• Leviticus 19: 1-2, 17-18. Love your neighbor as yourself.
• 1 Corinthians 3:16-23. You are the temple of God. Do not be wise in a worldly way. All things are yours, you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.
• Matthew 5:38-48. You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Love your enemies. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go two miles with them.

Thoughts for your reflection:

“Love your enemies”: this teaching is perhaps the greatest challenge that Christ offers us. For those of us who are Christians this teaching becomes the gauntlet that we are left to accept. This Gospel passage which we read this weekend is the culmination of Matthew’s fifth chapter which started with the Sermon on the Mount. In the sermon Jesus give us great hope in the mercy and justice of God but then he calls us to be ambassadors of these same qualities. The chapter ends with the invitation to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father if perfect”. This perfection hits home with the call to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. One can almost imagine the reaction of the audience who are stung with this challenge. Consider how the challenge affect us who have heard this teaching again and again and now consider how it is received by those who hear it for the first time after being enchanted with the message of the beatitudes. Imagine the people on the mount as they shake their heads in disbelief and start walking away from Jesus; the message of hope and promised dash by this condition of perfection.

 But this condition is nothing more than a challenging articulation of our most basic theological principle. Many of us recognize the value of our human dignity that is based on scripture. The first reading reminds us of this reciprocal relationship that we have to each other through God. God is holy, thus we are holy. I am holy and my neighbor is holy. Throughout chapter 19 of Leviticus a number of teachings regarding social responsibilities to one’s neighbors are offered and each teaching ends with the clause “I am the Lord”. The beginning of the chapter reminds us that because “I, the Lord, your God, an Holy” we too are Holy so in teaching each social precept we are reminded that each of us bear the mark of holiness and that is condition which calls us to treat each other with the reverence that we are all due.  

This condition cannot be revoked. God has granted to each of us this amazing dignity and we are challenged to see it in each other. In teaching this principle to the Corinthian community St. Paul does not teach it as something new but instead reminds them of what they should have already known.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

We are holy; this is the basis of our dignity which we all share. There may be times when we struggle to identify the holiness in one another or even in ourselves but nevertheless we are challenged to see the holiness in each other. If this principle is true how then can we claim to have enemies? The only way that this is possible is if we eliminate the condition of holiness to one or another. But Paul tells us that this is not an option. If we destroy God’s temple that exist in one another then God will destroy us. By destroying the life of one we only succeed in eliminating our own holiness. This principle of human dignity sets the condition for why the Church’s moral position will not allow us to destroy life at any stage. Abortion, torture and the death penalty are situations where we act to destroy the holiness of another.

People will challenge us at different point is our lives. Some people will severely challenge our ability to accept their holiness. Jesus uses the most straining human relationship of persecution to make his point on how far we must accept this principle. There is no barrier or line that terminates the holiness of one another. The disciples were forced to accept the challenge that even their persecutors were to be treated with the dignity of holiness and this is the same challenge that Christ continues to offer us.

• Acts 10:34, 37-43. The Apostles are personal witnesses that Jesus rose from the dead, for they “ate and drank with him.” They are commissioned to preach Jesus, to whom the prophets testify and through whom there is forgiveness of sin.
• 1 Corinthians 5:6-8. The risen Christ is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth by which we rise from the dead.
• John 20:1-9. Mary Magdalene, Peter and John all arrive at the tomb, one with wonder, the others at first with perplexity, all eventually with faith that Jesus is risen.

Thoughts for Your Consideration: By Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

Easter brings a sense of freshness and newness to life around us that has the unusual capacity of evoking the familiar, while injecting a note of strangeness. It is almost as if we celebrate a new life at Easter in combination with the old, to form an amalgam peculiar to Easter.

The readings above from the gospel of John, especially the expanded section, show Mary Magdalene experiencing this combination of the old and the new in her encounter with the risen Lord Jesus.  The new is evident in her being nonplussed at seeing someone she took to be the gardener; the old makes a comeback at the sound of her name on His lips: “Mary”. It triggered instant recognition amid mystery.

Mary’s conundrum has remained part of the Easter, indeed, the entire Christian, experience down through the ages, a version of “now I see you, now I don’t”. The authentic Christian is every bit as human as everyone else: plus. This can be exasperating, not only for those trying to understand Christians, but also for Christians trying to understand themselves.

