Wednesday. Mt 5: 17-19.
Jesus said to his disciples: ' Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.'
I am not going to pretend that I understand Jesus's line of thinking here, because I don't. In fact I am confused by it. St Paul, in all his letters, is very strong on the fact that "the Law has nothing to offer." Jesus himself lashes out at the scribes and the pharisees for their strict adherence to the law. So what exactly is he trying to do here by telling us uphold each 'dot' and 'stroke' of the Law, when he clearly condemns pharisees elsewhere for doing this very thing? Some scripture scholars argue that texts like this were written at a time when the early Church was still a part of the Synagogue. But perhaps Jesus was being a little facetious here because he said that all the 'dots' and 'strokes' of the Law "will remain until its purpose is achieved." Perhaps we can say that its purpose was achieved when the died on the cross and rose again and won salvation for us all. So in fact he was not predicting a very long life for all those 'dots' and 'strokes' after all! Some personalities need rules and laws and perhaps will be offended by my interpretation. No offence intended. I wish everyone well in their personal journeys. For my own part I will take my chances and journey on without any reference to all those 'dots' and 'strokes.'
Sunday.
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next ear, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
A word well worth paying close inspection to, in the Gospel text above, is the word "manure." We know where manure comes from. It basically comes from the rear-end of cows. It is dirty, smelly and does not look very attractive, to say the least! Yet, it plays a vital role in the nourishment of the fruit tree, and without it the fruit-tree could not bear fruit. Maybe we should be looking at the awful things in our lives, that we have to put up with, as a kind of "manure" that helps us bear spiritual fruit. The very essence of fruit is that it is something produced by a plant for the benefit of others. So if the unavoidable "manure" in our lives helps us to grow in patience, consideration for others or even helps us to be of benefit to others then we moved from a position of selfishness, which is basically "unfruitfulness" in gospel terms and we will have become fruitful. So if we feel we have a lot of "manure" in our lives, let us not forget that we also have a very good gardener looking after us. But that is material for another reflection on another day!
Friday. Mt 21:33-43. 45-46.
It was the stone rejected by the builders
that became the keystone.
This was the Lord's doing
and it is wonderful to see?
The psalm above, quoted in the gospel for today, is applied to Christ, who was rejected by the religious leaders and politicians (the then "builders" of society; with the media-gurus being the modern-day "builders" of society). But the psalm continues that, after this rejection, God placed Jesus at the head of the world forever. St Paul puts it slightly different in one of his letters, "The stone rejected by the builders is precious in the sight of God." Hearing these beautiful and extraordinary words, who in their right mind would want to be accepted by the powerful and mighty of this world? So we can take it that the more you and I are rejected and unaccepted by others, then the more we are loved, accepted and precious in the eyes of God. I don't know about you but after reading these words I am quite happy and content to experience rejection by others!
Wednesday. Mt 20: 17-28.
'Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and on the way he took the Twelve aside and said to them, "Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the pagans to be mocked and scourged and crucified; and on the third day he will rise again." Then the mother of Zebedees's sons came and made a request of him... she said to him, "Promise that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right and another at your left, in your kingdom."
It amuses me when I read religious magazines and come across advertizments that promote spiritual retreats with massage therapy or working with clay or some such thing. I am not saying there is no value in these things (there is probably a lot) but they have nothing to do with the core teaching of Jesus, as expressed in the few lines of the gospel above. Did you ever find yourself speaking to someone about something very important and you knew they were not listening to you? When Jesus gave his teaching about his pending Cross, Death and Resurrection, nobody seems to have heard a single word he said! The sons of Zebedee thought that Jesus was on the fast-track to glory and they wanted to be on board! It can be amazing how we do not want to hear the real teaching of Jesus. Someone might say, "I have found great peace since I discovered God!" But perhaps this is too comfortable. Perhaps we have not yet found love. To really love God is to listen very attentively and carefully to his teaching. His teaching comes to us in the person of his son Jesus Christ and the teaching of Jesus rotates around his Death and Resurrection. This is why Easter is the main feast in the Church and Lent is an intense looking forward to Easter. I have heard preachers who can only preach morality and others who can only preach the Sermon on the Mount. They are very eloquent but it is no good because they are not in touch with the core of Jesus' teaching. So why is there such a collective deafness to the teaching of Jesus about his Death and Resurrection? It is because deep down we know that Jesus wants to relive his Death and Resurrection in you and me personally. Of course we are terrified by this! But the first baby step in love for God is to listen to Jesus asking us for permission to participate in our own suffering, death and resurrection. This is the secret of the interior life of the saints. They always loved to suffer for the sake of God. I always found this very difficult to understand but when you factor love into the equation it starts to make sense.
Tuesday. Mt 23:1-12.
'You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers and sisters.'
