A historical note, the fourth Sunday in Lent has special features.  It marked the second public scrutiny of the Catechumens in the early Church—that is those preparing for baptism at Easter which was the time when adult baptism were done.  The whole church joined in on the process of examining oneself and prepared to renew their baptismal promises which is still a most worthy practice at Easter.

John’s gospel is used these Sundays of Lent.  John’s gospel does not have a year of its own in the liturgical cycles but key stories are inserted into the other years at important junctures.  Preparation for Easter in Cycle A is one of those and so we walk with John into the Paschal Mystery. The theme today is blindness—spiritual blindness and we pray to be freed from any blindness’s we may have (which, of course, we all do)  When we truly “see”, that is know who Jesus is, the counterpart of that is that we also truly see ourselves.  The previously blind man cries out: I am!  I am that man! Knowing that he is experiencing the same things Jesus did—questioning, suspicion, disbelief, insults and expulsion but the experience of knowing Christ makes it all worthwhile.  Life has a new meaning for him. 

4^th Sunday of Lent Cycle A, Allusions

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13, Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

The story of Alice in Wonderland never made any sense to me growing up even though it was a children’s story.  I could not grasp the sense of a rabbit having tea and a queen using hedgehogs as croquet balls.  It would take me a long time to gain appreciation of imagination and fantasy and to arrive at admiration of character allusions.  I am glad that finally the beauty of ideas beyond those of strict mathematical logic became apparent to me.  It seems that if we do not embrace this beauty of symbolism, of myth, of character allusion we cannot understand much of the Bible.

The story of the man born blind is one of those exquisite jewels whose depth and beauty are fully revealed only when we appreciate its allusions.  John is the greatest of the wisdom figures of the New Testament.  Wisdom is the offspring of love and knowledge.  It is possible to have great knowledge and still lack wisdom.  Wisdom is the ability to see as God sees things–with the eyes of love.   The Pharisees in the story insist on their great knowledge of the law.  They could quote whole sections of the Torah by heart, yet they cannot see as God sees so they are blind.

John loads the story with those character allusions which it took me so long to appreciate.  We are all like the man born blind from birth.  That man is given no name because he is all of us.  We are born into a situation that for all its beauty is flawed.  But Jesus rejects the notion that the frailty and woundedness of our nature is due to sin:  “Neither this man nor his parents have sinned.”  The world is the way it is so that the glory of God can become known.  The imperfections of nature will be made right when the glory of the resurrection is fully realized.  These imperfections are invitations to look for, to expect the full revelation of God’s glory.

The next allusion is to Jesus as God.  He takes spittle (water) and makes mud to put on the man’s eyes just as God created the first man out of clay (mud).  Jesus’ power is that of the divine creator working now from inside humankind, but it is the same divine power.  In order to see with the eyes of wisdom, we have to be immersed in the One who is sent, just as the blind man had to wash in the pool of “Siloam” (sent).  Jesus is God sent from God to bring us into the full glory of God.  Jesus, the personification of God’s wisdom, acts with love and compassion to heal.  Participating in the creativity of God through healing is greater than merely refraining from work to honor God.  God is more than a lawgiver demanding that we refrain from work on the Sabbath.  God is loving, creative energy reaching out to personally touch us and recreate us. 

Once the man has received his sight, a new allusion takes hold.  The man becomes more and more like Jesus: his origins are questioned, he is rebuked for daring to teach the teachers, he is finally thrown out of their midst for claiming to understand God’s power in the prophets–all of which happened to Jesus himself.  The man even identifies with Jesus, using Jesus’ signature saying:  “I am.”  The one who sees as Jesus sees will become like Jesus, will have the same experiences.  When Jesus hears that the man has been thrown out, Jesus goes to find him.  “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  And here is another allusion—it is an allusion to the divine figure in the book of Daniel.  “Yes, Lord, I believe.”  Now his healing is complete.  He sees what God is doing.  He sees with the eyes of wisdom.  Jesus is not only the prophet who does the works of God, Jesus is God.  But the Pharisees, those who see with only the accumulation of human knowledge and legalism, remain blind.  But to me, there is still a deeper meaning.  Not everyone who believes in Jesus will be healed or have physical sight restored.   If, however, we can see with the eyes of wisdom—that combination of love and knowledge—we understand the power of God in the resurrection which will transform all natural weakness and woundedness.   With John who speaks from the Lover Archetype, we look forward to Easter not just during Lent but throughout our lives which are preparations for the experience of eternal Easter.

Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle A, Living Water

Exodus 17:3-7, Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9 (8), Romans 5:1-2, 5-8, John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

When I was a small girl, we moved to the western slope of Colorado to live in the home that had been built by my great-grandfather some fifty years previously.  The only running water in the house was a hand-pump by the kitchen sink which was attached to a cistern outside the back door.  The cistern was 20 feet deep, about 8 feet across and lined with rocks and cement.  It was fed by an irrigation ditch.  My dad had it lined with a steel tank and had a locking lid put on it.  A little girl had drowned in it previously when she wandered away from adults and fell in while trying to look inside.  My father was determined that would not happen to us.  He upgraded the pump so that we had running water in both kitchen and bathroom.   A few years later my dad got the contract to lay water pipes from a new water treatment center a few miles up the road to all the homes in the area.  That was a huge event.  It meant that everyone now had running water that was being monitored and purified.

When I read today’s gospel, I can relate to the well where Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman, since it would have been a structure something like that cistern we had at home, except that it would have been fed by a spring or underground source of pooling water.  In the story Jesus repeatedly refers to the water he brings as “living” water—in other words, water that is free-flowing like a mountain stream.  In another place in the gospel, John explains that Jesus is referring to the Spirit: “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’  He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive…” (Jn. 7: 37-39).

The experience of the Spirit is like that of water, of wind, of fire.  Each of these elements is experienced as fluidity, moving freely, where it wills, bringing energy and life.  Jesus is the one who is to baptize us in this Spirit, to immerse us in the Spirit so that the Spirit flows from us like a river.  This kind of experience is in contrast to a passing “high.”  The Spirit into whom we are baptized by Jesus remains within us in a loving relationship that is always flowing.  Flowing water is both the same and always different.  So it is with the movement of the Spirit within us, always there guiding, directing, teaching, but always leading us to new places.  The woman at the well shows us what this is like.  She is confronted with her past but in a loving way so that she is moved to give it up.  She is thrilled with the experience to such an extent that she forgets her water jug as she runs to share the experience which is changing her life.  The challenge for us is to stay connected with this source within us through prayer and reflection.  It is our source of living water in the desert of life.

John writes from the viewpoint of the Lover archetype. He has Jesus speak of the Spirit as dwelling within us.  Lovers “dwell” in each other and the Spirit of Love seeks to dwell within us.  From there this Spirit becomes the river that flows out to the world.

Love is flowing like a river

                                    Flowing out from you and me

                                    Flowing out into the desert

                                    Setting all the captives free

2^nd Sunday of Lent, Cycle A, Mountains

Gen 12:1-4, Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20 22, 2 Timothy 1:8-10, Matthew 17:1-9

In the Catholic liturgical calendar there are some events that have double celebrations.  They are like fraternal twins, similar—springing from the same source, celebrating the same occurrence–yet they are different.  We celebrate the Eucharist on Holy Thursday in the context of Holy Week.  We celebrate it again for the feast of Corpus Christi in a different context, elaborating what the Eucharist is for us.  Today’s gospel also has two celebrations: on the second Sunday of Lent and again on August 6.   We read each of the evangelists’ versions in the three-year cycle of Lent, indicating that this was a cherished memory in the early church.  It was an experience which had great meaning for Jesus.  The disciples would have no idea what to make of it until after the resurrection.

It seems that Jesus frequently went off to pray alone, and when there was a mountain nearby it was a favored place.  Psychologically and physically mountains lift us up, give us a different perspective, a broader view.  The human Jesus would have experienced the same inspiration and uplifting.  In today’s story he takes with him the three men he was closest to.  He was in need of companionship, of friends, as he felt the tension over his ministry mounting and knew what it would probably mean.  However, it was not earthly friends but heavenly ones—Moses and Elijah—who came to console him.  Even that was not adequate.  In a peak experience matching the peak they had climbed, the Father’s presence is manifest as Jesus and his mission are reaffirmed.

In other religious traditions a peak experience like this becomes the primary focus.  Thus we have Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the bodhi tree, Abraham’s call (today’s first reading), Moses’ experience on Mt. Sinai, Mohamed’s cave revelation.  But for Christians the Transfiguration remains simply an incident, albeit a wonderful one, on the way to the cross.  We do not so much celebrate a transformative experience of Jesus, as Jesus’ utter transformation in the resurrection.  Religious experiences transform a life, but the resurrection transforms all life as a new creation.  In the second reading Paul gives us the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Before time began humans were destined to conquer death through Christ.   Nothing can be compared with resurrection.  Even the comparison of a mountain to a grain of sand is inadequate.

Matthew’s account is the only one which describes Jesus’ touching the disciples and telling them not to be afraid, as a father would when a child has been frightened or a gifted leader would do to reassure his followers.  This is in keeping with Matthew’s emphasis on the Sovereign archetype and its fatherly focus.

1^st Sunday of Lent, Cycle A,  Sacred Places

Gen. 2:7-9, 3:1-7, Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17, Romans 5:12, 17-19, Matthew 4:1-11

I first heard the song “We are standing on Holy Ground” (Geron Davis) at a Native American powwow.  It obviously had great meaning for the Native people singing it because of their closeness to the ground on which they have lived for hundreds of years.

All of us, however, have some holy ground we cherish, perhaps the place where we lived as children, the place where we met our spouse, a place where we had a spiritual experience.  Such places are holy because they anchor us in the ground of our own being, as who we are, where we come from, what we are about.  Such places draw all the powers of our senses to focus on those considerations.

Today’s readings are about two such places—the Jewish mythological place of our origins as humans in the first reading and the scene of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness.  In biblical thought these two places are intimately linked.  The result of sin was that humankind lost Eden and had to survive in the wilderness.  Jesus prepares for his ministry in the wilderness.  His priorities will not be the self-glorification Adam and Eve sought (“you will be like God”).  In Matthew’s account of the temptations, Jesus will reject three ever-wider circles of consideration.  First there is the temptation to personal comfort in bread.  Second is the temptation to fame by being acknowledged by God before his own people at the temple.  Third is the temptation to power by having worldwide control over nations.  This new Adam, leading people back to the garden, this new Moses leading people through the desert to the Holy Land, would not be diverted by personal comfort, fame or power.  With his cosmic perception, a characteristic of the Sovereign archetype, Matthew is giving us an image of Jesus that is larger than life –an image that brings together places sacred in the memory of the Jewish people.

7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, A Jew

Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, Psalm 103, 1 Cor. 3:16-23, Matthew 5:38-48

It was early on a Saturday morning when I arrived at the parish to give an all-day workshop on Christ to catechists gathered from several parishes.  I began by saying that if we want to understand Jesus, the first thing we have to appreciate is that he was a Jew.  This brought a shocked response: “A Jew? On no, that could not possibly be true.  Jesus was a Christian, not a Jew.  The Jews killed Jesus.”  Slowly and carefully, I had to explain that Jesus was indeed a Jew, born of Jewish lineage according to the gospel, to Jewish parents, in the country of Israel, a Jewish nation.   He was the flower of Jesse.  He bloomed among his own. As for Jews killing Jesus, would we confuse the German people with Hitler and the SS?  Hitler and his SS troops were German, but we do not ascribe the atrocities of the Second World War to all Germans.  Likewise, Jesus was not killed by the Jewish people but by certain Jewish leaders who persuaded the Roman governor to condemn him to death.

It is in today’s readings, I think, that the Jewishness of Jesus is most strongly revealed.  The book of Leviticus tells the people to be “holy” even as God is holy.  Jesus echoes the same command but expresses it in a slightly different manner according to Matthew: “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” “Holy” has the connotation of otherness.  Even as God is totally “other,” so should the chosen people be “other” than their counterparts in humanity.  Much of the Hebrew Testament was put in its present form during the Exile when the Jewish people were trying to find their identity in the midst of a foreign nation and culture.  “Perfect,” on the other hand, has the connotation of “wholeness.” Jesus’ followers are exhorted to be like their loving Father who is fullness—perfection of love and mercy.  Their love should be so perfect that, like the love of God, it extends even to enemies.

What is common to both Leviticus and to Jesus’ exhortation is the concept that morality takes its roots in living up to the image in which we have been created, the image of a loving parent who deeply desires an intimate relationship with us.  This is what the Kingdom Jesus came to oversee is all about: loving relationships, profound knowledge of God.  The Kingdom has nothing to do with earthly power, with commanding an army, administering a nation, collecting revenues, having international recognition.  Anyone who looks for those things will miss the Kingdom of God.  Matthew (who writes from the perspective of the Sovereign archetype) wants to make sure right at the beginning of the gospel that the distinctions are shown between Jesus’ kingdom and the kingdom of David or Solomon or any other earthly sovereign.

6^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, Depths of God

Sirach 15:15-20, Psalm 119, 1 Cor. 2:6-10, Matthew 5:17-37

I once asked a group of students how they imagine God.  The response of the majority was “an old man sitting up in the sky, watching everything you do and telling everyone what they can and cannot do.”   More recently I read a book on ethics which discredits the religion theory of morality because “it is based upon someone else dictating to us what we are supposed to do.”   Sadly, neither the students nor the adult professional who wrote the book have been able to appreciate the New Testament concept of religion which is based upon personal, intimate relatedness with one who loves us. 

