• Acts 1:1-11. Between Easter and Ascension Jesus instructs the apostles and advised them to “wait… [for] you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Eventually Jesus will return gloriously, the same way by which he ascended from their midst.
• Ephesians 1:17-23. Christ’s “fullness fills the universe” and so the Lord distributes “the wealth of his glorious heritage” and “the immeasurable scope of his power in us who believe.”
• Luke 24:46-53. This passage highlights the necessity of Jesus to suffer and the praise of God by the apostles in the Jerusalem temple.

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez

In the Christian tradition the labyrinth is a meditative prayer ritual that was used since the middle ages. It was and continues to be used as a form of personal pilgrimage that symbolized our own spiritual journey in this world. As you walked the labyrinth towards the center you slowly detach yourself from the social and personal baggage of this world. You approach God (the center) free from your secular and material attachments and allow God to penetrate you with His own enlightened wisdom. Once you have attained this enlightenment you slowly journey back into this world in order to now share this pearl of wisdom within society.

As I reflect over the Gospel readings for the feast of the Ascension I am at the Passionist Retreat House in West Hartford, CT where they have constructed an amazing Labyrinth within the property. Jesus’ Ascension is a journey towards enlightenment for the disciples with a promise from Jesus that they will be baptized by the Holy Spirit with great wisdom and spiritual clarity. In the letter to the Ephesians Paul calls them to awareness of this great wisdom “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.” The enlightenment from the Holy Spirit will clarify for them all that has happened and they will be able to be witnesses to the divine revelation that they experienced and the social message of good news to the poor, sick and oppressed.

In Acts 1:10 the apostles stare in bewilderment into the sky. They are moving towards the center of the labyrinth and there they want to stay. They may not have received the Holy Spirit yet but they know something amazing has taken place. Yet the men dressed in white remind them that they cannot stay at the center of the labyrinth forever. The purpose of enlightenment is not to hoard the wisdom for oneself. Enlightened wisdom is a gift that must be shared “in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The labyrinth and the Ascension narrative share with us the mystical formula of prayer and action. The wisdom of God is beyond our common secular patterns. The social issues that we face cannot be solved by playing the political game of having self-interest groups’ fight amongst each other to control the political agenda. Social issues will only be correctly addressed by offering the issue up to God within a community of prayer and action. True justice will transcend common politics. Instead of fighting each other in endless smear campaigns we will be prompted to adopt a methodology of love, collaboration and genuine respect. For this to happen we must place our social concerns before God in an atmosphere of prayer and contemplation.

The Pastoral Circle is a methodology of prayer and action. It calls us to begin by identifying the issue in the real lived experience of the people who suffer. Once we have inserted ourselves into an experience of social injustice we then move into a phase of social analysis and theological reflection whereby we identify the social root causes behind the issue and reflect on these causes from our own theological framework. Prayer and reflection will give us guidance towards how to respond to social injustice in a way that builds up the suffering human community.

As I reflect on this methodology it kind of reminds me of the labyrinth, a labyrinth of social justice.

“That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Right.”

This is a statement that is completely independent of any organized religion or Church, but nevertheless it is a theological statement. This statement is absolutely vital for our own national identity. It brings an element of healthy humility to our American identity. We do not celebrate our equality because of our own achievements and merit. We recognize our equality by virtue that we are all part of a greater divine purpose through the power of the one we rightfully address as the Creator. From this theological principle we base the notion that we are all share in a divine equality which no other human can usurp. We do not just recognize the God given equality of Americans but of all the members of the human community.

It is based on this principle that I support a national day of prayer and thanksgiving. For me the first Thursday of May and the last Thursday of November are related observances. During these times we take time out to place ourselves in right relationship to our common humanity by being thankful and humbling ourselves before the Creator which many of us in the Judeo Christian tradition call God.

