Wednesday word, 28 Feb 2007

1 Lenten Wednesday (28 Feb 2007) Jon 3. 1-10; Ps 51; Lk 11. 29-32
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Our Contradiction


The mission of a prophet is to preach the word of God in the prophet’s particular circumstances. Jonah’s circumstance was to go to a people other than his own and call it to turn from its ways to the ways of Jonah’s God.

Jesus is ever more clearly God’s prophet in his commentary on Jonah’s mission. A generation, at once Jesus’ own and for whom the God of Abraham and Moses was no alien, had estranged itself from their very same God.

Their creeping neglect of God and God’s ways made that generation perverse. Foreigners--the Ninevites--responded to the preaching of Jonah. hoping to escape divine punishment. Jesus preached God’s word of the kingdom’s closeness, and people chose to remain unmoved by it.

A foreign woman--the Queen of the South, the Queen of Sheba--had come to hear Solomon’s wisdom. Jesus proclaimed something even more wise, the word of God, but many admired only the person of Jesus and praised his mother./1/

This scene reminds us of Simeon’s prophetic description of Jesus, when he was presented in the temple: this child is destined...to be a sign that will be disputed./2/ It bids us to take advantage of the grace of Lent, and in the company of Jesus, to consider how are lives contradict Jesus’ preaching; contradict God’s word, which Jesus preached; and even contradict the kingdom entering our world as we worship here and now.
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/1/ Verses 27-28 are part of this unit: ...a woman shouted from the crowd, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts that fed you.” But [Jesus] responded, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”

/2/ Luke 2.35

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Photo of Jonah preaching to the Ninevites is in the public domain.

Tuesday word, 27 Feb 2007

1 Lenten Tuesday (27 Feb 2007) Is 55. 10-11; Ps 34; Mt 6. 7-15
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Will Scriptures Convince You?

Sought, called out, cry, cry out: all from our responsorial, Psalm 34. None of those activities went unnoticed by the Lord. Psalm 34 sang that the Lord answered, delivered, saved, hears and rescues.

I reviewed the lectionary for Lent excluding Holy Week. In its first five weeks, minus two solemnities, which have their own readings (St. Joseph and the Annunciation), 28 daily readings are offered us. On 19 of those days at least one scripture mentions someone crying, Rescue or Save me. That’s 68%!

Indeed, all scripture is about our salvation. Yet, the direct appeal to God for rescue prevails more than we may think and especially are aware. Do we consciously and clearly and boldly cry out for God to rescue us? Or, do we feel we do not need God to rescue us, to save us, to hear us?

As Psalm 34 reminds us, our God has ears for our cry. I don’t consider that a fanciful expression but a vivid description of God and God’s heart. God’s heart always embraces us. Do we acknowledge that? If we did acknowledge that squarely, then I think we would cry out full-throated to God. Ask yourself if you more often feel, I don’t need God to rescue me now.

All of us have been with someone who needs to ask us for something, but the person has a difficult time getting to the point of it. I’ve done that. I imagine you have, too. As listeners we want to shake the person, “Just ask!” God's heart desires that we, "Just ask, just cry."

That direct asking characterized Jewish prayer. So when Jesus spoke to his disciples about the way to pray, Jesus recommended they first praise God, then ask for what they truly need. Could it be that we feel little need for God to rescue us? That could be one’s focus throughout Lent.

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Photo by Cynner_SF used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Monday word, 26 Feb 2007

1 Lenten Monday (26 Feb 2007) Lv 19. 1-2,11-18; Ps 19; Mt 25. 31-46
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Deciding For Mercy

Shortly before the middle of his gospel, Matthew reminded the community for which he wrote that Jesus made an earlier prophet’s words programmatic for his own ministry. Hosea had announced nearly 800 years earlier God’s desire: “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” Jesus both revealed and embodied God’s steadfast love.

God’s steadfast love, and our faithful replication of it in our lives, is mercy. God is mercy. In the 19th chapter of Leviticus, of which we heard a portion as our first reading, the Lord’s self-identification appears 15 times. I am the Lord concluded the brief commentaries on the commandments to live well for God and with others. If this were the only commentary we had on the commandments, it would be enough. Enough, that is, if we did not need Jesus to be a living and human commentary on them.

Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats, near the end of Matthew’s gospel, reminds us that mercy shown others as well as refused others is shown to the Lord or refused him. Our treatment of the Lord eludes us: both the righteous and the unrighteous in the parable ask the same question: Lord, when did we see you in need?

Jesus cast this parable at the end of time, at the final judgment of humans’ lives. It is the sole standard Matthew’s Jesus offers for salvation. However, his parable is immediate and instructive for us now. It not only reminds us of who God is--steadfast, loving kindness; Jesus’ parable reminds us that each day requires us to renew our decision for his kingdom.

Lent is our opportunity to chart a new course in how we choose mercy in our daily living.
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Photo by fotofill used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Fresh Invovlement. . .

. . .in a familiar gospel scene

Pray-as-you-go.org is a daily audio prayer-site. It's worth "bookmarking" the site for personal use anytime. Today's prayer invites praying-listeners into the scene, which is the gospel on the First Monday of Lent.

While each person will shape the prayer individually, everyone can appreciate in a more concrete way the "royal law" expressed in today's first reading. The Book of Leviticus is overlooked. If anyone were to read a part of it, that part ought to be Chapter 19. All the commands issued may not have a bearing on our present circumstances. All are given with the formula, I am the Lord. Holiness participates in divine life. Our least activities can participate in divine life, or they can refuse to participate in it.

Enter today's prayer to taste holy choices yourself.

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Photo by Leah Love is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Sunday word, 25 Feb 2007

Lenten Sunday1 C (25 Feb 2007) Dt 26:4-10; Ps 91; Rm 10. 8-13; Lk 4. 1-13
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Journey of the Heart Has Practical Goals

We have entered our great spiritual exercise of Lent with its double purpose: to recall our own Christian initiation of baptism, confirmation and eucharist; and to prepare others for their own Christian initiation. Each Lent the Pope and his Vatican staff enter Lent in a focused way by having someone guide them in retreat. In 1983 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, guided the papal retreat that Lent.

The present pope noted something important as we enter Lent: the liturgical readings during the Year of Luke “suggest the theme of being on a journey.”/1/ Throughout Luke’s gospel Jesus journeyed, forming a people as he went. Lent is our annual, focused journey in concert with Christians the world over. We seek to be formed ever more deeply as Jesus’ faithful people.

That means that our Lenten journey is not a geographical one. Our Lenten journey is one of the heart, that is, the core of who a person is. Remember last Thursday’s Plain Dealer’s front page? It carried this photograph of a person being marked with ashes on Wednesday. The photo was on the fold and the full width of the front page. From boyhood I remember other, even larger photos in newspapers the day after.

The publicity given to Lent every year suggests that deep within, in our hearts, at the core of being human, people long to journey in order to reach meaning, which is true, humane and even godly. Christian initiation--when we were baptized into Christ’s death and rising; sealed by his holy Spirit to become more like him; and nourished on his body and blood each day--sets us on our journey to meaning, which is true, humane and godly.

While human living is an expansive experience of every sort, the oppressive, the uncomfortable and cries for help are as real as liberation, comfort and security are. The fact is that oppression and crying for help are embedded in the history of salvation, of our relationship with God.

When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors, [who] heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression [and] brought us out of Egypt.

The cry of our ancestors in faith we make our own: Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble. As God heard the cry of the people God led out of Egypt, our faith assures us that God hears us and replies favorably, too. Do we cry out?

This is not to be escapist. Our faith is tied with the very real vagaries life hurls at us humans. Life’s violent turns trouble us in many ways, oppress us, even seduce us not to be human. The photo in last week’s Plain Dealer, the publicity Lent receives annually and the numbers of people who seek ashes traced on their foreheads convince me that something deep within beckons people to be more truly human, to connect with the divine.