Certainly laws are necessary, especially when we are young and the frontal lobes of our brains are not developed enough to use sound logic in making decisions.  Laws are like bones.  They are necessary, but none of us would set a skeleton up in a chair and relate to it as to a living person!  A person has to have flesh and organs and most importantly be animated by a living spirit.  Matthew, I think, is making the same comparison in the sermon on the mount of today’s gospel.  “You have heard it said…”  They would have heard such prescriptions in the Law.  “But I say…”   Jesus is fleshing out what our relationships with God and others have to be like.  From Paul in Corinthians we hear about the Spirit which searches all things even the depths of God.  It is this Spirit which animates true religion, which impels us to things we cannot see or imagine.  Religion is not a set of laws and regulations.  It is a living relationship with God animated by the Spirit who searches out the depths of God.

Righteousness, the concern of the Sovereign archetype, is all about right relationships.  At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he is indicating his vision of such righteousness.  It has to transcend legalism.  Jesus is offering his vision of what true religion is all about—right relationships, intimate relationships with God and with others.

5^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, Salt

Isaiah 58:7-10, Psalm 112:4-5, 6-7,8-9, 1 Cor. 2:1-5, Matthew 5:13-16

The day after Christmas the store shelves were decorated with valentines and chocolates. Chocolate has become the symbol of friendship in modern culture.  As strange as it may seem, in biblical times it was salt which was the symbol of both covenant with God (Lev. 2:13) and of friendship (Num. 18:19).  Sacrificial meals were to be salted.  There was a small container of salt on the table when friends dined, and sharing the salt was a symbol of both the savor and the enduring quality of their friendship. A bag of salt was lowered into dishes being cooked to flavor them then pulled out to be reused again until it lost it flavor and was then disposed of.

When Jesus speaks of salt losing its savor here, there is a likely chance that he is speaking of friendship; just as when he speaks of yeast, he is speaking of influence.  If a friendship goes sour like impure salt contaminated with other organic material, or if it loses its flavor like the overused salt dip, it has to be abandoned.  If it is friendship that Jesus is referring to in today’s gospel passage, what is he really saying?  Perhaps: “Your love, your example of friendship must provide savor to the rest of creation.  It must be enduring enough to preserve other human values.”  Those are the two uses of salt –to add flavor and to preserve.

The quality of friendship (and of covenants we make with one another and with the Lord) are characteristics of the reign of God, of the peace and stability envisioned by the Sovereign archetype.

4^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle A,  A Blessing Way

Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13, Psalm 146: 6-7, 8-9, 9-10, 1 Cor. 1:26-31, Matthew 5: 1-12a

In High School I was blessed to have several Navajo girls as part of my class.  We also studied some Navajo songs and prayers in our literature class.  Especially beautiful are prayers of the Blessing Way a series of songs and rituals whose purpose is to help restore harmony to the cosmos.  I personally find in Matthew’s gospel this same sense of the cosmos.  In both Matthew and the Navajo Blessing Way there are similar themes, the themes which also happen to be those of the Sovereign Archetype:  the cosmos, harmony, peace, creativity, blessing.

Matthew’s gospel could be called A Blessing Way.  The theme of blessing is very strong in the Hebrew Testament, in particular in the Wisdom literature. Blessing is the bestowal of favor or recognition by someone in a position of authority.  In Genesis we see God blessing creation especially humans.  The first human we see giving a blessing is King Melchizedek  in the fourteen chapter of Genesis.  As Jesus begins his preaching ministry, Matthew has him begin like King Melchizedek with blessing.  He is setting out the Christian blessing way.  He both declares who is blessed—the poor, the sorrowing, the gentle, those hungry and thirsty for justice (Matthew’s special addition), the right-intentioned, the peace-makers, those who are persecuted—and what their blessing will be.  As Jesus declares who will receive blessing, he is also declaring to whom his ministry will be directed.  We can see at once that the ministry is aimed at restoring balance in the cosmos.  Humans often become absorbed with wealth, pleasure, power, injustice, selfish pursuits, fighting, and taking advantage of others.  The gospel would train us away from those things and invite us be a blessing, to the blessing way, a way of creativity, harmony and peace. 

The Navajo blessing songs are used when celebrating a woman’s coming of age and when preparing for the birth of a child—times of heightened creativity.  Jesus, as it were, is singing his blessing song as he begins the work of creating his ministry.  His vision is of all humankind, of the Kingdom of God which embraces the whole cosmos.  His invitation to us is to think in this expansive, cosmos embracing, harmony related manner.  Presidents give “state of the Union” addresses to convey their vision of the country.  Jesus is giving us his address for the state of the Kingdom.

3^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time,  Cycle A, A Kingdom

Isaiah 8: 23-9:3, Psalm 27: 1, 4, 13-14, 1 Cor. 1:10-13-17, Matthew 4:12-23

Einstein once remarked that if you want to know about water, you should not ask fish because they are in it!  At first thought this seems counter-intuitive.  Are not those directly involved in a situation the most competent to give information about that situation?  But it seems that such is not often the case.  Often we cannot see beyond where we are.  We cannot see the big picture.  The challenge–“Think outside the box”– is a way of encouraging someone to search for answers to life’s puzzles in ways they are not accustomed to.  If Jesus were preaching in today’s idiom, I think this is the phrase he would use to express “Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.”  Somehow we all get boxed in.  The box is our expectations, our cultural conditioning, our education, the opinions of people in whose eyes we want to look good.  It can take a heroic effort to think beyond these categories.

In the case of the kingdom or reign of God, Jesus had to try to get people to think beyond their usual ideas of “kingdom,” beyond the kingship of David, one of their greatest heroes.  He had to get them to think in terms of mercy, not just law, because they were convinced that by perfectly keeping certain regulations, they were righteous.  “Repent,” I think, is not so much a castigation for sin but an invitation to explore a different way of looking at things.

In our own time, the notion of “kingdom” has little meaning; nevertheless, we are in our own box: the present moment.  We are so conditioned to thinking in terms of time and space that we do not even realize that our thinking is conditioned in this way. To understand the Kingdom, we have to be able to think beyond, to embrace realities that are not immediately evident, realities that transcend time and place.  It requires faith to do that.  It requires acceptance of uncertainty.   Our box can be our own minds and the belief that our minds produce everything or can grasp everything.  We therefore do not need the notion of God to explain the meaning of existence.  We are like the fish Einstein talks about, they can’t explain the sources of water, the properties of water, water’s relationship to land and indeed to the universe.  Our minds, so convinced of their own capabilities, cannot grasp their limitations in regard the Reign of God—a kingdom not of time and space. 

Matthew writing from the perspective of the sovereign archetype, presents the model sovereign whose intention is to preside over a reign of justice, of “righteousness.”  If we fail to disassociate Jesus from everything else associated with kings—wealth, power, prestige—we will never grasp the essence of Jesus’ mission.

2^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, Witness

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6, Psalm 40: 2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3, John 1:29-34

 I watched a video about vocations.  In it five men each told the story of his vocation to be a religious (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LleNn0dXQ1E).  The video was meant to promote vocations, but I found much more in it.  The personal story of how God deals with us is always very meaningful because we all long for such glimpses of God.  Does God exist?  Does God have or want a deep relationship with individuals?  What are the effects of such a relationship?  These questions, I think, are always in the back of our minds, and to a certain extent they are answered by personal witness. The wonderful thing about these stories is that they are absent the self-aggrandizement that is so often present in persons who love talking about themselves.  These men are genuine witnesses to God’s activity in their lives as God acted through their own desires, gifts and even resistances.  We are familiar with the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and their unfolding heavily charged with sexual attraction.  But how does a powerful attraction between the divine and the human happen, and become strong enough to empower one for celibacy?  It is a prophetic charism to be sure.  They are not renouncing love but demonstrating that love will come to its true fruition only in the next dimension of life.  They are prophets of that love which will remain in eternity.  They are witnesses of the love to come.

For me, today’s readings are all about witnesses—God chooses Isaiah for a deeply personal relationship and to witness to the people; the people in turn are to be a witness to the world; Paul speaks of how he is chosen to witness; lastly John crowns this idea with his presentation of the Baptist as a very special witness to Jesus and to the fact that God is witnessing to Jesus.  It is through personal testimony, through sharing one’s own experience that God is revealed.  The Spirit reveals the divine predilection for Jesus; the Baptist tells what God has said to him; Paul writes what God has said to him; Isaiah shares what the Lord said to him.  It is possible to dismiss personal testimony as of little value because it is so subjective, but to do so is to risk dismissing the strongest of divine traits: God is relational.  God desires to share with us and wants us in turn to share with one another.  We are called to be witnesses!  For John, the beloved disciple, that means being witnesses of Love.

Epiphany

Epiphany, Revelation

Isaiah 60:2-6, Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13, Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2:1-12

Many years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a Zoroastrian priest.  He visited a group of ministers to which I belonged.  At that time, I had never studied World Religions and I had no idea of who Zoroastrians were.  He explained their beliefs and I was fascinated.  The Jewish people were not the only ones to believe in one God and moreover it seems that many of the key concepts carried over into both Judaism and Christianity came from Zoroastrianism: angels, heaven, hell, human free will. The magi were possibly Zoroastrians from Persia.  I had a lot to learn about revelation and how God has been revealing the divine self to all people –each in the way that group was able to bear.  Even in the Old Testament and in the New, the progress of revelation can be traced.  Fascinating, totally fascinating.

But still more intriguing is the realization that this self-revelation is in the very nature of God.

The Divine Lover longs to reveal everything to us which we can bear.  We have a history of wanting to read ourselves into God’s words and ways.  Every now and then we have to be reminded like Job, that we would do well to put our hands over our mouths and be quiet!  Jesus gives us a full picture of who God is, if we can appreciate it. But we have to let go of many preconceived ideas of who and how God “should be” to be able to appreciate the divine self-revelation.  The process is a little like falling in love, the more romantic and unrealistic our expectations are the less we are able to appreciate the other for the person he/she is.  All of that has to be let go of before the other person can reveal who he/she really is.

Epiphany is the celebration of the divine trait of self-revelation.  The manifestation to the Magi marks the inclusion of Gentiles which will be characteristic of Jesus revealing himself to all who are willing to receive the revelation.  Matthew wishes to show the reach of divine revelation in his wonderfully broad and perceptive vision of Jesus’ kingdom. A beautiful sunrise or sunset reveals an invitation to wonder and awe –a kind of icon of God’s desire for self-revelation.

Feast of the Holy Family, Cycle A, Immigrants

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14, Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 (1), Colossians 3:12-21, Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Having worked on the US Mexico Border, one of the scenes I have seen all too often is that of a woman separated from her spouse while she is pregnant or with little children—then dumped across the border to a city where she knows no one, has no resources and no place to go.  I wonder how today’s gospel story would have turned out if Joseph and Mary had encountered an Egyptian Border Patrol agent who had separated them and deported each back into Palestine to a different city where she had no resources.

The first character Matthew presents in his gospel is Joseph the perfect role model of a just man.  Joseph, who is attentive to the communications of God through dreams and angels, is yet equally attentive to his spouse.  Joseph, who knows the law but chooses not to exercise it out of mercy.  Joseph chooses to become a migrant and make his wife and child migrants to save them. Matthew gives us a new image of Christ—the migrant.   According to modern standards, fear of death is not a reason to immigrate.  But the right to live without such fear is, in God’s eyes!  This scene of the holy family challenges us to take another look at the circumstances driving modern families.  We may be driving away holy families.

In the greater scheme, Joseph is motif which is used many times in Hebrew history.  We have seen these characteristics before in Jacob’s son, Joseph, who could have denounced his brothers but forgives and saves them.  In Matthew’s story the two Josephs are associated by dreams, by forgiveness, by Egypt.  And Jesus, like Joseph, will be wrongly treated by his own as well as persecuted by foreign powers, he migrated from the Father and becomes a migrant who flees to Egypt.  The motifs of righteousness, of suffering from one’s own, of unjust persecution, of immigration are highlighted in Matthew’s storytelling.  They will be carried forward and reach their climax at the end of the gospel.  The evangelists, it seems, were masters of motifs.  They could see God’s plans in a particular motif:  Joseph saves his brothers, Moses saves his people, Jesus will save humankind; Jesus the migrant from the bosom of the Father will return there in the end.  It belongs to the Sovereign archetype to see such master plans and explain how they are related. 

Christmas Day, Cycle A, Birthing

Isaiah 52: 7-10, Psalm 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6, Heb 1:1-6, John 1:1-18

A few years ago there was a custom of giving a representation of the baby Jesus inside a small cylindrical box which fit inside another box which in turn fit into still another box.  It might seem like a childish toy, yet the little boxes within boxes make a good image of the prolog of John’s gospel.  It seems to me that he is speaking of many births, each inside the other.  The first birth is that of that of the Word in the bosom of the Father:  “In the beginning was the word and the word was face to face with God and the word was God.”  The Word is begotten by the Father, yet this process is co-eternal with the Father.  It is a birth that is always happening.

The second birth is the birth of creation: “All things were created in him and without him was made nothing that is.”  So this second box, called creation, is within the bigger box of the Trinity.  This birth is also constant, since God is constantly sustaining creation.

