Thought of the Day June 2, 2015
"If you cannot see the poor in the Eucharist, you cannot see Jesus there; if you cannot see Jesus in the eyes of the poor, you cannot see him in the Eucharist." (Mother Teresa)
Reading Reflections: FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI: GOSPEL REFLECTIONS B
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"
The Passover was the most sacred event in the life of the Chosen people, since it marked the deliverance of God’s people from their bondage in Egypt. But it was a past event that was celebrated each year. For the covenanted Israelites the Passover Meal was a way of making present what God had and was doing in their lives this year.
Though the Passover lamb was sacrificed at the temple, each family was to eat the traditional Passover meal at home as a renewal of their covenant with God.
He sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"' Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there."
How did Jesus know? This is another example of the exercise of the gift of Word of Knowledge by Jesus in his humanity. Recall the time that Jesus told Peter to go fishing and the first fish he caught he would find in its mouth the coin sufficient to pay the temple tax. Or the time Jesus told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well that she had been married five times and the man she was living with was not her husband. This same gift has been given to each of us. We need to be open and act on the lead of the Holy Spirit
The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is my body."
In recalling this event the Gospel writer is also alluding to the feeding of the crowd through the multiplication of bread. There Jesus did the same gestures: took, blessed, broke and gave it.
In the midst of the traditional Passover Meal Jesus establishes the new covenant. He fulfills the promise he made in John 6. That promise was to give his Body to us for food and his Blood for drink.
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
In the Old Testament, the various covenants that God made with his people were sealed by the sign of blood. The night of the first Passover, the people took the blood of the slain lamb and smeared it on their doorposts. As a result the angel of death passed over their homes and spared the first-born within.
Jesus is anticipating his sacrifice on the cross the next day in which he will shed his blood for the salvation of the world. He is the new Passover Lamb who gave his life that we may have life to the fullest.
Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Recall that Jesus refused to drink the wine on the soaked hyssop when it was offered to him on the cross.
Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives
With what attitude do we approach the Eucharist?
Do I recognize in faith that in our celebrating the Eucharist we too are making present today what Jesus did at the Last Supper and on Calvary? Is there a sense of awe and wonder or a sense of déjà vu?
What is God asking us to do this week to respond to this gift of His Body and Blood?
Thought of the Day Jun 1, 2015
“Let it be understood that those who are not found living as He taught are not Christian- even though they profess with the lips the teaching of Christ.”
— St. Justin Martyr
Thought of the Day May 29, 2015
"Mary was more blessed because God was born in her soul than because He was born from her in the flesh." (St. Augustine)
Thought of the Day May 28, 2015
"Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. you called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. you flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you; now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace." (St Augustine)
"Behold, I am doing something New" Is 43:19 Part I
What was the new thing God was doing in the midst of his people who were in exile?
Let us read the passage in context. 43:14-21.
The Chosen people of God are in exile because they had broken their covenant with God. God had sent numerous prophets proclaiming a call of repentance and return to the Lord their God, but the leaders and the people on the whole ignored the prophetic warnings. They trusted in those false prophets instead who tickled their ears, saying things they wanted to hear. They believed that since they were the Chosen people of God, that as long as they gave lip service to the law of the covenant they could live a double life. They looked back on their history and saw the many times God delivered them from their enemies. Why would he not do the same in their time and situation?
We know what happened. The prophetic word of God was fulfilled. Their enemies overwhelmed them after a long siege which devastated them almost to extinction. The remnant was brought to Babylon. Jeremiah the prophet was one of the ones who tried to warn the leaders. But they refused to listen. But after his prophetic word came true, he gave the exiles hope without them fully understanding. He said that their exile would last for 70 years.
During that time the word of God was still present to the people in exile. They were told to make the most of their situation; to remain faithful to the covenant and the laws of Moses.
The first part of the passage we read stresses that Yahweh will again redeem his people as he once did for their ancestors when they were slaves in Egypt. The Babylonians who were their present conquers will be overthrown. The point in fact is that the prophet is setting the stage for the divinely appointed mission of Cyrus, the Persian.. For it is he who would conquer Babylon and the fall of that city will usher in the opening act in the future drama of the Chosen people’s redemption again.
How does God assure them of this? He recalls for them the fact that it was He who made a way for the Israelites to cross through the Red Sea on dry soil; while at the same God destroyed the pursuing Egyptian charioteers who drowned when the waters returned to their normal level.
