Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ash Wednesday

Dear All,

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent.  The liturgical year has for special seasons, Christmas, Lent and Easter.  The weeks “in between” are called ordinary time.  Lent starts with an invitation from the Book of Joel, one of the twelve minor Prophets from the Old Testament, to open our hearts and return to the Lord with fasting.  He pronounces our God to be merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness. 

Jesus gives us some practical means to get our priorities straight and return to God.  We learn how to perform righteous deeds, how to pray and how to fast.  Interesting that all three paragraphs in the Gospel start with the phrase “when you…” leaving it assumed that those three activities are the ones that will get us back on track.  In all three situations he directs us to do it privately, assuring us that God will know about it, even if nobody else on earth notices it.  I get the sense from this scripture from Matthew that the less observable to the physical world, higher the degree of acceptance of our loving Father.  We have all experienced it at one point in our lives.  When intensely focused on any of these three, we get to remember moments of intense inner peace in the aftermath of it.  Lent are five weeks during which we are invited to specially focus on fasting, praying and almsgiving.  Not that we won’t do any of them the rest of the year, but it is a good occasion to focus on them.  Fasting makes me reflect at the opportunity to shed some pounds or kilos, which are excess baggage any way.  And five weeks are a manageable time.  Talking about manageable, we learned something very encouraging during our six year in Germany, a sort of crutch to make the weeks of Lent even more acceptable.  A German Jesuit priest told us that taking a break from fasting on Sundays is perfectly fitting.  He reminded us that it is the Lord’s Day and our joy should not be hindered by fasting afflictions.  Neat, isn’t it?  We are all invited to reflect on plans for fasting, thinking about what it is we are going to give up during these weeks.  Same with praying, are we considering any special dedication to prayer during this Lent?  And for righteous things and almsgiving the opportunities are facing us almost every step of the way.  Are we going to act differently in this season than we usually do, when the next opportunity crosses our path?

From the second reading from St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which we have been following for the last several weeks, we read that now is an acceptable time when God will help us.  The letters to the Corinthians come across as very modern.  The society at Corinth had many common traits with our present western society.  Very successful merchants, great architects, not withholding much on promiscuity and very developed social lives.  Paul is writing to people like us.  Therefore we can take to heart when he speaks as an ambassador for Christ, "Be reconciled to God...Now is the day of salvation." 

A complete text of the readings at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/022509.shtml

Wishing everyone a blessed Lent,

Rainer

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All,

The Prophet Isaiah makes a amazing pronouncement in this Sunday’s First Reading when saying:” Thus says the LORD: … It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.”  What an introduction to one of the themes of this last Sunday before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday.  Forgiveness of sins together with healing and friendship are significant topics of this week. 

From the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark we read this great story of the paralytic and his friends.  After the extensive healings of the first chapter: the man with the unclean spirit, Peter’s mother in law, the many people who followed Jesus looking for some sort of cure, and even the healing of a leper.  This week’s story is a lot deeper than a miracle story.  It is a story of healing forgiveness, the power of the Lord, and the power of friends.  Jesus is teaching in a house, crowded with people.  Four friends want to bring their paralyzed buddy to the Lord, but they can’t get near the door.  So, they climb up onto the roof, haul the poor guy up, then pull apart the roof making a hole right over where Jesus was.  Jesus’ response to the incident is to commend the friends for their faith and then to forgive the paralytic.  When some scribes complain that only God can forgive, Jesus notes that according to Isaiah a sign of the Messiah would be that sins would be forgiven and that, among other healings, the lame would walk.  The lame is forgiven, healed and he leaves carrying his mat.

In the ancient world paralysis was seen as resulting from sin.  We now know that this is not true, at least not directly.  In the case of this healing, the man is paralyzed by sin, the same way sin can paralyze us today.  Sin can exercise such force over us that we feel incapable of movement.  A person’s self worth can be so torn down, feeling incapable of approaching healing.  “How can I go to confession?” someone asks.  “I’ve destroyed a life, destroyed a marriage, destroyed my family?”  Many times a person will say, “I want forgiveness, but I just can’t get up the courage to seek it.  I can’t control temptations.  I probably will sin again.”  When we feel that way we are paralyzed by sin.  We need healing.  Physical healing, perhaps.  Spiritual healing, certainly.  Jesus gives the paralytic both physical and spiritual healing.  How come?  Because He is God’s Love come down to earth.   He loves the man too much to allow him to continue suffering both spiritually and physically.