Our Christian initiation grafts us onto Jesus. The temptations of Jesus remind us that temptation is human, and that we need to stand against temptation as Jesus did. His temptations also show us that, while our particulars differ from Jesus, the tempter also seduces us to assume inordinate power over creation to satisfy our appetites; over people to wrap ourselves in self-satisfaction and others’ praise; and even over God--as if that were possible!--God, who is our survival now. Those choices are precisely what Jesus rejected!

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week, come before the Trinity feeling your life depends upon the divine Persons. Acknowledge Jesus as human, who knew temptation very well. Tell Jesus in your voice how you experience temptation: the dizzying ways the tempter suggests power, glory and riches to you. Ask Jesus for courageous strength to dismiss the tempter from your presence, something we need to ask often. Pray for light to alert you more to the tempter's subtle ways. Close by slowly saying the Lord’s Prayer to keep you rooted in Jesus and to guide your Lenten journey to what is more true, humane and godly.
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/1/ Pope Benedict XVI, Journey to Easter: Spiritual Reflections for the Lenten Season. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, Reprint edition, 25 February 2006, p. 10.

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Photo by Elevated and Photo by M Domondon are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0

Bracing German Cadence at Jewish Meeting

Inquiring minds will satisfy themselves about this post's title when they reach the end of John L. Allen Jr.'s weekly column of mid-month. Efficient inquiring minds will scroll directly to Allen's postscript at the end of his column.

The column concerned itself with "Deep forces at work in Catholic-Jewish dialogue." It is worth a patient read to appreciate much about "Catholic identity" (itself a movement and helped me appreciate more a current trend in the church) as well as the current state of Catholic/Jewish relations.

Friday word, 23 Feb 2007

Friday after Ash Wednesday (23 Feb 2007) Is 58. 1-9a; Ps 51; Mt 9. 14-15
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
The Pillar Which Cleanses

Lent has three pillars: fasting; praying; and almsgiving. Both Isaiah and Jesus focus us on the first pillar of fasting. We might consider fasting as only a duty and think of its externals. We might even think fasting is an end itself.

From a medical point of view, people fast so that blood tests and even some visual exams may yield true results. Fasting is not the end; it serves to reach the goal of accurate, true results.

The goal of fasting, in Lent or anytime, is to enhance our ability to relate better with others.

This...fasting, Isaiah reminds us,
releas[es] those bound unjustly...
Set[s] free the oppressed,
break[s] every yoke;
Shar[es] our bread with the hungry,
shelter[s] the oppressed and the homeless,
Cloth[es] the naked when we see them,
and refuses to ignore others.

Our self-centeredness and our attachments distract us from doing these godly things. We exercise our hearts in order to sensitize ourselves to want and to choose to do these godly things. Fasting--from things or activities, as well as food--sensitizes our hearts and leads us to desire to do for others what God desires.

When we feel that we do not do them we are feeling distant from Jesus. The twinge fasting causes makes us more alert to Jesus; it helps us desire to reverse how we have distanced Jesus. Fasting assists us in our struggle with evil.

Evil is not something, and God does not create evil. No created things are evil in themselves.* We hear people speak otherwise: people are evil; that thing or that event is evil. Not so! Evil is in our attitude towards creation, that is, in our power to choose. Fasting cleanses our power to choose what is godly and to choose less often what is not. This is one reason why Lent is a “joyful season.”**

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* St. Augustine was one of our earliest authorities for this. “To thee [God] there is no such thing as evil, and even in thy whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which thou hast appointed for it. But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil. Yet those same things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good (Confessions, Book 7, ch. 13, section 19).

** from Lenten Preface I.
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LentLogo by anajemstaht, whose permission, "My Lent logo - you can use it if you give me credit. Source was jpg," is at the flickr link.

Thursday word, 22 Feb 2007

Chair of Peter, Feast (22 Feb 2007) 1Pt 5. 14; Ps 23; Mt 16. 1-6, 13-19
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Keys To Serve

Certain solemnities and feasts occur during Lent, and the mass of the day defers to those festivals. Today’s feast recalls that St. Peter was established as the teaching head of the church. Before Rome, Peter’s well-known center of active ministry was Antioch, the capital of the eastern Mediterranean region.

