Sunday Reading Reflections:

Sunday, August 2, 2009
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I first knew Flor she was a lovely girl but totally lacking in self confidence. She had no initiative and was afraid to contribute to any group activity. Flor, came from a big family. One day she said, "In our family you could work for 24 hours and nobody would ever have a word of thanks or praise for you, but if you made the slightest mistake it was as if another world war had been declared." The deprivation of affirmation that she had experienced made her terrified of any situation in which she may be criticized.


Susan, on the other hand, had experienced that whenever she was with a new group she was the life of the party for a while, but then she noticed that her presence could empty a room in minutes. It emerged that she was a menopausal child - born eight years after the youngest of her six siblings. She was her father's pet and a little doll for her older brothers and sisters. She was always center stage singing or dancing for family guests. With this much affirmation in childhood, she felt in later life that she should always be at the center of the stage. Soon others found this very demanding and avoided her so as not to have to be constantly worshipping at her shrine.

Both Flor and Susan could be described as fixated in a stage of development. Because of the fear of criticism or the need for attention they are not free to move on in the work of life. All of us have bits of Flor and Susan in us.

In the Gospel story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and its aftermath, we see Jesus trying to liberate people not only from their needs but from the fixation that goes with those needs. The crowd understands him as someone who will satisfy their material needs. For this reason they want to make him king. Jesus calls them to a deeper understanding because it is only in faith that they can grasp how he gives himself to them as food for eternal life. The manna given to the Israelites in the desert became spoiled after one day, but what he gives them does not perish. Faith - the letting go of fearful grasping - is necessary in order to receive the gift of life. Faith is first of all an openness to hear and receive and respond to the word. The word that is heard needs to be assimilated so that the Gospel values are appropriated and made part of us. Ultimately, Faith means letting Jesus make his home in us, so that he can transform us in a permanent way. It means making space within for Jesus to not only dwell there but also to let his attitudes and values influence us in our way of life. Jesus tries to lead the disciples to long for this life that lives for ever. The people hunger for living bread but he hungers to live in them to be a bread that is assimilated into them.

Unfortunately, like Flor and Susan, many of us are fixated in our needs. We are too caught up in our wanting. To hear the call of the Lord is to go beyond wanting. In ordinary life needs cannot be ignored, they must be accepted and dealt with and then transcended. Very often though, because of our fixation, after a need is satisfied we rush greedily to satisfy it again and again. We cannot transcend.

When Jesus fed the multitudes he attended to their basic needs but then he challenged them to something higher, to let him become their food, to let him become the source of their attitudes and values; but they were not ready for this and so could not come to fullness of life.

If we look at our own prayer patterns today we will see the same. Prayer of petition and presentation of concerns to the Lord is very legitimate. It is asking God "to be Our God" to be caring and liberating but it often fails to include the prayer that, "we be his people" who live according to his values.

A way of prayer that is open - like meditation - does not ignore needs, is not fixated, but leaves us open to the challenge to our attitudes and values that is given to us when Jesus - the Lord - makes his home in us.

Sunday Reading Reflections:

July 26th, 2009
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Larry Gillick, S.J.
Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality


PREPRAYING:

These days we can pray with our readings for this weekend which are about miraculous abundance; where there was little, now there is much. Both the First Reading and Gospel SPEAK OF God’s “providing” literally, “looking forward”. There is a need and behold, something is distributed for satisfaction.

We pray these days for trust in our times of need. We pray with faith for the grace to receive the Eucharist as a pledge of Jesus to “com-pany” us, that is literally, “bread-with” us. We can pray with our letting what we consider small and insignificant, to be placed in his hands and distributed to those in need. We can pray also with the histories we have of God’s abundance in being faithful, provident and nourishing in our lives.

REFLECTION:

Elisha is a “holy man” and, in the chapter from which our First Reading is taken, is on a roll. He has promised that a woman who has welcomed him often to her house will have a longed-for child. He has cured another child and provided needed oil for a widow and her sons to use and sell.

