Bible and Bible Study: January 2007 Archives

For a lapsed Catholic, Brian Moore has a good deal to tell those of us who remain staunchly within the confines of the Church:

from Cold Heaven
Brian Moore

"I don't believe in God. I am your opposite," Marie said. "Happiness, for me, is knowing that I am in charge of my own life, that I can do as I choose. Don't you see that you're a victim, as I am a victim? What sort of love is it that's withdrawn from someone as good as you, sending you into despair? What sort of love could I possibly feel for a force which has done these things to me and to my husband?"

The room was still. The question hung in the air. Then Mother St. Jude said, "I know nothing of God's intentions. But I can tell you what St. John of the Cross has written. 'I am not made or unmade by the things which happen to me but by my reaction to them. That is all God cares about.' Do you understand, Marie?"

"No," Marie said. "No, I don't."

The old nun took Marie's hand in hers. "If Reverend Mother orders me to do something, I do it, not because I want to, or because I think it is right. I do it because she represents Christ in our community. It is Christ who commands me. St. John tells us that to do things because you want to do them or because you think they are right are simply human considerations. He tells us that obedience influenced by human considerations is almost worthless in the eyes of God. I obey--always--because God commands me." She smiled. "So I am not a victim, Marie. . . ."

In the matter of Church teaching is this our first thought? I have received a word from the Vicar of Christ on Earth--his word requires special consideration for me because it is God speaking through him. Now, it is always possible that in prudential matters a fallible human has misjudged and so might be wrong. However, I find it more likely that one who is truly seeking to follow God is more likely to be attuned to His Will even in prudential matters. That is, one who spends much time with God seems a more trustworthy guide than one who spends very little time.

However, I often see critiques of encyclicals and teachings that seem more designed to deconstruct them and make them a matter of personal preference rather than a matter for obedience. I will admit (again) that I rant and rave, but I take a certain amount of comfort from the parable in which Jesus asks which son has done the Father's will--the one who says yes and stays at home in comfort and leisure, or the one who says no, but goes out to work the fields as his Father requested. I may rant and rave, but by God's will, I am eventually able to say yes and enter those fields once again.

Accepting another's will is not easy, particularly when we've become overly used to "things as they are." But like that mysterious blue guitar of Wallace Stevens, "Things as they are are changed" when the vicar of Christ or those who wield legitimate authority over us in the spiritual realm promulgate a teaching. It is our duty and responsibility to understand a teaching from the magisterium and to the extent possible incorporate that understanding into our own way of living out the Christian vocation. And, there is a certain comfort in knowing that God has laid a special responsibility on the shoulders of those who watch over us:

Ezekiel 33:2-6, KJV

Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:

If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;

Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.

He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.

But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

If the watchman sees evil and does not identify it and people fall because of it, they fall because of iniquity, but the fault lies with the watchman. However, if he does see and reports it and we choose to ignore what he has reported, then we fail of ourselves, and he is considered innocent.

The shepherds of souls have enormous responsibilities before God. And I have no doubt that this responsibility is always made manifest. Therefore, it is not in their best interest to issue ill-conceived, inappropriate, or miscalculated teachings in the matter of faith and morals. The teachings may be insufficient at times--perhaps unclear. But knowing the terrible responsibility of the shepherding of souls, and knowing that they will account for all those they have lost, I see that the teaching of the Church is to be trusted as a faithful guide. While I may not always understand why the truth is as it is, I know that I can trust it because my obedience is to those in legitimate authority. They speak with God's voice.

A little later in Psalm 119

Tears stream from my eyes
because your law is disobeyed.

Oh, how hard this one is. What streams from me because God's law is disobeyed? Indignation, anger, sorrow. . . no, I'm afraid that most of the time, unless I'm the one doing it, it is indifference. Yes, I can get outraged about this and that occurrence but on a day by day basis, I do not sorrow the way I would if I were in a better place. I do not see how we hack off our feet and our hands by our choices. I am mostly numb--perhaps because the outrages are paraded before me in a never-ending stream. There are no tears and there should be. When we see the one we love offended there should be, at the very least, sorrow. There should be the desire to make right what has been put crooked and disrupted.

How foolish I am. I rejoice in the temporary things of this world and do not see the pit so many dig for themselves by actions contrary to the law of love.

That in itself should move a heart of stone. One wonders what the heart could be made of that remains unmoved.

From mid-morning prayer:

The unfolding of your word gives light
and teaches the simple

Indeed. And how does the word unfold? We call that event life. His word unfolds in what happens to us and in how we accept and incorporate that. Life is an expansion of His word--nothing new is added, but all that has been said before is cast in a different, hopefully clearer light.

I don't, and I won't make a habit of this; however, this morning I received an e-mail that provoked me into reading something that surprised me. So, I'll share it here and hope that it surprises you as well.

from the journey website

The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Wednesday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time
St. Francis de Sales, bishop, doctor of the Church

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Hebrews 10:11-18
Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4
Mark 4:1-20

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you . . . .

We are privileged. We have been granted access to the inner sanctum. We know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, and while we may not fully comprehend them, they are part of our lives every day. We have a fully functioning missionary and teaching Church that proclaims the mysteries of faith and helps us to live them even when we cannot fully encompass them.