In early eras there and later, Christians observed their anniversaries of baptism, their birthdays into Christ and his church. Bishops similarly kept the anniversaries of their ordinations. Saint Leo the Great, pope in the mid-5th Century, recalled his elevation as pope in four homilies.

Saint Leo recommended that we celebrate the Chair of Saint Peter--his role as first teacher and head of the church, not a piece of furniture-- with as much joy as we recall his martyrdom. As Head of the church, Peter taught all Christians the path to martyrdom.

It is easy to forget Peter’s martyrdom or keep it on a par with his service to teach and support the apostles. The gospel recalls the authority Jesus vested in Peter. The image of the keys can help us appreciate it as the church intends.

If you give me the keys to your home and ask me to watch it while you are away, holding your keys doesn’t give me authority to redecorate your home. Nor does holding your keys give me power to sell your home. Entrusting me with your keys puts me at your service. Giving me your keys empowers me to serve you, specifically to watch your home.

Jesus gave Peter and gives to all bishops specific power: power to serve the unity of the church in their ministry of teaching. Receiving their teaching empowers us to serve, too, specifically to become clearer witnesses of Jesus’ gospel with our lives.
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Photo by mharrsch is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Ash Wednesday word, 21 Feb 2007

Ash Wednesday (21 Feb 2007) Jl 2. 12-18; Ps 51; 2Co 5. 20-6.2; Mt 6. 1-6, 16-18
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Penetrating Gaze

Something we can learn from our Jewish cousins in faith is that they are teachers without peer about pathways that are painful, harsh, cruel, without reason and seemingly endless.

Take one account of a Holocaust survior. When the Nazis separated the men and the women, Eliezer never again saw his mother or sister. We know this Eliezer as Elie Wiesel, whom I heard say that every other book he authored was a postscript to Night, his autobiography of his childhood in the Nazi death camps. All he and the others thought of was bread, not revenge--even when they ceased to feel hunger. That alone is remarkable and worth pondering.

Elie closed Night in a stunning way. He, like most residents of those unspeakable places, never could see himself. What was stunning was Elie’s first gaze into a mirror after his liberation. He saw a corpse gazing back at him. Elie closed his most important book with that moment: “The look in his eyes as they stared into mine has never left me.”

That’s a most penetrating gaze. Another is at once more penetrating and dear: God’s loving gaze. How often do we forget God’s loving gaze on us? who God sees and desires to see? How willingly do we behold the sight of our true selves? The temptation is either not to gaze long or not to gaze inwardly at all. It is more tolerable to see our bodies--even though many people would rather have other bodies. We find it sufficient to arrange our clothes than to rearrange our souls.

Lent, well practiced, is a mirror for us to behold our innermost. We all begin with the same view of ourselves marked with ashes. When I was little, and not so little, I’d run to a looking glass to see if my cruciform smudge was neater than others, bigger than others, darker than others and lasted longer than others. No different a glance than the one to make sure my buttons were even, my tie centered and my sweater square. I refused to see with God's vision, only with my too-inflated sense of my own sight.


Penitence, well practiced, exalts one’s inner sight, deepens one's respect for others; and strengthens one’s resolve to act. Penitence that is moderate and not scrupulous is well practiced. Penitential practices are important, especially amid our wanton consumerism. It’s no wonder ours is a throw-away society: we routinely exercise our imagination on the surface.

Go deeper this Lent: Ask yourself what you will see when you gaze at your sister or brother marked with ashes. Will you see dusty ashes, or will you see how the twists and turns of life pressure our bodily carbon into the diamond we call God’s image and likeness? Will you dread another 40 days of purple, or will you open yourself to feel God loving you into being? Will your deafness to or limited hearing of Jesus persist, or will you detect in each human voice and story the lenten cry, Glory and praise to you! Lord Jesus Christ? Will you disregard days lengthening, or will they foster in you the springtime of the church?