The Easter message is one of “surplus”. It presents the risen Christ to us as He was: plus. And this spills over into the entire existence of a Christian person. An area of life where it abounds with tantalizing bothersomeness is justice. Everyone, Christians included, likes to think he or she is committed to justice. We often understand that to mean: restoration, returning something to its original condition. “I want justice” usually means: “I want something returned or restored to me, because it’s mine, it belongs to me, and I have a right to it.”  Sometimes this attitude even seems tinged with an element of revenge, or getting even: “I want to restore a level playing field” on which to compete in life.

Catholic social doctrine on justice, especially under Pope Benedict XVI, would amplify this attitude with a bit of Easter quality.  It indeed supports justice, restoring the way “it was”.  But it adds: plus.  That is to say, access to decent housing, minimal health care, adequate education, suitable environmental conditions, domestic and international security and peace  needs to be restored to those lacking such housing, medical attention, education, ecological surroundings, and security. They are not “add-ons” to being human; they are constituents of being human.  Without them, one is inhuman.

This is not just a Christian position.  This is a reasonable, commonsense appreciation shared across the board of what it means to be a human person.  There is, however, a special Christian addendum to the above: it’s the Easter addition of plusness.  Pope Benedict calls it the sense of care and concern that accompanies the provision of these things.  It is one thing to provide a school building in a deprived neighborhood.  It is another thing to staff it with competent, concerned faculty.  This latter element is the “plus” element that a Christian sense of justice brings to the process.  It is the “personal touch”.

It was one thing for a perturbed Mary Magdalene to identify a gardener before her at the tomb; it was another thing to see the “Rabbouni” before her. That was the bonus element, which Easter is all about: the risen Christ. The sound of His voice personalized the sight of the gardener’s features.  What she was about to receive was more than information. She was getting back a friend, moving beyond the impersonal to a delightfully personal encounter.

Elsewhere, today’s readings suggest it is one thing for Paul to alert the Christian to the familiar dough about to be baked; but it’s another thing for him to call attention to an element of plusness: a wee bit of unleavened sincerity and truth.  Likewise, it is one thing for St. Peter to proclaim what Jesus had done during His time of preaching; it is another for Peter to pass on additional good news: he has been commissioned to do the same. This is a spillover effect from the resurrection event: an extra.

To understand Easter as, among other things, a justice event, is to enrich its standard significance as a restoration, as all justice is, with a potent addition.  It celebrates justice in terms of the restoration of Christ—the RISEN Christ—much like What and Who He was, but a smidgeon different.  It’s that difference making Easter a special event for justice.  Easter enables justice to achieve the highly personal quality Mary experienced in being recognized for who she was: “Mary!”

• Joshua 5: 9-12. The feast of Passover is celebrated on the plains of Jericho. The Israelites eat the produce of the Promised Land, and the manna ceases.
• 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21. “The old order has passed away; now all is new.” Christ who never sinned became “sin” that we might become the very holiness of God.
• Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32. The parable of the prodigal son, the story of a father’s forgiveness and a brother’s anger.

Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez

The theme with the lectionary readings for this week is reconciliation. Immediately after reading these Scripture passages I began to reflect on the book “The Shack” by William Young. As I was reading this book I recalled how I had to pause once I became aware of the crime that became the central issue for the main character. Mack (the main character) is a father who experiences the kidnapping and violent murder of his youngest daughter. As a father of a liitle girl myself I considered this experience to be unforgivable. The rest of the book was a mystical journey for Mack to forgive the unforgivable. This was a powerful narrative and to be sure I was moved and challenged by the journey that Mack had with the Holy Trinity. But could I take this same journey with God? I would like to hope so, but in my heart I remain very much challenged with regards to this dimension of reconciliation.

In the first reading we are told about how God reconciles with the Israelites who have entered the promise land in a place called “Gilgal”. In the second reading Paul tells us that “we are ambassadors for Christ” whose mission “was reconciling the world to Himself.” The parable of the prodigal son is a challenging portrayal of paternal forgiveness.  We Christians know that we are called to forgive and to promote reconciliation with each other. Yet while we can accept this dimension of our Christian calling in theory, there comes a point where we ask the question that Peter poses to Jesus, “How often must I forgive my brother?”