And now we come to the real heroes of the story, the paralytic’s four friends.  These four would do whatever it took to bring their friend to the Lord.  Certainly they were pushed aside when they tried to enter the door.  They probably were yelled at, insulted and mocked for climbing onto the roof and destroying it.  But their determination to do what was the best for their friend, their determination to bring him to the Lord, was all that mattered.  This is at the center of Christian friendship.  It is a huge blessing to have friends willing to do whatever it takes to bring someone to the Lord.  It takes a courageous friend to say to someone, caught up in the effects of sin, whether he/she caused the sin or is suffering from the sin of others: “Look, your killing yourself with … drugs, with alcohol, with the way you treat other people.  You don’t like who you’ve become.  But you don’t have to stay suffering like this.  Come to Jesus.  Start new again and be happy.”  This gospel story tells us about the responsibility and the opportunity we have for one another.  There are times that we are paralyzed by selfishness, fear, pride, greed or whatever.  We might not realize the extent of our need.  We might be unable or unwilling to do anything on our own behalf.  We depend upon others to carry us to the Lord.  And there are times that we come upon others that need our strength and our faith to help them to see the Light of Christ in the midst of their darkness.  When Jesus saw the faith of the four friends, he healed the paralytic. 

We pray today that we might not just have friends like that, but that we might become friends like that to others.  A complete text of the readings at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/022209.shtml

With God’s Love and Blessings,

Rainer

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All,

This Sunday’s Gospel from Mark is about healing.  We know that Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels, yet it contains the most miracles.  Christ was being followed by a huge crowd.  As He approached a town, a desperate man broke through the mob and painfully got to his knees before Jesus.  The crowd ran away in horror.  The fellow was our unnamed leper.  Leprosy was a common disease in Palestine.  In its late stages, the illness is a bad scene with foul smelling sores around nose, lips, toes, etc.  The Jews looked upon leprosy not so much as a physical disease but a spiritual uncleanness, as we heard in the First Reading from the Book of Leviticus.  The leper carried both physical wounds and the conviction that God hated him.  Jewish law was harsh to lepers.  They had to live outside towns.  If they came upon a clean person, they had to ring a bell and shout, "Leper, leper."  The historian Josephus wrote they "were, in effect, dead men."  Imagine the courage of this fellow!  The law stated if a leper exposed others to his disease, he was to be stoned to death.  Lucky for him that the people around Jesus were so anxious to get away from the scene.  Otherwise they might have well stoned him to death.  Would Jesus have put Himself between them and the stones?  We can confidently  answer, yes.  Now, we may ask, how did the leper sense that the Christ would not flee in revulsion with everyone else?  What quality did he discern in Him that told him Jesus would hold His ground?

This story tells us that Jesus is most approachable.  We discover He has time for those whom others consider human garbage.  One hears people say, "My sin is so horrible not even God could forgive it."   This Gospel tells us that such a statement is incorrect in the realm of God.  The mystics tell us God will forgive us not because of who we are but because of who He is.  “If you wish, you can make me clean."  The leper's gut plea is uttered in just eight words.  When we are in pain we have time only for the essentials. Today's account tells us that Jesus touched the leper’s running sores. Can we imagine what that stroking must have felt like to the leper?  Probably it was the first time in years that someone who was clean placed a hand upon him.  This miracle is called by scholars an action miracle.  It happened instantaneously, “I do will it. Be made clean." This is unlike other miracles in Mark at which Jesus takes the man aside, looks to the heavens, sighs, puts spittle on the man's ear, etc.  But here the Nazarene felt there was no time for rituals.  This fellow's misery had to be terminated immediately.  

One more observation we may take to heart.  The cured man taught us how to pray.  His prayer needed only eight words: “If you want to, you can cure me."  Jesus shows fondness for short prayers. We hear Jesus in Matthew 6:7 giving us practical directions, "In your prayers do not use a lot of meaningless words...", brief prayers bring quick answers.

A complete text of the readings at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/021509.shtml

With God’s Love and Blessings,

Rainer

Monday, February 9, 2009

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All,

I am sitting in flight from Miami to London at 37,000 feet above the Atlantic, thinking about this Sunday’s readings, which talk about three things:  the mystery of suffering, about prayer and spreading the Good News.