To return to the Lord with all your heart is to take action in two steps. First, behold how Jesus acted and immerse yourself in Jesus’ heart and hands, head and feet. Second, in Jesus' light, ask yourself the greater question: What will I do? “What would Jesus do?” That question can tempt us to inaction.

What will I do? We allow that question to be a wall more often than a link to Jesus. Lent, practiced well, is our opportunity to forge anew our link, our bond, our personal covenant with Jesus. Lent makes our darkness no night but gives way to the day the Lord has made and leads us closer.

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Night now forms part of Wiesel’s The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident. Libraries may still have Night as a separte volume.

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Ash cross by J.L.B. (enthusia) and Photo by bamakodaker both of whom allow their use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 License.

The Character Of Lent

Ash Wednesday is today. As mentioned on page 5 in Sunday's Gesu Catholic Church bulletin, The Constitution on the Liturgy, of the Second Vatican Council, offered these two concise paragraphs to describe Lent's "twofold character":

The Lenten season has a twofold character: 1) it recalls baptism or prepares for it; 2) it stresses a penitential spirit. By these means especially, Lent readies the faithful for celebrating the paschal mystery after a period of closer attention to the Word of God, and more ardent prayer. In the liturgy itself and in liturgy-centered instructions, these baptismal and penitential themes should be more pronounced. Hence:

• (a) Wider use is to be made of the baptismal features proper to the Lenten liturgy; some elements which belonged to a now-lapsed tradition may be opportunely restored.
• (b) The same approach holds for the penitential elements. As regards instruction, it is important to impress on the the minds of the faithful not only the social consequences of sin but also the fact that the real essence of the virtue of penance is hatred for sin as an offence against God; the role of the Church in penitential practices is not to be passed over, and the people must be exhorted to pray for sinners.

During Lent, penance should not be only internal and individual but also external and social. The practice of penance should be fostered according to the possibilities of the present day and of a given area, as well as of individual circumstances. Such practice should be encouraged by the authorities mentioned in Article 22 [namely: the Apostolic See, the national conferences of bishops, and as law may determine, the bishop of a diocese].

[Quotation in full of Articles 109-110; taken from The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., General Editor (N.Y.: America Press, 1966).]

Several already-baptized Candidates will enter into full communion with the Catholic Church at Gesu Parish. They, no less than we, can renew our conversion (= from non-baptized to baptized, which is sustained by Eucharist and Catholic living) in an ongoing way, one that is particular to each one's "individual circumstances" within 2007. God bless your Lent!
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Top photo (baptismal font in the church of St. Mary Major in Rome) is in the public domain.

Tuesday word, 20 Feb 2007

7th Tuesday of the Year (20 Feb 2007) Sir 2.1-11; Ps 37; Mk 9. 30-37
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Convenient Preview

While Mardi Gras is a time to enjoy, so is Lent. Our scriptures today help us prepare for Lent. While much of Sirach exhorts a noble boy to help him be a responsible, compassionate and just leader, its exhortation to wait for the Lord, the compassionate and merciful, is universal.

The Lord Jesus is the compassionate and merciful one. He upset the images and burst the boundaries of the messiah people expected. His death, about which he began to teach his disciples, was a both a murder and a salvific one. It was no matter for human understanding: perhaps we can take a cue from his first hearers, who were afraid to question him about it. Yet, they were not afraid to argue about greatness after hearing what greatness really meant.

Jesus placed a child in their midst make clear to them and to us how Jesus measured, and how we ought to measure, greatness.

Do we allow Jesus to place his arms around us? Do we draw near to Jesus? Above all, do we commit our lives to the Lord?

Jesus died and rose for us, yes. But Jesus does not force his saving power on anyone. To use the gospel imagery, you and I can argue with Jesus along the way of our lives, keeping him distant, and worse, refusing his compassionate, saving loving power.

Or, we can give ourselves more wholeheartedly to Jesus. Lenten practices help us do that better. You probably have given thought already to selecting your personal lenten practice for this year. If you have not, remember that lent is a joyful season/1/ to draw closer to Jesus, to commit our lives to the Lord with greater freshness and ardor, relying on the Lord to help us grow more compassionate.
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/1/ Lenten Preface I: “Father...Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with hearts and minds renewed.”

