how long their journey might take, or what provisions should they carry. The gospel implies that they may have been on the road for upwards of two years. At their arrival before the Christ Child, the lavishness of their gifts makes a bold statement about the lifestyle these rulers enjoyed.

Also signaled in today's responsorial psalm is that their homage to the newborn king played out somewhat like an impromptu summit conference on world justice. Psalm 72 opens with a fanfare:

O God, with your judgment endow the king
and with your justice, the king's son;
he shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
Justice shall flourish in his days. . . .

Actually, the venue into which these itinerant regents were ushered does mask the court of universal justice. Psalm 72 surveys the globe:
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts
The kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage.

If the psalmist got it right, then the newborn king was there to introduce to the adult kings a new concept of equity for humanity. Rich and poor, highly talented and miserably disadvantaged alike shall be equal in the eyes of the Lord. If the Magi are to come away with their first lesson in leadership, they must begin by recognizing that expensive gifts are just as welcome and quite as appropriate in the humble house of the Holy Family as the most meager of gifts is accepted in the Lord's court, for all these have their proper places. When we witness the treasures of gold, frankinsense and myrrh laid before the baby, the feeling that these do not belong here might be coming from ourselves. This is perhaps because we ourselves have never seriously considered how the Lord wants abundance managed.

Paul introduces the Ephesians to a broader "stewardship of God's grace" for the same reason. He wants this community to recognize that "the Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise of Christ Jesus." He would have the Ephesians break out of a provincial mind set and accept all men and nations as God's children. As we in our present world have a number of ethics-driven groups to influence the ambitions of influential CEO's today, so Paul was already working on the value systems of the earliest Christian leaders. They were destined to fall in line behind the Magi, and to set a precedent for some global trajectories that should right the balance between capitalist elites and the masses denied civil rights, deprived of equal opportunities, mired in poverty and doomed to lethal diseases.

At the outset we are tempted to regard the Magi as "followers," first of a star, then of Herod's directives. Until we consider this. Life in their times demanded that any recent report of the behavior of the stars be taken under advisement as though it were scientific information. Thus in keeping with the higher risks of their venture, they took the maps of their journey to the local astrologers, in hopes of obtaining the best knowledge available to them. Yet they retained the intuitive good sense to spot an impending disaster. When confronted with orders from a petty potentate in this Palestinian hinterland of the Roman Empire, these foreigners, even though strangers to the territory, yet had instincts which spoke to them of something cramped in his demeanor. Fear of a famine, maybe, or popular revolt or even a baby who would one day rise to depose him. So as worthy leaders they took back the reins of their self direction. We might say that the God they were soon to meet guided their good consciences. Matthew offers another version of the nudge:

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they
departed for their country by another way.

Here again the prosperity of divine providence trumps adversities conjured up by man, and leaders confident in His largesse prevail over a king choked with penury and deceit. The upshot of this vignette is a volley of hints to us about Jesus' sympathy for the poor, one he would later become quite vocal about. Today, still a child, he makes his epiphany to the Magi. The scene is not so much a clash of cultures as a symposium on the issues of justice and equity. It strikes a contrast in leadership and management styles, and makes us wonder whether, back then, the balance between haves and have-nots was a cause of any concern.

January 14, 2007
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah62:1-5
1Corinthians12:4-11
John2:1-11

Their wedding ceremony at Cana behind them, the young couple walk arm in arm into the reception, faces aglow, greeting the smiles of all the wellwishers, perhaps already uplifted by the first soothing touches of marital bliss. Then a sudden problem hits. The wine has run out. They look to each other; they look to the headwaiter; he stares back in embarrassment. Is this gleaming new bond already threatened with inevitable frustration? For just the two of them the problem might have been a minor adversity. But among the guests that evening were two people who, though seldom seen at such social events, percieved the bride and groom's disappointment at once, and who reached out immediately to save the day for them.Both Jesus and Mary saw what needed to be done, and they brought about a very timely favor without even being asked. The lesson is about relationship. When a relationship is between just two people, any two human beings, problems can arise that are beyond their combined abilities to solve. But if the two turn to and include a third person, namely the Spirit of the Lord, then the relationship triangulates. The relationship takes on the power from above, before which no obstacle can prevail. Paul puts this very important consideration before the Corinthians:

To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.

