Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'
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Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'
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There is a sudden constellation of themes, which connects, in a surprising way Leviticus with today’s Gospel. ‘Carrying’ surfaces in three different meanings. The Leviticus with all its gloom can be summed up in terms of ‘carrying the inevitable weights of live.’ Here, life itself appears as an unbearable burden. There is no one to give support, there is none to carry our burdens.
Then, we can see Joseph of Arimathea, who ‘went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.’ (Luke 23:52) He takes, and carries the body of Jesus to the tomb. Previously, we already saw him at the scene of the Pieta. There, when Jesus was taken from the cross, the body of Christ was supported by Mary, and Joseph of Arimathea. We can attach to this theme of ‘carrying’ Simon of Cyrene, who helped Jesus to carry his cross. Finally, in throughout the scenes of the Passion in Luke’s account, we saw the Son of Man, carrying our sins. The full weight of humankind. What a profound theme, how these forms of ‘carrying’, their meanings, intersect. Leviticus sheds light on how futile it is to hope in our own ‘gods’ that they might carry us when life becomes tough. His pessimistic view of life is a judgement on the power of our ‘idol-gods’. His realism repeats the profound theological insight of the Old Testament. When people were taken to exile, and had to flee, they carried them with themselves. They hoped for their help. But actually, these heavy idols, literally, became a burden to their worshipers. Carrying these false gods (false hopes) became pain and vexation. Instead of removing weariness from the people, they became the very source of weariness. Instead of rescuing their worshipers from exile, they are carried off into an existential exile. The Leviticus shows the nature and the futility of this overburdened journey. Simon of Cyrene, and Joseph of Arimathea start carrying the true God. The spell that paralysed Leviticus is immediately over; they will feel it soon. However, the real focus is how we are being carried, with all our weight, by the Loving God. In the Passion, the theological genius of the Old Testament culminates. In the person of Jesus, we are carried back, where we should be. Into God’s outpouring life; where there are no false gods which could weight us down. 14.11.2020
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‘Man makes his own life complex.’ This sentence echoes in me from yesterday’s Lectio Divina. I could not remember it exactly, so I looked it up: ‘Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.’ (Eccl 7:29) We indeed have the ability to create diversity, and multiple choices. The question, however, remains. Do our inventions, in the end, create more options, and enhance our freedom? Or, as Ecclesiastes reached the conclusion, just the opposite. We only get entangled in our cleverness. Our magnificent technical inventions, the book warns, only create the illusion of freedom. Well, we should not forget that Ecclesiastes is a ‘closed system’. Liberation remains out of reach. Redemption is only hoped for, it is unimaginably distant.
Today’s Gospel, the passion of Christ, gives us a not easy answer. Yes, regaining our freedom is possible. We don’t have to deny our ability to create. Regaining control over the milliard fragments of life, can be achieved. However, this re-focusing is possible only through our compassionate turn to Christ’s Passion. Jesus’ trial and redeeming death gives back all our lost freedoms. This freedom is not salvation. The misunderstanding that we can redeem ourselves is our fatal delusion. We need our freedom -our ‘inventions’-in order to respond to what Jesus did for us with our whole being. With our total history. This Passion alone can counteract the centrifugal forces, upon which forces’ cross, our ‘cleverness’ put us. Without the Passion, we remain perpetuated in endless suffering. Or, if the horizon of Ecclesiastes is made whole again, in endless joy. Perhaps, this is expressed so mysteriously, in Lajos Vajda’s enigmatic painting from 1942, ‘Moon in Sunshine’. 13.11.2020 ‘And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him’ (Luke 22:43)
We are always in a situation when we need the support of that angel. Whether we are aware of it or not, that very angel is continuously on our side. We humans just don’t have the nerve to face the shivering fact: without that angel, we could easily disappear into nothingness. The world, as it is, without that Angel, should not be here. When disaster strikes, in that moment we start appreciating that mysterious presence. This presence, however, is tremendously positive. If we exhaust this positive energy -grace -we can build and make our world grow. Where love is cultivated, this world is put into a better place, by us. Its chances for the above-mentioned survival will increase. So, this is a positive reading of the angelic presence that Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. Actually, on the Mount of Olives, in those moment of consolation, it was the angel of Love, with all its positivity to lead Jesus. Let us be led by this supportive Sun. 12.11.2020 Good News that Breaks the Cycle