The birth at the center of the prolog is that of each of us in faith:  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (Jn. 1)

The last birth is the birth of the Word as a human creature, a babe.  This birth took place once and for all in time–the fullness of time, Paul tells us; but it represents an ongoing, eternal union of God and creation, God and humankind, the Lover and the beloved.  This love affair is constantly being born in every human heart which receives the Word, recognizes the gift of love and responds in like manner. 

At Christmas we celebrate all these births, the birth in the bosom of the Trinity, the birth of creation brought forth in the Word, the birth that faith gives us and the Word’s birth as a baby.  It is John who is writing from the viewpoint of the Lover archetype who lays out this marvelous scenario for us.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, Dreams

Isaiah 7:10-14, Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-24

Football season is about to conclude.  It seems that the teams that have done the best are those with good defenses.  Sometimes in the game of life, I think that our defenses are so good that we succeed in shutting God out.  But it seems that God has devised an end run around to our defenses— the play is called the dream.  When we are asleep, our rational defenses are down, so to speak, and God has a chance to score.  Deep insights and spiritual encounters can happen in these moments.  We may be able to shut them out again when we awake and unrestricted rationality returns; but if we are wise and just as Joseph was, we will give God a chance in our lives.  It is hard to trust that world over which our rational minds have little control, but wonderful things can come to birth:  Emmanuel, God with us.

The mystics tell us that we have to learn to quiet our rational mind to hear the voice of God.  In dreams, that rationality is put on hold, so to speak, to give God a chance to get through to us.  Dreams and dream language can be a door into the spiritual world, the domain of our King where our loved ones who have left us dwell, where there are no more pain or tears.  We need to dream to let Emmanuel be born in our lives.

3^rd Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, Reality

Isaiah 38: 1-6a, 10, Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11

My mother-in-law, a wise and beautiful woman, had a saying: “Life is just a series of adjustments.”  Reality, it seems, is always something other than what we expect.  Our happiness and mental well-being depend upon how we adapt, how we are able to bring our expectations in line with reality.  Some people deal with this by saying, “Expect the unexpected.”  Buddhists cope with this by teaching us to abandon all expectations since the clash between expectations and reality is often the source of much unhappiness.  In today’s gospel there seems to be a lot of adjustment going on. John is questioning his concepts of the Messiah, while Jesus is pushing John’s disciples to reevaluate how they regard John.

The roles which culturally we assign to people contribute greatly to expectations.  Culturally the Jews had experienced David and Solomon. The manner in which these kings exercised the role of sovereign was the only ideal the people could think of for a messiah or king.  Jesus shakes up our concepts of prophets and kings alike.  But he is also standing on a cultural precedent: the beautiful description in the book of Isaiah.  In this vision of ruling power, God is presented as a restorer, one who leads the people into new glory, a new blossoming, not just a return to the land but to healing of blindness, deafness, crippledness, voicelessness.

This sovereign will give us new ways of seeing, hearing, walking and speaking—ways that we could never have dreamt of.  We need those capacities to appreciate the Kingdom that Jesus speaks of because it is not readily perceived unless we can grasp realities that coexist with what our senses normally perceive.  John was a great prophet, yet to appreciate the Kingdom of which Jesus speaks enables us to realize something even greater than John’s role.

2^nd Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, Justice

Isaiah 11:1-16, Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 (7), Romans 15:4-9, Matthew 3:1-12

As a young girl I remember being crushed when a court failed to carry through on what was just.  I had an unrealistic idealism about how people would always do what was just, how courts would fix what was wrong.  It was a great disillusionment to find out that human courts are run by humans who often fail utterly to approach justice in their perspective and in their decisions.  Thus, I find the dreams of justice expressed in readings like that of Isaiah for this day quite fascinating.  The promise of justice, the hope for justice seems to spring eternal in the human heart.  And every prophet made the call to justice a centerpiece of his message.  In today’s Isaiah reading the Messiah is seen as one who will judge rightly; indeed, justice will be the band about his waist defining the whole thrust of his person.  The psalm is equally ecstatic in describing how justice will flourish under the Messiah.

Paul, a New Testament prophet, indicates that justice demands that Gentiles receive the same treatment and consideration as Jews.  After all, both Jew and Gentile receive justice because of the mercy of God.

For Matthew, justice (righteousness) is a centerpiece he will develop and constantly highlight all through his account of Jesus. The word itself does not appear in this gospel but John the Baptist is chastising the Pharisees and Sadducees for lacking justice and honesty.  Clinging to the name of descendants of Abraham will be of no use if you do not do the works of justice and produce the fruits of justice.  God can change rocks into sons of Abraham but finding a person who is just is something else!  This justice is the main preoccupation of a good leader, a worthy sovereign.  Matthew, it appears to me, writes from the perspective of the Sovereign archetype.

1^st Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, Three Comings

Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24: 37-44

I remember being told when I was young that there are not one, but three “comings” of the Lord which we celebrate in Advent:  He came in time as a man; He comes daily if we can perceive it; He will come at the end of time.  It seems to me that the readings of this Sunday relate to those comings.  The prophet Isaiah writes of a future Messianic age when the ideal King will rule.  Jesus would never be a king in the sense of King David, yet he is the Lord of the Universe.

The second reading is preparing us for the final coming of Jesus.  We live in the final hours of darkness before the day of the Lord.  We do not know how long the “night” will be, only that we must not be caught in the works of the darkness as we look for the day.

And the gospel, to me, speaks of his constant coming if we are awake enough to perceive it.  St. Ignatius of Loyola urges us to find the ways that God is present in our everyday lives.  We expect God in our hours of prayer, but what about the other hours of the day?  Can we challenge ourselves to find God then? 

 In Matthew’s gospel Jesus can be seen as an overseer, with cosmic perspective, the ideal leader (another Moses), the wise King.  It belongs to a wise King or, as we might say now-a- days, a CEO, to look beyond the immediate experience, the immediate gratification, the current profit boom.  It is a mark of wise guidance to be able to look at the bigger picture, the wider forecast.  Ignatius and other saints encourage us to see the King, the presence of God, to find God’s designs in everyday life.

We are setting out on a new Liturgical cycle, a new pathway. During the coming cycle, we will be observing Jesus as Matthew saw him.  Luke, we noted, perceived Jesus primarily as a prophet, sage and healer.  Matthew‘s Jesus is the ideal leader (today we would say, president, secretary general, executive director, etc.) one with immense oversight and insight.  He is far more than David could ever have been.  His kingdom is of a totally different character; nevertheless, he can be recognized as a leader comparable to Moses, who brings creativity, generativity, cosmic perspective and self-sacrifice to his role as King.

21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Presumption

Isaiah 66:18-21, Psalm 117:1, 2, Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13, Luke 13:22-30

I have shingles.  I am one of the small percentage of persons who just never get over it.  Suppression therapy helps somewhat, but still there are occasional outbreaks.  Pondering today’s gospel, it seems to me that there is a spiritual illness which is much like shingles.  We always carry the propensity to presumption.  It easily rises to the surface when we are willing to consider ourselves “saved” or “righteous” in contrast to others.  With shingles, the pain forces you to realize you have it.  With presumption, you can be in denial that you are even infected with it.

Jesus talks about the narrow gate.  It seems to me that the gate to the kingdom is narrow because we can’t get through it with inflated egos and archetypes.  An inflated Sovereign archetype is too bloated with a sense of personal accomplishment.  An inflated Warrior is too puffed up with the righteousness of attacking the unrighteous.  An inflated Sage is too swollen with a sense of intellectual grandiosity, thinking that it knows everything or that the human mind by itself has the capacity to solve all the mysteries of the universe.  The Lover archetype is too extended and preoccupied by infatuation with lovers or would-be lovers.  Jesus says that not all are strong enough to enter the narrow gate.  That strength, it seems to me, comes from humble self-knowledge.  When we are able to acknowledge our shortcomings, then we become strong, not with our own strength but with Christ’s.  Humility is truth.  And the truth sets us free of all this excess baggage.

The crowds that come streaming to the mountain of the Lord (as in the first reading) are persons who are genuine seekers, dissatisfied with themselves, knowing they need to find something better.  They come with clean vessels—they have been emptied of presumption.  They know that as soon as we brag about being saved, we are in danger of not being so.

20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, The Candle

Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10, Psalm 40:2, 3, 4, 18 (14b), Hebrews 12:1-4, Luke 12: 49-53

When I was in the eighth grade, I chanced upon a poem in a magazine that made a deep impression on me.  It was a tribute to Our Lady and the personal sacrifice she made at the Incarnation.  Unfortunately, I did not keep a copy of it, but some of the words were to this effect:

            I saw a maid surrender

like wax before a flame

           to the One of whom

fire be the name

I found the idea interesting because fire was always fascinating to me.  I loved the summer evenings when we would build a fire in the back yard and sit around it for hours, eating and talking.  The idea of God as a fire, a flame, had not occurred to me until I read that poem.  Fire as an image of God is a theme in the Hebrew scripture: “For the Lord, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”  Deut. 4:24

Luke is the only evangelist who quotes Jesus as saying that he has come to cast fire.  I think that Luke was interested in this image because it was so favored by the prophets to whom Luke, under the influence of the sage archetype, is comparing Jesus.  Elijah, who in many ways was considered the father of the prophets of the Old Testament, was a man who threw fire around: “You shall call on your gods, and I will call on the Lord.  The God who answers with fire is God.”  1 Kings 18:24.

But Jeremiah, part of whose story we read today, is in a special way the prophet of fire:

             I say to myself, I will not mention him,

             I will speak in his name no more.

 But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,

  imprisoned in my bones;

  I grow weary holding it in,

             I cannot endure it.  Jer. 20:9

Fire signified the presence of God on Sinai and in the pillar of fire in the desert.  Luke would also carry over this theme of fire at Sinai to his story of Pentecost when flames of fire descended upon all those present.  The image of fire is definitely a sub-theme in Luke’s gospel, and he is the one who gives us the story of Mary surrendering herself, offering herself–an image of wax or oil surrendering to a flame.

19^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Sage Advice

Wisdom 18:6-9, Psalm 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22 (12b), Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-12, Luke 12:32-48

One of my favorite characters is the clown in the Zuni and Hopi cultures of the Southwest.

When you listen to stories told by members of these tribes you get a sense of how important their roles are.  They seem wacky but in reality, their role is to keep everyone well-balanced and down to earth.  The initiation of Zuni clowns involves mud—streaking themselves with mud, eating mud.  What could be a more dramatic symbol of earthiness, of the fact that we will all return to dust, to mud?  The clown often has to bring us back to  our temporal existence to keep us well-balanced.

As I see it, today’s gospel is also a demonstration of the Sage archetype bursting the balloons of personal pomposity, giving us story-pictures of abusive behavior which happens when we forget the fragility and shortness of our existence, when we lord it over others.  Like any of us caught in the blindness of our own addictions, Peter is somewhat taken aback and wants to know if this teaching is for the leaders or just for “lesser” disciples.  Jesus refuses to make distinctions—it is for everyone!  To drive home his points,  Jesus uses exaggeration in speech just as the clown uses exaggeration in gestures and garb—there will be beatings, some more severe than others.  Listening to this coming from him is like having our minds beaten into careful attention.  It is shocking and meant to be so.  He is using shock-power to get our attention and tell us how important these things are.  Because we do not see the heavenly banquet, the wedding feast, with earthly eyes, we tend to lose sight of its reality.  Paul and Jesus in Luke’s gospel of today are telling us to get a grip on unseen realities.

18^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Perspective

Ecclesiasates 1:2; 2:21-23, Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17 (8), Colossians 3;1-5, 9-11, Gospel Luke 12:13-21

My husband and I considered the late Rev. Morton Kelsey Episcopalian priest and professor one of our dearest friends.  He always began his college lectures and retreat session with a discussion of perspective.  His contention was that our world-view determined everything else about our spirituality.  I have been very grateful for that insight and many a time have had a chance to recognize its wisdom.  Today’s readings –all of them–seem to me to speak of the same wisdom.  They each offer the challenge:  what is our perspective? 

Ecclesiasates points out the constant inequalities of life something that we all have to live with.  Unless we see a bigger picture, these can really get us down.  Jesus points out the futility of the man who only thinks of wealth and bigger barns.  The psalm compares a thousand years to a few hours, less than one night—human life is like the grass that one moment is green and the next is dried up. 

Paul challenges us to have a perspective that looks beyond all differences such as race and nationality.  There are, of course, different ways we can do that.  We can say that those things do not matter if we are in Christ therefore everyone should just be content to endure whatever injustice life may have presented them with.  Then there is the perspective which says that if we are in Christ, we cannot be content to say that suffering is alright, that slavery is alright, that any form of inequality is OK, rather we have to be working tirelessly to bring total dignity and equality to everyone made in Christ’s image, indeed to all of creation as God’s handiwork.  This is the perspective of Jesus in the gospels who heals and exhorts and asks us to bring our values in line with an eternal perspective rather than building ever bigger barns.

17^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C, The Door

Genesis 18:20-32, Psalm 138: 1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8 (3a), Colossians 2:12-14, Luke 11:1-13

The first time I read Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle” I did not understand much of what she said, but the symbolism meant a great deal to me.  The symbols would stay in my mind.  Gradually they opened the meaning of the words.  Symbols are like a second language—a language of the imagination.  Words speak to the logical and analytical parts of our minds, but symbols speak a deeper language, one in which words are often inadequate. 

Like a true Sage, in today’s gospel Jesus not only teaches prayer but he goes on to use a number of symbols to demonstrate its importance.  Jesus was highly versed in this language of the soul.