Prayer is an opportunity for us to communicate with God. Contemplative religious communities like the Passionist value prayer as an essential aspect of our own identify and spirituality. Whatever our ministries are they need to serve the vision and Will of God whom we serve. If our ministries serve our own individual or corporate interest then they are missing the point. By taking time during the day to pray and reflect we are taking time to keep ourselves and our ministries oriented towards the Divine plan rather than our own self interest. Justice, peace and integrity of creation ministries must also have the same orientation. We struggle to promote and advocate for justice and peace because it is an intricate component of the Gospel mission. Like equality, justice and peace are values that come from the Divine purpose of the Creator. But the pursuit of real justice cannot be achieved without God’s help. As Pope Benedict XVI mentioned in his encyclical Spe Salvi:

Certainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to soothe pain; to give assistance in overcoming mental suffering. These are obligations both in justice and in love. … Indeed, we must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power… Only God is able to do this: only a God who personally enters history by making himself man and suffering within history. #36

The ministries of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation require us to hold the issues of social suffering in prayer. When we struggle with an issue of social or ecological concern it is right and appropriate that we offer these petitions to God. In this way we are intimately connecting with those who suffer by placing them and us into a deeper and divine relationship.

Prayer is a communication with God. Through prayer we ask God for social and personal requests and we thank God for all that he has already given. While we may offer God our own petitions we sometimes realize that some of those petitions may go unanswered. When this happens it is important to recall that one phrase that Jesus used when he taught the disciples to pray and when he prayed at the Garden of Gethsemane: “Thy Will be done”. Sometime personal and social suffering will be part of God’s plan. By undergoing the process of pain and suffering we are sometimes being given an opportunity to grow in a different direction. When this is happening it is all the more important to pray for wisdom and courage, wisdom to understand what it is we are going through and courage to persevere during difficult times. One of my absolute favorite and simple prayers that I can use for personal or social struggles is the Serenity prayer:

God, Grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change, 
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the Difference.

The Prayer for a World Renewed is another favorite prayer of mine that I will share in this post. Through this prayer I am requesting from God the courage to struggle for His vision of justice, peace and the integrity of creation by promoting the values for a culture of life.

O God,
our creator and sustainer,
we pray to you:
We want to celebrate life.

We cry out against all that kills life:
hunger, poverty, unemployment, sickness,
debt, repression, individualism,
abuse of the earth, injustice,
and all other forms of slavery.

We want to announce fullness of life:
work, education, health, housing,
safe environment, bread for all.

We want communion, solidarity,
a world renewed. We hope against hope.
With the God of history,
We want to make things new again.
Amen

• Sirach 24: 1-4, 8-12. Wisdom proclaims her life with God before the creation of the world. Afterwards she wandered the world restlessly until she fixed her abode at the Jerusalem temple.
• Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18. Before creation God predestined us in Christ as the object of his love and as his very own adopted children Paul prays that we can be enlightened in the great hope to which God has called us.
• John 1:1-18. In the beginning before creation the Word was with God and the Word was God. This Word came to dwell in our midst and offered us a share in his fullness.

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez

This week’s readings we celebrate the mystery of Christ as the “Logos” or as John put it in his Gospel, “The Word.”  Last week we reflected on Jesus as the child of Mary and Joseph and his role within the dynamics of the Holy Family. This week we contemplate Christ as “The Word” that became flesh and the “Logos” that is the second member of the Holy Trinity. Within these reading the contemplative philosopher among us will be drawn to the words of Sirach who himself was a famous Jewish Philosopher in the second century BC. Sirach, who like Socrates was drawn to wisdom, comprehends the vast mystery that is the Divine Wisdom.

The first man never finished comprehending wisdom, nor will the last succeed in fathoming her. For deeper than the sea are her thoughts; her counsels, than the great abyss.