Christian eschatology, the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God in our midst, is theologically understood in the “already but not yet” formula. Jesus declared that through him the Kingdom of God is already present, but with his ascension we also understand that the culmination of the Kingdom of God will happen sometime in the future. In Romans 8 Paul asserts that “all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now” and in this week’s second reading Paul also reminds us that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation.” Christian theology teaches us that in the Divine timeline the Kingdom of God began with Christ and we continue living in this transitional phase until the moment that the Kingdom of God is fully established in our midst, a moment we also call the second coming of Christ. What Paul is reminding us in the second reading is that during this transitional phase we are called to be ambassadors in our society for the values and principles of the Kingdom of God. An essential dimension of this is our obligation to end the social cycle of violence by promoting reconciliation in our world.

We are imperfect ambassadors in this transitional phase. Radical forgiveness and reconciliation is a Christian value that will challenge us in the same way that it challenged the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. But what is just as important as the fact the father forgave his youngest son is that the father also goes out to the field to consult and journey with the older son to have him understand this challenging level of reconciliation. “The Shack” demonstrates this same point at a deeper and more intimate level when Mack journeys with each member of Holy Trinity.

In our world and in our society there will be events and incidence that will challenge our ability to forgive members of the human family that hurt us or our society. Our Christian commitment is to allow ourselves to be challenged and try in whatever capacity to at least comprehend our call to promote reconciliation between God and all humanity. There will be times that we fail and at the moment maybe we simply cannot forgive and instead we go out to the field in anger, but we are called to allow ourselves to be open to God during these challenging moments.

Now some may say, “well that is all fine and well in a parable or in a fictional book but where is this value reflected in real life?” I recall asking that very same question as I finished reading “the Shack”. That following week a gunman shot all the girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. To my absolute amazement the Amish community, in an act of social reconciliation, forgave the gunman.

• Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15. God calls Moses and reveals himself as “I AM”, from the burning bush.
• 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12. The exodus of Israel out of Egypt, through the desert, toward the Promised Land, “happened… as an example… [and] a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come.”
• Luke 13: 1-9. The mystery of human events and the justice of God are typified in the fig tree.

Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez

The parable of the fig tree offers us an interesting point with regard to Divine justice. The fig tree is barren and unproductive. The owner represents a fairly typical social response to members of society that seem unproductive and worthless. From his perspective the barren fig tree should be cut down, “why should it exhaust the soil.” I think this phrase is very interesting itself. Consider the argument used for the poor and low-income communities in our society. Generalities are thrown out there that deem this population as being unproductive and with no visible social worth. Arguments based on these generalities are used against social programs for these communities: “Why should they continue being a drain on our society?”

But Jesus plays the role of the pastoral gardener. His role in this parable is similar to performing social analysis and nurturing the environment that up to this point is keeping the tree barren. The gardener is nothing less than a community organizer whose organization is the Kingdom of God. Jesus the gardener recognizes the negative environmental influences that have contributed to the barren quality of the fig tree. He addresses that limited environment in order to give the tree every opportunity to blossom into a productive member of the Kingdom of God. The element of personal responsibility is not lost on the image of the fig tree however since the gardener accepts that if under these changed environmental circumstances the fig tree still remains barren then it must accept the consequence of its inaction. The point of the parable is that the justice of Christ will accept this judgment once the negative environmental elements are addressed.

It is important to notice the issues that gave rise to this parable. Certain Galileans were judged to be great sinners because of the forms of natural (the collapse of the tower) and social (Pilate’s atrocity) suffering they endured. Jesus points out very clearly that God’s justice is not reflected in the way people suffer. Jesus also emphasizes twice that the inactive judgment by those who witness such suffering will lead them to a similar fate. We have recently witnessed a number of natural disasters in Haiti and Chile and social atrocities in Palestine and Somalia. Our role in following the good gardener is not to judge and dismiss the people who suffer but to analyze and address the negative social and environmental situations so that all people can have every opportunity to be productive members of a society that is based on the common good.

The first two readings emphasize this point even further. In the first reading God reveals his justice to Moses who will be His appointed agent for the liberation of the oppressed Hebrews. But in Corinthians we hear Paul offer us a symbolic interpretation of this historical liberation moment. Paul is warning the early Christians that they are living in the midst of this liberation moment. We, like the early Christians, are also living in the moment of liberation. We are called to liberate the world from social injustice and heal our society from natural disasters as part of our role of being gardeners for the Kingdom of God. Paul tells all of us who accept the responsibility of following Christ that we cannot accept a false sense of spiritual or social security that leads us away from the moral responsibilities we owe God and each other. Our Christian witness to the social and natural suffering in our days is not to stand by and cast judgments but to engage in solidarity with all who suffer and to cultivate the social and environmental landscape so that all our suffering brothers and sisters may have the opportunity to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.