Husband's gift might be wisdom or faith or healing; wife's gift might be prophecy, discernment, or even tongues. Each brings his/her gifts and offers them to the other. Within their union the married couple faces all kinds of limitations. But they always have access to the Spirit and are never prohibited from calling upon the Spirit, to help them overcome their difficulties. At the Cana wedding celebration, the Spirit acts through the persons of Mary, she whom the Spirit impregnated in order to make flesh of the Word, and Jesus, God's very own Son in a living, human body. Did the wedded couple realize that day just who was in their midst? Were they aware that their wedding ceremony was being graced by the presence of such power and majesty? Probably not. Theirs was simply the budding relationship of young love that would, through the years grow and develop and mature. But in this episode their experience becomes prototype for all young couples, moreover for all marriages thoughout the world for all ages to come.The Lord meant what he said through the mouth of Isaiah, that He was indeed taking the human race for His lovely bride, that "she" would receive a glorious crown and be treated as His "Delight" and His "Espoused." The word "spouse" from latin spondere, means the one who promises. It implies irrevocable commitment, permanent possession.

The wedding reception at Cana opens with rituals not unlike those of wooing and mating, with overtures that are typically tentative and diffident and even somewhat nervous. Mary is the first to sense the need of the moment and its ripeness for a wondrous gift. But at her nudging the young Jesus still cautions, "My hour has not yet come." Feeling a little bolder, Mary then tells the servers to "Do whatever he tells you." The newlyweds in this case do not even have to take the initiative. God and his mother are there doing it for them.

For the Cana episode the Holy Spirit was put in charge, giving us an opportunity to rethink the essence of the marriage bond, and to learn what really energizes all human relationships. True romance begins in sacramental marriage, when a couple triangulates and invites God into their union, in a replication of God's romance with the human race, which began when the Father reached outside of the Trinity to send His Son and Spirit to woo US and court US and bring the whole lot of US, however diffident and nervous and tentative, to a taste of the Trinity's ineffable love.

January 21, 2007
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Nehemiah8:2-4a,5-6,8-10
1Corinthians12:12-30
Luke1:1-4;4:14-21

Man does not understand freedom, nor begin to feel free, until he is thoroughly connected. In today's reading Jesus, on the cusp of his public ministry, returns to his home town, enters the synagogue and takes up a scroll of Isaiah's writings.What he is about to proclaim is the key to all human freedom. Under the counsel of the Spirit of the Lord he declares:

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

He takes his seat and while still the focus of the whole assembly he makes a most astounding claim: "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." This carpenter's son, who looks and sounds about as ordinary as any of the other young adults in the town, tells his Nazorite listeners that he is the One who fulfills this prophecy. In other words, he is now manifesting himself to them as the Savior of the world. Mankind for all time shall hear in these very words their emancipation proclamation.

The Jews of his era and their ancestors could not have imagined what he was talking about. But we who study the founding of Christianity are able in hindsight to piece it together.We discover that the captives Jesus liberates and the oppressed he sets free are, indeed, ourselves once we join ourselves to the one body that is Christ. Paul elaborates on the interconnectedness of a body's parts to show how the members of Christ's body form a unique whole. Paul dwells on their interdepen-dence to emphasize how, in their service to one another, the eye, hand and foot find fulfillment of their purposes. It is within this interaction--not outside of it-- that the parts experience their freedom. Far from being separated or isolated--which would detain and restrict them--they bring out one anothers' true identity and power by augmenting their functions reciprocally. This is because the body of Christ is one of a kind, and its membership like no other.

At his crucifixion the body of Jesus was severly mutilated. His back, arms and thighs were ripped with scourges, his scalp was pierced with thorns, spikes were driven into hands and feet, a lance thrust into his lung to stifle breathing. But unlike animal carcasses sacrificed in the Jewish tradition, his remains were neither cremated nor were any ashes dispersed. While this body was abused and deprived of life to pay the price for sin, this body was also immolated so that men could grasp a new concept, that is, the reality of their own souls rising permanently above material constraints and being united through the gifts of the Spirit into the one great augmentation that is the risen Body of Christ. As Paul teaches us elsewhere in his letters, we were baptized into the death of Christ (Rom6:3) so that we might rise with him into the newness of Life. Within this grand reunion human freedom comes fully into its own, for your powers and my talents, be they of mighty deeds, variety of tongues, gifts of healing, assistance, administration, whatever--these massive potentials for doing good will find their ultimate fruition in the convergence of auxiliary concerns. For this is where all possible connections among the members shall have been forged and all circuits integrated.