In reflecting over these readings we are forced to consider the concept of predestination. Paul’s letters to the Ephesians talk to us about how we have already been “destined” by the Will of God to be His adopted children. Sirach and John reinforce this notion by remind us that the “Logos,” The Wisdom of God, has been active at the foundation of the world in carrying out God’s destined plan for creation. And yet, in Jesus’ public ministry, we hear Jesus inviting us all to share in God’s perfection. Throughout the Gospel, in the Beatitudes, in the Last Judgment reading of Matthew, in the Good Samaritan parable in Luke, in the exhortations made by Paul, James and Peter in their respective epistles, time and time again we are freely invited to partake in the Kingdom of God by living a life of charity and social justice. This is the theological tension that our faith has wrestled with regarding “Predestined Grace” and “Free Will,” the same tension that brought about the great split between the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. How should we understand our motivation and incentive towards an expression of Love through acts of charity and social justice if our salvation is indeed predestined?

This past week I had the pleasure of speaking to a neighbor who is also an architect and who in the last few years designed architectural plans for his new house. It surprised me to learn that as he began the construction of his new house unforeseen conditions popped up everywhere forcing him to redesign his plan again and again. Ultimately his goal was accomplished and a new house was built for his family but the final plan had evolved greatly from his initial design. As he was telling me his I thought of the passage in Jeremiah where God instruct Jeremiah to visit a potter’s house. As the potter shaped his clay Jeremiah witnessed the potter reshaping it because the original design did not come out as plan. God reminded Jeremiah that as the Potter did to this clay so too can God act with regards to His own creation.

The wisdom of God is beyond human comprehension. God’s wisdom has us destined towards a perfect social union. Yet this union is based on our ability to freely develop this union. God’s revelation, and more specifically the revealed example of Jesus Christ, offers us the plan for constructing this union which of course God designed and which he may have to redesign based on the unforeseen conditions of our own free actions. Actions of charity and social justice are not methods for us to achieve our own salvation but rather they are the expressions of God’s ultimate social plan (the Kingdom of God) which we are invited to live out. The Biblical passages mentioned in the second paragraph remind us what actions are expected from this union. We may not be able to fully comprehend the final plan, but fortunately for us God supplements our ability to reason with the revelation of “The Word” that became flesh and whose “life was the light of the human race.”

• 1 Kings 17:10-16. The poor widow makes bread for Elijah with her last remaining ingredients only to be blest by God with a year’s worth of flour and oil.
• Hebrews 9:24-28. Christ is the high priest who has removed our sins through his sacrifice. He will come again to bring salvation for those who await him.
• Mark 12:38-44. Jesus warns his disciples against the hypocrisy of the scribes. Jesus then teaches the disciples the true meaning of charity through the example of the poor widow.

Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez

This week we learn about the true nature of charity. Charity is a prominent virtue of our Catholic faith. In the second chapter of the letter to the Galatians Paul recounts the Jerusalem controversy with the early Christian community over the issue of circumcision. Verse 10 of that chapter reveals the universal importance of charity to the fledgling Christian faith. From this account we know that even during the earliest moment of our Church’s history there have been issues of disagreement. But the topic of charity, “that we remember the poor,” has been a consistent unifying element as the Church developed and spread. No one can argue that charity is an important value within our faith tradition. But like everything else even the concept of charity must evolve so that we can fulfill the spirit of charity within our changing social environment. It is perhaps for this reason that Pope Benedict XVI took the time to devout his recent encyclical to what he called “Charity in Truth.” What is Christian charity in the context of Globalization?

In the Gospel and in the first reading we are told about the spirit of charity. Charity is not only the act of giving. In the Gospel Jesus warns against the mere image of charity where people give comfortably from their surplus and yet do it in a way that publically inflates their image of being charitable and holy people. In both readings we hear that charity is the selfless act of giving especially when it is truly challenging to give. The spirit of charity is not based on our ability to give what is no longer important or desirable for us, it is the ability to give based on the necessity of others.

In the encyclical “Charity in Truth” Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that true charity can only be understood in relationship to justice. For some time now the values of charity and justice have been understood within a hierarchy of values where the individual acts of charity is of principle importance and the work of promoting social justice is secondary. According to the encyclical this is not charity in truth. “Charity goes beyond justice… I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them.”

