Daily word, 25 Oct 17

Twenty-ninth Wednesday of the Year (25 Oct 2017)
Rm 6. 12-18; Ps 124; Lk 12. 39-48

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. during the Spiritual Exercises

Freedom Transformed

The mystery of sin wormed itself into the world by deception: the tempter deceived the first humans. In the fullness of time¹ Truth itself visited St. Paul; risen Jesus revealed to him God responded to sin’s deception by raising the Son of God from the dead. He concluded the heart of his Letter to the Romans that: Jesus’ rising undid sin’s deception unto death; and that we have been given this power to new life: just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all.² A purely gracious gift with awesome effect—freedom!

Before risen Jesus visited St. Paul people had steeped themselves in this real gift of grace through baptism. It really participates in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is effective, accomplishing what it symbolizes. The life-project of each of us is to translate our baptism into behavior for the way we live. For St. Paul this life-project was Christian obedience: attentiveness to the pattern of risen Jesus and shaping our living after his pattern of living.

Jesus’ pattern of living among us was as one who freely served. Jesus modelled it; his parable expressed it in a way that was shocking (though maybe not to our ears): the owner of a house would do for his slaves what slaves did for their master. That was an unimaginable use of human freedom. During his ministry Jesus transformed human freedom; by grace his risen life transforms our freedom: we are empowered to live like him: [to] present []ourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and []our bodies to God as [instruments] for God’s justice.

God’s gracious gift—grace—empowers us to pattern our living on the pattern of Messiah Jesus. To pattern our living on Jesus’ pattern of living reorients human choosing. This was freedom for St. Paul: not our notion of individual preference; it was serving what ennobles humans, helping us become as God created us.

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1. Galatians 4.4; Ephesians 1.10.
2. Chapter 5.19, the last verse of yesterday’s reading.

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Wiki-image Hospitality of Abraham PD-US

Daily word, 21 Oct 17

Twenty-eighth Saturday of the Year (21 Oct 2017)

Rm 4. 13, 16-18; Ps 105; Lk 12. 8-12

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. during the Spiritual Exercises

Open More

At mass we read snippets of scripture of varying lengths. Reading snippets allows us to appreciate better the truth words convey. Reading snippets risks losing connection with the setting or mood that colors them. Two moods pulse at this point in Prophet Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem: hostile and charged. Hostile because Prophet Jesus had accused the scribes and Pharisees of murderous malice against earlier prophets who had voiced God’s wisdom; when they parted the religious elite held a grudge against Jesus, nursed it and plotted against him.¹

How different the crowd! The crowd that followed Jesus and hung on his words grew larger—so large people stepped on one another.² Surely the mood was tense: charged with worry about personal safety as well as an electric anticipation. Jesus addressed the moment: he taught disciples not to fear. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear.³

A consolation rests in that: anxiety and following Jesus co-exist in us, too. We may not think of it. Retreat may allow us to be more aware of anxiety then feel confused—even frightened—because we came on retreat to be with Jesus. If we’re anxious, Jesus accepts us that way and desires to help us. Jesus does not eliminate life’s anxiety and fear but helps us not be controlled by them.

Fear leads us to betray our values, our principles—ourselves. Fear undoes our freedom to act, to choose. Fear not only involves natural forces we can touch; it also involves spiritual forces: fear of death is perhaps our greatest. A modern Catholic reflection described us in the face of [the mystery] death. …Not only [are we] tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of [our bodies], but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. This most real fear is a spiritual force, not one we grip with our hands; and the ever-advancing marvels of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm [our] anxiety.⁴

Friends of Jesus appreciate this spiritual force. Our trust in Jesus and moving closer to him—our faith—calms our anxiety and offers us hope to share divine life endlessly.⁵ He works that in us by his Holy Spirit. Anyone can reject his gift. The scribes and Pharisees did that—slandering the Holy Spirit is how Jesus put it. Though they had rejected Prophet Jesus, conversion and repentance—even to the apostles’ word after Jesus rose from the dead—would have won them forgiveness as it has for us. But their conscious, willful rejection of the Holy Spirit closed them to Jesus’ Gift of gifts.

What can we do? Continue asking Jesus for help to open more to all his gifts; esp. his gift that allows us to be like Jesus—and Abraham before him—and place our trust in unseen power beyond what any human power can offer us.

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1. Luke 11.53-54.
2. Luke 12.1.
3. Luke 12.4-5.
4. Vatican Council II, Church in the Modern World, 18.
5. Ibid. Also Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation.