The request to learn prayer in the gospel comes from the disciples after they witnessed Jesus in prayer.  They wanted to enter into that same intimacy with God that they saw in him.  Jesus mentions bread in the prayer he teaches, and he refers to bread a few more times as he explains the importance of prayer.  Bread is a major symbol tied to survival, to growth, to sharing, to intimacy.

 When I was young, I used to wonder why God wanted us to pray if God knows everything anyhow.  Gradually I began to understand that unless we take the time to focus on God and speak our mind, (the way Abraham did), we will not develop a relationship, let alone an intimacy with Our Father.

Teresa says that prayer is the door to the inner castle of our own personhood where we will find God at the very center.  It is a long and difficult journey to that center where the Trinity dwells, but the whole journey begins with prayer, the door that leads us to other doors.  The door is her symbol for how we begin to develop an intimate relationship with God.  It is one of Jesus’ symbols also.  To the one who knocks on this door the Father will give the Spirit.

16^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Listening

Genesis 18:1-10a, Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4,5 (1a), Colossians 1:24-28, Luke 10:38-42

And in the naked light I saw
           Ten thousand people, maybe more
           People talking without speaking
           People hearing without listening
           People writing songs that voices never share
           And no one dared
           Disturb the sound of silence

I remember the first time I heard the song “Sound of Silence.”  I was greatly impressed by the stunning wisdom expressed in this folk song.  My own experience was that people frequently talk without speaking, and hear without listening.  Talking and hearing seem to be on a different level than speaking and listening.  Worship of our media culture obscures the words of the prophets, the signs of changing times whispered around us.  I deeply appreciate Luke’s gospel for his emphasis upon attentiveness and reflection.  When you do a word search for “listening” in the gospels, it occurs several times in Luke in contrast with the other gospels.  It seems to me that this is a reflection of the Sage archetype Luke is portraying. 

Listening is a strong theme in the Wisdom literature of the Bible.  The perfect disciple is portrayed as someone who listens, who know how to restrain personal speech until the proper moment and circumstance.  In Luke’s gospel both Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary, Lazarus’ and Martha’s sister, are disciples who have great listening skills.  They are like the disciples in the Wisdom literature.

The first reading today shows the example of hospitality in caring for the physical needs of a visitor. The gospel demonstrates still another kind of hospitality—the listening heart.  Luke took this obscure moment in the life of Jesus and gave it great emphasis because of its relationship to the theme of listening to Wisdom, of being a disciple who listens and learns.

Serving is beautiful, and in the first reading it is rewarded with a child.  Listening is beautiful likewise, and is rewarded with praise in the Gospel.  If we can listen and serve or, better still, listen to those we serve, how utterly fruitful and worthy of recognition would that be!  The people we treasure most in life are those who listen to us and in doing so affirm our very being and existence.

15^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C, The Cosmic Samaritan

Deuteronomy 30:10-14, Psalm 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37 (33), Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 10:25-37

Over the years I have developed a deep appreciation of Iconography because it holds such depths.  The focus of the sacred art seems to be not so much the beauty of the human face and form (though some icons are wonderfully beautiful, especially the Coptic ones), but rather the mystery of faith embodied in that particular form.  Thus it happens that as beautiful as is the gospel story of the Good Samaritan, it took on much more meaning for me in the icon of Christ himself as the Good Samaritan—he is the one who passes by wounded human nature as he comes down, not from Jerusalem to Jericho, but from eternity to time and space.  He finds us wounded and binds up those wounds then he asks the church to take care of us.  The story has cosmic dimensions when we realize that Jesus himself is this Good Samaritan! This view was cherished by early Church Fathers such as Origen and Augustine.

Paul gives us a full description of who this Samaritan is in the second reading.  Truly, he is the cosmic origin of all else.  In an act of love too great to comprehend, he becomes one of us; then finding us stripped of our dignity and wounded, he tends to us with the oil of kindness and the wine of friendship.  He binds up what is hurting with assurance.  The inn keeper in whose charge he leaves us is not necessarily institutional religion (which can be too concerned with legalisms, properness and self-preservation to care about the humanity of a person).  He leaves us with those who are loving, who see with the eyes of love and are willing to sacrifice for the needy, to sacrifice personal prestige, wealth, time and labor.  To them he gives the two coins: joy in serving now and joy in the next dimension of life where the fruit of their sacrifices will be tasted.

In this story as in all icons, what I personally see is the Sage and the Lover archetypes at work.  The Sage is searching theological depths, but doing so with the eyes of a Lover.

The Thirteenth Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, To Follow

1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21, Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10,11 (5a), Galatians 5:13-18, Luke 9:51-62

One of the most important social skills that one had to master when I was growing up was dancing.  A person might not be good at sports and could still be accepted socially but not to be able to dance was like being kept in solitary confinement socially speaking.  I quickly discovered that one of the most important things to learn was simply how to follow, to imitate the steps of a veteran dancer.  After mastering that you could go on to improvise on the basic steps .

It seems to me that discipleship is rather like a dance.  The Lord leads us in this dance and sometimes the steps are hard to follow.  Nevertheless, however we have come to Baptism—through our parents, or through personal study–we have been chosen by the Lord of the Dance to be one of his partners.   In the first reading Elisha recognizes that it is a great honor to be chosen to follow Elijah.  Elijah’s confidence in him, shown by placing his cape around him, gives Elisha confidence.   He even has a great celebration with his family in gratitude. 

Some of the persons in today’s gospel seem to have chosen Jesus before he chose them.  These would-be disciples must be reminded that following him means accepting hardship–this is not a dance for amateurs.  Even those Jesus chooses himself have to learn that to dance with him.  You must be willing to let go of family ties.  In a family culture like the Mediterranean, parents can be huge obstacles to a vocation.  Not all have the generosity of Elisha’s parents.

Personally, I have found the Lord of the Dance to be very patient as he allows us to fail and regain our footing.  His steps are hard to follow but I have never regretted accepting his invitation to the dance.  From the viewpoint of the archetypes, Luke is showing Jesus in the role of the Prophet/Sage who has followers even as the great Elijah had chosen followers, but there is an element of tenderness in these stories. Elisha would be heartbroken when he lost Elijah.  Jesus loved his disciples and they loved him, so the stories bear witness to the activity of the Lover archetype as well. The image of a dance is definitely in the domain of the Lover.

Lord Of The Dance

Sydney Carter

I danced in the morning when the world was young
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

I danced for the scribes and the Pharisees
They wouldn’t dance, they wouldn’t follow me
I danced for the fishermen James and John
They came with me so the dance went on

I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame
They ripped, they stripped, they hung me high
Left me there on the cross to die

I danced on a Friday when the world turned black
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body, they thought I was gone
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on

They cut me down and I leapt up high
I am the life that will never, never die
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me
I am the Lord of the dance, said he

Corpus Christi, Cycle C, Transformed

Genesis 14:18-20, Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4 (4b), 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Luke 9:11b-17

I am not much of an artist myself, but I love to observe artists at work and learn how they do things.  The background, it seems, is what has to be done first; then foreground figures are sketched in against the background.  In some ways this seems to be the same process as that of education.  A background is formed of basics. Then upon that background are developed particulars of whatever subject the student decides to specialize in.  For a long time, I never realized that this same process was used by the writers of the gospels.  They are not simply writing a narrative of recent events.  They are writing (drawing) scenes of Jesus upon the background of the First Testament with which they were intimately familiar.  Now and then there are certain words and phrases which clearly indicate the background.  These words and phrases are meant more to call to mind something in the past than to describe in exact detail a present event. 

The Last Supper is painted against such a background, each Evangelist using the same canvas in a different way.  The canvas is the Passover meal.  The multiplication of loaves and fishes is also painted against an Old Testament background—the story of the people’s sojourn in the desert where they celebrated meals in honor of the covenant and where they were fed with manna.  But while these  New Testament stories were painted on an Old Testament background, they also told the story of the communities who were experiencing the reality of Christianity in their midst.  This reality is very different from the Old Testament realities commemorated in the background.  The Christian reality is different because of the Resurrection.  The resurrected Christ lives among us but in a different dimension of reality, one which he is constantly inviting us to.  I find it heartbreaking that many Christians are content to live only in the present time/space dimension as if there were nothing else.  The Eucharist is the gateway to the dimension where we encounter the risen Christ physically because his body is no longer subject to the laws of time and space.  It is still a physical body, as Jesus insists, but now operating from a different dimension which can touch us, feed us, draw us.  If we try to make the reality of the Eucharist nothing more than the mystical body of Christ experienced in the unity of its members, we have missed the heart and soul of reality—the reality of the Resurrection and of the Eucharist.  We have settled for a lovely but watered-down, non-transformative version of Christianity!  To be sure, some of these Christians still believe that Jesus is God and they will be with him in eternity.  But they miss the point of what God has done in the resurrection, of resurrected life, of what physical contact with the risen body of Jesus means.  They have been cheated (perhaps by themselves) out of the grandeur of God.  They are like would-be lovers who stand outside the bedroom door talking about the beloved but who never experience physical union with him.  To be sure, you do not have to believe in the dimensions of love to be “saved,” but you do have to if you are going to experience the fullness of Divine Love.  It is the lover who is at work in the Eucharist, and only a lover can recognize that and respond to it.  To borrow an image from the natural world, numerous caterpillars chomping in unison on a leaf does not equate to a single butterfly sucking nectar from the heart of a flower.  The Eucharist gives us the sweet nectar, are we transformed enough to seek it?

Trinity Sunday, Cycle C, Delight

Proverbs 8:22-31, Psalm 8: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, Rom. 5: 1-5, John 16:12-15

I was delighted to learn from modern science one of the reasons why gardening makes people happy.  It seems that the bacteria in the soil interact with receptors on our skin which in turn send nerve signals to the brain, causing a secretion of the “happy” neurotransmitter, serotonin.  This explains why people love gardening:  “Dirty hands equal a happy heart.”   As I reflect upon this interaction of bacteria and skin, it seems to me that all delight is somehow the product of interaction—interaction with the rest of creation, interaction of persons with each other, interaction with the “Persons” of the Godhead.  We could say that the very ability to interact is a reflection of the divine Three, of Their eternal, intimate communing. 

Today’s readings are about such delight.  Wisdom “plays” with creation and takes delight with humankind.  Jesus talks about the relatedness of the divine Persons and our relatedness with Them.  The mutual self-surrendering of the Creator (Father) to the Word (Son) is the ultimate source of delight—They delight in each other and that delight is the Spirit.  Other feasts celebrate what the Trinity has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  This feast celebrates the Trinity itself and gives us pause to realize that everything They have done is a reflection of how They are with Each Other.

In terms of the archetypes, we can see the sovereign at work in the description of how wisdom has ordered all things in the first reading.  In the gospel we see how that ordering has sprung from and returns to the love at the center of the Trinity.

Celtic Blessing

May the blessing of the Three

be in your heart keeping warm

the hearth of your soul.

May the blessing of the Three

be in your eyes reflecting their presence

in the windows of your soul

May the blessing of the Three

be in your touch

drawing others to Christ

May the blessing of the Three

be upon your breath drawing in Their Spirit

sending out words of love

May the Blessing of the Three

Creator, Word and Spirit encircle your whole being

and all your relationships.

Amen.

Pentecost, Cycle C, The Teacher

Acts 2:1-11, Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 34, 1 Cor. 12:3B-7, 12-13, Jn. 14:15-16, 23B-26

When I was in high school, I had a teacher whom I especially admired.  She was the nun who taught math.  I have never been good at math.  It was not the math but her spirituality which attracted me.  As our friendship grew, she became a mentor for me.  I learned a great deal about the spiritual life from her.  When I read John’s description of the Spirit as teacher, I immediately think of her and our friendship.  To be sure there were rough moments when she scolded me or we did not completely connect; nevertheless, the relationship was very enriching.   The Spirit is such a teacher—one who enables us to remember the things that are truly important, to increase our understanding of the truths of faith, to intuit what it is that God is asking of us.  I never had another teacher like her until I discovered the Holy Spirit myself.  I am sure that the friendship with her prepared me to have a good friendship with the Spirit.

It is noteworthy that in this passage from John all three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name– will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (14:26).  The Spirit does not come alone but rather is given by the First Person, the Father, in the name (the person, the identity) of the Second Person, Jesus.  The role of the Spirit is to enhance our relationship with both the First and the Second Person.  The Spirit brings us into intimacy with the other Persons.  The Spirit enables great creativity as we are enriched with the gifts this Spirit brings.  The Spirit not only conforms us to Christ but gifts us for roles in the Body of Christ, the Church.  And it is in loving intimacy with the Spirit that we learn to use those gifts for the good of all.

Paul says that we are given “to drink” of the Spirit.  When you are in the presence of a great teacher, there is a sense of drinking in the teacher’s words, the teacher’s ideas.  This image is closely associated with the activity of the Sage archetype, in that the first step toward acquiring learning is training ourselves to listen carefully, to ponder deeply.