The encyclical goes on to redefine justice as the act of social and political charity which we are all obliged to give. We are responsible for both individual acts of charity and social acts of charity. This being the case we are not allowed to merely promote voluntary acts of charity while advocating against social laws that promote justice. We cannot feel comfortable with preaching individual charity while denying social programs to help the poor and marginalized. To truly embody charity we must do both. Like the widows in both readings we have to accept the challenge to give for the sake of societies needs. The way this is structured in our society is through a system of taxation that is specifically designated for social programs such as housing, healthcare, education and food programs. The encyclical and today’s scripture readings do not teach us to be libertarians. Instead we are taught to promote the “common good” through our individual and social acts of charity.             

The second reading reminds us that this call to the challenge of promoting “charity in truth” is not built on the social wisdom of this world. It is based on our faith in the “Kingdom of God.” The reading in the letter to the Hebrews tell us about the eschatological mystery where the “Kingdom Of God” is already revealed to us through Jesus but we also await its ultimate establishment in what we call the second coming. This reminds us that we are expected to live and express the true value of charity even in the midst of our imperfect society. We are the individual witnesses to the “Kingdom” and it is through us, united in our relationship with Christ, that we will slowly bring about the true “Kingdom.” This reminds us to persevere in our social and individual acts of true charity and to not be discouraged by the unjust realities of our society or to fall victims of a more convenient  and possibly hypocritical form of charity.

Corporate Responsibility has a long history in Holy Cross. In the early 1970’s the province, under the leadership of Fr. Neil Parson’s its Treasurer, began the development of an investment fund to support its ministries. At the same time some protestant churches led by the Episcopalians and United Methodists began to see the connection between their economic power as shareholders and the ability to change corporate policies and behavior. The catalyst was a request from the churches of South Africa that the international community join the fight against apartheid. Large transnational corporations were seen has supporting the white government’s suppression of the black population. A movement began here to ask large US corporations such as General Motors and Ford to leave South Africa. The large New York banks were asked to cut off lending.

Shareholders are the real owners of corporations. Shareholders elect the corporation’s Board of Directors who in turn hires top management to operate the company. The church shareholders felt the need to coordinate their efforts and set up in NYC the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.

In 1969 the Passionists had renewed their Constitutions. The new Constitution spells out in a forceful way that the Passion of Christ continues in the world today in the oppression of the poor, in the denial of basic human rights, in the violence of war, and even in the destruction of the earth’s environment. Fr. Parson’s realized the province’s investment portfolio could address this contemporary Passion of Christ. He began to relate to ICCR and heard about the situation in Chile where a coup against the socialist government of Aliende had installed a military dictator. What concerned him even more was that a large US transnational corporation, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), was accused of using money funneled by our CIA to finance the coup. The allegation was that they were afraid the socialist government would nationalize their operations in Chile. This corporation was owned in the Passionist investment portfolio.

Fr. Parsons realized he was in no position to investigate the truth of this accusation. but the Passionists could as shareholders ask the corporation to investigate what happened in Chile and report it to the shareholders and more importantly to adopt a corporate wide policy that they would not fund the violent overthrow of governments where they operated, especially in the third world. With the help of ICCR a resolution was written and sent to the company to be voted upon by all the shareholders at the next annual meeting.

Fr. Parsons asked me to attend the ITT annual meeting in Pittsburgh to move our resolution. I felt very intimidated walking into this enormous hall. There were several other members of ICCR there ready to support and talk very eloquently on this issue. To this day I do not remember the vote. But the important thing was that a light had been thrown on this issue. ITT had to stand up in public to deal with it. Hopefully they would not repeat these actions in other countries of the world. Today corporate management knows that there are shareholders moved by faith that will speak the truth to power.

Fr. Parsons left his position soon after this happened, but I remembered it very well.  In 1987 I was appointed Treasurer. One of my first actions was to have our province join ICCR as a full member.