Advent Meditation Week 3, 12/14/14

Reading 1: Isaiah 61:1-2A, 10-11

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,

to heal the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives

and release to the prisoners,

to announce a year of favor from the LORD

and a day of vindication by our God.

I rejoice heartily in the LORD,

in my God is the joy of my soul;

for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation

and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,

like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,

like a bride bedecked with her jewels.

As the earth brings forth its plants,

and a garden makes its growth spring up,

so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise

spring up before all the nations.

Responsorial Psalm LK 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked upon his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

Reading 2: 1 Thessalonians 5:15-24

Brothers and sisters:

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.

In all circumstances give thanks,

for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit.

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

Test everything; retain what is good.

Refrain from every kind of evil.

May the God of peace make you perfectly holy

and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body,

be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The one who calls you is faithful,

and he will also accomplish it.

Gospel John 1:6-8, 19-28

A man named John was sent from God.

He came for testimony, to testify to the light,

so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light,

but came to testify to the light.

And this is the testimony of John.

When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests

and Levites to him

to ask him, “Who are you?”

He admitted and did not deny it,

but admitted, “I am not the Christ.”

So they asked him,

“What are you then? Are you Elijah?”

And he said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

So they said to him,

“Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?

What do you have to say for yourself?”

He said:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,

‘make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as Isaiah the prophet said.”

Some Pharisees were also sent.

They asked him,

“Why then do you baptize

if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”

John answered them,

“I baptize with water;

but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,

the one who is coming after me,

whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”

This happened in Bethany across the Jordan,

where John was baptizing.

Welcome to Laetare Sunday.  The messages of today's Liturgy certainly continue the theme of reverent preparation, but there sounds also a strong hope that the new age is dawning.  

We are greeted by Isaiah's insight into the mission of the Anointed One--that this Savior will be fully prepared to complete the history of his God's people, even that all Creation awaits a transformation: As the earth brings forth its plants, and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise spring up before all the nations. The Theology of this day is a call to repentance, not in the darkness of the season, but in the light of a new springtime for the earth.  Every thing will change.

Theology is complex, but, as the scholarly Medievals often demonstrate, the process of classical theology is often rather linear and straightforward.  Moral principle, on the other hand, has every appearance of simplicity, but is often agonizingly hard-earned. So we are tempted to consider the Gospel for today as the theological entree for this pre-Christmas repast, and the earlier readings as appetizers. They are, in fact, strongly interdependent.

And indeed, the Gospel’s lesson is an important one.  John the Baptizer is challenged to clarify his sense of his mission against the insinuating, sneering suspicions of the “hired” interlocutors. As these actors will do later when they are sent to hector Jesus as he teaches, they are trying to make him appear a pretentious fool and impersonator. Of course the remedy against their behavior is to tell the truth simply and clearly. John told what he knew and what he did not know.

In many ways John the Baptizer remains a mysterious character.  The truth about John resides not simply in himself, but in the whole of the Covenant history.  So does the truth about Jesus--as Father Barron wrote this week, "...when you see Jesus against the backdrop of the great story of Israel, now you see that he's the savior." The same is true of John. John is seen as the last of the prophets. The Gospel, and even his enemies, place him in their line--Isaiah, Elijah and their great company, who by Jesus' day were figures of the past and of the future, interpreting history and preaching the coming of the Day of Yahweh.

By the plan of Salvation and the recognition that sparked between John and Jesus, John becomes a hinge-pin upon which turns the eternal Present of the Messianic age, the age of the Church. It is a tiny community of recognition who share this favor of infinite grace: Mary's cousin Elizabeth and her husband, the aged Simeon and Hannah at the Temple daily, Mary and Joseph, and John. This tiny fellowship begins God's sculpting of the community of the Church, which will not be ready to begin its work until the day of Pentecost.  But make no mistake, this is the Church in its prototypical pattern of brooding upon its transforming intimacy with the Son of God on earth.  They utter words of recognition--that times have changed and all earthly authority is overthrown.  Their greatest manifesto is Mary's prayer--the passage, called "Magnificat" from the Gospel of Luke proposed as today's Responsorial Psalm.

So, what? Well, we are in "this Present Age." We show up at Church because we recognize the now-Risen Christ present in the world through the outpouring of signs (if we will see them) of God's Spirit, through the Scriptures, through the communities that compose the Church and value its signs and traditions, through the Eucharist.  We are then called to do the work of disciples--part prophetic, as in Isaiah's enumeration of prophetic jobs, and part citizens of a Kingdom already established, as Paul's exhortation proclaims.