In today’s First Reading we are invited to reflect on the meaning of suffering.  In the passage from the book of Job we see how Job despaired at the suffering he was forced to endure.  He had lost everything; his land, possessions and even his family.  We can certainly identify with his complaint.  He sees no sense in his suffering and therefore no meaning in his life and he complains at what he must endure.  Job despairs uttering: “I shall not see happiness again”—but we know that later in the story he rediscovers hope and his losses are restored to him. His perseverance pays off—God rewards him for not giving up.  Nevertheless, we can identify with his suffering and we have all known depression or despair at one time or another in our lives.

In Mark’s Gospel reading there is a much more positive note and we read about the compassion of Jesus. Simon’s house looked like an emergency room that evening, when people brought all the sick and disturbed in the town, in order to be cured.  He cures Simon’s mother-in-law and then goes on to cure all who asked for healing whether they were suffering from illnesses of body or spirit.  We know that Jesus did not refuse to heal one single person who presented themselves to him and asked for healing.

But his compassion drains him and at dawn he goes away to a lonely place to be at peace and to pray to the Father.  Several times we read in the Gospel stories about Jesus’ going to a quiet place to pray.  Do we take time out of our busy lifes to pray, to reflect?  I just read about a European CEO who is proud to confess that he only sleeps about five hours a night.  He is so busy almost around the clock.  Yet, a magazine wrote an article criticizing some of his decisions, wondering aloud if because of all this busy times he had forgotten how to think.  There are so many things to do and to distract us that we run the risk of forgetting how to think.  Jesus gives us a good example, after a hectic day of healing many sick in body and in mind; he goes into the desert to a serene place to pray.  Each one of us also benefits from spending time in a lonely place of our own.  Prayer will build up our courage to face the trials ahead and the best way to do this is to draw strength from the Father in prayer.  Finding our own place of stillness, our own place of silence, where we can commune with the Lord and our souls can be at rest and have time to contemplate what lies ahead for us and grow in understanding of the victory that Christ has already won (=the Good News).

Paul offers to his followers in Corinth in today’s Second Reading the gospel free of charge.  Spreading the Good News about Salvation keeps him going.  I find energy and motivation out of this, and offer my own reflection in the hope that my dear readers can experience healings of your sufferings and find joy in this Good News.

A complete text of the readings at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/020809.shtml

With God’s Love and Blessings,

Rainer

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear All,

The readings today speak to me about authority and anxiety.  In the First Reading from the Book Deuteronomy we find one of the many stories of the Old Testament announcing to the people that God will raise a prophet from their midst in the future, that will speak what God tells him.  Moses instructs his followers throughout the ages to listen to this prophet.  Now, in hindsight, we know that all these announcements point to Jesus Christ. 

Mark’s Gospel today, describing the opening of the teaching ministry, says that Jesus taught as one having authority.  Authority comes from the Latin term autocritas, which in its origin refers to rightful ownership of the article in question, according to the French linguist Beneviste. To reinforce the notion of authority we hear the first recorded miracle, of Jesus freeing a possessed man from an unclean spirit.  It is interesting to note that the Gospel does not tell us what it is Jesus taught.  According to one tradition, this would not be Mark’s fault, but Peter’s fault.  It is said that the origin to the earliest of the three Synoptic gospels is Peter dictating his memories to possibly his son.  We know Peter was married, because his mother in law is cured from a fever in the very next story in Mark’s Gospel.  But he does tell us that he taught different than the scribes.  To me this means that he did not repeat what others said, but told the things as he saw them, even if it upset some of the established power (Scribes, Pharisees, Temple leaders of his time).  After casting out the unclean spirit you can hear the murmurs in amazement among the audience: a new teaching authority!  And we can see by the sequence of the story that Jesus interrupts whatever he is teaching to attend the sick person.  Throughout his ministry we never find him refusing a sick person a cure.

Paul is well aware of the unavoidable struggles and anxieties of his Corinthian community.  He wishes them to be free of them as much as possible so as to stay focused on the following of Christ.  St. Paul would readily join the prayer we say at the conclusion of the Our Father: "Protect us from all anxiety." Today’s passage of his letter may at first reading seem to be a negative attitude to marriage.  To be honest, until I read the commentary by Verna Holyhead, I saw it as such.  An Australian Benedictine nun, interprets the letter to be saying that “all lifestyles have their preoccupations and competing loyalties, whether a person is married or single” and the male and female roles are no different in this regard.  Paul invites us to free ourselves from these anxieties and that is a message we all need, for the most part in today’s challenging economic times.

A complete text of the readings at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/020109.shtml

With God’s Love and Blessings,

Rainer

P.S.  Read the commentary from one of our friends from our six years living in Germany, pointing to regional differences in Christmas season traditions