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Wiki image by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing of Grumbling Pharisees CC BY-SA 3.0

Daily word, 10 Oct 17

Twenty-seventh Tuesday of the Year (10 Oct 2017)

Jon 3. 1-10; Ps 130; Lk 10. 38-42

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. during the Spiritual Exercises
Reorienting

Martha and Mary are misunderstood. Let’s recall what we know. We know they were sisters. We know they welcomed Jesus into the safety and comfort of their home. Travellers depended on hospitality of others, especially in hostile territory; the Roman road system was good, but bandits commandeered some stretches. People in some districts did not welcome everyone: aiming to take the direct way to Jerusalem Jesus tried to pass through Samaria; Samaritans did not welcome him because they did not welcome Jews. Martha and Mary’s hospitality feels more tender because the episode recalling it follows immediately after the Good Samaritan parable.

We also know hospitality in the Mediterranean world has two very important rules: first, to pay attention to the guest; and second, not to demand guests intervene in their hosts’ affairs.

Martha and Mary both received Jesus, the Prophet-Messiah. When the guest is a prophet, one’s attention is both to the person of the prophet and more to the word of God the prophet announces.

We know from Martha herself serving this time overwhelmed her. Overwhelmed yet also blessed for welcoming Jesus. Overwhelmed she tried to impress him with more than her welcome and attention. In that moment Martha violated hospitality’s second important rule: she demanded her guest settle the rivalry that emerged between her and her sister: between serving Jesus and listening to him offer God’s word.

What do we know about us? No choosing between Martha and Mary can exist for us. Why? Because each of us is both Martha and Mary. We extend our welcome to Jesus as both sisters did. In better moments we focus on the word of life Jesus revealed by his person. In more frenzied moments we perform for Jesus with more flourish than Jesus expects or desires. For us frenzy has an air of normalcy about it—experiences on my first repose day awakened me to that. We know in our bones Frenzy is in fact hostile territory: it distracts us from our true selves; it distracts us from Jesus creating, redeeming and inviting us; it confounds and distorts our relationship. Ignatius helps us reorient ourselves simply and deeply: how have I been with Christ? how am I with Christ? how can I be with Christ and want what my Creator and Redeemer wants for me? The colloquy¹ not only sharpens self-awareness; it allows us to experience Christ Jesus’ life-sustaining hospitality, then model our hospitality on his.

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1. Spiritual Exercises [53], my paraphrase.

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Wiki-image Kitchen Piece PD-US

Daily word, 06 Oct 17

Twenty-sixth Friday of the Year (06 Oct 2017)

Bar 1. 15-22; Ps 79; Lk 10. 13-16

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. on Disposition Days Retreat

We of Prayer

Prophets called people to return to God and God’s ways when people had wandered from God and God’s ways. To wander from God was not new. The cycle of wandering and return existed at Israel’s beginning: breaking relationship with God; consequences; repentance; return to the relationship. Scripture preserves moments of this cycle. Prophet Baruch assisted Prophet Jeremiah during the time leading to the exile of the population of Judah to Babylon. Baruch’s correspondence sought to offer clarity to the exiles in their anguish. Baruch also sought to comfort and encourage the exiled people.

We heard Baruch give voice to the repentance moment: we today are flushed with shame, we people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem…we, with our kings and rulers and priests and prophets, and with our ancestors, have sinned in the Lord’s sight and disobeyed the Lord. We have neither heeded the voice of the Lord, our God, nor followed the precepts which the Lord set before us.

The responsibility for wandering from God is plural: we, our, us: we are flushed with remorse; we with our rulers, priests…prophets, and…our ancestors; we have…not followed what the Lord gave us. We, our, us glowed on the page as I read. I pondered why I noticed their gleam: perhaps North American individualism affects me more than I care to admit. Many peoples—Israel in scripture is one—identify themselves as we before they identify themselves as I. Conscious of I before we may well be why many North Americans grasp at much and care less about others God creates—humans and the earth itself.

Even individuals among we-thinking peoples are tempted to prefer and think I, me, mine. Individuals can group with that mind. Jesus lamented that entire cities rejected God’s desire; their citizens refused to want what God wanted: abundant life¹ for all.

Does my observation hold any value for us making individually directed silent retreats? I think a signal value exists: approach your prayer, imagine it as we—God and I. Bill reminded us that prayer is mutual; Yvonne encouraged us to let God show us ourselves and tell us who we are. Ignatius encouraged that we chat with those who enter our prayer: Jesus; his Abba; his mother; his Spirit; other sainted people—of the church and in our lives. Praying as we helps us notice that God has been and is nearer to us than our breathing.² Praying as we lets us return to our triune God and abide together more closely.

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1. Jn. 10.10.
2. Acts 17.25.

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Wiki-image Prophet Baruch PD-US

Daily word, 04 Oct 17

St. Francis of Assisi, Memorial (04 Oct 2017)
Neh 2. 1-8; Ps 137; Lk 9. 57-62

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J. on Disposition Days Retreat
Rebuild and Repair

To reform, we know, means to reshape, to change for the better, to improve and to adjust. It is both personal and what people do for organizations. At times people welcome reform; sometimes others resist it. Welcoming and resisting reform usually happen together. Often reform is unclear. That was true for St. Francis of Assisi.