But it is not the past that the Lord wants them to reflect on or to live in. Remembrance of the past is only to help them to understand what God was about to do in the present moment for them because of his everlasting love. Just as mightily will God act on behalf of his people once again as he delivers them from Babylonian captivity and return them to the Promised Land. God is not the God of the past but of the present. What God did in a marvelous, miraculous way to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, he will do once more to redeem the Israelites in the present condition.
The present context is situated in the true identity of who God is. "Here is the words of Yahweh your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel....the Holy God, the creator of Israel, your King."(43:14, 15)
It is because who he is that he will redeem his people. As God made a way through the Red Sea which seemed impossible to the Israelites at the time with their backs to the sea and the Egyptians coming against them in battle array, so God will make a way for the present people through the desert back to Jerusalem. At the same time God will both protect and provide for them: protect them from their enemies and provide nourishment and drink during their journey.
As God prepared the people by proclaiming what he was about to do on their behalf because he was God, he also indicated what their response should be. Besides believing and acting on the word of God, they were to "proclaim his praises" both before and after it happens.
The passage that follows indicates that it was lack of true worship and sacrifice was the reason for the collapse of Israel and the resulting exile of the people. As the people are about to experience the redemptive mercy of Yahweh, they were freely to break into praise and glory before God as the Israelites did after their deliverance from Egypt.
What happened in fact was that God did fulfilled his prophetic word and did something new in the life of his people. But it went beyond their restoration and return to Jerusalem. For when they returned their hearts were disheartened because Jerusalem was in total ruin and the Temple burnt and destroyed. In prophecy God told the people that he was going to restore the beauty and life of Jerusalem and the Temple in such a way that the former glory would be nothing in comparison to the new glory. And so he did.
When the early Church Fathers reflected on this passage from Isaiah, they saw more than what actually happened. They also saw it to have a greater and fuller meaning. Ambrose saw it as applying to what God did in the Incarnation. Superceding the normal process of conception, doing what was beyond the imagination or expectation of human beings, God became Man in the person of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin.
Irenaeus interpreted this passage of God doing something new as a foreshadowing of the new covenant God will establish with his people: the new covenant established by Jesus at the Last Supper and on the Cross.
How are we to apply this passage to our present moment? First, we need to recall and respond with praise to the author of that Word: God, our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. Our praise is not to be a mere lip service but an authentic offering of a heart and mind that stands continually in awe of God.
Secondly, we must recognize that the Word of God is timeless and though meant for the people who were the original recipients, the Word of God has a life beyond any particular point of history. So when we read that Jesus says, forgive or you will not be forgiven, those words were not meant only for his contemporaries but for us as well. When Jesus called for repentance, that is a call we must hear and respond to in our own lives on a daily basis.
Thirdly, we are called to be a people who is rooted firmly in the present moment in spite of the pull to look and long for the so-called glorious past or the pull to yearn for a future that is not yet. Yes, we are called to remember the past but not to idolize it nor allow shame and guilt to shackle us in the darkness of lost and despair. The past we are to remember is what God has done in spite of our sinfulness and failures. The future we are to keep before us is the prize on high won for us by Jesus through his death and resurrection. But it is neither in the past nor the future that we find life, only in the present moment in the presence of the living God who is doing something new now.
Fourthly, we are to perceive what is God is doing. This perception is a gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us all we need to correctly perceive the grace of God in our life in the present moment. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the gift of wisdom to enable us to perceive what is in the mind of God for us in the present moment. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the gift of knowledge to be able to have a clarity of what we perceive. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the gift of understanding to be able to draw the necessary conclusions of what we perceive and know. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the counsel and discernment to have certainty that we are following the will of God. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the courage and fortitude to be able act on this knowledge and understanding. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the desire to respond to the revelation of God with praise and thanksgiving. It is the Holy Spirit who brings us to a deeper awareness of the awesomeness of the God who reveal his plan to us.
Fifthly, we are to act on the new thing God is doing in the present moment in our life. It is in the present moment that we will hear God’s voice and see the move of his Spirit. We are to learn to be attentive to the present moment having studied and remembered the past. We are to open to the future direction of the Lord as we remain rooted in the present moment.
Thought of the Day May 27, 2015
"You respond clearly, but not everyone hears clearly. All ask what they wish, but do not always hear the answer they wish. Your best servant is he who is intent not so much on hearing his petition answered, as rather on willing whatever he hears from you." (St. Augustine)