6^th Sunday of Easter Cycle C, Indwelling

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29, Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13 (1), Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23, John 14:23-29

A hallmark of maturity, one way of measuring the depth of maturity, and of spirituality is indwelling.  Indwelling is the ability to dwell in intimacy with another with inter-dependency (in contrast to co-dependency).  It is the ability to collaborate without possessiveness, obsession or need to control.  There is profound collaboration with complete freedom.  There is love without devouring need.  Each is capable of full functionality at a high level without the other but freely chooses to surrender to the other for the sake of indwelling.  This is the type of relationship Jesus holds out to us as the Christian ideal in today’s gospel.  God indwells with us and we with the Trinity in a mutually respectful relationship that is highly sensitive to the freedom of the other.  Those who achieve this kind of maturity not only indwell with the Divine Persons but in turn are able to indwell in the same manner with human persons, with spouses and close friends.  Here is maturity, a maturity that requires the use of all archetypes, of all faculties of our psyche but also requires that we are not used by those archetypes.  We are not governed by either activism or fear. Not governed by the need to dominate others, nor by the measure of our intelligence.  These persons have boundless love but are not without healthy boundaries

5^th Sunday of Easter, Cycle C, Love

Acts 14:21-27, Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13 (1), Revelation 21:1-5a, John 13:31-33a, 34-35

Recently I was visiting with a Buddhist nun.  She was making a strong case for the mind as the true destiny of each person.  According to her, if you want to believe in God then you can consider God and mind as synonymous, but Buddhists do not hold to belief in God.  For Buddhist teachers, human relationships are a “distraction.”  Peacefulness and a serenity devoid of any other emotion seem to be what is most highly prized. This is quite beautiful and who would not want peace.  Jesus gives it as an Easter gift.  But I could not help thinking of Jesus himself—one not free of emotions but still giving peace.  Although he gives peace, he does not designate serenity as the goal of life.  Rather, the goal is found in love, in loving as he loves.  God has celebrated a nuptial with us in the incarnation, and therefore nuptial love is the ideal of Christianity.  The reading from the gospel today goes well with the reading from Revelation which talks about the new Jerusalem as the Bride of God.

Peace cannot be attained unless our love interests mirror God’s love.  Possessiveness is contrary to love because it is selfish rather than selfless.  For those who follow Christ, love which is self-surrender remains the ideal and brings its own kind of peace.

4^th Sunday of Easter, Cycle C, The Lamb

Acts 13:14, 43-52, Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5 (3c), Revelation 7:9, 14b-17, John 10:27-30

My father’s cousin was a sheep man.  Sometimes he kept his flock in the field near our house.  Their incessant noise, especially on the night of a full moon, often kept me awake.  But in the spring when the lambs were born, it was a thrill to help feed the bums who, for whatever reason, had lost their mothers and had to be fed by hand using a bottle.  This was always a keen tug-o-war because the lambs pulled so hard on the bottles.

The reading from Revelation and the Gospel today both talk about sheep.  Jesus identifies himself as the shepherd, and Revelation says that the Lamb will shepherd those who have survived the great persecution.  The Revelation reading is full of contradictions—robes washed white in blood, survival by death, a lamb who is a shepherd—you are forced to realize that what it is talking about is on a different level from everyday life.  Yet, like the little lambs we fed, the language is hauntingly beautiful: there will be no more hunger or thirst.  God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  This is not sentimental dribble.  To allow yourself to be led by a Lamb who allowed himself to be led to the slaughter means total self-surrender.  This is different from mindless abdication of your will.  It is personal surrender with eyes and mind wide-open, knowing exactly what is happening and willingly taking part.  This is the paradox of the Lamb.  He was totally free, totally aware and yet fully self-surrendered.  To me, the key sentence in both readings is “The Father and I are one.”  We are being asked to freely do what the Father and Son freely do in regard to each other—mutual self-surrender.

3^rd Sunday of Easter, Cycle C, Meal Talk

Acts 5:27b-32, 40b-41, Psalm 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13 (2a), Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

I grew up in the mountains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.  My father had a construction company which did many jobs in the mountains on roads, bridges and the like.  He and many family members were expert fishermen.  A great treat for us was when we were at camp on the job and one of the fishermen would get up in the dark to go to his favorite fishing hole just when the trout were having their first morning feeding before sun-up.  Within a half hour a good fisherman could catch a mess of fish and bring them back to cook over an outdoor fire for our breakfast.  This outdoor fish-feasting at the break of dawn with great conversation about the day to come is one of my favorite memories.  I can really relate to today’s gospel. 

The English translation does not do justice to the Greek which gives the sense of the “breaking of day.”  Something new is breaking in on their lives.  John, who has patterned his gospel on the days of creation from the book of Genesis, has added an eighth day with this chapter.  It is the first workday of the new creation.  It is the day when Jesus commissions Peter to feed his sheep and his lambs.  Day-break on this eighth day is experienced on the lake shore where Jesus had fed the multitude with the fish and loaves.  Now in a great act of tenderness he not only multiplies fish but he has roasted fish on an open fire for their breakfast.  It is here too where he spoke to them so intensely about his body being their food.  The risen Jesus shows us once again that the best ministry to multitudes or to close companions is table ministry.  He offers them bread and then the fish, followed by intense conversation.  Eating together when the focus and emphasis is upon one another and each other’s interests is one of the best experiences we can have of God.  Such meals evoke the table of the Eucharist where God serves us the body and blood of the risen Jesus.  Candlelight meals or meals by firelight heighten the intimacy, since the atmosphere itself speaks of the light and warmth we give each other by being so completely present to each other. It is in the Eucharist meal that we have the greatest intimacy with God.

If we can recognize it, God comes face to face with us in the Eucharist.  Learning to be face to face with one another at table, where facial expressions and the light in each other’s eyes enhance the conversation, can be a great way to learn how to accept the face to face encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist.  This seems to be one of the lessons Jesus teaches us by the way he prepares an outdoor breakfast for his disciples on the shoreline where he had spoken to them about the Eucharist. For many reasons the fish is a symbol of Christians.

2^nd Sunday of Easter, Cycle C, Divine Duet

Acts 5:12-16, Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 (1), Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19, John 20:19-31

Despite the fact that neither my sister nor I displayed any aptitude for music, my mother was determined that we would take piano lessons.   We learned to read music and recognize timing, musical key etc., which, in retrospect, was very good.  The Sister who taught us insisted that we learn a duet for a recital.  We managed it, but no one ever asked us to do another one!  Duets can be very beautiful but also tricky, since you have to be in sync with the other person’s timing.  I love to listen to duets after the experience of having to learn one.  The players have my deep admiration and sympathy.  Recently I have come to admire how a person can produce a piece of music and, in a sort of duet with self, do all the parts by rerecording it several times and each time taking a new part.  I think this is a great metaphor of the activity of the Spirit, especially as John presents it in today’s gospel.

The theme, the melody, of this masterpiece is creation.  It is composed in the key of peace, with lively 6/8 time.  John has in mind the first creation as well as the new creation in Jesus and in Jesus’ twin, the church.  The Spirit breathed over the deep in Genesis.  The Spirit birthed Jesus’ ministry at his baptism.  Now Jesus breathes the Spirit on each of the “disciples” (meaning all who were present, which included more than just twelve men) sending them as he was sent.   “Peace” does not mean merely the absence of war.  The Hebrew greeting, Shalom, means fullness of life and joyous prosperity as well.  The disciples are to give this gift to one another and others beginning with forgiveness.  He is filling them with the Spirit as he was filled with the Spirit, God’s own breath bringing them to fullness of life.

There is a shift to a minor key with Thomas’ refusal to believe, his demand for special proof.  But even this is dissolved into glorious “Shalom” as Jesus comes again and takes the hand of man (in the person of Thomas) leading him to reach once again as he had done in the Garden of Eden for fruit from the tree of life.  This time the tree is Jesus’ own body, his open side and the fruit is belief, forgiveness.  In John’s symbolism Thomas is Adam’s twin. One twin reached to the tree to become equal to God, the other twin now reaches to the tree for belief in someone greater than himself and receives it: My Lord and my God.

The Spirit whom Jesus breathed on the disciples is often depicted as winged.   We could say that the two wings by which the Spirit of God moves in our lives are creation and re-creation.  Creation is the work of the Spirit, and the new creation brought about by Jesus’ resurrection is also the work of the Spirit.  This is the triumph of Love.  For love is stronger than death, deeper than the nether world.  Floods of hatred cannot sweep it away.  It is the Easter fire that burns in the heart of God.

Easter, Cycle C, The Rest of the Story!

Acts 10:34a; 37-43, Psalm118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23, (24), Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-9

Twenty years ago Dr. Daniel Goleman came out with his ground-breaking book:  “Emotional Intelligence, Why it can matter more than IQ.”  Being a person for whom intense emotional expression is always right near the surface, I was keenly interested in his studies and theory.  Do we really “think” with our emotions?  It would seem that this is so.  Further studies have revealed how emotions generally arise in the mid-brain, while logic itself is more properly located in the upper brain; but the activity of the two can never really be separated.  Human thinking is a process of interaction between the parts of our brain.  Sometimes I wonder if it is more of a wrestling match than a mixing of notions!  Nevertheless, for clear thinking the process must go on.  One of the great contributions of the Lover archetype is the use of emotional intelligence in combination with logic.

Today’s gospel brings us into the presence of a woman very close to Jesus who obviously thinks with her emotions.  And it is a good thing she does because otherwise the disciples would not have been prepared to accept the revelation of the resurrection.  She is the initiator of the revelation of the resurrection.  In the new creation of the resurrection, John is actually placing her in a position equal to that of Eve in the first creation.  Eve initiated the events that led to the fall.  Mary Magdalene is initiating the events that reveal the new creation.  She alerts the disciples as Eve had alerted Adam.  They run to the tomb.  They begin to ponder the meaning of the empty tomb and John accepts the possibility of resurrection but does not see the risen Jesus.  Unfortunately, the reading ends there but that is only half of the story.  Here is the rest from John 20:10-18:

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“But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.  And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.  And they said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.’  When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?’  She thought it was the gardener and said to him, ‘Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.’  Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means Teacher.  Jesus said to her, ‘Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and tell them, “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’  Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and what he told her.”

The scene is in a garden even as with Adam and the first Eve (Genesis 3).  Mary, the new Eve, has taken the lead.  Jesus calls her “Woman” to identify her as the new Woman, the new Eve.  She is the first person to see him, and she is made an apostle to the apostles.  None of them will see the risen Jesus until they have heard her proclamation.  Woman is restored to full equality with man.  She is restored as his full partner when Jesus speaks her name “Mary!” and commissions her to go to the others.  Here we have the rest of the story of Jesus’ first appearance on Easter.

Palm Sunday Cycle C, Touching

Luke 19-28-40, Isaiah 50:4-7, Psalm 22: 8-9, 17-20, 23-24, Phil. 2:6-11, Luke 22:14—23:56

Something that recently amazed me was the finding of certain brain studies which indicate through imaging technologies that our brains are energized by just having a friend near—holding your hand or standing or sitting beside you.  Those simple things have such an effect on us that there is a noted change in brain activity and energy.  Of course, we have known this by intuition, but seeing the scientific evidence was wonderful.  And all of this makes reading Luke’s account of the Passion all the more meaningful.

Luke recounts details that no one else mentions:  how Jesus touched and healed the servant’s ear which Peter had cut off; how Jesus looked at Peter after his third denial; how Jesus spoke to the women weeping by the roadside on the way to the place of the skull; Jesus’ forgiveness of his executioners; the penitent thief whom Jesus welcomes to the Kingdom; and Jesus’ last words commending himself to the Father.  In each of those I see characteristics of the healer.  Jesus is not content to tell Peter to cease and desist when he strikes the servant.  He heals the harm done, making the man whole again.  This is the goal of any worthy healer—to restore wholeness. 

We can imagine Jesus looking at Peter not with an “I told you so,” but with immense compassion which said: “I still love you despite what you have done.”  Peter too was “touched.”    His weeping was evidence of repentance which would bring about spiritual healing as surely as Jesus’ touch healed the physical wound of the severed ear.

The women were weeping for Jesus but, like a master counselor, he redirects their grief, trying to make it more constructive for them.  He wants them to prepare themselves for the grief that is coming in the future.

Jesus’ first words from the cross are words of forgiveness for his executioners.  Forgiveness represents great personal healing.  When we do not forgive, it is ourselves above all who are hurt.  Forgiveness means letting go of all personal animosity toward those who have wronged us.  It frees us of that burden of bitterness.  Jesus is showing us by example how to heal ourselves.   This often takes special grace, but we have to be open to receiving that grace.

It must have been some consolation in his death agony on the cross to have the man hanging next to him, who did not know him, acknowledge him as “Lord” based upon the way he bore his sufferings.  Jesus assures him that, thief though he was, nevertheless, that very day he would be with him in paradise.  How wonderful that Pope Francis also ministers to criminals on Holy Thursday.  And how many people in the world will be touched by that–the way I was.

Finally, Luke gives us Jesus’ last words: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.”  This act of trust and surrender is the last great healing of life.  It enables us to pass through the portal of death unafraid, expecting the Father’s embrace. 

5^th Sunday of Lent, Something New

Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 (R v3), Philippians 3:8-14, Gospel John 8:1-11

Recently I was horrified by a story about high school students taking pictures of themselves having sex and posting those pictures on Facebook.  We have so demeaned the sacredness of intimate relatedness that not only fidelity but privacy itself means nothing.  Not only do we seek pleasure for its own sake but we brag about it as though there were no other human values.  As I reflect upon today’s gospel, I realize that Jesus gives us the way to respond. 