Here is Isaiah, urging the successors of the prophets to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God. 

Here is St. Paul, reminding the Thessalonians to BE the Church: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.

Our job, like that of the earliest fellowship, is tho share in the mission of the prophets and to live fully in the assembly of disciples. Does that sound like a job description? It's ours--

Rejoice always; the Lord's approach is near!

Advent Meditation Week 2, 12/7/14

Second Sunday of Advent

Reading 1: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11

Comfort, give comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Go up on to a high mountain,
Zion, herald of glad tidings;
cry out at the top of your voice,
Jerusalem, herald of good news!
Fear not to cry out
and say to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD,
who rules by his strong arm;
here is his reward with him,
his recompense before him.
Like a shepherd he feeds his flock;
in his arms he gathers the lambs,
carrying them in his bosom,
and leading the ewes with care.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14

Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.

Reading 2:  2 Peter 3:8-14

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years
and a thousand years like one day.
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,”
but he is patient with you,
not wishing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance....
But according to his promise
we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.
Alleluia

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.”
John the Baptist appeared in the desert
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
People of the whole Judean countryside
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.
John was clothed in camel’s hair,
with a leather belt around his waist.
He fed on locusts and wild honey.
And this is what he proclaimed:
“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

It’s interesting that the Evangelist Mark echoes exactly the voice of Isaiah the Prophet as he begins his telling of the Gospel.  Actually, all the gospel-writers find the point of connection that helps us to understand the acts of Jesus in what goes before him. Matthew and Luke each give us Jesus the descendent of one of the mystical lineages of the Chosen People.  John gives us the philosophical descent of Jesus, the Logos--the Word or Mind of God--from the center of Being itself, the Godhead.  Mark, who always gets right to the point, does this with concrete events, by introducing the hard-to-miss John the Baptizer shouting truth and salvation in the Judean wilderness, and drawing a crowd.  

Who was going out there?  “People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to see him.”  Why did they go?  They went “to acknowledge their sins” and “to be baptized by him in the Jordan River.”  Whose idea of a vacation in the country is this?  Think for a minute what moves people to such behavior; occasionally in history, this happens, but not exactly because it’s August in Paris.

People leave their accustomed environment to hear a message about human sinfulness and helplessness because something is very wrong.  In the case of early first-century Palestine, the common classes of the Jews were under the oppression of Roman rule.  One could live peaceably, but at a cost--limitation of basic freedoms, bureaucracy and harsh justice, and stifling taxation exacted by paid enforcers using strong-arm tactics. In addition, Jews felt betrayed by the backers of the local ruling dynasty, the Herodians, who bought Roman toleration of their rule and traditions at a cost to life and spirit the nation.  By the time another century would pass after the cessation of hostilities, the Jewish remnant of Roman ethnic cleansing, largely scattered in numerous diaspora communities, would blame the Herod dynasty for the greatest decimation of their history to that point--worse than the exile in Babylon.  They ultimately would expunge a number of late Greco-Roman era biblical books from their Scripture because these reminded them of a very dark period.

So the times were ugly, and the people sought refuge in God, hearing words of solace and moral clarity for their anger, anxiety and hardship. Isaiah's words in this light seem an incantation calling forth from the fiery desert a figure of truth--like the Baptizer.  Like Isaiah, John promises that judgment is coming in the person of God's Anointed.  This figure stands for a kind of justice that will mark an end to the reign of the power-mad and corrupt tyrants of the day--we can say of any point in history, practically.

But the Anointed also comes in response to another longing, one felt universally felt among all people, this for peace of spirit: "Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven." Worldly justice is but a prelude, a first stage on the way to a moment when everything will change.  Isaiah's power-metaphor of the world's physical renewal gives way to nurturing tenderness that is only the property of God: "the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together; ...Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care."

Of course, John the Baptizer is among the tiny remnant of those alive at the time who get it right. Study well the Protagonists in the Gospel stories of the next several weeks. This handful of "nobodies" is the first community of faith, who accept with pious humility that the God of Mighty Acts has roused, hearing the cry of his little ones. This, says John, is the Time when water is no longer just the Jordan River's mere trickle, but a torrent of the Spirit, releasing a new Creation from the waters bound up at the start of time itself. John's "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" is but the visible appearance of what the human heart truly seeks--a complete transformation that addresses our temporal fears, but much more indeed: the deep dread of sin and death inherent in our fallen condition. John seems to know that Yahweh God is paying a visit, and he will submit himself in obedience before the Almighty. In so doing he will die to the powers of this world, as the worldly, venal Herod will have him murdered.

