• 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.

• 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.

• Jeremiah 33:14-16. God will raise a tender shoot or branch from the seemingly dead root of the Davidic royal house. Because God wonderfully fulfills his promises to Jerusalem, the city of David will be renamed: “The Lord our justice.”
• 1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2. We are exhorted to keep our hearts blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• Luke 21:25-28, 34-36. The day of the Lord will be accompanied with terrifying signs. Watch and pray that you may escape the terrors and remain with the Lord.

Thoughts for your consideration: (The following reflection is taken from “Biblical Meditations for Advent and the Christmas Season” by Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP)

Advent assures us that Jesus must come. He will appear as he is and strike fear within us. Jesus must come if God is to remain just. The promises have been made, and as the word of God they cannot be revoked.

Old Testament prophets struggled fiercely with some of these divine oracles. For instance, God has pledged himself to King David: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever” (2 Sam 7:16). This assurance is repeated elsewhere in the Bible (2 Sam 23:5; 1 Chron 17:13; Ps 89:29-30) yet it raises very serious problems of faith when the incumbent king was an apostate like King Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3-4) or a weakling like King Zedekiah (Jer 38). In desperation the prophets concluded that God must cut the dynasty down to a seemingly lifeless and useless stump or maybe leave only the roots hidden within the earth (Is 11:1; Jer 23:5). In some mysterious way God will then breathe new life into the dead stump or hidden roots and so

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse [David’s father] and from his roots a bud shall blossom (Is 11:1)

Prophecy, interpreted in this way, shows that good people are not to be victimized by those who possess promised security and special privileges. Kings cannot quote the Scriptures to Isaiah or Jeremiah and conclude: “We can do whatever we please, because the Scriptures say, ‘Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever.’” God will certainly remain true to his promises and fulfill his word, but in a just way and in a surprising way. With a deliberate play on words Jeremiah manifested this liberation of faith from the false use of Scripture. He took the name of the reigning king, Zedekiah, and applied it to God whom he invoked as “Yahweh our justice,” in Hebrew Yahweh Zidkenu.

Jesus speaks of the fear and terrifying signs to accompany his appearance. This gospel reading may seem out of place for Advent and the preparations for Jesus’ birth. Yet a newly born infant must always stir a healthy fear in everyone, particularly in the family that is receiving it. Father and mother, brothers and sisters, all those in the relation are so careful in handling the child, lest they hurt the tender life. Fear incites people to second guess what the child needs or wants; it is not yet an adult who can explain and argue. Infants cry easily for they know nothing about compromises. Children and especially babies speak the simple language of yes and no.

Advent asks us, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to extend the same delicate and “fearful” concern to everyone. In each person and event Jesus is certainly coming to us, with a presence that we accept without compromise, and nurture carefully, even delicately. The Lord will raise up a tender shoot where we least expect life and the fulfillment of promises. We will cry out Yahweh Zidkenu! The Lord, our justice!

• Jeremiah 31: 7-9. Jeremiah announces the return of the northern tribes, exiled in their pitiable condition by the Assyrians.
• Hebrew 5: 1-6. Priests should deal patiently with erring sinners for they themselves are beset by weakness and must make sin offerings for themselves.
• Mark 10:2-16. Jesus cures the blind man Bartimaeus, declaring “Your faith has healed you.”

Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez

The readings this week call us to be humble and compassionate. In the first reading Jeremiah is reminding Israel that the Northern tribes will eventually return. God’s people have been humbled after the Assyrian exile of the northern tribes of Israel and Jeremiah prophesizes that in the end the God of mercy will “bring them back from the land of the north.” Jeremiah goes on to describe the great compassion that God will have for his exiled people. Famed Passionist scripture scholar Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller’s suggests that this prophesy is specifically informing the southern tribes of Judah that the northern tribes of Ephraim will return since the Assyrian empire is collapsing at the hands of the Babylonians. But what happens historically is the northern tribes of Israel never returned and they are lost to history.

The old Kingdom of Israel in not restored in its original form. The Jewish people have two choices; they can either dismiss their faith in God altogether, or they can allow themselves to be open to a new way of understanding God’s promise to them. Perhaps God desire to “gather them from the ends of the world with the blind and the lame in their midst” meant something greater than the return of the Northern tribe. Here is where the Gospel reading comes in. Now, through Jesus Christ, Jeremiah’s prophesy can be fulfilled. The compassion that Jesus has on Bartimaeus is reflective of God’s compassion to the lost tribes of Israel.

With humility comes compassion. The message in the second reading is that if we are truly humble then we will be aware of our own limitations and weaknesses. When we do that then we can appreciate the weaknesses and limitations of others. That is when we will be serving our own human community in a way that is compassionate and pastoral versus indifferent and judgmental.   