His wealthy merchant father wanted Francis to be in his business; once the life of every party, Francis’ desire changed. Things hard to name pulled at Francis. We know our reasons to be here are not ones we would voice casually or to everyone. Spiritual movements within don’t lend themselves to casual conversation. Francis divested himself of his easy life and his wealthy future because that life no longer attracted. What he would do was not clear to him.

In a rundown chapel one day Francis experienced some direction. He could only describe a voice urged him: ‘Repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.’ Francis took it literally and for a while rebuilt chapels. One day he heard the gospel recalling Jesus sent his disciples to proclaim God’s reign simply and without cost. Francis realized it was not buildings that needed repair and reform but human hearts and minds and attitudes—just as Jesus urged! Francis found his reforming direction and ministry; he summarized it briefly: “be simple, humble and pure.”1 People saw Francis live those and were astonished; they attracted many to him. They desired God to heal and refashion their hearts.

Ignatius of Loyola was fond of Francis. Reading about Francis moved him to dispose his entire being to God. His disposition included various ways to keep being disposed toward Jesus and his gospel. Ignatius discovered ways to pray and habits of prayer that he offered others. Those ways and habits of Ignatius refashion and reshape us if we give ourselves to them. We may appear no different when we return home; the ways we see the world and our roles in it will be renewed. What we see and do may even astonish us.

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1. In a letter he wrote to all the faithful.

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Wiki-image  St. Francis PD-Release

Sunday word, 01 Oct 17

Twenty-sixth Sunday of the Year A (01 Oct 2017)

Ezk 18. 25-28; Ps 25; Phil 2. 1-11; Mt 21. 28-32

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Transforming Our Hearts

Acceptance and rejection; transfer of God’s reign to others; and for those receiving the gift of God’s reign a daily effort to live by Jesus’ ways and words: Sunday gospels present those as liturgical years wind down. Matthew’s gospel has been our Sunday focus. Five themes from it: forgiveness; first and last are reversed in God’s heart; two ways of two sons sound the transfer of God’s reign; those who think they deserve it violently cling to it; those who receive it—you and me—live it or lose it. Those five themes belong to two Sundays ago, today and two Sundays ahead of us.

The parable of two sons sounds the transfer of God’s reign. One said he would do—live—as his father said; he did not. The other defied his father; he later changed his mind and did—lived—as he said. The moral Jesus made clear: public sinners changed their minds and hearts and entered the kingdom of God before the religious professionals to whom Jesus spoke his parable.

Parables provoke; they don’t explain. The shock value of this one lay in the low esteem observant people held public sinners: prostitutes as well as those who collected tribute to enrich the Roman oppressors. I can hear Jesus’ first hearers seize the voice of the prophet: Not fair! In our honest moments we silently echo the same when someone is taken ahead of us; or when someone not as deserving to get a break as us gets one. Yet are not we parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents quick to tell our young ones that life is not fair? We are correct: life is not fair; yet we do our best.

The life of faith turns not on fairness but on a gift. That gift indeed is a marvellous exchange—begun by Jesus and freely given each of us. That marvellous exchange was sung by early Christians—perhaps before St. Paul ceased persecuting Christ Jesus in his church and became his great apostle. He may have heard it often: a person with no sympathy for Christians observed they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.¹ Whenever Paul heard it, it stayed with him. He used its words in a letter to sketch Christian living: serving is the heart of community.

Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves: that is the core of Paul’s principle of Christian living; he offered Jesus as the first of five examples of it. Jesus did not cling to his divinity as his advantage;  he emptied himself for the sake of everyone. He model-led humility: strong and clearly knowing his purpose, I lay down my life to take it up again.² Dispossessed of life by his cruel death, Jesus rose to possess all things as our living Messiah.

The impact of that on early Christians was powerful: Jesus’ emptied himself and rose to possess life in God. It is the strong current of the running river we name our Christian tradition: our living tradition because Jesus lives. Parish life helps us enter Jesus’ flow of living: Christian fellowship nourished by worship actively witnesseses to Jesus. Joining Jesus’ way of living lets faithful people do their best in an unfair world.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week

• Rest in our triune God.
• Ask St. Paul to present you to Jesus.
• Chat with Jesus: praise him for dying and rising for us; thank Jesus for sharing his life and identity as one of us.
• Ask Jesus to increase our courage to stay close to him and to let us be shaped more by his humble compassion.
• Close saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. Speaking his words reassures us we are intimately related to him; like him we rely on his Father and ours to shape us more like our brother, Messiah Jesus.

Link to this homily’s Spiritual Exercise

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1. Pliny, Letters 10.96-97.
2. John 10.17.

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Wiki-image by Andrey Mironov 777 Parable of the Two Sons CC BY-SA 4.0; by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing Conflict in the Temple CC BY-SA 3.0