The pessimism of Ecclasiastes keeps haunting us. It is amazing how one can be engulfed by the lack of hope. Repetition of misfortune, like a Beckettian endgame is around the corner. Yet, there is a tremendous value in these observations. A generation can be marked by history’s coercion. There are times when history makes feel its full weights. The danger is if these scars go too deep, and become a trans-generational trauma. In this time of Covid 19, we have experienced something similar. The intensity of this experience is striking. Only within couple of months we experience losses and anxieties of long years, like in the case of a world war. That’s why it was so so beautiful to hear that the redeeming vaccine is working, and is close at hand. This breaking of news changed the whole closed horizon around us. Colours have changed, emotions got reverted. Light is felt, hope, like morning has broken! As Christians, our call is to trace the root of this and similar game-changer good news. If the vaccine indeed arrives, and healing comes, if we recognize how it is part of God’s providence, our joy will be doubled. We shall be able to look back to what had happened, to our present ordeals, as something already under the pressure of grace. ‘But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.’ (Luke 21:9) For God’s love, human history, is never an impenetrable wall. Never an endless cycle of pain and lost orientation. Let us contemplate, in the announced good news about the medication, the widening circles of our coming Redemption. Beyond its contours, let us see our joyful encounter with the returning Christ. 11.11.2020 'All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.’ (Ecclesiastes 1:8)
Another way of describing our age is through the human eye. Recently, we speak of the ‘ecological footprint’ which denotes the overconsumption of Earth’s resources. A kind of mirror image to this is ‘the over-consuming eye.’ The powerful king in Ecclesiastes is profoundly unhappy, because he had seen too much. All possible richness, physical and spiritual, has overflown through his eyes. Through that eye which is regarded as the organ of ‘possession’. For we own the world through vision. The most powerful organ of manipulation and source of insatiable desire. ‘I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine… and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life…I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces… So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.’ (Ecclesiastes 2:3-9) Ours is an age of the tired eye. The problem is not simply that it is exhausted, but the exhaustion of our imagination, and the visions of hope. We no longer have a hopeful eye, a humble eye, a searching eye. Instead, our eye has become that of a colonist. In the end, we ourselves became colonised by what we amassed and possessed. In the end, it is true that unexamined life leads to depression. Un-processed visions, the eye over-flooded with images and information, lead to the melancholy to which the unhappy king of Ecclesiastes gives voice. ‘And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.’ (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11) Mihail Bulgakov said somewhere that there are no longer angels, only demons have been trumpeting. Actually, it was his diagnosis of how state atheism transformed Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet Revolution. But in our own age, is it voice of the demons of acedia, which has the final word? We Christians are always in protest against this. Yes, we can recognise the pain of Ecclesiastes in us. We must be honest that our vision is wounded. Yet, is not this malady of our eye, is the birth of a new monastic focusing? Is not it a turn to not what we have seen, but to what we have ignored to see? 09.11.2020 ‘On Judgement day the men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation and condemn it, because when Jonah preached they repented; and there is something greater than Jonah here.’ (Luke 11:32)