The contrast between our situation on earth today and the general resurrection of the hereafter is highlighted in the book of Nehemiah, where the people grovel before the high priest Ezra as he reads from the book of the law. They are bowed down, prostrated, their faces pushed to the ground in subjection. They are saddened and even brought to tears from what they hear out of the book. Theirs is a demeanor of subjugation and enslavement, of a feeling we still sometimes have in our lives today. Even though the high priest encourages them to take food for strength so that they may rejoice in the Lord, his words are of little consolation. When we today find ourselves going through similar experiences, depressed and downcast by the weight of the world, we have the words of a new high priest to take to heart. We find comfort in the fact that he conquered death itself, and made every one of us individuals a part of his new body.Thus, when we sit in the middle of our church congregation and remember how he rolled up that scroll, then we shall see beyond our previous blindness and be assurred that our own year is acceptable to the Lord. Then we shall recognize our former captivity and embrace the liberation he has brought us.

January 28, 2007

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah1:4-5,17-19
1Corinthians12:31-13:13
Luke4:21-30

What made the people of Jesus' hometown go ballistic? One minute they "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth." Five minutes later "filled with fury" they have hustled him off to a precipice outside town to "hurl him down headlong." What could cause a stroke of revulsion so sudden, intense and ruthless? Jesus simply made the point that "no prophet is accepted in his own native place," and illustrated with two familiar examples. But it was his reminders of those widows and those lepers that struck a nerve. His listeners recognized that in both cases God had selected an outsider, the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian, both deemed by them the least qualified and the least worthy. With these examples Jesus penetrated to the innermost core of their defenses; he touched the spots of private resistance within their souls. So the Nazorites, discovering that many in their group shared the same feelings, reacted with vehement hostility. They turned into a lynch mob. Before they took a moment to reflect, they felt themselved faced down by an unassuming and undistinguished young man who had grown up in their midst. His out-of-the blue hubris injected shock, outrage, intolerance, and they revolted with a vigor to match. Yes, even with us today it can sometimes be very unsettling to discover how thoroughly God sees inside us, and yet He tolerates us just as we are. To Jeremiah He intimates,

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you. . .
And from Paul He elicits the confession"
At present I know partially,
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

Both Paul and the psalmist speak from the gift of abject surrender, as reflected in the (Ps.71) response:

On you I depend from birth,
from my mother's womb you are my strength.

But the rest of us must take our cues from learning ever so gradually about the many faceted and all compelling power of love, the one celebrated in Paul's discourse as he coaxes the Corinthians (and us) to put away childish things, as he drags them (and us) kicking and screaming into adulthood.

We recognize the truth of our pesonal faults and failings instantly, yet we refuse to face them and correct them. It is when such as these are inevitably thrust upon us that we need the Lord for our most steadfast ally, with the same acceptance that Jeremiah wants Judah to have for Him. The prophet told them that the Lord made them a fortified city, a wall of iron, a pillar of brass to withstand kings, princes and priests. Jeremiah predicted:

They will fight against you but not prevail over you,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.

Judah must realize how tightly the Lord has bound himself to them. We must be conscious of the Lord's mercy dwelling within ourselves. Just knowing this can convert us into incendiaries of the love that bears all, believes all, hopes all and endures all. Yes, Judah had its adversaries just as we have ours. But through the Lord's instruction we learn to sublimate the fight. We sublimate when we parry the destructive blows of our opponents not with damage and harm back on them, but with counter thrusts of the Lord's invention. It was our master Jesus who summed up these tactics in the briefest of codes: "Love your enemies" (Luke6:27-31).

Because the snap judgment of self justification is a part of our nature, we humans will not be prone to exorcise this little demon exhaustively. But we can become more weary of his insidious sneak attacks by dwelling on Paul's insights: Love "does not seek its own interests, is not quick tempered, does not brood over injury, does not rejoice over wrongdoing." There will be times when we are going to get stung to the quick, as happened to Jesus' neighbors at Nazareth. But if we can learn to react with some prayerful restraint, then later on we are less likely to be troubled by the terrible regrets of: "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."
(Jn1:11)

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