• Jeremiah 17:5-8. Each persons experiences desert dryness at times; only the one with faith and deep roots in God survives and even bears good fruit.
• 1Corinthians 15:12, 16-20. If our hopes are limited to this life only, we are the most pitiable of all people. If Christ has been raised from the dead, he is the first fruits and we will follow.
• Luke 6:17, 20-26. How blest you poor… you hungry. The reign of God is yours. Your reward shall be great in heaven.

Thoughts for your Consideration: By Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

Issues of justice, along with peace and integrity of creation, involve balance.  Justice is a matter of preserving some kind of equality between two (or more) parties.  It doesn’t have to be absolute equality, but enough to preserve the integrity of the exchange that occurs between people.  On that basis, people are then free to advance their own concerns.

This matter of balance is to the fore in today’s scriptural readings.  Jeremiah expresses it in describing the divine-human relationship, calling upon the familiar landscape of Judea to illustrate it.  Things become troubled when there “is no change of season”.  For seasons balance each other out: the dry counters the wet, the hot offsets the cold.  When that doesn’t happen, trouble occurs, just as when a person neglects his relationship to God, and throws his life out of balance.

Paul says much the same thing regarding the balance Christians strike between death and resurrection.  They need each other to depict what Christian existence is all about, thanks to our relationship to God.  Death without resurrection is troubling, just as resurrection proposed without death as part of the scenario is senseless.  There is a balance to affirm in the relationship prevailing between death and resurrection.

Luke hones this sense of balance in the context of common human experiences, such as riches attained without the background of poverty, or abundance enjoyed without any sense of hunger, or constant merriment at hand with no sensation of grief, or acclamation received without opposition or criticism.  He presents Jesus as seeing only woes in store for those deprived of this awareness.

The imbalances portrayed in today’s scriptures are types of injustice, since they picture a distortion of the exchange that is to prevail at different levels of our lives.  This is of concern to God, Whose role in our lives entails an “admirable exchange” between our needs and His gifts.

Tomorrow we celebrate Presidents Day, focusing especially on two significant men, quite similar to each other in this matter of justice as a form of balance.  Both tall men (6’3” and 6’4” respectively), they were married to short women (5’).  Men of few words (the one said hardly a thing at the Constitutional Convention, the other was “the most closed-mouth man” his friend had ever known), both good wrestlers and horsemen, both honed in the cauldron of war (The Revolutionary war, the Civil war), both defenders of the geographical integrity of the nation (one opposed to the sale of the Louisiana territory, the other to the division of the union), they sought a balance in the exchange between the views of a Hamilton and a Jefferson, and between pro-and anti-slavery forces.  Both men strove for the rudiments of justice amid contentious exchanges.  Neither was a church-going person, but each recognized concerns similar to those that Jeremiah, Paul and Luke express today in laying out God’s expectations that we live our lives sensitive to the balances that are to prevail.

• Isaiah 6:1-8. The prophet’s inaugural vision and call to ministry.
• 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. Paul transmits the creed preached in the early church about the resurrection of Jesus. “I handed on to you what I myself received.”
• Luke 5:1-11. A miraculous catch of fishes. Peter’s protestations of unworthiness; Jesus’ call of Peter, James and John to be fishers of men and women for the kingdom of God.

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez

This week’s reading shares the sense of unworthiness that Isaiah, Paul and Peter had as they were all called to serve God. These three each identified themselves as sinners and humbled themselves before God and Christ before accepting their new mission to be a prophet or preacher for the kingdom of God.  It is interesting for me to see the different professional areas that are covered between them. Peter is a simple fisherman and a hardworking common man. Paul is a theological academic who was trained as a Pharisee. Isaiah is a politician in the service of the royal court of King Uzziah. These are three very different people with three very different professions. In each case they all experienced a significant change in their life that seems to have rocked the very foundations of their relatively stable lives. In each case they realized how unworthy and sinful they all were before reluctantly accepting their new divine mission.