This woman “caught in adultery” was probably someone who offered hospitality to a guest during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem when there was overcrowding. Perhaps he was an old friend and the Pharisees who were always spying knew that he had gone to her house for the night.  The man is not mentioned because in that society such infidelity was always the woman’s fault. At the crack of dawn John tells us they burst into her house and dragged her out of bed and to the temple. Her accusers, proud of their roles as leaders and teachers, are full of personal grandiosity.  When we are like that, we become so busy looking at someone else’s sins that we do not consider our own.  Jesus offers a profound remedy for evil encountered in others: look at yourself.  This seems almost counter-intuitive.  How can we correct society’s problems if we do not take action?  The more profound question is: how can we correct someone else appropriately without having a strong sense of our own sinfulness and fragility?  Publicly humiliating this woman was totally inappropriate and a greater sin than hers.  Their guilt was not just whatever private deeds they had done.  Their obsession to prove Jesus wrong led them into such grossly inappropriate behavior.

This is indeed “something new,” a gift of fresh water in the wasteland of human relatedness.  The evangelist sets it on a par with the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai when the finger of God wrote on stone.  (Jesus is writing on the ground with his finger.)  These readings are part of our Lenten journey, when we are considering conversion and repentance.  Without adequate self-knowledge, we do not realize what we need to repent of.  We may be like the men in today’s story: so much in need of being “right,” of having the right answers, that we have the wrong attitudes and behaviors.  Jesus directs us to the source of fresh water in the desert of our own inner life—the Spirit who reveals ourselves to us.

4^th Sunday of Lent, One of a Kind

Joshua 5:9a, 10-12, Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

One year when our oldest son was in high school, his elective was jewelry making.  He made me a necklace–a beautiful piece of turquoise set in a teardrop shadowbox.  It was one of a kind and I treasure it.  Today’s gospel is something like that—a beautiful piece of writing which is one of a kind (only Luke tells the story) in a special setting.  The setting, we could say, is the image of God.  While as a father and a loving person, the image of God presented to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time by their leaders was also a very demanding God, a God who would reject them if they did not keep all the regulations which the leaders saw fit to lay upon them. 

Jesus had a different image of God to present.  The father in his story is not demanding.  He allows the younger son to take his inheritance and leave.  When the son returns, broken by both his own excesses and the hardships of life, the father does not reproach him.  His conversion is already complete in that he recognizes his mistakes.  On the other hand, the first son is unable to recognize that he has any need of change.  A relationship is more than keeping laws and regulations about which we can brag.  A relationship is about recognizing the basic goodness in each other; it is about accepting responsibility for our mistakes and making an on-going effort to recognize those things within us which are not God-like and need to change.                                                                                                                                                

 The father eats with the lost son.  And God is present when we feast with each other in honesty, regardless of whether or how many times we have washed our hands (one of the Jewish regulations).  The father does not wait for his son to satisfy the requirements of Jewish law.  “Quickly,” he says, bring the robe, also the ring, and prepare the meal.  Acceptance and love are more important than regulations.  A meal that celebrates a restored relationship is more important than preparations for the meal.  The parable was not directed at the tax collectors and sinners coming to Jesus but to the Pharisees and the experts in the Law.  The image of God they presented was not adequate.  Jesus makes these observations at the risk of insulting the guardians of the Law, the men in spiritual authority.  Here is the Sage setting the Sovereigns straight about the meaning of law.

In the second reading Paul emphasizes that it is not God who has to be reconciled to us.  An angry God does not have to be appeased; rather, we have to be reconciled to God.  We need to recognize the things within us that destroy or inhibit a relationship and change them.  We also need to spend table time with the one to whom we are reconciled.  Like the feast in the first reading, this is a feast celebrated in the promised land–the land of restored relationships.

3^rd Sunday of Lent, Cycle C, Barefoot

Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15, Psalm103: 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11, 1 Cor. 1-6, 10-12, Luke 13:1-9

For those of us who love to go barefooted, the story of Moses and the burning bush is a green light.  In our society we prefer to hide our “smelly” feet and keep them covered.  In oriental and Muslim cultures, the focus is on the earth and nature rather than on ourselves.   People take off their shoes to show honor to the ground they walk on.

If we can get beyond the idea of smell (and feet smell less if they are exposed to fresh air) there is great value in having a “sole-full” contact with nature.  We are more likely to experience the natural vibrations of the earth and to come in tune with them.  The earth’s harmonic resonance has been measured at approx 8 cycles per second, or 8 Hertz (Hz). The frequency range of the electrical activity of the brain that we access in states of deep relaxation is also centered around 8 Hz.  Is this correspondence just a coincidence?  Being in harmony with nature puts us in harmony with ourselves and makes us more responsive to harmony with the divine.  Another advantage is that our bodies generate a lot of positive electric ions.  Direct contact with the earth and its negative ions helps to bring our bodies into better balance, lessening inflammation caused by the excess positive ions.  This also contributes to a sense of well-being.

All three readings today speak strongly to nature—a burning bush, a rock and a fig tree.  What we learn from nature has great bearing on our spiritual life.  A fruit tree, especially a fig, was an important part of the culture of the people in biblical times. The ideal garden, as in the Song of Songs, had a fig tree providing, like love itself, a sweet, nutritious food.  When the fig sets leaves, it is a sign of the coming flowering and fruiting.  Jesus is comparing the leaders of the people to a tree that does not set fruit.  It is all show but no fruit.  Another play on this symbol is that Jesus’ ministry is like a fig tree setting leaves but the people do not recognize it.  Moses was attentive and saw the bush experience spontaneous combustion as some desert shrubs are wont to do.  In that he found the presence of the great “I AM.”  But the shepherds of the people in Jesus’ time are not like Moses.  They are not attentive.  They cannot recognize the sign of the tree.

If we are in tune with our own inner sage, the reader of symbols, we begin to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ words and Moses’ experience.

2^nd Sunday of Lent, Cycle C, Affirmation

Genesis 15:5-23, 17-18, Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 9:28b-36

I am not a great fan of country music, but there are some pieces that I really appreciate.  One of them is “Have I told you lately that I love you?”  I especially like Johnny Cash’s version.  It seems to me that it is human to need affirmation–repeated affirmation–no matter how good a relationship may be. Humans are prone to self-doubt and relationships are fragile.  If that is true of human-to-human relationships, it is also true of human-to-divine relationships.  And it is especially true when there is a crisis.

In today’s readings we have two men in crisis, Abraham and Jesus.  Abraham wonders if God is really with him, if God really wants him to be where he is and doing what he is doing.  Jesus’ crisis is about his fate.  He is very aware of the political climate he is living in.  He knows about the rows of crucified corpses that sometimes line the roadways, put there by the Romans.  He knows that the leaders of Judaism are jealous of him, suspicious of him and would stoop to anything to get rid of him.  The opposition is growing as constantly as his popularity.  Is this what the Father wants—his death?  Is this where his ministry is intended to go?

From Luke we learn that Jesus, like Abraham, has come to this place to pray.  We also learn from Luke that Jesus’ assurances come from Moses and Elijah who speak to him about his “Exodus.”  In other words, they are reassuring him that he will lead humanity through the Exodus of death to the glory of resurrection.  His death will have profound meaning.  The Book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus, having joy set before him, was able to endure the cross and despise its shame (cf. Heb 12:2).  This profound experience which transfigured him, as Moses, Elijah and the Father had reassured him, gave him that joy.  It gave Jesus’ humanity the sense of meaning he needed to go forward in the midst of shame and rejection.  Now he will set his face for Jerusalem and his fate.

Abraham is caught up in an altered state of consciousness and sees the presence of God as a flame passing between the sides of the sacrifice which he laid out, representing himself and God.  With this experience God is assuring him of the reality of the covenant.  Jesus is reassured by the Father’s proclamation, repeated in front of the disciples, that he is indeed God’s Son chosen for this destiny.  The Father, as it were, embraces Abraham and Jesus in such a way that others can be aware of it.  Both are assured that what is happening is part of their destiny.

1^st. Sunday of Lent, Cycle C, The Desert

Deuteronomy 26:4-10, Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15; Romans 10:8-3, Luke 4:1-13

We live in the desert and know of its heat, dryness, cactus and wild critters.  The climates of the Holy Land and the American Southwest are similar.  Areas of mountainous terrain alternate with stretches of desert.  Water is precious and rare.  Plants tend to be prickly and spiny.  The physical environment of the desert provides a unique kind of raw experience of reality, the kind that makes you question everything about life, since life itself is very difficult in such a place.  In Hebrew history the desert holds a special place because it was in desert terrain that Moses encountered God in a burning bush.  Elijah, another larger-than-life figure from Hebrew history, spent a lot of time in the desert.  The word of God came to prophets in the desert as it came to John the Baptist.

 Perhaps more than anything, desert symbolizes an inner state, a state of aloneness, of questioning, of finding one’s way in a wilderness of ideas and tendencies.  When you have a big decision to make or are preparing for a career, you encounter a kind of inner desert where you have to sort out your priorities and decide what will be your primary values.  You set your compass, so to speak, and this is often done with conflicting voices in your head urging you to do this or that.  From the viewpoint of the archetypes, the specters of grandiosity raise their ugly heads urging you to do things for your own aggrandizement and presenting the personal considerations as needs that must be fulfilled.  You are hungry and you can turn stones into bread?  Well then, take care of yourself and eat.  You need recognition to do your work?  Well then, let me help and let’s get you the recognition.  You want to show off your close relationship with God?  Well then, create a scene where people can see that. 

Jesus was preparing for his ministry and determining the values that would govern his activities.  He was letting the words of scripture soak in so he could make them his own in his ministry.  He was coming face to face with the lures of the archetypes that would make one focus on self, on the exercise of power, on personal knowledge as a source of superiority, on personal gratification.  One may come to recognize these, but actually the struggle with them is life-long.  Luke tells us that temptation departed from Jesus for a time at the end of this desert experience.  The temptations will return, however, when the opportunity presents itself.  Many a would-be saint or hero comes to downfall after being invested with power.  It can happen quickly.  I saw a documentary recently on human remains left in the desert and how quickly they are devoured, decayed and scattered.  In a matter of a few days they appear as if they had been in the desert for many years.  So too, the forces of our psyche are fierce. We need to be fully aware of them.  We need to take desert-time to come into full consciousness of what they are and how they operate.  We need to soak in the word of God to help us cope.

8^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Being First

Sirach 27:5-8, 1 Cor. 15:54-56, Luke 6:39-45,

Scholars of World Religions point out that in most religions of the world there are statements similar to the words of Jesus as quoted by Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount and as quoted by Luke in the sermon on the Plain where today’s gospel comes from.  For instance the words of Rumi a Sufi Mystic:

In generosity and helping others be like the river.

In compassion and grace be like the sun

In concealing others’ faults be like the night

In anger and fury be like the dead.

In modesty and humility be like the soil.

In tolerance be like the ocean

Either you appear as you are or be as you appear.

Similarities can be found also between Hindu writings and those of John the Evangelist:

“In the beginning was only Being; One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos and entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self.” —The Chandogya Upanishad, Chapter 6, 2:2-3

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things came to be, and not one thing had its being but through him. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwells among us.” –John 1:1, 3, 14

 There is also similarity between what Jesus says in today’s gospel about knowing ourselves before we can see another clearly and the writings of Carl Jung, one of the latest sages to offer insight in to the human situation.  If we do not recognize the faults and fallings in the secret workings of our own hearts (log in our eye), we will project those same failings on to others (the splinter in their eye).  Jesus uses a much more picturesque and humorous way of expressing it (you can almost hear the humor in his voice) as he uses exaggeration peculiar to his culture to conjure up a ridiculous image of someone with a log in his eye!   Jung uses the language of archetype and Jesus uses Jewish humor.  The concepts, however, are the same.

 It seems to me that the fact there were religious traditions for thousands of years before Christianity and the fact that the teaching of many religions have similar thoughts and themes show us the truth that the Spirit is always at work “renewing the face of the earth” (Ps. 104:30 ), the same Spirit Who led Jesus and Whom Jesus tells us is the Teacher of all Truth (Jn. 14:26).  That Spirit was there in the beginning of creation stirring the waters of the abyss (Gen. 1:1) and will always be stirring the waters of human minds. There is no restraining the Spirit, nor should we be restrained from seeking the full outpouring of the Spirit which “remained” on Jesus and which he bestowed on the Church breathing on the disciples Easter evening.

7^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Love

1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23, Psalm 103: 1-2, 3-4, 8, 10,12-13, 1 Cor. 15:45-49,  Luke 6:27-38

Whenever my schedule allows, I love to take a hike at dawn to watch the sunrise from the vantage point of the top of a ridge.  Frequently there is a first blush which is pale and seen only in traces then a few minutes later the full color develops giving intense color to all the clouds we can see in the sky.   I have a similar experience in reading the Christian scriptures which begin with the Hebrew Scriptures.  There are moments of light and wonder in the Hebrew Scriptures that become very intense and beautiful in the New Testament.  Nowhere is this more evident than in regard to the theme of love.  There are hints in the First Testament of the teaching Jesus develops in the gospel today about loving ones enemies.  The story of David refusing to kill Saul who had become his enemy is the most beautiful example.  David would not kill Saul because he recognized him as God’s anointed.  But neither would he trust himself to Saul because he also knew Saul’s capacity for madness and murder. 