We played so much with words, like ‘post-modernity’, ‘late modernity’. Now new terms offer themselves to describe the changes we recently have been experiencing. Quite rightly, some speak of a ‘pre-Covid 19’ and ‘post-Covid 19’ world. The Bible is far more concentrated. There are no caesuras, new beginnings. From the Biblical perspective, there is only one, great unfolding continuity. Today’s passage makes it clear: after Jonah, we can speak only of ‘repentant’ and ‘unrepentent’ cultures. Our beginning, because of our being prone to failure, is Niniveh. Niniveh models perfectly our options: repentance or condemnation. There are no excuses for clever self-acquittals, no names in which ‘to hide’ Unless those names, describing an age, help in getting closer to repentance. If one wants to find an apt name, however, there seems to be a suitable one. Why not call our age as that of ‘post-excitement’? It does have to do with repentance, a lot. For repentance requires the ability of desire. Desire to do something, desire to enjoy something, desire to be with someone, our ‘Other’. Briefly, the desire for the Sacred. Our age has lost the sense of excitement itself. In the past few decades, as a culture, we over-stimulated ourselves. Like the attendants of late-Roman orgies. There was nothing to be motivated by, nothing to follow, nothing to be awakened by. ‘Johan preached and they repented.’ Ninive still had the desire to live. After that tipping point, the loss of desire for our better selves is proportionate with Judgement. Yet: there is a last resource. A last light that can re-trigger the ‘photosynthesis of our hearts’ by turning to this stimulus. It is not a bate. It is our last chance to listen to. There is a redemptive, healing element in this ultimate rescue (wake-up) signal sent to our over-excited hearts: ‘…and there is something grater than Johan here’ 08.11.2020 The new Covid19 lockdown is upon us again. It would be so good to return to our life which we had before. Is there a return? Most probably not. Our life, we like it or not, has become biblical. What do we mean by that? It means that what is at stake is no longer health but our very salvation. Whether we like or not this turn of the dice, we must take seriously this option. The future, the eternal future of our souls. Physically, in terms of reversing time and going back before the epidemic, there is no return. However, for our souls, there is not only the possibility of returning, but it is our obligation. We should consider ‘return’ in its biblical meaning. The New Testament calls it metanoia. Literally, it is a Greek word meaning “change of mind”. Yet the full meaning is somewhat more. In the Bible, the word metanoia is often translated as “repentance”. But this kind of repentance is not about regret or guilt or shame; it implies making a decision to turn around, to face a new direction. To turn toward the light. The Old Testament calls it ‘tesuva’. Literally, it means a return to a previous state. When we ‘repent’ or return, we examine ourselves, and identify those areas of where sand got among the clogs of our life. We ‘return’ to a previous level of spiritual purity.
We have different strategies to cope with our present exile. Personally, I try to watch movies which were made well before the pandemic. I am revisiting banal films, where I pay attention not so much to the story, but ‘how the world looked like’. It is really easy to appreciate with awe how our streets looked like. How people dressed, what music we enjoyed. Yesterday, as a random choice, I found a 1985 family adventure movie, the Flight of the Navigator. In the film, a 12 year old boy, David wakes up one day to discover he had lost eight years of his life. Everything, his mum, his dad, even his dog changed. Everything, except him. The story consisted in the sci-fi part of the film. It was an adventure of discovering why David’s brain was sending out strange signals which he even could not explain. He gradually learnt why a group of top-secret scientists wanted to lock him up and study him. The truth was even stranger. Because even though David is just a kid, his mind was the key to the most amazing discovery on earth: a visitor from another part of the universe. For him, he learnt from the alien intelligence, there was only one chance to rerutn to his normal time, and family, which he desperately wanted. A dangerous journey, of which success the alien could not guarantee. ‘Your responsibility. You might evaporate if it does not succeed.’ David takes the risk and returns. When he meets his parents and pain in the neck little brother, he says to each one of them, including the dog. ‘I love you. I love you very much.’ The movie is a light-heated science-fiction. But also, is a profound description of what return, what ‘repentance’ means. Let us think about our own desire to ‘return’ from our present situation. As mentioned before, this captivity is real. There is no way of undoing it. It is just as a real drama as Jesus’ suffering and Crucifixion. It is just as impossible to undo. Wherever physically we will be taken, hopefully, when the virus is curable, there is no way of erasing the memory of this present Good Friday. And our hoped Easter shall not be meant one that erases the memory of our present losses and suffering. There is no clever answer as to the meaning of the tremendous suffering Covid 19 is inflicting upon us. There is no return to old answers and banal hopes. At the moment, all what we can say is that we have to take seriously the journey of our souls. That this journey is a journey through prayer. If there is a ‘return’ it can take place only through prayer. There is no other medium to be freed from this