Storytelling Made Easier

The name Patton ordinarily brings to mind the thick of battles not to mention the larger-than-life figure history remembers. Today the name is involved with battles after war that haunt too many—those of post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD]. The clinical diagnosis is not limited to veterans, yet the number of those who suffer it is high. Enter Benjamin Patton, a grandson of General George Patton. Benjamin launched film-making workshops that allow members of the military to tell their stories. CSM contributor Bobbi Dumas reported, “Participants report a significant drop in PTSD symptoms after completing the workshop,” I Was There.

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Wiki-image by KMJ at the German language Wikipedia of Apple iSight Camera CC BY-SA 3.0

“Her Very Existence”

Pope Francis closed the Year of Mercy on Sunday. Living mercy is Christians’ daily goal. Mercy is the “very existence” of the church and its members. Media reports have shone a brighter light on one aspect of extending mercy—to people who have procured abortions. The pope’s Apostolic Letter considered more than that. The AP correspondent, Frances D’Emilio, reported on more than that one news-making topic. Yet few articles link to the source, Francis’ Apostolic Letter.

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Wiki-image by Dnalor 01 of Holy Door CC BY-SA 3.0

Sunday word, 13 Nov 16

33rd Sunday of the Year C (13 Nov 2016)

Mal 3. 19-20a; Ps 98; 2Th 3. 7-12; Lk 21. 5-19

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Prophets of Faithful Love

Edging to its close the liturgical year reminds us: more awaits us beyond our lives on earth. In our tradition this more follows judgment. Prophet Malachi imaged it as a blazing oven for the ungodly, and a sun of justice for god-fearers and the people of the covenant alike.

You and I are not well disposed to judgment. The reasons are many. Among them we young and old alike readily accommodate ourselves to our feel-good culture more than to the prophetic tradition. We prefer comfort over challenge. Prophets responded to concrete situations of drifting from covenant with God. Prophet Jesus announced God’s desire is available to people to live in deed and word. Prophetic voices and prophetic actions strongly challenge us to make God’s desire come alive.

Jesus aligned himself with the tradition of the prophets. He revealed it in his person. He spoke its judgment. Neither stopped people from seeking him or coming to him to beg his mercy and kindness. They intuited that his were the divine mercy and loving kindness creating the world. Divine love creates every moment; one can easily forget that. When we forget creation becomes a past event, and our motivation to live grows self-centered—often without our knowing it.

Jesus attitude was not self-centered. He was loving toward all. He continually invites us to share his attitude. St. Paul responded to the invitation of risen Jesus and encouraged: Have the same attitude as Christ Jesus.¹ A saying of St. John of the Cross encourages us to have it; it also makes judgment a bright goal inviting conversion: “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.”² 

Many messages bombard us and blind us to our goal: love less; love ourselves more; love is weak and timid; even, be afraid to love. Fortunately Pope Francis champions merciful love. He is a prophet of love-in-action. We may let ourselves be distracted from his strong message. Like those who stood with Jesus in the temple, we may be distracted by the noble beauty of our surroundings than attentive to the suffering beyond walls of church and borders of city, province and nation. Distracted from what really goes on makes us dupes of deception. True to his prophetic vocation Jesus warns us as he warned those with him in the temple, See that you not be deceived.

How are we to remain faithful? Keeping ourselves in the orbit of Jesus—asking to share his attitude, his heart—helps us keep faith. Noticing if a message, an activity, a possession, a choice offers a short-lived high and no enduring contentment, peace of mind and stability of soul also helps us keep faith. Exposing double messages to ourselves shapes us more like Jesus.

Perhaps the most vicious deceit of all is this: expose deceits to others and I will undermine culture and its progress. To expose them does not trash culture’s noble contributions; to expose deceits does not slight any created thing given us to help us love God and others more freely. To expose culture’s double messages to ourselves and others is in sync with the prophetic tradition, from Moses to Malachi to Jesus, the apostles and the saints. It reminds us Jesus is our Creator and Redeemer; the source of all we are, all we have, all we have done and will do to glorify Jesus and his gospel with our lives.

