Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'
|
Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'
|
'For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat.’ As we can see, Easter is also a moral imperative. There is a collective dimension of the Resurrection. Ethically wrong ways died; and now they have to be resurrected as good practices.
‘And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.’ (Isaiah 25,6-8) Easter is also a time for healing and renewal. We must imitate these divine gestures of nourishing and compassion. This is the only way − via a holy mimesis − through which our world can become a better place. Matthew’s account of the Resurrection amplifies further the above two messages. This description is the most beautiful and healing scene in the Gospels. ‘And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord ay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and behold he goeth before you in Galilee; there shall ye see him…And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee and there shall they see me.’ (Matthew 28,5-10) This encounter is the experience of all healing. Even more, this scene is the ‘centre of our world’, the axis mundi. Having found it as our ultimate reference, the world regains its lost and distorted shapes. Our world, with its wounds, needs to be melted into this joyful encounter! Just as the women sent by Jesus, we return to the world as its healers! That is a good definition of being a Christian!
0 Comments
Easter, as a gift needs to be processed. Every day we can discover an important, new element of its meaning. Today this crucial detail is hiding between two sentences. Mary Magdalene, and Joanna and Mary the mother of James have just brought the disturbing news to the apostles…They found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. These are the two sentences. ‘And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.’ ‘Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.’(Luke 24:11-12)
These two sentences of the Gospel have the profoundest gap between them. Let us enter into the silence which fell upon the apostles after refusing the account of the ‘disturbed’ women. Peter enters this thick world of deaf silence and unknown waiting. The moment is important when he arouse and run. Vivaldi’s Gloria captures this sudden emergence into truth… that he must go! Let us give this gift to our souls and join Peter’s experience of the birth of this ‘must go!’ This transformative silence is one of the greatest gifts of our newly born Easter-spirituality! Let us go and contemplate the linen clothes as they are pointers to our Risen Lord! This contemplation offers a further transformative silence…in processing all what have happened to us in Easter! 17.04.2017 We saw the Tabernacle Empty on Holy Thursday, when we remembered the Last Supper. We saw the altar bare naked, deprived of all its beauty. Last night we found the tomb empty… Today, our Church is in full beauty! The tabernacle holds Jesus in the Bread… During the Three Holy Days it was empty, now, the table of the word is full, the Tabernacle preserves abundantly the Bread of Eternal life… Christ is Risen! And there is a lot to celebrate!
We celebrate that Our Lord is with us again! We celebrate that it is not only nature which is renewed at spring time. Today we celebrate the good news of good news that we are given a renewed life. Today we celebrate that we are given a new chance – to complete what is incomplete in our lives. There is what we call a New Year promises. But what could be your Easter Promise? What would you like to achieve with the help of the Risen Lord? Every holy mass is called the ‘holy sacrifice’. It is not only the priest who offers the mass for an intention. It is you, personally, who can have an intention, a purpose, for which you offer the Mass. What is it, in your personal case? Offer it, for those purposes, with the Risen Lord! Easter is such a wise feast! Though it is something radically new… Jesus is resurrected, and now he is at the right hand of the Father. But his wounds are also there, on his resurrected body! Our Church, the mother of our hearts, (as it nourishes it!), has also undergone this transformation. It is beautiful! It is amazing how, through your prayers and voluntary work, it became beautiful! However, there is a great reminder of what Easter means for us. The walls ‘bear their wounds’, the scars of aging… Easter is like this: our old life is there, our old story is there. But not as a cause to be sorrowful, but to praise God that our life is whole again in him! Easter has implanted in us a burning desire for repentance, for change! This is not an ordinary, everyday desire to correct a fault. Easter manifests the distance between the sinner and God. Easter reveals the distance between where our world is and where it should be. The open and empty tomb is a beautiful symbol: it shows us broken up… so broken up that our distance from God causes us to yearn with a powerful love to God. That is why the whole Easter story, with the appearances of the Lord, is about this yearning and seeking and finding Jesus. This yearning, this burning desire to be the Lord, not only forgives our sins, but “turns our past/ our past sins and failures into virtues”. No, it is not a contradiction! This is the good news of Easter! If our heart is risen, there is no failed past, only growth, and new beginning – a REAL CHANCE. On Good Friday, when we finished the veneration of the Cross, when we remembered our Lord’s death, we were left with Jonah’s experience – when he felt totally abandoned and hopeless. We shared his despair, when he prayed: ‘have pity upon me, o you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me…’ Just a day ago, we left the Cross with grief and in despair.