Jesus refused to be identified as a new King David whose goal it would be to overcome the Roman occupation as David had overcome the Philistines.  But in his attitude to his enemies Jesus is surely like David and Saul. He advocates no harm to them and in his case like David’s, his worse enemies were his own people. Jesus sets for us the perfect example of how to live out his teachings.  It is Luke who gives us Jesus’ first words from the cross “Father, forgive them.”    Jesus himself is the greatest example of what he advocates for us: love your enemies, bless and do not curse them, give to those who cannot give to you in return.

I believe that we are asked to follow his example by seeing others –even enemies– as persons who have basic human dignity and are created in the image of God.  If they hate or harm us we still have to recognize that image as David and Jesus did, but we do not have to condone their actions or trust ourselves to them any more than Jesus trusted himself to the Pharisees  or David trusted himself to Saul. We are fortunate to live in the full beauty of the sunrise that is the dawn of Jesus’ teachings and example.  Love lights up our horizon.

6^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Woes

Jeremiah 17:5-8, Psalm 1: 1-4,6; 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26

Brain twisters are very popular now-a-days as scientists tell us that curiosity is a sure sign of a healthy mind.   It seems to me that a good brain twister would be:  What do Harry Potter and St. Luke have in common?  One is a purely fictional almost mythological character trying to learn the art of magic. The other is an accomplished first century writer giving us his version of the Jesus story.  You could hardly have two more different persons.   One is pure fiction a figment of imagination, the other is a very real person writing about things which people he personally knows have experienced. 

The common link I find between them is the influence of the Sage (Magician) Archetype.  Harry is studying to be a magician and learning a great deal about life as he does so  just like so many in the legions of his young fans who are also at an intense stage of learning in their lives.  Luke on the other hand is the mature sage who for the sake of his own client, Theodosius, is seeking to set out the lessons taught by Jesus of Nazareth.  In doing so he chooses to approach the story by presenting Jesus in a wisdom role that was familiar to the Hebrew people—that of a prophet who is also an expression of the sage archetype.  Today’s gospel it seems to me is striking evidence of this.  When Mathew gives us his version of the Beatitudes he speaks only of blessings not woes (those he leaves for one of his last chapters).  In the great symmetry of Matthew’s gospel story the woes at the end of Jesus’ ministry balance the blessings at the beginning of Jesus ministry.  This symmetrical thinking is associated with the sovereign archetype.  But Luke presents Jesus speaking just as we hear the great prophet Jeremiah speaking in the first reading giving blessings and woes at the same time.

Luke’s gospel is a great gift to us because it helps us understand Jesus’ ministry in light of the role of a prophet, and the sage archetype.  Jeremiah tells us that if we trust in God we become like a tree whose roots are so deep in the soil that it has a constant source of moisture–we have tapped into a perpetual source of magic greater than the phantasmal notions of Harry Potter.

5th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Deep Water

Isaiah 6:1-3a, 3-8, Psalm 138:1=2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

When someone shares how and when they came to a profound moment of commitment it is a human story that compels great attention.  What were the circumstances?  What encounter so deeply affected you as to cause a personal surrender?  This story along with the retelling of a birth or a death story is one that quite literally pulls our heart strings. That is the kind of story we have today. Being a person who loves water, I can really relate to Luke’s great story-telling abilities in today’s gospel.  You can almost hear the waves lapping against the shore and smell fish in the air as Jesus and the flash mob that has gathered around him come upon Peter and his ship-mate cleaning their nets. Peter agrees to let Jesus speak from his boat.  When Jesus has dismissed the crowd, however, and they are alone it is not the end of it.  Now Jesus asks Peter to put out into the deep water.  There are few things more disappointing to a fisherman than to come home with no catch.  His skills, his very manhood seems somehow to be in question.  But when, at Jesus bidding, they haul up a huge catch, it is too much for Peter.  This is beyond what he could do as a good fisherman.  He knows it is not his skills. He throws himself at Jesus feet: “Depart from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.” 

Though seemingly worlds apart, the situation is the same for Peter as it was for Isaiah in the first reading.  Isaiah was in the temple at prayer and had an overwhelming vision of the majesty of God.  That induced a profound sense of unworthiness. Peter is out in the deep water, faced with a huge catch of fish.  He too, is overwhelmed with a sense of personal unworthiness.  An angel touches Isaiah’s lips to reassure him.  We can imagine Jesus placing his hand on Peter’s shoulder, even embracing him with a kiss of peace and reassuring him: “Do not be afraid…”   Now Peter, like Isaiah can say:  “Here I am, send me.”    Deep water called for a deep commitment.  This one will be deep enough to endure even Peter’s future failure.  As in all cases of commitment, it is love, deep personal love, love given in response to an invitation that over comes the fear and sense of unworthiness.  A lake is water encased by land, here we have the deep water of love encased by commitment and self-knowledge.  Luke is giving us a vivid picture of the calling of Jesus’ chief disciple in the model of the calling of a prophet.  But while the work of a prophet is expressed in the role of a Sage, beneath it all is the force of love, a love that asks for surrender to this difficult role for the sake of the divine lover.

The second reading tells the same tale.  Paul recounts how it was his personal encounter with Christ that changed his life that set him on his prophetic, apostolic mission.

4^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Expectations

Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19, Psalm 71:1=2, 3-4, 5-6, 15, 17, 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13, Luke 4:21-30

When people shatter our expectations of them, it is very hard to maintain our respect and admiration for them.  We are not aware of how much we cherish these expectations until they are shattered.  Our youngest son decided that he did not want to go to college.  We were devastated.  It was very hard to accept but we finally managed to give him the freedom to choose his own way.  He has become as successful a business man as his college graduate brother, but he had to do it his way. 

In today’s gospel when Jesus shatters the expectations of the locals in his home town by not putting on a miracle show.  They are angered at him.  Luke incorporates the rejection of his own people into the scene of his town’s people.   Jesus declares to them (really to the Jewish leaders of his time) that “No prophet is acceptable in his own country.”  He goes on to give examples of prophets before him.  This really sets their teeth on edge.  You can almost feel the sour taste in their mouths.

The first reading is from one of the prophets who had the greatest difficulty with his own people.  The leaders did not want to hear what Jeremiah had to say.  They even tried to kill him throwing him down a well.  Luke seems to be alluding indirectly to Jeremiah’s casting out and throwing down when he says that Jesus also (like Jeremiah before him) managed to escape.  When Jeremiah began his career the Lord told him that he was to tear down and to build up.  It is the tearing down, the tearing down of expectations, the tearing down of illusions, the tearing down of false “traditions” that gets people so upset.  They do not want change.  Yet sometimes you cannot build until you tear down.  Jesus has to tear down the expectations of a worldly ruler, a second David, who would over throw the Romans before he could build up an understanding of the true Kingdom of God.  But the Jewish leaders as a group would never be able to appreciate that. The prophet builds up the people, teaching them to hope in times of despair but first come challenges.

3^rd Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, A Prophet

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27, Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Years ago we survived December 21, 2012, the date for the end of the world as described by those who insisted on interpreting the Mayan declaration of the end of an era as the end of the world.    I remember some of the intense discussions between people who were completely convinced that this was the end and others who saw it differently. Actually, reducing prophecy to fortune-telling is probably the most common error we make in regard to the function of a prophetic gift.  Prophets are not fortune-tellers.  Their role is to get us to look deeper at the present, not at the future. 

In today’s gospel we hear Luke explaining his reasons for writing and how he has carefully examined all the details of the story of Jesus.  This passage is very characteristic of the Sage archetype—a careful researcher examining everything in detail.  The image of Jesus Luke presents is very much colored by this Sage archetype.  For Luke Jesus is the prophet.  A prophet is someone who is an expert in relations with God.   Hebrew prophets were sent to keep kings on track as regards the covenant with God.

Today’s readings show us the various activities through which the Sage archetype is manifest.  Ezra the priest-scribe gathers an assembly, leads them in reflection on the Law and gives them exhortations.  Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit to the church.  Prophecy is one of them.  Paul mentions it right next to “apostle.”  Prophets in the Christian Covenant have a very similar role to prophets in the first Covenant: to be a kind of conscience to leaders and challenge them when they are not sufficiently tuned in to the Spirit.  Of course, an apostle may have the gift of prophecy, but that is not necessarily so.  The Holy Spirit, as Paul points out, gives these gifts/roles for the benefit of the body of Christ.  Sometimes those in authority can be blinded by their own bias or by power itself.   In such a case, the Spirit guarantees the health of the body of Christ by giving these gifts to people with separate functions and often gives prophecy to those who are not in authority.

Jesus himself had no authority within his religion.  He was not a priest, not a scribe, not a trained rabbi.  He took on what was essentially the role of the prophet to challenge the people and the authorities alike about their relationship with God. He was a Wisdom figure.  Ever since, many Christian prophets–beginning with Paul–have had to do the same within Christianity because power/authority can induce blindness even within the church.  Prophets see the reality despite the mists of illusion.

2^nd Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle C, Wine

Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalms 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, John 2:1-11

I am one of those people whose Irish genes can’t handle alcohol well.  Half a glass is my tolerance level!  After that the brain does crazy things.  But I can appreciate that other people are able to enjoy more of it.  The first miracle of wine-making is how the plant can mix nutrients from the sun and soil with flavors it creates inside the fruit.  The flavors are meant to allure animals to take, eat and leave the seeds elsewhere so that new plants grow.  In this sense the purpose of the fruit of the vine is self-propagation.  It seems to me that we could say the same of the wine of the Eucharist.  Having tasted and found that the Lord is sweet and good, we want to share that experience with others, encouraging them to come and see.

John says that it was on the “third day” that the wedding at Cana took place.  I was delighted to find in the writings of Bruno Barnhart the meaning of that phrase.  John is looking at the event from a cosmic perspective because the “third day” is the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.  Considering this gospel in yet another way,  it is also the day of creation when God made man and woman and she induced him to eat the forbidden fruit.  John is telling us all that has been reversed as Jesus in his resurrection initiates the new creation.  In contrast to Eve who initiated the fall, now “woman” is initiating his “hour,” the hour in which he as bridegroom will be united to humankind in the new creation.  The wine of that wedding is Christ’s own blood—personal intimate contact with him–mystically shared.

This is evangelization, redemption, creation from the perspective of John the Beloved and of the Lover archetype.  It is all found in the image of the divine bridegroom who has a new relationship with woman.  Woman is man’s partner in the new creation–in contrast to his downfall.  In Christ all things are created anew.  The old order is reversed.  This uniting of man and woman in the work of the new creation is celebrated at a wedding feast of man and woman in which the new man at the instigation of woman makes sure there is enough good wine for the celebration.  There is a new creation in Christ.  Man and woman are partners in it.  She leads the way as Eve had done in the first creation story, but the results are very different.  This time the new creation is the wedding of the bridegroom: Christ with all of humankind.

The Baptism of the Lord, First Impressions

Is. 42: 1-4, 6-7, Ps. 104, Acts 10: 34-38, Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

      In the last quarter of the last century there was a very popular love song entitled “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”  While today’s gospel is not a love story between a man and a woman, it is an even greater love story.  Prayer is the most profound expression of love in that it is an encounter between the human and the divine, an embrace of love that eclipses all other images of affection.  What Luke gives us in today’s gospel is the description from his sources of the first time they actually encounter the man Jesus.  Up to this point in his gospel he has given us Midrashim –wonderful compositions about the birth of Christ created to demonstrate Jesus’ connection with figures of the Hebrew Testament.  The Baptism story relates directly to New Testament history, it is the first impression Luke’s source had of the grown man, Jesus, and this first deeply impressing glimpse shows Jesus at prayer.  Jesus is praying after coming out of the waters of the Jordan River

            Prayer becomes a theme in Luke’s gospel. He relates that Jesus frequently went to the mountain or out into the desert to pray. It is when Jesus is praying that he experiences the Transfiguration.  It is when the disciples see him at prayer that they are moved to ask him to teach them to pray.  Jesus is still praying on the Cross:  Father forgive them…Father into your hands I give my spirit.  Prayer is the door to a divine love relationship, the relationship established between us and the Divine Persons at our Baptism.  Moments spent in prayer are as memorable as beautiful places we have visited whether for the first time or many times.

Epiphany, Cycle C, Radiance

Isaiah 60:2-6, Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13, Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2:1-12

There is a dilemma-question the answer to which, I have found, provides a great deal of discussion about what is important in life.  If you could have either tremendous power or tremendous wisdom, which would you choose?  If you had power, you could correct all kinds of evil and make people do what is right.  The downside is that people would be drawn to you for security reasons, and the relationship would be mostly with a multitude of sycophants.   If you had wisdom, you could provide answers to many of life’s problems and help people find meaning in life.  The down- side is that while some people would admire you and you could help them become fully mature, the majority could care less.  There is much grief in much knowledge (cf. Ecclesiastes 1:18).  The history of today’s gospel story provides a good insight into this issue. 

The gospel tells us that the foreigners who came to see the infant Christ were “magi”; that is, sages of another culture and country, most likely Persia where the cult founded by the great prophet Zoroaster had flourished and taught that there is only one God.  These sages used the knowledge of their time to look for one who would be a divine king.  Sages are essentially seekers.  Normally they work in close collaboration with sovereigns, but when they come to believe that a sovereign is corrupt and full of personal grandiosity, true sages have the wisdom to follow both common sense and divine revelation in a different direction.  Matthew uses the story to demonstrate that Jesus will draw people from outside the Jewish faith and culture.  

God has all kinds of ways of leading people to Christ.  There is recognition here of the cosmic concerns bringing all things together, and there is a condemnation of the Sovereign in the person of Herod.  In him was a corrupted and distorted the human personality to the point that he resorted to infanticide.  In the story, the sages are to be admired because they become their own persons and make their own decisions, escaping the control of the corrupt sovereign.