In the child that arrives in Bethlehem, grows up in Nazareth and walks with the people looking for John along the Jordan abides the great mystery of the cosmos: where in this world, parched lifeless and without hope, can we find a source of renewal in truth and justice, and a love beyond all human loves? For us, as for those who with John trusted and treasured the ember of faith in their gentle hearts, it is a hidden mystery, but one no less real for the fact that we are waiting for its fulfillment, knowing that there are witnesses to its incarnation.  Hence, the Church asks us to consider seriously the seemingly incongruous advice of Peter who reminds us of the greater dimension of the mystery of this "expectant Christmas."  In Peter's words, "But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace."

The newness of Creation is at hand. Have a blessed second week of Advent!

Advent Meditation Week 1, 11/30/14

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT, 30 NOVEMBER 2014

 Comments on the Mass readings for the day.

Reading 1: ISAIAH 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7
...There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.

 Responsorial: PSALM 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19
...May your help be with the man of your right hand,
with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
Then we will no more withdraw from you;
give us new life, and we will call upon your name.
...Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.

 Reading 2: 1 CORINTHIANS 1:3-9
...in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will keep you firm to the end.

 Gospel: MARK 13:33-37
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be watchful! Be alert!
You do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man traveling abroad.
He leaves home and places his servants in charge,
each with his own work,
and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore;
you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming,
whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”

Beginning at the end of the meditation: remember that this season of Advent is the season to take the longer view of things. That is to say, beyond the jumble of our daily business we are invited to hope in the coming of Christ in its double sense--the immanent sense of the arrival of the baby Jesus present in our hearts and family hearths at Christmas and the transcendent sense of the Second Coming of the Risen Lord, King of Heaven and Earth, at the end of time. This much is true always and everywhere.

But for many reasons we are not guided by what is true. Our days are full: of distractions that compete for time and attention, and misplaced priorities whose result is often the loss of healthy self-direction and focus. We should never forget that Scripture is true for all. Isaiah is speaking about us  and to us when he complains that "there is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you." We are often looking elsewhere, leading lives that are subject to the morally ambiguous  rules of the world because we have lost the habit of looking beyond the world. God does not have to  work very hard to "hide his face" from us, because we no longer seek his face.

Our motives don't have to be evil; but, failing to trust in the invitation of God, we endanger our will to use fully the strengths given to us at Baptism, through the Sacraments and by our life as the Church. The Apostle Paul makes it a point to remind his hearers to remember the help God extends to us through the Body of Christ: "you were enriched in every way,with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift." When we are too self-absorbed, we fall short of the goodness of God that can otherwise shine in our charity, our use of our talents, and in our clarity about the mission of our lives. We're drifters.

Of course, Jesus well knows the inner and outer natures of his followers. He knows we are drifters. Hence, “Be watchful! Be alert! What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’" This command transcends whatever work we do as servants of the Master. Clergy or lay, entrepreneur or wage-worker, knowledge-worker or heavy-lifter, it's all the same as long as we exercise vigilant attention for the return of the Lord. That means we are on our best behavior, exercising concern for the preparedness of the whole estate. If a fellow worker is struggling, we don't say "That's your department." And last of all do we ignore or stray from our charge and give in to the world's disorder. We can all see the contrasting approaches in our daily experience.

On "Black Friday" we saw video depicting a discount store melee over who would buy the last big-screen TV. The teenager who filmed the incident understood perfectly well the silliness of the adults losing all sense of focus and composure. Just a couple of miles away a significant line of contemporary Hobbits waited patiently for two hours, socializing or reading, sharing donuts and coffee. Granted--I was at a bookstore. But the demographics of the population in that part of town are  not so different, so we can't blame it on class. How to wait, and how to live while we wait, and what  to wait for, are the questions. "Then we will no more withdraw from you; give us new life, and we will call upon your name. ...Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved."

Two minutes on Why Theology Matters:

In Between Things...

...trying to read Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before.  A well-stated thought: 

 Achamian fully understood the geometry of Nautzera's world.  It had once been his own.  For Nautzera, there was no present, only the clamor of a harrowing past and the threat of a corresponding future.  For Nautzera, the present had receded to a point, had become the precarious fulcrum whereby history leveraged destiny.  A mere formality.

I know people like that!

Relativism

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards."

- Pope Benedict XVI

Summer reading

A new list of fantasy/suspense series, from Vox.com:

http://www.vox.com/cards/books-to-satisfy-your-game-of-thrones-cravings/need-another-fantasy-book-series-to-read-while-you-wait-for-the-next