The story right before our reading is quite interesting too. Elisha went back to his home and there was a great famine there. His fellow prophets were sitting around hungry. Elisha asked some servants to make a soup for them all. The servant went out and while gathering herbs picked a wild vine which he put in the soup. Upon eating some, they all began to experience sickness because of the poison herb. Elisha ordered that some grains be brought and he threw them in the pot and all was well.

Today we hear of a multiplication of twenty barley loaves to feed one hundred people suffering from the famine. He has to insist that his servant take the loaves and share them even though they do not appear to be enough. Elisha promises that there will be more than enough and there will be leftovers as God has promised. Elisha had received his blessing from God and walked around sharing it in plenty.

With today’s Gospel, we begin a four-Sunday reflection from John’s narrative on Jesus’ being the Bread of Life. He is both the provider and the provided. Today’s Gospel is John’s account of the follow-up to what we heard from Mark’s Gospel last Sunday. The crowd has followed Jesus and the apostles to a deserted place and the journey there has rendered them hungry. All heaven is about to breakout if something isn’t done. The apostles have not enough money to buy for this crowd so that each could have even a little bit. There is a tension. John’s Gospel rides easily on these apparently impossible situations. Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus was at a wedding feast when the wine ran out, “tension, what to do!!!!!”. They have only five loaves and two fish, “what are these among so many?”

Five thousand people reclined and had their fill of bread and fish, so there were fragments to be collected. Because of this sign of abundance, the people wanted to promote him as king so that they would never have to search for satisfaction and fullness again. Jesus, desiring to keep them searching in faith, slipped away and left them to experience hunger which is a tension for them, leading to faith or distraction.

There are many themes in this one story, which reflect John’s Theology of Jesus. We will be hearing in the next three weeks much of Jesus as the “bread of life”. This story begins a long discussion about just who Jesus is. This whole chapter is not specifically about Jesus as Eucharist, but Jesus who has come to be consumed totally as the one who has been “sent” as the source of true life. Bread is a wonderful medium with which Jesus presents himself. He is nourishing, available, familiar, and a biblical reminder to the Jews of the abiding gift of manna when they were wandering in the desert. John uses other familiar images such as “light”, “Water”, and “Shepherd” to offer to his listeners and readers ways to come to believe him and believe in him.

There will be more of the image of “bread” in weeks to come. I am moved to ponder briefly the mention of the lad who had the five loaves and two fish. “What are these among so many”? Jesus takes the lad’s meager provisions and does something great with them. If there is something of the Eucharist in these verses it is that Jesus takes our gifts, or rather that he takes the gifts we have received from him, which we experience as so limited and insignificant and gives thanks through his perfect offering. He then empowers us to receive again our lives as gifts, and our gifts as forms of “bread” or that which is meant for the nourishment of others. What is any one of us among so many? There is a tension then within us about inferiority of image or self. Who am I to speak of God, or teach, or do anything in God’s name? The tensions of self-image and availability for doing his labors are solved by our belief that he did so much with so little. He took the breadliness of human flesh, of simple human companions, of the women and men who have carried on the faith before us. It is our breadliness now for which he gives thanks and which He now distributes us to those who await his coming in our own simple doings.

“O bless the Lord, my soul, and remember all his kindness.” Ps. 103

Sunday Reading Reflections:

July 19th, 2009
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Larry Gillick, S.J.
Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality

PRE-PRAYERING:

We are praying with traditional images these days such as sheep and shepherd. In the agricultural times of the prophets and of Jesus, vines, crops, harvesting, and tools of the farm were handy images for speakers of the day. Sheep were precious and the shepherd an important person. Sheep can seem to us rather slow and willing to follow anybody or anything. The shepherds did much following of their flocks as the sheep wandered, searching for nourishment. We are invited to pray with the tenderness which God has for the flock of Israel and with which Jesus embraces those seeking healing and wisdom.