Not so with many. They are trapped in the prison of implacable scientism--reason gone awry. The mysteries of faith are beyond them because they are beyond the realm of the simply demonstrable. They cannot comprehend God, because God falls outside of their realm of study.

To these lost sheep everything must be presented as parable. No, we don't tell stories, but rather, being part of the mystery of faith, our very lives are a parable. Think for a moment of the very poor woman who gave two pennies to the poor. Her action, her life was a parable.

We are living parables, our lives teach. What do they teach? They teach out of the fullness of our hearts. If our hearts are filled with Jesus, then Jesus is proclaimed to the world in a way that the world can see and begin to understand. When we start our day with prayer, we can more effectively pursue our mission to be living examples to a world in chaos.

The other day, Tom at Disputations wrote about being "lowercase a" apostles and what that meant and how that might be done. Becoming living parables is one way to do the service that we owe in Love.

James 2:13

Merciless is the judgment on the man who has not shown mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment.

Here we have the glimmering of the love of God that, I am convinced, took us a long time to understand fully. In fact, I would mark the turning point in our understanding of this Lord near the turn of the 20th century, with the still quiet voice of a young French girl hidden away in a cloister of little importance in the small French town of Lisieux. This young girl, raised in the Jansenist, puritanical vein of the Church vouchsafed us all a glimpse of what God is really like; and her revelation, prophet-like, received the endorsement of the Church--first with her unprecedentedly rapid canonization and then with her elevation to Doctor of the Church.

She didn't invent anything new, but she showed in a new light what had been proclaimed since the time of Jesus. God is a Father. Not only is He a Father, He is the exemplar of all fathers. And because at the same time He is all Love and all Goodness, He is a Father whose patience is infinite and whose heart longs for our return to Him. The smallest motion, the slightest leaning in His direction and He is there to scoop us up in His arms and bring us to Him, the very finest "elevator to God" because in the entire journey, we are close to Him.

This is the God that Jesus proclaimed, the God who is the Father of the prodigal Son. He isn't a new invention. But Saint Therese had the courage and tenacity to give us a new insight into Him. We understand Him now as we do largely because of the synchronicity of St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Dom Columba Marmion, and St. Pius X. Together the three of these, and probably a host of others, converged upon the vision of God the Merciful and loving Father. The Holy Spirit reawakened this knowledge in a very special way for all of us moderns. And we would do well to recall it frequently and to act with the knowledge that with God as our Father, we are all brothers and sisters. We do well to forgive, put aside our petty sibling rivalry, and show His beautiful mercy and love to all around us.

St. Therese continues to shower roses from heaven upon those willing to receive them.

by which you give me hope.
This is my comfort in sorrow
that your promise gives me life.

(Psalm 119:49-50, from daytime prayer)

I think of my Grandfather, head bowed over his much used Bible after the death of my mother. I think of my Grandmother who could not see when my Grandfather had passed away, but who listened again and again to the word of God and, who despite all predictions, did not follow him quickly to the grave, though she was by far the more frail of the two. Rather, she lived on in love with God and in love with Life for every day of her own.

I think of how much His word meant to them at every moment of their lives. They lived the word in ways I cannot begin to do--constant prayer, constant immersion, a unity I struggle for and seem to achieve for seconds at a time was theirs in a seemingly unbroken stream--the river that passes by the temple in the New Jerusalem. It transformed their lives and now transforms my own in the memory of it and in the desire for it. Reverence--lives of reverence and quiet adoration--lives not meant to be examples, but lives which became examples any way.

We all know people like this people who lived a life of "Remember your word to your servant by which you gave me hope." May I become one of them and may those of you who wish this also become one of them. It helps us to understand the concept of Boddhisatvas--the enlightened ones who nevertheless remained behind to assist humanity in finding the Light.

with its burden of sin.
Too heavy for us, our offenses,
but you wipe them away.

While doing Lectio yesterday on today's gospel, I received the most interesting and compelling message. Now understand, the messages of Lectio are a kind of private revelation, so I don't claim to speak authoritatively on the matter of meaning in the Gospel passage; however, I did not a rather interesting dynamic.

The story is about the arrival of the three wise men/ kings. First, they go to Herod to ask directions from him and discover that he hasn't a clue. What's more, he's really upset by their arrival. And when Herod is upset, so Jerusalem follows.

The Wise Men go to find the Christ Child and they humble themselves before Him. "They rejoiced with exceeding great joy," and all the heavens and all the humble of Earth through all of time with them.

What then is this dynamic? Each of us, in some little way, can be a Herod or a Wise Man in areas of our own lives. By our choices we can make the lives of those around us resonate with our own emotion. We can choose to eradicate Christ and make everyone around us miserable. We can choose to seek Him out and cause "exceeding great joy" around us. When we look after the things of this world, we inevitable choose the former, but when we divest ourselves of them, giving gift of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we can find joy, and those around us as well.

That is part of the truth of this gospel tale. Joy or terror, solidarity or disunion, love or hate. We choose bit by bit every day, and turning to this story we can see very clearly the consequences of our choices.