Singleness of truth rests in keeping close to Jesus and embracing him, our Creator and Redeemer. His truth frees us lovingly to promote him and his gospel by our choices and actions.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week

• Rest in our triune God’s creating love
• Ask Mary and the saints to present you to Jesus.
• Chat with Jesus: thank him for creating you each moment; praise him for all the ways he offers himself to you—in the sacraments, in his word, in love received and given, even under the guise of suffering stranger and friend.
• Ask Jesus for the grace to share his attitude and energetically to practice it by your choices and actions.
• Close saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus’ words, on earth as it is in heaven, on our lips are not just about his Father’s limitless power and presence. On earth as it is in heaven is our plea for hearts more like Jesus’ heart so we may live our baptized priesthood for all, especially the least among us.

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1. Philippians 2.5.
2. Quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1022.

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Wiki-images Disciples Admire the Temple Building PD-US Morning Beams PDP

General Congregation 36 Closes

The delegates voted to close the General Congregation 36 of the Society of Jesus today. An announcement on its website includes links to remarks of Jesuit Fr. Sosa, the General Superior, and more.

Daily word, 11 Nov 16

St. Martin of Tours (11 Nov 2016) 2Jn 1. 4-9; Ps 119; Lk 17. 26-37

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. during 40-day Institute, Guelph, Ontario

Both Meanings

The Letters of John were addressed to a church called the elect lady.¹ The Second and Third Letters of John are so brief that alone they easily could have been lost. They survived because they were sent together with the lengthier, more substantial First Letter. One was a cover letter for it; the other recommended the bearer of the packet to the leader of the church of the elect lady. Conflict lacerated the community. The letters let us appreciate what it believed. Some had gone out² of it because of the belief that acknowledge[d] Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. The letters give us no information about what those who went out believed.

Not knowing what those who went out believed: rather than being a loss not knowing is a gain, a liberty. My conviction may be a heresy to my North American culture—it idolizes knowledge. It may be so for yours. I see it as a liberty in the light of our prayerful reflection today: discernment of spirits under the guidance of St. Ignatius of Loyola and a phrase at the close of the selection from Second John: teaching of Christ.

My eyes were opened to notice the phrase includes more than a first-take suggested. It includes teaching about Christ and from Christ. The first is the true understanding of Christ that allows one to have both the Father and the Son. From Christ suggests the principal commandment from him in which they were walking: to love one another.³ The Spiritual Exercises involve both meanings.

An experience of the Exercises deepens understanding: felt-knowledge, in the phrase of Ignatius. The experience allows one to receive the coming of Jesus in the flesh: that is, one embodies by grace the Incarnate risen Jesus and walks in his love. The same experience is a graced receiving of divine fullness—both the Father and the Son in the Spirit—in each one’s limited way.

Ignatian discernment allows us to recognize and accept our limitations—one reason we are susceptible to desolation; and to look forward in hope to be truly enlightened and recreated by the divine fullness. Ignatius named the divine fullness fondly and reverently: Creator and Redeemer.

The enemy of human nature desires we walk life lonely, seeking our interests first as if that search could satisfy. The enemy uses our vulnerabilities and strengths against us, even deceiving us under the guise of good. Walking in love; behaving lovingly; feeling with love: turn us from the enemy and toward our Creator and Redeemer, risen Jesus.

Our constant turning toward love, hastening to it and embracing it is our constant conversion—Jesus’ appeal in the gospel. Living love protects us so neither pleasures nor relationships nor possessions limit us from being those whom our triune God creates every moment. Living love frees us to follow Jesus each of us has met these days.

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1. 2John 1.1.
2. In addition to verse 7, also see 1John 2.19; 4.1.
3. In addition to verse 5, also see 1John 3.11, 23; 4.7, 11.

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Wiki-images: Papyrus of 2John PD-US; Statue of Ignatius of Loyola PD-Release

Remembering

Today is Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in Canada and Commonwealth of Nations member states. Both evolved from Armistice Day, the date when hostilities of the First World War ended.

Remembrance Day recalls all women and men who have lost their lives in service to their countries. Veterans Day recalls living and deceased veterans. The U.S. also remembers its veterans in the spring with Memorial Day. More on the history of today.