We pray with the picture of a gentle, caring, tenderly compassionate God who guides us to what is good for us even when we do not think it so. We pray for the humility to admit that we are not self-sufficient, but search for the wisdom of Jesus’ ways. We are not dumb as some say sheep are; we wander looking for nourishment and satisfaction. We, like sheep, can and do make poor choices. Jesus as shepherd leads us to health of spirit and mind, but not with a whip or stick, but whisperings and callings. There is comfort for which to pray in these readings.

REFLECTION:

Jeremiah, the prophet who claims that he was seduced by God and who gets in trouble for speaking the word of God, is at it again in our First Reading. He has been announcing ruin against various kings and leaders of Israel. Jeremiah denounces the leaders as shepherds who have scattered the flock, the people of Israel.

A true prophet does more than complain or denounce, so an important announcement issues from his spirit. God will send a new, faithful king. Jeremiah switches images to another agricultural one. The one to come will be a “shoot” off the stock of David. He will govern with justice, tenderness and wisdom. He will save Israel and have a wonderful new name which will indicate his personality and mission.

We humans reveal our truer selves in more ways than our words. God’s personality or interior is what we call, “revelation”. We watch more than listen to the actions which reveal Jesus who is the fullness of revelation. Today’s Gospel reading is a study of the personality of God.

We, as readers and listeners of this story have an opportunity to experience some revelation of ourselves. The apostles have told Jesus all they had done so he gathers them together and goes across the lake for a day of rest. Crowds of people find out where they are headed and so they get to the shore before the vacationers arrive. How would you feel? The apostles will reveal their spirit very quickly. Jesus reveals his inner self even more so. He is "open to" or welcoming to them.

Our text uses the word “pity” which has the usual meaning of feeling sorry for or condescending care. The Greek word here means that Jesus was moved deeply, literally to his guts. This is quite dramatic, but a beautiful revelation of his truer self. The beach is no longer a deserted place, but now abounding with tender care. He will feed them in next Sunday’s Gospel, but first his words of tender instruction. They come as lost, but not dumb sheep who search for true nourishment. Food for the spirit first, then there will be food for the journey of life. It is a wonderful image of the Eucharistic liturgy.
There are many instruments and questionnaires arranged so that we might discover little fragments of what we call our personalities. We think we can understand more easily others when we learn their number, animal, letters, or anything else which can assist in solving their mysteries. Does God have a personality? Does Jesus? Did he fill anything out which reveals to us a person to whom we can relate sincerely? We have his profile and that of the infinite God within scripture, especially our Gospels.

Through the words of Jeremiah, God reveals that God will lead the beloved people as a new kind of shepherd. That is a strong revelation of God’s personality. Jesus, who in John’s gospel says that to see him, is to have a vivid picture of the God who sent him, displays his interior in every action and story he did and told. Every story, miracle, gesture of Jesus reveals both his person and personality as well as the God whom he calls “Father”. He opens his heart and personality to the crowd and wants to give them what is good for them. The apostles are always learning new facets of their friend and take it inside themselves very slowly, because getting closer to Him invites them to become closer to themselves. As we know, this can be uncomfortable.

Most of the changes to our own personalities have been rearranged and strengthened by one or more significant relationships. We are ourselves of course, but influenced highly by the life patterns of these others.

As women and men of the liturgy, we put ourselves as close to Jesus as is possible and we hope that something rubs off. It starts in Baptism and becomes more and more a part of who we are. We live and how we live in Jesus is revealed in our smallest actions and most public gestures. As each of us is known mainly by our actions, so Jesus is known through those same gestures. Each of us is ordained to reveal him according to our unique ways, our personality. No questionnaire, inventory, or test is necessary. What of God and Jesus does each of us reveal? What a great way to live!

“The Lord keeps in our minds the wonderful things he has done. He is compassion and love. He always provides for his faithful.” Ps. 111

Sunday Reading Reflections:

July 12th, 2009
by Larry Gillick, S.J.
Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality

PREPRAYING:

The late John Paul II spoke extensively about the “New Evangelism”. We are to spend some time in the pew, praying and receiving intimate encouragement to spend more time in the p-u of this world’s process of recovery. Jesus was sent to be the “sender”, but first there had to be the encounter with him before there would be the encounter with his people.