The role of humility cannot be understated in what took place with these three people. At the moment that they humbled themselves before God and Christ they became open to another way of thinking. They were able to accept a major paradigm shift that had gone against the social reality they were used to. Isaiah was quite skilled with his “unclean lips” that dominated the political atmosphere of the royal court. Paul was zealous for protecting the traditional Pharisaic doctrine that he had studied under. Peter was used to a certain style of fishing and was obviously in charge of his own fishing crew. And yet, after suffering some form of setback, they all allowed themselves to be open to a new way of seeing their world and of serving something beyond their own social profession.

The three readings revolve around God or Christ calling each of them to a new life and ministry and after they all humble themselves to God they accept their new calling. The Book of Jonah would be interesting for us to examine in relationship to this theme. In this case Jonah already exists as a prophet of the Lord and he seems to have quite a reputation in this field. God calls on him again to fulfill another mission within his prophetic ministry but Jonah, in his professional arrogance, reluctantly accepted the mission but was greatly disappointed with God for being merciful to a people Jonah wanted to condemn. In the end Jonah was “angry enough to die.”

The distinction here is how Peter, Paul and Isaiah were humble and submissive to God’s ways while Jonah allowed himself to be filled with arrogance and pride. The issue in our own world is not that God is no longer calling people to Him but that many of us chose to see the world only from the perspective of our own opinions and desires and thus reject opportunities to serve God and His church because they do not meet our expectations. In my experience with parishes and retreats I have come across a number of people with good intentions who are ready to offer social criticisms against society and the church based on personal experience or political platforms and when they are challenged on some of the church’s social issues that do not fit their own opinions they can become defensive and sometime dismissive to the entire social teachings of the church rather than allowing themselves to being open to a broader social vision.

Just like Peter, Paul and Isaiah we too are called to serve God through our own baptism into the church. Vatican II reminds us of this in their document to the laity: “The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head; incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body through Baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself.” Through the church and religious communities like our own opportunities exist for people to take part in promoting a greater social vision based on divine principles that make up the Church’s social teachings. These include such principles as the common good, solidarity, human dignity, preferential option for the poor and care for the integrity of creation. If we allow ourselves to be open to the possibilities of service then we will become aware of these opportunities that we are given to be at the service of God and His divine mission.

• Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19. Jeremiah’s call to prophesy; his strength against all opposition.
• 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13. The hymn of Love
• Luke 4:21-30. Jesus’ first discourse at Nazareth leads to rejection, even to a threat against his life.

Thoughts for Your Consideration: By John Gonzalez

The readings for this Sunday revolve around the position and responsibilities of a prophet. Jeremiah describes his own calling By God to be “A prophet to the nations.” Jesus Christ emphasizes his prophetic mission by taking up the prophetic responsibilities that are described by Isaiah. The second reading is St. Paul’s famous hymn of love. St. Paul places the virtue of love above all other virtues and as he describes spiritual gift of prophecy he reminds us that the ability to comprehend all mysteries and knowledge is for nothing if it is not done for love.

A prophet is one who critiques society and conventional laws based on the articles of faith and our limited ability to discern the Divine law. If you consider the 8^th Century Prophets especially Micah and Amos you see that their critique was not limited to only spiritual matters. In fact they usually addressed socio-economic issues. This is precisely what Isaiah is describing in the selection that Jesus is reading: “He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” This selection from Isaiah is a central message for Jesus in proclaiming the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is both spiritual and social. It is a Kingdom yet to come in God’s own time but it is also a Kingdom that Jesus expects his followers to initiate within their own society. For that reason the early Christian community established a communal life in Act 2:42 to initiate a social lifestyle based on the Kingdom of God.

Our Christian theology tells us that Christ transcended the structures of society by fulfilling the three great social roles of his day in Himself. Jesus Christ is Priest, Prophet and King for us who are called to be children of God. He is Priest in that he fulfilled the perfect mediation between heaven and earth through his one sacrifice. He is Prophet in that he revealed to us the Will of God and critiqued society based on Will of God. He was King in that through His divinity he has power on heaven and earth and is the supreme ruler of the Universe. In following Jesus we are not merely applying a spiritual asceticism but we are submitting ourselves to a Divine Will that governs all aspects of our existence. There is no separation of the spiritual, natural and social realms. The Kingdom of God transcends all dimensions. It develops an appropriate spirituality establishing communion between us and the author of creation and it is the basis for critiquing unjust social structures and establishing social policies that value the common good. Vatican II’s document on the laity reminds us that we who are baptized into the Body of Christ have these same responsibilities: “As sharers in the role of Christ as priest, prophet, and king, the laity have their work cut out for them in the life and activity of the Church.”           