On this date the Catholic church recalls St. Martin of Tours. Martin  was an early saint who was not a martyr. He was the son of a veteran and served as a soldier himself. He withdrew from the army to serve Christ Jesus. He became a monk and then a bishop. The poor were always dear to his heart. He is patron of soldiers.
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Horned-poppy by Alberto Salguero CC BY-SA 3.0

Daily word, 04 Nov 16

St. Charles Borromeo (04 Nov 2016) Phil 3. 17-4. 1; Ps 122; Lk 16. 1-8

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. during 40-day Institute, Guelph, Ontario

Farsighted

“If we wish to make any progress in the service of God we must begin every day of our life with new eagerness. We must keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible and have no other view or end in all our actions but the divine honor.”¹ Those words of St. Charles Borromeo grace books and blogs. We likely note they echo the urging we have been receiving from Ignatius of Loyola.

In another time and place that echo had caused an Ignatian pray-er to feel let down. Learning to prepare prayer so it “may be directed purely to the service and praise of God” was a revelation for one. Learning the preparation was not the sole property of St. Ignatius disappointed. To anyone here feeling that way: Take heart; St. Charles had a Jesuit confessor.

The point is neither copyright nor receiving privileged communication. The point is this: to live faith—to keep oneself in the presence of our triune God and act in ways that magnify and honor God—to live faith is deeply personal but is never private. Jesus recommended that more than once: leave your gift there before the altar and first go and be reconciled to [another] and then come and offer your gift; and Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the desire of my Father in heaven.² Not only did Jesus urge that faith is never private; Jesus taught a Christian’s final judgment hinges on the social not the devotional: what you do to the least ones you do to me.³

St. Paul taught likewise: Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters…let Jesus’ power conform [us] with his glorified Body to be his presence in the world.

St. Charles, with St. Ignatius and others, urge us,“keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible”; how to do that they let us determine. Charles determined this. He was born into privilege, wealth and power. Temptations surrounded him. To keep present to God, Charles presented his wealth to those in need; worked on their behalf; and engaged himself in music and art in free moments. Charles’ knowledge of himself freed him to choose ways to be in God’s presence in that Christian social way.

He knew as did Jesus that the use of material possessions symbolizes one’s response to God. To use possessions in ways that keep oneself in God’s friendship call for knowledge of self and surroundings. That is the lesson of Jesus’ parable. The squandering steward’s culture offered him hope as he was being removed from his position. His culture rested on balanced giving and receiving. Reducing amounts owed meant debtors would tip their hands in his favor in future. For that his master commended that dishonest steward—for his far-sightedness not his dishonesty. Jesus recommends we be far-sighted with possessions—not for gain nor dishonest wealth but to draw closer to him. 

Keeping ourselves in the presence of God is far-sighted: shaping our dispositions is not automatic; it takes preparation. Nor is honoring God ever private; our eager response to God includes our generous concern for others and our world. Solitude with God and sincere prayer ground and guide how we discern to choose and to act to magnify God’s name.

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1. At bostoncatholic.org. For his “approach to the spiritual life.”
2. Matthew 5.24; Matthew 7.21.
3. Matthew 25.31-46.

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Wiki-images: Charles Borromeo stained glass PD-US; by Andrey Mironov of Unjust steward CC BY-SA 4.0

One View on the Whisperings

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esuit Fr. Arturo Sosa, newly elected General Superior, responded to an interview after his election. The interview aimed “to give [him] an opportunity to present and share some insights of what he had in mind when he was just starting his new mission in the Society of Jesus at the universal level.” The interview opened with a question seeking to understand how he felt during the election process.

All Souls Day: Pray with Jesuits

The delegates at the General Congregation pray before each day’s work. With the worldwide church today they remember the dead. The link to their full prayer service is available after today’s reflection.

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Wiki-image by photos8.com of candle flames in wind CC BY 2.0

Eager To “Go, Walk Together!”

The phrase quoted above closed an interview Pope Francis had before his trip to Lund and Malmlö, Sweden, yesterday and today. Jesuit Frs. Ulf Jonsson, director of Signum, and Antonio Spadaro, editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, enjoyed a warm conversation with Francis “On the Occasion of His Apostolic Trip in Sweden.” La Civiltà Cattolica has provided this English working translation.

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Wiki-image by Sven Rosborn of textile art CC BY-SA 3.0