We pray these days to be the church of Jesus’ mobility. We attend the liturgy so as to be moved to attend the needy, lonely, scared, and marginal. We pray for the freedom from depending overly on security systems of various kinds. We pray for the freedom from and the freedom for reaching out, touching, accompanying, and in that way, preaching the Good News of the care of God. We can pray for the grace to extend Christ’s peace as we walk through our days in his ways.

REFLECTION:

We hear in the First Reading of the adventures of a shepherd and tree trimmer turned prophet. Amos has had some troubling visions, troublesome for the unjust and oppressive King Jeroboam who had conquered Israel. In previous chapters, Amos had given warnings against the rich and self-secure of Israel.

The early portion of the chapter from which our reading is taken, Amos presents three visions of what is going to happen. The first is of a swarm of locusts eating up even the King’s Portion of the early grains. Amos pleads that this not happen and so it did not. The second is a drought which will ravage all the crops and herds. Again Amos pleads and the Lord relents.

The third vision is of a man with a plumb line. The device is used to determine how out of line a wall might be. Israel is the wall and it is leaning badly almost ready to fall. The Lord tells Amos that he will destroy all that Israel treasures and in which they have taken their security. Amos does not intervene. Amaziah, a temple confidante of Jeroboam, sends word that Amos must be silenced, because he is predicting exile from Israel and death for Jeroboam himself.

What we hear in our reading is Amaziah’s dismissal of Amos from the king’s temple and his telling Amos to go back where he came from and stick to his own business.
Amos makes a very simple reply explaining his being called by God.

The Gospel is Mark’s account of Jesus’ sending his disciples out to test their wings as missionaries. The word “mission” comes from the Latin word for “send”, and so he sends them to do something good and with instructions about how they shall go. They are to test more than their own wings, but also test God’s care and fidelity to them as they go. They are to take nothing upon which they can rely, but only their trust in Jesus’ word. They were to take no food, nor money. They cured many, drove out demons and preached God’s call to believe. Apparently they did all right; it doesn’t say they went hungry or were bereft.

Jesus did tell them to expect rejection or at least not to be accepted just because he sent them to do some good things for people. He told them to expect it and when it comes, they should just keep on walking and talking.

Last week we heard that Jesus had returned to his own hometown and he himself was rejected and so had to move on. This week we hear that the early church was given the same message we receive from Jesus. When we are doing the works of healing this world and all the areas of hurt and division, do not expect an open-arm welcome and acceptance. Amos tried announcing God’s word and he got kicked out. Jesus gets people angry by teaching and curing. Modern-day martyrs speak the Good News and offer graceful assistance and have gotten early entrances into eternal life for their efforts.

No matter what your political view might be of the United States” being in Iraq and the Middle East, while the military persons are trying to reestablish normalcy and extend health care and peace, every day they are receiving resistance and killings. Going about doing good things is not always popular, respected, nor received.

I remember sitting in Fr. Padberg’s sophomore Latin class and listening to the intensity with which he loved Caesar’s Gallic Wars and Gillick’s war with Caesar forced me to resist Father’s goodness. He wanted to give, but I and most of the other squirming fellows around me were thinking about weekend football games and other more delightful activities. He just kept right on the march towards the Germanii and Belgi and eventually he won, but not without his own wars with us.

We as Church and as individual missionaries leave the liturgy, leave our prayer, leave our comfortings and live the Good News and that is our success. We try and keep on keeping on whether or not we see our victories. We continue to reach out, comfort, challenge and touch the needs of others and just sometimes, our offerings will be rejected and our extended hands slapped away. Our fidelity is the revelation of God. The early disciples had to trust his word; we later disciples are doing the same. Have your helping-hands been slapped away lately?