Alas, today in the Church, we have gone much further than the mere title of 'Rabbi'. What are we doing with titles like, 'Your Eminence;' Your Grace;' 'Your Holiness' and 'Most Reverend Father?' I heard a funny, but very true, story recently. It is about a Cardinal Archibishop of Westminister who died a few decades ago. Apparantly he was giving a talk to the priests of his diocese and said to them, 'Dear Fathers. Very soon I am going to to die and when I go to the gates of heaven St Peter is going to say to me, "Your Eminence, first you must give me an account of your life." He genuinely saw nothing unusual in St Peter addressing him as 'Your Eminence!' However, the message of this gospel goes a little deeper. We have no control over the way other people set up titles for themselves and demand respect accordingly. We can however, by our attitude of brotherly love, reject these titles if they are foisted onto us, personally. I remember some years ago a monk from Europe stayed in our monastery for a couple of weeks. He was a simple, unassuming man. He seemed to enjoy the life of our community very much and he had a strange affection for peeling potatoes and vegetables and doing those jobs that most of us tend to try to avoid. It was only when he was leaving I twigged something and discovered that he was abbot of one of the biggest monasteries in Europe. Titles like, 'Lord Abbot' would have been very much off the mark in regard to this man. But because of his humility, to call him 'Brother' would have been for him a great honour. Also, it was an honour for me to have such a man for a brother. Popes, bishops, priests and religious are all first baptized. For all Christians, our primary and foundational dignity lies in being baptized into Christ Jesus. Everything that comes after this is just a living out of our baptism. I remember reading a letter that was written in the 6th Century by St Columba, an Irish monk. He wrote to the pope criticizing him harshly and calling him to task. The pope replied in humility, recognizing that there was much truth in what the Irish monk was saying. It was a case of brother writing to brother and challenging each other to greater authenticity. There will always be people who need titles, both those who have them, and those who aspire to them. This is okay because the Church is like a large boat that is capable of accomodating a great variety of passengers. The only thing is, you might find it more fun down in the engine-room than sitting at the Captain's Table!
Monday. Lk 6: 36-38.
'Jesus said to his disciple: " Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate."'
A number of years ago, when it was my job to look after the calves on the monastery farm, there was one sickly calf who also seemed to be very nervous. If I stood in one corner of the calf-shed this sick-calf would stand in the furthest possible corner away from me. One morning I was looking at the calf and thinking about the life it was going to have ahead of it. I thought of the harsh winters and cold that it would have to endure; the bullying from older and stronger cows and if she had a pain how she would have no way of telling us humans about it to get help. I suppose you could say I had a 'moment of compassion' for the poor thing. Then a strange thing happened. The sick-calf slowly walked over to me and nuzzled my knee with her nose! To an outsider this would seem an insignificant moment but I am convinced that the calf picked-up the signals of compassion at some level. I don't know much about Buddhist philosphy but I understand that 'compassion' is a huge concept in Buddhism. The animal-kingdom responds positively to compassion. So compassion must reveal something of the Divine to all creation. If we realize that God is looking at you and me in an infinitely more profound way than I was momentarily looking in compassion at the sick calf, then the foundation is laid for great happiness on our part. We tend to feel that God is looking at us in judgment, but he has too much compassion for that. He knows the sufferings we have to go through in life and his primary movitation towards is one of pity and genuine loving concern. I read a line many years ago that I never forgot. It went something like this: 'The angels look on us humans with profound awe and love because we can suffer and they cannot." We will only understand God's profound compassion for us if we try to have compassion for those around us. If we do not have compassion for others then we will not have the tools to see compassion directed at us from God. "Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate."
Sunday. Php 3: 17-4:1
'For us our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. He will do this by the same power by which he subdues the whole universe.'
A main feature of Karl Marx's thesis is that since the Industrial Revolution 'man' (sic) has been suffering from a constant feeling of 'Alienation.' His argument is that with the emergence of mass-production 'man' is no longer in control of what he produces. For example, a medieval cobbler would have made two pairs of shoes in a week and made enough to support his family. Also, he was deeply integrated into the community life of his medieval village with all its customs and festivals. Fast forward three-hundred years, and the same man is now working in 'Quality Control' in a shoe-factory watching thousands of shoes pass by on a conveyor belt. He goes home in the evening to a lonely flat, pays alimony to his ex-wife and sees his kids about twice a year. He lives in a large city and spends his evenings surfing the internet and occasionally looks out the window and sees millions of other individuals doing the very same thing. The Church, in the past, has been a little unfair to Marx. Marx is spot on correct. Modern man and woman are in a state of 'Alienation.' In the Second Reading for today's mass we learn that for us Christians, we will always have a deep feeling of alienation no matter what period of history we live in. St Paul tells us, 'Our homeland is in heaven.' God has given us hearts that are too big for this world. The universe and all it contains is not enough to satisfy the longings of our hearts. So we must treasure our deep feeling of alienation because it is a wonderful and prayerful reminder to us that we have an infinite heart that only God can fill and satisfy. People with no faith have nostalgia for the past. People with faith have nostalgia for the future. We are exiles on this earth but, 'Our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ.'