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Image of Mardi Gras Flag is copyrighted for free use.

Washington Weekly. . .

. . .is the name of the update by Catholic Charities U.S.A. On Saturday it announced, with greater detail than the White House statement, that President Bush signed into law a joint resolution to continue to fund "public programs."

President Signs Joint Resolution into Law, Funds Government Programs Through Fiscal Year 2007
On February 15th, the President signed into law a joint resolution (H.J. Res 20) that provides $463.5 billion to continue funding public programs through fiscal year 2007. The Senate had passed the joint resolution on February 14th and the House passed it on January 30th. The approval of this resolution was necessary since the previous Congress did not pass 9 of its 11 spending bills before it adjourned last year.

In this resolution, most programs are funded at the previous fiscal year 2006 levels. However, a few housing and education programs will receive additional money. Homeless assistance grants receive an additional $115 million. Section 8 tenant-based vouchers receive an additional $502 million over FY 2006 to preserve 70,000 vouchers currently in use, and project-based vouchers receive an additional $939 million to preserve 157,000 vouchers currently being used. The resolution also provides for a short-term fix in how funds for Section 8 tenant-based vouchers are distributed between public housing authorities across the country. Additionally, while public housing will receive an additional $300 million for operating costs, this falls more than $600 million short of what was needed to prevent loss of housing units. In education, Head Start receives an additional $103.7 million to prevent a drop in enrollment.

(Received from socialpolicy@catholiccharitiesusa.org)

Monday word, 19 Feb 2007

7th Monday of the Year (19 Feb 2007) Sir 1.1-10; Ps 93; Mk 9. 14-29
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Taught By Our Senses

The creation and the exodus are the two central features of the scriptures. Not only does Genesis narrate in language of deep cultural and spiritual significance that God created the world, the Psalms and books like Sirach rhapsodize about it: the Lord made the world firm, it is the Lord’s throne. Before all else...[the] one, wise and truly awe-inspiring...Most High all-powerful creator-king and truly awe-inspiring one... created...wisdom.

The liberation God worked in the exodus from Egypt created and formed a people. The Psalms extol the exodus, also, in places too numerous to mention in a single homily. Sirach sang that the Holy One lavished godly wisdom on the Holy One’s friends.

Mark’s Jesus, the crucified Messiah, personified the truly awe-inspiring one. Matthew’s Jesus was the New Wisdom, the New Creation, whose spirit recreates us and the face of the earth.

Luke’s Jesus spoke of his final journey to Jerusalem as his personal exodus. John’s Jesus was new paschal Lamb. Plural portraits of Jesus offer us several ways of appreciating the creative and liberating power of our God.

Our Catholic, sacramental way of life allows our limited senses to appreciate the mystery of Jesus in partial, but crucial ways, which teach our minds.

We die and rise with Christ in baptism’s waters. Confirmation seals our baptism with fragrant oil named for our Messiah: chrism is Greek for messiah, anointed one. We are not Messiahs, but we are christians christened to make Christ present by our lives.

Eucharist, the new passover, is the new covenant, which sustains our new baptismal creations in Jesus’ dying and rising. Sacraments help us overcome forces that would leave us as dead. They are Jesus’ outstretched hand raising us, helping us to stand and live anew.
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Creation of Light, by Gustave Doré, is in the public domain.

Sunday word, 18 Feb 2007

7th Sunday C (18 Feb 2007) 1 Sm 26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23; Ps 103; 1Co 15.45-49; Lk 6. 27-38
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Shaped By Mercy

I encounter people who desire to deepen their relationship with God. I wager people making our 9-week Ignatian Retreat desire that. Many more seek a deeper relationship with God. Some sense a deeper relationship emerging; others have greater clarity about their desire for it.

God loves people--each and every person--as they are. God does not love less the one who has no awareness of God’s loving desire for her. Nor does God love more the one who is quite clear that he wants to deepen his relation-ship with his creator and redeemer. To grow in the Spirit means to give ourselves to God creating and loving us each moment of our lives.