In our own day a prophetic role would be very similar to some non-governmental organizations. Think tanks usually offer social critiques to legislation or policies that do not conform to the particular mission of the organization. Project oriented organizations attempt to establish some kind community program again in alignment to the mission of the organization. Faith based institutions such as the Catholic Church have also organized a variety of organizations which are prophetic in nature. Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Charities are such organizations. Catholic Religious communities have also organized valuable organizations like the Center of Concern and NETWORK. It was with this intention that the Passionists organized a Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Office. Our Church is the vehicle for promoting the vision of the Kingdom of God in its priestly, prophetic and kingly dimensions. Going to Church on Sunday is only the first step in engaging this vision. The sacrifice of the Mass gives us the spiritual context for applying our own prophetic responsibilities. Participating with the recent March for Life is one such prophetic task that the Church organizes for us. In a few weeks a number of Catholic organizations will organize another advocacy event on immigration and economic justice. With the recent earthquake in Haiti the Catholic Church and many religious communities have called us and our nations to act justly and with great charity to those who suffered from this natural disaster.  This is the prophetic task we are called to fulfill.

We are called to be prophets. The example of Jeremiah and Jesus tells us that this will not be easy. We are definitely being challenged outside of our comfort zone to critique our own society and that may not make us socially popular. But God promises to be with us, even when we feel abandoned. Jeremiah and Jesus suffered greatly for their prophetic ministries. But again their reward is not a matter of national honor but the service of the Kingdom of God. Empires and nations come and go. The Kingdom of God is eternal.

As we serve the prophetic challenges in our own society let us keep in mind St. Paul’s admonition to always remember the virtue of love. It is our duty to challenge society on issues that violate the Gospel message but we do this within the framework of God’s love for all humanity. We raise issues of abortion, immigration and economic justice not to cast judgment or to divide a nation. We raise these issues because through these policies we help fulfill a vision for the Kingdom of God which is ultimately meant to unite the human family and all creation with God. If we raise these issues in a way that is divisive or to serve a partisan agenda then we are being political rather than prophetic.

• Isaiah 62:1-5. Jerusalem will no longer be desolate and forsaken but will be overflowing with life. The Lord will address her as “My Delight” and her land will be called “Espoused.”
• 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. There are many gifts and ministries, but one and the same Spirit who accomplished each good action in everyone.
• John 2:1-12. The marriage feast of Cana where Jesus works the “first of his signs” and reveals his glory.

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez

In the Gospel of John the first action of Jesus’ public ministry is recounted to us as the miracle that took place at the wedding feast in Cana. The account has a number of curious details, such as the odd interaction between Jesus and Mary his mother and the manner in which Jesus reluctantly conducts the miracle of turning the water into wine. But another detail which deserves our contemplative attention is that venue of the wedding itself. Indeed, if you consider the three readings that have been chosen for this Sunday, then this opening act by Jesus reveals a powerful symbol with regards to Jesus’ purpose.

In the realm of social institutions none is prioritized by the Church above the family unit. A marriage is considered the basic building block of society. In these readings however this prominent social unit is used to symbolize a divine relationship. In the mystery of the incarnation, Jesus embodies the intimate marriage of God with humanity. How appropriate for Jesus to begin engaging publicly at a wedding feast, thus placing this mystical marriage in the context of a conventional marriage.

Isaiah reflects on Jerusalem as a bride of the Lord. Paul does not specifically use the image of marriage but he certainly suggests an intimate union that exists with the Trinity (“One Spirit,” “one Lord,” “One God.”) From this intimate Divine union Paul integrates the human community as individuals who share in this mystical union and who obtains a unique gift that comes from the “One Spirit.”  

The readings ask that we contemplate the mystical union of God with humanity within our own social experience of marriage. Begin by considering your own marriage or one that you have experienced through your family and friends. Consider the love, passion and joy that this interaction brings about. Also consider the challenges, sacrifices and anguish that also has been part of this dynamic. Consider how love has both shaped and challenged those unions.