Humility is a valuable virtue that seems lost in our own society. Opinionated pundits are governing our own way of life and the message seems to be that nothing else should matter, not even the truth, outside of your own opinion. Facts and data are only useful insofar as they can back up your opinion. Principles and morality are also generally irrelevant unless they are the basis for your own opinion. It is fed to us by the media where the opinionated pundits are taking over all forms of journalism. But then it is played out in social networks and blogs. Now it is finding its way in social places like café’s and bars. There is no respect for dialogue and any kind of objective approach. This does not only hold true for politics but also for aspects of the faith. It does not matter what theologians, bishops or popes say or think. So long it fits our own opinion and it represents our own self interest then it may have some value. I have heard this type of public talk for some time now, especially with regards to immigration and the environment. Because there is no humility there is no compassion. Those of us who charge in with our own opinions are indifferent to the opinions and experiences of the other. Our own self-interest becomes our only good. Self-interest is not a value of our faith. We must humble ourselves before our God and before each other so that we can be open to God presence and wisdom within each one of us.

If we don’t learn to be humble make no mistake God will humble us, after all, He’s done it before.

Thoughts for your consideration: by Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

JPIC concerns are universal ones, expressing themselves differently in particular settings.   Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation continually attract our attention.

They emerge in today’s biblical readings.  Jeremiah, the prophet, for instance, celebrates a new moment in the history of the Jewish people, by noting a major development in  their covenantal relationship to God.  Throughout their history they have had to renegotiate, usually unsuccessfully, a series of covenantal arrangements with God.  Humanity has never been able to execute these arrangements very well.  As a result, God was forever formulating another version of His relationship with us.  Today represents a new wrinkle in this age-old institution.  The covenant, from here on in, is no longer an external device or instrument, but it’s to be an internal phenomenon-something fashioned within the very flesh and blood of the human community.

In this highly creative gesture, God incarnates a token of justice between Himself and His people, enfleshing a hint of equality between Himself and the Jews.  Covenants are always efforts at equality between parties, like contracts.  But past efforts at this equality have been hard to come by. But this time, as Jeremiah graphically points out, it becomes an embodied achievement, as God refashions the very hearts of this people so that a semblance of equality is within them.  At long last, something approximating justice prevails in this new covenant.  The people’s self-esteem is uplifted.  A certain equality prevails between them.

JPIC further engages the day’s scriptures in the spelling out of peace (P).  We note this in the letter to the Hebrews.  We usually think of peace as a combination of well-being and harmony with others, providing a sense of serenity.  The author of this letter, in describing what Christ achieves through His sufferings, observes that they help Him achieve perfection, while securing salvation for us who believe in Him.  Salvation is appropriately described as a state of safety and security, or, in other words, an instance of the peace that is so meaningful to us all.  The letter to the Hebrews traces this elusive quality of life to the death of Christ for us on the cross, from where it works itself out into various segments of life.  The violence so visibly evident in the viciousness of crucifixion to the wood of the cross recalls the blood-letting practices of physicians long ago, which were credited with healing and saving results: salvation.  Faith helps us share in the saving procedure provided by Christ Jesus on the cross, offering the remedy of peace we desire for our corporate body.  By sharing this faith with others, we make this remedy available on a large scale, and so stem the spreading contagion of war and violence.

The integrity of creation is a not-to-be-overlooked element in the formula, JPIC.  This integrity is evident in the restorative cycle of nature around us.  Jesus reminds us, in the day’s gospel, to heed the role of nature’s rhythm in regulating our lives.  He points to the grain of wheat falling into the depths of the earth, and dying, then re-emerging.  He suggests this familiar process to the Greek visitors, inquiring of Philip about Jesus.  In doing so, He makes a point about the cyclical rhythm of nature, which death does not conclude.  Rather, death is part of a process enabling new growth to occur again.  Nature’s capacity to “come back to life” is its God-given charter that Jesus finds useful in offering a human counterpart of the cycle of life and death, to be so powerfully illustrated in His own death and resurrection.  The grain of wheat conveys Jesus’ message to the inquiring visitors, knowing they will appreciate it.  It conveys the message of our co-existence with nature as well as our life of faith in God.  How often Jesus would have been hampered in imparting His message to us without the opportunity to appeal to the skies, the earth, the depths of the sea, as explanations of His mission on behalf of His heavenly Father.