Personal attention to God inviting us is vital. So also is exercising our hearts to make them more supple, more grateful and welcoming of God: what personal praying as well as what public worship are about. Indeed, more supple, more grateful, more welcoming hearts allow us felt knowledge of God’s loving kindness, to grasp it as real for me. St. Ambrose expressed that briefly: “Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy.” Perhaps nothing like chronic pain or chronic spiritual darkness challenge us to welcome mercy.

Divine mercy animated the future-King David’s heart even in war. The warring tone of the first reading may blind us to that. We might cheer the possibility of one of David’s lieutenants ending it by killing the king with one thrust of the spear. But David respected the king who sought David’s life: He would not harm...the Lord’s anointed. Respect participates in divine mercy.

David’s action was noble not heroic. He was no hero. David was flawed; at times he cultivated and even gave into sin. He was shadowed by God’s mercy, and he knew it. He allowed mercy to reshape how he lived.

The first Christians saw many Old Testament era figures typifying Jesus. David calling, Do not harm, typified the Jesus we seek and recognize as the divine image in flesh and blood, Jesus who embodied God. Jesus embodied and enacted God’s mercy. Jesus respected others with divine respect; he did not remain distant nor did he patronize. Jesus gave humanity unrivaled access to God. He still gives us that access as our Risen Lord, the life-giving spirit.

Today’s gospel passage offers us Jesus’ way to live, shaped by mercy. I find I need to enter Jesus’ words. If I remain outside, merely reading them, they remain only a guide, albeit a fine one, for keeping peace in my home, my work-place, the Christian community and rest of the world. I enter Jesus’ words by recalling someone who hated me, or cursed me, who begrudged me anything, who loved me only for what I could do for them. I recall the emotions triggered by a person who judged me, or berated me or refused to forgive me when I asked with all my heart to be forgiven. I enter Jesus’ words by recalling when I have behaved that way.

By doing that, I don’t dwell on past hurts but realize I grasp God’s grace helping me to trans-form the way I live as well as interact with others. I become aware that our life-giving spirit, Messiah Jesus, empowers me and motivates me to hear him speak to me. Risen Jesus reminds me at the depths of myself how he and others have loved me, blessed me, generously loved me for who I am.

This is no gimmick, my friends. It’s prayer. It is Jesus, our life-giving spirit, reminding us how our God respects us, lovingly seeing us as images of God’s own self, who creates and redeems us.

In your daily 10 minutes this week find calm in the presence of the Trinity, creating us each moment. Then ask Mary or your patron saint to present you to Jesus. Praise Jesus for giving us our Christian nonnegotiable, to forgive as we have been forgiven. Speak to Jesus in your own words about the challenge to make his merciful love the measure of your living and being. Ask Jesus for grace to incarnate more the divine mercy in order to welcome and receive Risen Jesus in the eucharist as well as in the countless ways Jesus presents himself. Close by slowly saying the Lord’s Prayer in order to cooperate with Jesus’ grace and to make you more humane than you could be on your own.
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Carlos Latuff allows his copyrighted image, part of the Forgiveness Series, to be used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Is Our Strength Depressing?

Jean Vanier offered this interview with Zenit earlier in the week.

The question is to know what one's values are. And the big question is that, if these values are focused only on success, power, etc., then one is neglecting a part of oneself, a part that is a child, a very frail woman, a vulnerable person.

Without discounting medications, he offers a humane, human and spiritual assessment of depression, something about which he knows.

Friday word, 17 February 2007

6th Friday of the Year (17 Feb 2007) Gn 11.1-9; Ps 33; Mk 8. 34-9. 1
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Jesus Heals So That We Can Reverse

The Book of Genesis narrates the faith- understanding that humans were created in the divine image and likeness and fractured their likeness through sin. It also unfolds the consequences of sin. The consequence Genesis offers us today is that sin is both personal and societal. Humans are social beings, we know well. Our natural human need for others was distorted by sin, too. Not only do individuals seek to control others, sin also scattered [people] all over the earth.