Then, as you hear these readings, consider the love that God has for all humanity. In the story of the life of Christ himself do we not see the joys and happiness that he brings to humanity as well as the suffering and challenge that his life also presents. Love is not only that warm fuzzy feeling that happens when a couple first lays eyes on each other. Love is all that happens when two are engaged in a mystical union. Love can also be that gut wrenching feeling when you feel betrayed or let down by the other. God’s love for humanity was experienced at the Christmas moment when Christ came into this world and was celebrated by Kings and shepherds alike. But Divine love was also experienced when Christ agonized on the Cross feeling betrayed and abandoned by even his closest friends.

As Christians we are called by Christ to live out this union of God and humanity but many times we may not know what this means. To talk about God’s love for us is to talk about a joyous social reality as well as a great social challenge. Those of us who are married may have considered some great and joyful possibilities before we entered into this union and chances are we may have also considered some theoretical challenges without really knowing what they were going to be like. In the end the only thing that could have prepared us for the joy and sufferings of marriage was the experience itself. In becoming a married couple the two individuals allow themselves to be shaped by a union that pushes and pulls them in all directions. If the couple allow themselves to be directed by a holistic love for each other then this union will be a great gift for their marriage and each other. We Christians are also called to engage with the greater society in a similar way. Ultimately, like Christ, we are called to love and serve one another. Perhaps the wisdom we experience from our own marriages can help us as we struggle to engage in this greater union.

Thoughts for your Consideration:
The sea is an awesome image that reveals the great power of creation. On the one hand the sea is turbulent and destructive. Yet the sea is also life-giving and calming. The early apostles who lived around the Sea of Galilee were very much aware of this awesome power.

I myself live by the Atlantic Ocean. I am privileged to witness the great power of the Sea. In the morning as I head over to work I can see the various shipping boats as they are heading out. As we near the middle of summer most of us become attentive to weather forecasts reporting indications of hurricane patterns. In the two-thousand years that we have progressed from the days of those early fishermen, we still can connect with their ambivalence over the destructive power of the sea.

In the first reading we find God using the image of the sea to humble the arrogance of Job. But in this passage God uses the image of the sea to convey two ideas. First, God affirms the Divine power to control the sea. Secondly, we get a sense that God’s own power is very much like the sea’s. The book of Job is about a human who is trying to comprehend the destructive power of God in allowing a good man like him to suffer. In this light we, like Job, become aware of the fact that we are only one component in a great fabric known as creation. For us to make the attempt to accept the will of God we must place ourselves in a mystical relationship with the rest of this great fabric. Then and only then can we hope to comprehend what St. Paul of the Cross called, “the greater Good.”

In the Gospel reading the disciples become aware of Jesus’ divine essence in that he has some control over the force of the sea. And yet Jesus admonishes his disciples for not having enough faith. What is Jesus calling us to do in this passage? Are we expected to have such power as to control and dominate the sea itself? Or is Jesus challenging us to reconsider our relationship with creation so that, through the prism of faith, we may be able let go of our fear of the sea and begin relating with this awesome power in a way that allows us to coexist. Such a challenge is baffling when we consider our traditional relationship to this force of nature, and yet this is the challenge that Jesus places on us.

In the second reading, St. Paul places this overall invitation to relate with creation in an historical perspective. We are called to be witnesses to Christ who for our sake died and was raised. And now all of creation is asked to be renewed under the transformation that began with Christ. That calls us to a special relationship with all of creation. It calls us to adopt a new vision of solidarity. We are familiar with the need to be sensitive to the global human family and begin to at least attempt to see events from the perspective of others. But today we are called to relate in a new way to the rest of the great fabric known as creation. Fr. Thomas Berry (who died on June 1st, 2009), once said:  “We often marvel at other people, particularly impoverished peoples.  Why are they so happy amid such difficulties of life?  They have developed a way of dealing with life creatively from within the structure of their own inner development.  What do we do?  We decide that we cannot accept the disciplines that strengthen from within.  We want to control the outside, we want to change things.  We want to control the very structure and functioning of the natural world.” (Befriending the Earth, p. 116.)

Today, rather than fearfully oppose the sea, we are invited to extend our empathy towards it.  A couple of Berry’s quips, for which he was famous, might help us with this new challenging perspective: “People say you can’t treat people as things; I say you can’t treat things as things.”   -and- “We are literally cousins to every living being”.  So many of them live in the sea.