On Holy Thursday, and on Good Friday, e were give the preserved bread, which kept our the flame of our faith alive. Just. It was very hard. That bread, contained Jonah’s prayer for the future: ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that ha shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!’ On this Holy Night, everything has changed! Everything is upside down, thanks be to God+ On this wonderful Eve, we realise, what was the inner light of Jesus which lead him through his Passion! When he overthrew the tables of the merchants and money changers, he was asked for a sign. ‘What sign do you show us, seeing that you are doing these things?’ Jesus answered and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up…’ ‘The zeal of your House, O god, has eaten me up.’ Let us be marked by this zeal. Let us be set aflame by the Father’s love… let this burn out all what is bad in us, what is failure, what is unfinished… Let us this burning zeal and new life of our Lord renew our lives, renew our Love, and renew our commitments…. For this celebration, the Tabernacle should be entirely empty. Today, also, a sufficient amount of bread should be consecrated for tomorrow. It breathtakingly expresses how dependent we are on the love of Jesus, our Lord. This bread, the sign of His love, nourishes us, sustains our souls. It keeps our faith and life alive…
But today, this small amount of bread for the congregation, also tells, tonight, how much Jesus needs our support, prayers, and faithfulness. We know that Peter and his apostles will betray him… What Jesus shares with us today, his love, is indeed our real sustenance and resource. What Jesus needs in this Last Supper, is the renewal of our faith. We receive this Holy Communion not only on our behalf. We receive this sustenance, as the seed of Eternal life, on behalf of the community. Even more, we receive it on behalf of the world… as all of us need this seed of the rebirth of faith… which bread and wine is the sustenance of the renewal of faith and life. Thus, this supper makes us ‘apostles’, messengers, witnesses for the future renewal of the world. Something important happens to the world through us… What are we celebrating today? We celebrate the two great sacraments, the foundation of the priesthood and the foundation of the Holy Eucharist. We celebrate the great sign of his love, the washing of the feet of the disciples. This love lifts us up to God. This great love lifts us up to the level where we should be. If we were low, if one made serious mistakes in life, which is impossible to repair and make things whole again – Jesus removes all burdens from us. In his presence, we are being healed. Our failed hopes have a new hope, a new continuation in Christ. We know that what happens to Jesus is unknown, unexpected to the disciples. But from now on, we are all caught up in the Love of the Father. Within this love, nothing can fall apart, no one can be lost. Let us receive this healing touch… let us receive this very special laying on of hands. Jesus touches our feet, the lowest point of our bodies. This is an expression of his all embracing, all redeeming, and all healing love. Let this gesture carry us into the depths and mysteries of the Holy Three days of our Lord’s passion. ‘And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgements: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel’ At the heart of the Holy Week celebrations is the task of reigniting this ‘original commitment’ to God. (It is another way of looking at this sacred moment in Jewish history. Making this covenant, metaphorically, was a synchronous covenant with all the peoples. This first covenant, archetypically, has marked us all. This is the ‘original commitment’ which is to be brought back to consciousness.) ‘… And half of the blood Moses sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant , and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.’ An altar, burning with the fire of prayer, is our only reality, which cannot be manipulated. Worshiping God recreates, on a daily bases, our sense of what is Real. The celebrations of the Holy Week (the Last Supper with forming the new covenant with the apostles; Good Friday with the redeeming death of Christ, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday with Jesus’ resurrection) is about history, our world, our personal lives becoming real again! One cannot imagine greater hell then being caught up in the permanent flow of ‘breaking news’. Our world, painfully, is unreal without God. Also, since that moment of the covenant, we exist in and through the shared story telling with God! Chapter 17 in John’s Gospel is Jesus’ high-priestly prayer for us. The whole of Jesus’ prayer is his work of making in us conscious that we belong to God. This high-priestly prayer is a great support in remembering our ‘original commitment to God’. It is a reminder that humankind belongs to God through its capacity to love. But first of all, Holy Thursday is a reminder, that personally, and as the local church, through our Baptismal promises, we belong to the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ. 13.04.2017 ‘And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgements: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel’ At the heart of the Holy Week celebrations is the task of reigniting this ‘original commitment’ to God. (It is another way of looking at this sacred moment in Jewish history. Making this covenant, metaphorically, was a synchronous covenant with all the peoples. This first covenant, archetypically, has marked us all. This is the ‘original commitment’ which is to be brought back to consciousness.) ‘… And half of the blood Moses sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant , and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.’ An altar, burning with the fire of prayer, is our only reality, which cannot be manipulated. Worshiping God recreates, on a daily bases, our sense of what is Real. The celebrations of the Holy Week (the Last Supper with forming the new covenant with the apostles; Good Friday with the redeeming death of Christ, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday with Jesus’ resurrection) is about history, our world, our personal lives becoming real again! One cannot imagine greater hell then being caught up in the permanent flow of ‘breaking news’. Our world, painfully, is unreal without God. Also, since that moment of the covenant, we exist in and through the shared story telling with God! Chapter 17 in John’s Gospel is Jesus’ high-priestly prayer for us. The whole of Jesus’ prayer is his work of making in us conscious that we belong to God. This high-priestly prayer is a great support in remembering our ‘original commitment to God’. It is a reminder that humankind belongs to God through its capacity to love. But first of all, Holy Thursday is a reminder, that personally, and as the local church, through our Baptismal promises, we belong to the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ. 13.04.2017 ‘And Korach gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment’ (Numbers 16,1-35)
The rebel of Korach, and the separation their rebellion, can be read in the context of last supper on Holy Thursday. In this meal with his friends, Jesus invites us to be close to him; all his friends should be there! It is a kind of separation, akin to that of Moses’ response to Korach. Jesus, on Holy Thursday, separates his friends from those who are indifferent to Him. It is our separation from the world of non-belief. Jesus separates us from our sinful past; or our present marked by ‘rebellion’ of self-centeredness. 06.04.2017 |
Soliloquy
These are verbal Icons, expressions of how the world is seen from Saint Augustine's.. Archives
June 2023
Categories |