JPIC is a window opening into our lives, and into our faith in God.  As justice, it points out a semblance of equality with God gained through His covenantal arrangements with us (J); as peace, it traces our well-being and serenity to the blood-letting of the cross (P); as integrity of creation, it provides an incessant circle of death and life that describes our way to God (IC).  Justice, peace and integrity of creation can combine with prayer, fasting and almsgiving as Lenten practices helping us to celebrate the Easter event.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How often do you hear about our Church’s social teachings?
• What thoughts or feelings surface as you consider the acronym JPIC? How does a spirituality of JPIC help deepen your own relationship (contract) with God and Christ?
• How does a spirituality of JPIC help you reflect on the financial crisis and unfolding scandals that we hear about almost daily?

• 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
• Ephesians 2:4-10
• John 3:14-21

Thoughts for your consideration: by Fr. Stephen Dunn, CP

Last Sunday’s Gospel re-lived Jesus’ surprising and prophetic act of “cleansing” the Temple which had been magnificently re-built by King Herod. Today’s reading from Chronicles takes us further back in the history of the Temple. Back when its destruction triggered the Israelite Babylonian captivity. It had been laid waste because “all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people” had become unfaithful, despite the preaching of the prophets. The author remembers one of Jeremiah’s prophetic warnings. The exile will last: “Until the land has retrieved its lost Sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled.”

That caught my eye. The Sabbath is the day each week when the devout are focused on the worship of God. When that focus has integrity, it means refraining from work — not just human labor, but also the work of cattle and even of the soil in the fields. Even the land is not to be forced to work for human gain. So there is a great irony in Jeremiah’s prophecy: “all the time it lays waste it shall have rest”. For seventy years, the people endured slavery for their sins, but the land, though laid waste, “shall have rest”… the rest entitled to it by the Sabbath.

Since Divine creativity pervades the Universe, it is fitting to understand our Earth as, in its own way, God’s Temple. In this century, we have (or surely ought to have) great apprehension about the growing threat to this Temple, due to the severity of climate change. I remember, some years ago, a musical lament called “Song for the Earth”. It grieved over what is happening to the trees, to the air, to the animals, and very plaintively, to the Oceans. The reference to the Oceans explained the mood: “When she dies, everything dies”. Current information affirms that the dying is well underway. For us, the land of “lost Sabbaths”, the land “laid waste” is the entire planet! The author of Chronicles, however, ends his account more positively. The destruction need not be final.

As we mark the middle of Lent today, our Liturgy too, is meant to be positive, to give us courage. Today is traditionally known as “Laetare Sunday”—“Rejoice Sunday”. Can there be rejoicing for the Temple of the Earth?

Many years ago, concern for the Earth at the United Nations inspired an observance called the Eco-Sabbath. It established an interfaith project to prayerfully begin allowing the land to regain its “lost Sabbaths”, as Jeremiah had expressed it.

 John the Evangelist takes up the theme of Jeremiah’s complaint about unfaithfulness. His comment is “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” But, in his conversation with Nicodemus, when Jesus describes how that can be changed, he does not suggest a punishment, such as exile. He says, simply, when people see “the Son of Man lifted up” they will be cured of their evil, just as people were cured in the desert by gazing on an uplifted serpent. What will they see when they see Jesus lifted up on the Cross? Suffering, surely, but as St. Paul declares in the reading from Ephesians, “mercy [and] great love… By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God”. It seems so little to do in order to “raise up” the shattered Temple. We are to fix our gaze on “the gift of God”.

A recent book has discussed the implications of that kind of gaze. It urges us to look deeply at the gift in all dimensions of life, and especially of the Christ event. A shallow appreciation of gift won’t do. But a radical openness to the reality of gift can melt the life destroying tendencies that generate human destructiveness. In today’s Gospel, the Temple of Christ’s body is our major focus of gift-awareness. However we have every reason to extend this gaze of gratitude to the Temple of the Earth. The book makes that connection in its title: Gaia and Climate Change: A Theology of Gift Events.

Learning to gaze appreciatively at the gift of Earth may lead us perhaps to contemplative practices we would have avoided previously, feeling they were not overtly religious. To gaze at the Earth as a living organism (Gaia Theory) is to become astounded by the complexity of eco-systems, but especially to rejoice in their ability to weave the web of life. Together they provide the gift of life we know and enjoy as the biosphere. Cyrus was a pagan king. Nevertheless he was the catalyst to a renewal of faith among the Israelites. We have neglected the Temple of the Earth for too long. Although to some this wonder may seem merely secular, it can lead us back to religious reverence.

Abusing the Temple leads only to destruction and exile. Respect and gratitude for the Temple brings joy. Our Liturgy began: “Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her.” This is Laetare Sunday, let us rejoice that our Biosphere is indeed God’s holy Temple.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How is the environmental crisis affecting you and your community? 
• How is it affecting farming or coastal communities? 
• Is the image of environmental degradation affecting your spirituality and prayer life? 
• How do your public officials respond to the issues of the environment? 
• How are you demonstrating your commitment to promoting the integrity of creation?