• Acts 2:1-11
• 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Galatians 5:16-25
• John 20:19-23 or John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

Thoughts for your Consideration:

If you happen to be in the new St. Gabriel’s church in Toronto (Canada) and turn towards those reading the Scriptures during the liturgy you will always look beyond them into the large garden exposed by the passive solar curtain wall.  That vista could be important for understanding an important meaning of Pentecost for contemporary generations, old and (especially) young.

In ancient times, long before the apostles, this was a Feast in early Judaism that was completely sensitive to what was happening on the land.  What it signaled was the harvesting of food, a gift of the land and a gift of the Creator.

Other layers of meaning were grafted onto this basic religious awareness. First the gift of the Law, allowing for inner growth of righteousness, then celebrating the further gift of being chosen to make God’s presence evident among the nations.  But the on-going context of Pentecost was harvest time, feasting on the nourishing crops — and tasty, even heady wine adding to the spiritual celebration.

There are indicators of these layers of meaning in the texts of our own liturgy today.  The responsorial psalm is a paean to the mystery of on-going Creation:  “The earth is full of your creatures … When you take away their breath, they die…When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth”.  In our day we readily translate “face of the earth” as a global image, usually meaning human habitat.  But in ancient times, it meant the “face of the soil” — that kind of earth. That is precisely where God does the creating.  To feast on the harvest is also to acknowledge that God’s Spirit is active in the soil.  It is not by accident that St. Paul refers to the “fruit of the Spirit”.  Fruit arises from the very dynamism of a plant or tree’s growth.  It is the continuing dynamic of the gift, not some product of our discipline or invention.  St. Paul also uses the interesting phrase: “we were all made to drink of one Spirit”, maintaining the context of harvest feasting, while grafting yet another dimension to this liturgical celebration.

What is predominant for Christians, of course, is the coinciding of this ancient observance and the spectacular emergence of the apostles and disciples on the Jerusalem scene, drawing the interest of peoples from everywhere in the known world to a new creativity of God’s Spirit.  On that Pentecost a new community was born that recognized and honored the gifts of God’s creativity within human relationships:  Saint Paul says “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”.  This is a whole new vision of human life, breaking down the barriers of race, slavery, sexism, even languages.  And it was bold.  This little group had been closeted away in fear, but now, experiencing a kind of tsunami of Divine creativity, went about very publicly proclaiming that creativity.

St. Paul immortalized the generativity of this fruit of the Spirit’s creativity:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

While these could be recognized by anyone as positive virtues, now they are identified as the way in which the Spirit is generating the very presence of Christ in the human community.  “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit”

The special hymn for today’s liturgy (the Sequence) describes the very down-to-earth ways we can detect and respond to that Spirit:

Father of the poor; of consolers — wisest, best; in our labor, rest… pleasant coolness in the heat; light…shining with grace in our heart’s most secret place.

And the hymn points to specific targets of the Spirit’s creativity in our lives:  “Arid souls refresh within; Wounded lives to health restore… Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the wayward home once more!”

The Feast of Pentecost we have inherited is rich with all these meanings.  It can be celebrated in a restrictive way, however; rejoicing in the earliest moments of the community we call the Church, and the promise that in the Holy Spirit we have an Advocate who will guide the it through the ages, while neglecting the myriad dimensions of the Spirit’s creativity.

But what if we really pay attention to the garden back-grounding these scriptures?  Today can be a day of heightened sensitivity to all aspects of Divine creativity. Through the awe-inspiring insights of today’s science, we can observe the new spring growth for the miracle that it is. In our contemplation we can savor so much more of what we imply when we ask the Spirit to “take up rest” in our hearts. That “rest” is imaged much better by fire and fierce wind than by repose. Like the first disciples, we might be able to shed our fearfulness and exhibit a bold attitude of trust in the Spirit who renews the face of the soil.  That attitude will fortify us for the demanding work of healing the wounds we have inflicted on the Earth.  Pentecost then, regaining its ancient authentic link to the sacredness of the land, will demonstrate its creativity in hope for future generations.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• When have you been surprised by the creative work of the Spirit in nature?
• Recall a moment when you open yourself to the creative power of the Holy Spirit in your own life and in relationship with others?
• What happened? What were the results? What did you learn?