Over the centuries we lost sight of the fact that the visitors were magi, not sovereigns; so much so, that we all but lost the concept of the wise seekers.  Under the influence of the Sovereign archetype and our need for comfort and protection, we turned the sages into kings, using some of the imagery of scripture to enhance that notion.  We have a great infatuation with the Sovereigns because relationship with them so readily lends itself to co-dependency, creating illusions of security and power (who does not like to be important to a powerful person?).  Now we are coming around to recognizing that in biblical revelation the Sage is of equal importance–even though the sage, the prophet, is most often at odds with a sovereign. 

God also answered the dilemma-question, and the divine answer was “Wisdom.”  The Word became incarnate as Wisdom.  In the reading from Isaiah, the people of God (as the woman Israel) are told that they will be radiant at what they see.  When the people of God come into contact with Wisdom, something of her eternal splendor is transferred to them.  It is the people (not a king) that the prophet speaks of.  Indeed, you shall be radiant at what you see and you shall glow with the radiance of Divine Wisdom.

Feast of the Holy Family, Cycle C, Reflections

Psalm 84, 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-281 Jn. 3:1-2, 21-2 or Lk. 2:41-52

Sometimes looking at the range of readings for a Feast Day can be like studying a box of holiday chocolates—each one looks delicious and offers the promise of a particular delight. It can be hard to choose. One of the first readings exhorts children to listen to the wisdom of their parents.  Another tells the story of Samuel and how he came to live in the Temple.  Psalm 128 describes the wife as a fruitful vine with her children gathered around her.  Psalm 84 speaks about the joy associated with the House of the Lord for the Jewish people.  There are two great passages from the Letter to the Colossians about the family of God either of which would wonderfully complement the gospel story. And there is John’s description of us as the children of God.

But the ones I like for this feastday are the ones that are reflections of Samuel in the Temple.  The young Samuel stands as a background figure behind the young Jesus in the Temple asking questions and giving answers of his own even as Samuel grew up there and began his career as a Prophet in that setting.  To me Luke is making a subtle comparison between Samuel, called at a very young age, called in the Temple and Jesus who feels the need to stay in the Temple and speak of his father.  Throughout his gospel, Luke emphasizes Jesus’ role as a prophet.  Telling this story of the young Jesus in the Temple—his Father’s House—hints at the Samuel story.   And it beckons to us to realize our baptismal call to be prophets ourselves—to speak to the world of God’s love for all.  Sitting with these readings for me is like sitting by a quiet pool that is faithfully reflecting another scene in the background. 

1^st Advent, Cycle C, Endings and Beginnings

Jeremiah 33:14-16, Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14 (1b), 1 Thessalonians 3:12–4:2, Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

When you travel by air, it becomes evident that a landing strip is also a take-off strip.  The end is the beginning.  This is how I experience the first Sunday of Advent.  The  readings today refer to Christ’s coming at the end of time, or at least the time in which the Jewish people lived at the period of the gospel.  Still, we are beginning preparations to celebrate Christ’s coming at the incarnation, his entrance into the world.  That the landing strip is also the take-off strip, should be enough to alert us to the fact that the readings are not really situated in human time but in God’s time.  To grasp the mystery of the incarnation we have to step outside of time, as it were, just as to fly we have to leave the ground.

Luke draws on apocalyptic literature, such as we find in the books of Daniel and Ezekiel, to exhort Christians to watch for signs of the end of time.  In this gospel Jesus exhorts us not to become so absorbed in daily life that we lose the larger perspective of life itself as but a moment of time.  Life as we know it, with the regular appearance and trajectory of sun, moon and stars, will be disrupted when it is our time to encounter the eternal Christ.  If we know him as Lord, as Friend, as Lover, we will not die of fright, but if we have pushed God out of our lives to get on with partying, we will come to regrets. 

2^nd Advent, Cycle C, Mountains and Valleys ,

Baruch 5:1-9, Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 (3), Philippians 4:6, 8-11, Luke 3:1-6

The season of Advent often begins right after Thanksgiving.  As a young girl, that meant a trip over the high mountain passes of southern Colorado back to school.  Usually the mountains had their first heavy snowfall of the year right about then, and they were wondrously bedecked in white and crystal winter splendor.  This transformation into winter was a great reminder of the transition into a new liturgical year.  It also made me think of the scripture passages in today’s gospel about mountains and valleys. These passages are not so much about leveling material mountains to fill in valleys but rather about how God removes obstacles as seemingly large as mountains and as deep as valleys to make a way for his own.

When God is about something wonderful, there are always signals that it is so, even as you know that ice is going to break by the sound of cracking.  When God’s work in Jesus is about to begin, the sound we hear is the voice of John in the desert.  Luke’s gospel is written from the perspective of the Sage archetype.   The image of prophet/sage dominates throughout.  Thus Luke stages John’s receiving of the word of God in the same manner as the scriptures stage the opening of the ministry of prophets in the history of Israel.  He tells us when and where the word comes to John.  This moment is both historical and a-historical.  It is historical because it is located at a time and place we can identify.  It is a-historical because it is orchestrated by God who cannot be measured, intercepted or contained in any measurement of time. The readings of today leave me with the same sense of wonder and awe as those beautiful mountain passes.

December 8 Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Chosen

Genesis 3:9-15,20, Psalm 98:1,2-3ab, 3cd-4, Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12, Luke 1:26-38

When I was in the seventh grade, Sister came into the classroom one day and spread out envelopes on her desk.  Each one had a holy card inside.  The seventh grade girls were asked to choose one.  The girl who opened it to find a picture of the annunciation would have a special role in the May crowning.  I got the card of the annunciation, and from that time on I have felt there was a special connection between Mary’s being chosen and my own chosen-ness.  She was chosen to be the mother of Christ.  I was chosen to follow Christ wholeheartedly.

It seems to me that we are so used to saying that Mary was chosen to be the Mother of God that it is hard for us to really unpack the gospel that is read today.  This is especially true if you consider it from the aspect of the archetypes.  Luke writes from the perspective of the Sage archetype.  We have to pull back from the scene and consider his breadth of vision before we can grasp all that it tells us.

 Mary is chosen not only to be mother to Christ.  She is chosen to be the first priest of the New Covenant.  The scene of Mary and the angel parallels the other side of Luke’s diptych which has Zechariah the priest of the First Covenant being greeted by an angel.  There are two priests here–one at the close of an era, one at the beginning of a new era.  Both are interacting with angels and with the divine, as priests do.  There are two babies discussed in these scenes.  One will become, not a priest like his father, but the prophet of something completely new.  The other will become the source of all priesthood.  Mary is being ordained as the first priest of the New Covenant.  It happens as the Spirit comes upon her.  She is one chosen (which is a requirement for priesthood), she is making a personal sacrifice of herself (“Be it done unto me”), and she is entering into the sacrifice of the Word who begins his priesthood at the moment of incarnation— “he emptied himself, taking upon himself the nature of a slave” (Phil. 2:7).  She is making that sacrifice possible with her words, even as a priest does at the Eucharistic Liturgy.  Who else could say as she can:  this is my body, this is my blood?

I have never felt chosen for priesthood.  My priesthood is that of a lay person, and I am very happy with that.  In this sense all of us are chosen, as Paul points out in Ephesians.  But at the same time I believe that truth itself calls us to recognize that Mary was so chosen in this other sense, chosen as an ordained priest.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12

Zec 2:14-17,  Jdt 13:18bcde, 19, Lk 1:26-38

While the Gospel for today tells the story yet again of the angel’s annunciation to Our Lady, I for one would not hesitate to use the gospel of the Good Shepherd from John’s gospel for today because in the story of Guadalupe our Lady is displaying all the characteristics of a good shepherd concerned for her flock.  It is seldom mentioned that many of the shepherds of Israel in Jesus time and even now are women.  This Shepherdess seeks out the Native people who were despised and marginalized and protects and defends them.

She speaks their language and they “hear” her in the symbols of her dress even as Jesus says that his sheep know him, and he calls them by name.  She leads them to pasture by asking for the shrine to be built in a place that is dear to them.  She tends them and cares for them by curing Juan’s uncle.  She is truly the Good Shepherdess. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe is a heaven-sent example of the principle of inculturation of faith.  She teaches us not to despise the faith symbols of others. She sets the example for all of us to love and minister to those who are marginalized or despised.

3^rd Advent, Cycle C, Joy

Zephaniah 3:14-18a, Psalm 12:2-3, 4, 5-6, (6), Philippians 4:4-7, Gospel Luke 3:1-18

One of the religious moments I most cherish is having been at a Jewish festival when everyone was dancing in the aisles.  What joy!  Those people knew how to rejoice with the whole of human capacity—body and spirit.  The New American Bible’s translation of today’s reading misses the mark and is, shall we say, lame.  The translation of the New Jerusalem Bible comes closer to the reality expressed: “He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you, as on a day of festival.”  Dancing, shouting for joy– what a wonderful image of God!  I have often thought that the aurora in the night sky is a sort of glimpse of the cosmic dance of God.  We don’t see God but we get just a tantalizing glimpse of beauty created by unleashed energy.  Science has explanations of what causes this dance, but science can’t explain why it is beautiful to us.

I think that the second reading and the gospel give us ideas of how to join in this dance of joy—through kindness, through not extorting others in selfishness, through being open to being baptized (immersed) in the Holy Spirit.

4^th Advent, Pregnant

Micah 5:1-4a, Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19 (4), Hebrews 10: 5-10, Luke 1:39-45

When a woman discovers she is pregnant, it is a highly significant moment of her life, perhaps even more than when she discovers she is in love.  Expressing love means sharing life intimately–body and soul–with another.  Being pregnant means joining with the creator in forming new life.  Each of these experiences touches the very life of God, but with pregnancy you do not know what the personality of the little one will be.  Now you share the awesome task of not only nourishing the little body but of shaping a mind and a psyche. 

It seems to me that Luke looks at salvation history from the perspective of pregnancy when he gives us the marvelous encounter of the two pregnant women in today’s gospel.  Elizabeth is a figure of “Mother Israel” carrying all the generative activity of God in Israel’s history–the promises to Abraham, the twin sons of Rebecca, the longed-for Samuel, and now John, its greatest prophet.   Mary represents the new covenant, carrying the Christ who will be its essence physically and mystically.  The embrace, the joyful dance of these two women in their pregnancy is tremendously meaningful.  Luke is inviting us to see the whole sweep of God’s generative activity in Judeo/Christian history.  Christianity is a religion of pregnancy—God is always active within “Mother Church” bringing into being new insights, new understanding of the mystery of God’s inner life.  We are always birthing Christ to the world if we are faithful to the Spirit that came upon Mary.

Christmas Day, Cycle C, Feminine Imagery

Isaiah 9:1-6, Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13; Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14

When I began my eighth month of pregnancy, a very wise nurse who had assisted with hundreds of births said to me, “You need to be sure that you have everything ready now.  Babies do not pay much attention to due dates.  They come when they are ready, and it can be weeks ahead or weeks after a supposed due date.”  And sure enough our first son took us by surprise, coming weeks ahead.  The little country hospital and doctor with whom we had planned could not take us because the doctor had broken his leg.  We had to go to the big city.  We no sooner walked in then they groaned, saying they already had a full maternity ward.  It seems that every pregnant woman in the city was responding to the full moon of August.  For a number of women, the gravitational pull of the moon can be a factor in triggering labor.  After delivery, several women, including me, were put in the hallways since there was no room for us in the ward.

Reading the nativity story, I can’t help wondering if something like that happened to Mary and Joseph.  We cannot be sure of the dates of either Jesus’ conception or his birth.  Those are unknown.  We celebrate the events, not the exact dates.   It seems that Mary and Joseph did not plan to go to Bethlehem for the birth.  Then came the order from Rome.  Probably it was not a census like we think of.  There is no archeological evidence for that, but there is evidence for a census or registering of craftsmen.  Part of Rome’s efficiency was knowing where skilled workmen were so that whenever there was a need, those persons could easily be identified and summoned for work in wood or stone.  Joseph had to comply.  The easiest way to be sure Mary was looked after was to take her with him. They probably planned to be back in Nazareth in time for the birth.  But the baby came early.  The house of Joseph’s relatives was full. The hospitality room for guests or “inn” of the story was occupied so they were put up in the lower level of the dwelling where there was a stable for animals and there her time came. 

I find the reference to God’s glory shining around the shepherds in the fields very interesting because if it was a full moon on a clear, calm, cloudless winter night, the moonlight would have been brilliant.  In the psalms the moon and stars are referred to as giving glory to God (148:3). We are constantly trying to recreate that sense of glory and wonder with candle lights and other soft lights on winter nights.  The angel did not need to give directions to the shepherds for finding the manger because they would have known all the stables in the area.  The sign the angels give the shepherds, it seems, is not so much for the shepherds as about the shepherds–all the shepherds of Israel’s history–because the one Micah referred to has been born (Micah 5:2-3).  The one manifest to the shepherds is the great shepherd.  Mary, the new Israel, has brought forth the good shepherd.

Luke’s Sage perspective brings out the role of both genders.  He has a keen sense of the feminine perspective in his depiction of the annunciation and in the scene of Elizabeth and Mary.  Now in the birth narrative he is once again calling upon feminine imagery from the Jewish testament.