This scattering is not only geographic, it is relational, too. Jesus’ mission was to reunite people: to heal fractured and disrupted relation-ships; to join individual and societies in healthy ways. Jesus extended and continues to extend his healing invitation by his cross. The cross reminds us that we do not heal, reunite and save ourselves by ourselves. The gospel saves us if we cooperate with it.

The more each one of us cooperates with the gospel, then in small ways we join the reversal of the scattering and, we build in unity, peace and in God’s justice.
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Regarding a Comment

On 14 February, a reader posted a comment:

I do not understand how an unconditionally loving Creator God could strike down all living creatures.

Without trying to erase the controversy, I admit that scripture challenges us in many ways. Approaching scripture as a scientific text instead of what it is, a faith document, sharpens the controversy within and even prevents human hearts from conversion.

Conversion appreciates divine mercy. In the ancient Mediterranean world, a flood story circulated. Only the Genesis version offers a moral reason for it: human wickedness (see Genesis 6.5). With the flood, Genesis brings to an end the first human epoch of Adam and Eve. After the flood, God vows never again to destroy humanity. God did not require anything of Noah and his family in order for God to do that.

God, working through nature, sealed that covenant with the rainbow. In the ancient Near East, the rainbow was seen as a divine weapon. Genesis transforms the rainbow entirely. We will never understand God's ways. We can, however, be sure of God's mercy, revealed in so many ways and revealed fully in Messiah Jesus. To focus on God's destruction of the world and nearly every living thing misses God's mercy.

A Cardinal and Congress

Knowledge does not equal wisdom. Justin Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and Chairman, Committee for Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has

called on Congress to correct an “unfortunate and apparently unintentional loophole” in the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (H.R. 493).

The good intention of the legislation to protect people could allow

an insurance company [to] misuse knowledge of a child’s genetic defect to raise a woman’s premiums, cancel her insurance, or even pressure her to have an abortion or cancel adoption plans for a child with special needs, because the company does not wish to cover the additional needs of a child who will develop an illness or disability.

Read a summary of Cardinal Rigali's statement. Anyone interested may link to the cardinal's complete statement as well.
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Wednesday word, 14 Feb 2007

Ss. Cyril & Methodius, Memorial (14 Feb 2007) Gn 8. 6-13,20-22; Ps 116; Mk 8. 22-26

Before mass: Today the Church remembers Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs. Gradually, their efforts found reward: deep faith among the Slavic peoples of Europe.

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
First Person, Then Mission

Within creation things routinely unfold gradually Even things which appear suddenly to our eyes develop in stages. We might say that the earth’s forces are pregnant and give birth to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and the like.

God worked through God’s creation and still does. It took 40 days and nights of rain to destroy the earth Noah knew. God worked through the nature God created. The waters receded gradually, too. It all touched God’s heart: God promised never to doom the earth because of humans...nor ever again [to] strike down all living beings. Instead, God swore to live by the covenant Noah renewed with God.

People after Noah failed on their side of the covenant. The Creator’s heart held us dear, which is the story of Messiah Jesus saving us.

The human side of being saved is conversion. It, too, is gradual. Mark’s gospel depicts that in the healing we heard. The man was physically blind. The apostles were blind to appreciate and to understand Messiah Jesus and the gospel he proclaimed. Believers with eyesight can still be blind. As Jesus often asked his disciples, “Do you not yet...comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?” Conversion, like creation, is a gradual, growing, brightening truth. The blind man first saw indistinctly before he saw clearly.

Our conversions are gradual healings, turnings from not comprehending to comprehending, from hard hearts to supple ones. Though we’re never totally converted, our first conversion is to Jesus’ person, the next is to his mission. Talk of gradual: we nourish conversion all our lives.
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Icon of Cyril and Methodius is in the public domain.

Optional?

Is interreligious dialogue an optional part of Christian living? It is not. According to Pope Benedict interreligious dialogue is "a vital need for our time." The pope concluded his brief address to members of the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue at an audience with him at the top of the month.

Learn more why Pope Benedict is convinced that "we, Jews, Christians and Muslims are called to develop the bonds that unite us."
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