“The sparrow even finds a home, the swallow finds a nest wherein to place her young, near to your altar, Lord of host, my King, my God.” Ps. 84

Sunday Reading Reflections:

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 5th, 2009
by Larry Gillick, S.J.
Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality


PREPRAYING:

When we entered the grace-life through Baptism, we were anointed also into Christ’s manner of living as a prophet. This means more than being able to predict the future of course; it means living as humans were meant to live. There is a certain non-conformity to the way Jesus lived as prophet and while extending the divine love towards humanity, he did not expect, demand or manipulate popular acceptance.

We are praying these days for the grace of fidelity to our baptismal vocation of being an insult to the spirits, manners and dependencies of this-world’s ways. We can pray for an independence from such tendencies as can prevent us from loving and relating with the marginal, needing to be identified by our family’s history, or doing only those actions which create a popular image. We are prophets when our life style reflects an alternative to the easy conformities of our cultures. Ezekiel had to stand up; Jesus and the disciples had to stand up for who they were. We can pray to stand up and stand by who God says we are and how we will find peace by how we live. We pray these days for such graces so we can amaze those who think they know us.

REFLECTION:

This weekend in the United States we are celebrating the successful rebellion against King George and the English domination of our country’s beginning. There were rebels who desired to live free from what they experienced as tyranny. Independence and freedom are so precious to the human heart and yet we live constantly under the tyranny of what can appear as freedom.
Ezekiel, in our First Reading, gets a “stand-up call”. He receives the word in the form of a scroll which he is commanded to literally eat. He is to prepare to go to the people of Israel who are hard of face and heart. They are in a constant state of rebellion against a God whom they experience as a tyrant. He is told to go at least there so they know that God is still sending them invitations through a prophet’s presence.

We will be seeing Mark’s Jesus for a few more weeks beginning with this picture of Jesus’ returning to his hometown. The crowd who has been listening to him and watching his miracles can only accept him through his family roots by which they think they know him. He is the carpenter’s boy and the son of Mary down the road. They are confined by what they know and so move to reject him as anything new or different. Jesus remarks that a prophet or special person is not accepted at home where people think they have him or her in a convenient envelope.

I have a friend who while in high school was kicked out of his neighborhood drug store and told never to return again, for causing the owner some grief more than a few times. Twelve years later, while visiting home after his ordination, his mother sent him to the same store. When he walked in the owner looked up and said, “I told you out!” This is a true story and is not a unique one either. Jesus is someone new and different; he has been ordained to be so, but others mistrust and reject his differentness.

Many of the great saints from Peter and Paul to modern-day, holy people have had to live with their pasts in the presence of those who knew them when. More than that, each of us has to live with our pasts which might be known only to ourselves. We can be tempted to reject, resist and deny the newness, the graceful growth of the healing Jesus within us. We have many experiences of our being rebels ourselves; demanding, fighting for our independence. The great freedom for us as humans is to recognize God as, not tyrant, but creator and sustainer. God continues sending us prophets and prophetic moments and events to announce our rebellion and the way to live less troubled lives which result in giving lots of others, grief more than a few times.

Growing, changing, becoming new again are all very frightening, but Ezekiel had to eat the scroll and we too eat God’s word and share his life’s grace in the Eucharist. Jesus did not argue or defend, or reject his neighbors; he continued being who he was and doing who he was as prophet. The questionings of others did not move him to question himself, but remain a question mark in the minds of those who thought they knew the answers. We who follow Jesus are moved to live not as commas, but always as exclamation and question marks ourselves. Jesus left his watchers and listeners scratching their heads by what he taught and what and how he did. We may have scratched our heads many times at these ways. Slowly, we grow in his style of expanding the envelopes into which we have, or others have, put us. We are meant to rebel against the tyrannies of unfreeing expectations and grow into the free state of allowing God to be our loving Lord.

I’d like to think my relationship with Jesus frees me to be a puzzlement, a head-scratcher, and of whom, “they shall know that a prophet has been among them."

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Ps. 34