real, Biblical exile. The most what we know at present is the vision of the medieval mystics, Julian of of Norwich and William Langland. Both of them portray the abiding scars of crucifixion on the body of the risen Lord. These wounds, according to Julian’s witness, is a point of entry. We can reach a joyful and delightful place through the wound in the side of Jesus. All we know is that this ‘place’ is large enough to provide shelter for all those who will be saved. Our soul’s ‘return’ is the recognition that the wounds of Christ are redemptive. This is because they open up his body, allowing access, into God’s forgiving Love. And we also know, that while there is no earthly answer to the ‘why’ of the tremendous suffering of those who got seriously ill and had died, we know that these wounds of Jesus imply the dignity of those who suffer in this epidemic. His suffering gives dignity to the victims. We don’t know how and why but the impassible God, at the same time, in Christ, is continually suffering in his members. And perhaps, the most consoling recognition is that there is something, close at hand, to which we can return to. What is this most real thing, which is untouched, unwounded by Covid 19? What is this path and resource? The Bible, the word of God, his sacraments, and our prayers are from that world, which both precedes and overcomes the present epidemic. In the film, the boy could learn to fly his spaceship. So can we. Let us get real, let us care for our soul’s journey. 08.11.2020 The Hungarian author, Frigyes Karinthy, draws our attention to a hidden but banal fact. People, on average, have five or fewer social connections with each other. He adds, if we map out all these links, everyone on earth is linked indirectly with everyone else through a network of personal acquaintances. Besides geographical space, this network of influence also unfolds in time down to countless generations, past and yet unborn. The feast of All Saints offers us a mind-blowing insight. When we celebrate the lives of all saints, know, and unknown, the fest confirms a vital fact.
God sees all the connections we mentioned. He sees all humankind, all salvation history, and all the lives of the saints. In today’s feast, we celebrate this divine perspective of grace and mercy. Today’s feast wants to lift us up to this divine horizon of faith and love. For, we are reminded, that our perspective, without this feast, would remain limited. We are like little children who see their mother’s quilt-work, their embroideries from below the tables, ‘from the reverse side’. From their limited perspective, it seems supremely flawed, but seen from above a beautiful pattern emerges. Life is like a quilt and only God has the big picture. And God, today, wants us to appreciate the life of hidden saints, all ages. God wants us to appreciate what positive effects their prayers brought about, what change they brought into our lives, and what difference our imitating them can make. Often, we see the lives of the saints, their deeds, illogical, beyond our capacity Just as Our Lord’s own relatives many times found His behavior irrational but Jesus saw the big picture, even in His human nature, thanks to the beatific vision which He alone enjoyed upon earth. They wanted him to remain silent or stay in Galilee in his public ministry and get out of Jerusalem’s limelight. Or, when they wanted him to act like a celebrity Messiah, in all its splendour, Jesus said: “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.” (Jn7:6) Later, however, He did go privately. On another occasion, Jesus waited two days until His friend, Lazarus, had already died before going to help him. This delay seems illogical to us because we don’t have the big picture that Jesus alone saw. Today, being lifted to the horizon of their faith, we can see how wonderful and reassuring God’s works are, and how important our contribution is. So, a practical question can arise: how can I link with God’s saints, known and unknown? How do you establish that link, and in what ways can you cultivate it? Today’s gospel for All Saint’s Day features the Beatitudes. The eighth one simply promises persecutions to those who observe the first seven. This promised opposition is the foolproof litmus test for true holiness. The saints alone faithfully imitate Christ’s life. That is why their behavior can, likewise, seem illogical. No! They don’t see the big picture like Jesus did. Instead, they act blindly through a kind of divine instinct which the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit give them. These Gifts allow us humans to act in view of the fuller picture. It is not easy to have this fuller view, with all its clarity, in front of us. But today’s feast gives us a taste of it. When, as a worshiping community, we have the foretaste, and the privilege to see our lives, from the perspective of God, interconnected by love, human and divine, and the Sacraments we receive. 01.11.2020 |
Soliloquy
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