Blog # 267 Jn 6 - Mystery
John 1:18 makes this acclamation: No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, ever at the Father's side, who has revealed Him. John 6: 46 gives this testimony by Jesus: Not that anyone has seen the Father - only the one who is from God has seen the Father.
St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians the Church has produced, said: "Man's utmost knowledge of God is to know we do not know Him". In the early ages of the Church's history and on into the middle ages this same teaching was consistently proclaimed and defended. I am not altogether sure today whether there is a clear personal universal practical awareness of its meaning and its presence in our minds as we profess and proclaim each Sunday at Mass our faith in God. "I believe in God..."
Another way to say what St. Thonmas Aquinas said is to say God is a mystery. The key word in a definition of mystery includes the word unknown taken in the sense of not being understood or comprehended and can be applied to any reality in a strict or in a broad sense. In the most strict application of the term mystery, we refer to a reality that is known or comprehended by none other than itself ,ever. Applied in a less strict sense a reality would be a mystery, or incomprehensible, to certain people and not to others, or at one particular time and not at another. An example of this would be my own experience with an I-phone . Right now what goes on inside an I-phone is incomprehensible to me. It is a mystery to me how when I am riding along I- 95 here in Georgia at 65 miles an hour and somebody calls the driver from Massachusetts. His I-phone rings and the conversation continues for seven minutes without an interruption as , with no wires attached, we get further and further away from Massachusetts at 65 miles an hour! If I were 20 years old and smart enough I could go to school and find out some of what goes on in the I-phone. It is not a mystery in the strictest sense of the term though it is a genuine mystery for me now. Another type of mystery would be a reality that could not be known unless it were revealed, but once revealed could be comprehended or understood. An example of this type of mystery is the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or the infallibility of the Pope.
In our Catholic theology we apply the term mystery to God in its most strict sense. We believe God is totally incomprehensible in Himself to anyone other than to Himself even to Jesus in His experience as one of us ! Though this might seem shocking to some of us at first, it applies to all of us and applied to the historical Jesus while He was among us as one of us and like to us in all but sin. As the Word of God Incarnate, and genuinly as one of us, Jesus had to believe in God as we do, had to obey God as we do, had to pray in response to God as we do, had to know God as we do through the work of God in creation, the same sun and moon that we see, had to be capable of suffering and death as we are so capable. All of this and the Incarnation itself constitute an absolute mystery for us as it did for the human Jesus.
And all of this is true not because God desired to reveal something of Himself and keep the rest for Himself but simply and absolutely it is true because there is but one God the Creator of all that exists. And this means there is a real infinite and therefore an unimaginable incomprehensible unmeasurable 'distance' or difference between ourselves and God. There is not even a line between ourselves as creatures and God as our Creator that we can comprehend as a line of demarcation between us. The infinite'distance' between us is absolutely incomprehensible for us. God is a mystery in the strictest sense of the term.
All of creation is a gift and an expression of God's love. What can be seen, felt, heard, etc. can be understood, appreciated more or less fully, and made use of for our comfort and joy. It is all wonderful. It is an expression of a wonderful love. But God the Creator must still remain a mystery if God is to remain.
Other examples of mysteries in the strict sense are the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, the resurrection of the body, and the virgin birth of Jesus.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Blog # 266 Do you love me?
Blog # 266 Do you love me
The Gospel passage proclaimed at Mass this morning, the feast of Pope Saint Pius X , was from the Gospel of John Chapter 21, verses 15 - 17. It tells of an incidenet that occurred some time during the forty days after the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. After spending a frustrating night out on the lake without catching any fish. just after daybreak when they came ashore Jesus meets them though none of them recognized him as Jesus. He asks if they caught anything and they had to say no. With a promise they will find something, the 'stranger' suggests they try again and cast their net off to the starboard side.
After experiencing a superabundant catch of fish the disciples recognized the 'stranger' as the Resurrected Jesus. He has breakfast of fish and bread all ready for them but asks they bring some of the fish they just caught to be added to what he had already prepared.
After this comes the passage we acclaimed at Mass this morning. Through the years I have found the general interpretation and response to this episode in John's Gospel has been to see in it a revelation and reminder of the compassion of God in Jesus. Three times Peter had denied he even knew Jesus when accused of being one of Jesus' disciples in the final hours before the crucifixion. Peter must have felt terrible and deeply ashamed of himself after that. Now to assure Peter his sin was forgiven and to grant him the comfort and peace that comes from experiencing a share in the infinite compassion of God manifest in the humanity of Jesus, Jesus grants Peter the threefold oportunity of explicitly expresssing and proclaiming his love for Jesus. That is certainly a valid and adequate intepretation of the passage from John.
But this morning in my reflection in preparation for offering Mass it occured to me to see an additional and more practically personal application rather than an interpretation of the Gospel text. Rather than see the same question posited to Peter three times I saw it as three distinct questions each seeking dictinctly different information depending upon an emphasis of three different words in the text. The first question is: Do you love me? The second question is: Do you love me? The third question is: Do you love me? I found the experience of answering these questions this morning a very useful one and a source of special grace in my quest for holiness and spiritual growh.
Who are you, Charlie Hughes in my case, whatever name is yours for anyone else. Each of us is one of the more than seven billion of us human creatures on earth today. Each of us is known and loved individually and personally by the same Creator of us all. Think, it has to be in general but in some cases specific, of all the words you have ever spoken, all the words that you have ever heard, the miles you have walked and traveled, your family, the sorrow you have felt, , the loneliness, the joy you have known, the good things you have done and those done to you, your sinfulness and repentance, your faith and your persenal relationship with God, the hopes you harbor for yourself right now.
All of the thoughts that come to mind in such an experience identfy us, tell us who we are. There is only one of each of us in the seven billion of us, only one of you, one of me. I and each of you are each a unique person whom God has chosen to exist and through our life's experiences come to a knowledge and love of God and the joy of accomplishing our individual unique plan God has for our life. WOW ! We could go on all day with something like this but you get the general idea as to what my experience was this morning. Just keep remembering that in our imagination it is Jesus asking the questions.
Do you love me? What comes to your mind when you think of love? Can we love an elephant? Can you see any consequences for God our Creator in the fact that genuine love must be free in order to be genuine love? Can you see in the definition that you give for love the basis for the proclamation of Jesus that the greatest love a person can have is to laydown one's life for another? Have you ever experienced how this bears out in love that you have received and given, and in God's love in the love of Jesus on the Cross, the Last Supper, the Mass, and in our tabernacles? What about the question of experiences of sickness, suffering, and death? Are these experiences of love? Have you ever experienced all of creation, colors, shapes, sounds, stars, sand, sunflowers and the sun itself, all of it as God telling us I love you?
Do you love me - Jesus? Put another way this question asks us what is the content of our identification of Jesus. Do you believe and realize in practical terms what it means to believe that I AM the Eternal Word , not measured by age but present with and in the Father and the Holy Spirit billions of light years ago when creation was that much younger than it is today? Do you realize the Jesus most people think of most of the time is the historical Jesus who without ceasing to be the Word, lived a genuine human experience on earth for a brief period of time around two thousand years ago? Do you realize the 'person' referred to as the Word and the 'person' referred to as Jesus is the same 'person' ? Do you realize well enough the implications of this truth to make you stand in awe and adoration before the Resurrected Jesus now free of the human limitations he once knew as one of us in history yet present to us by faith as the Redeemer of the world and as the Father's gift to us as the source of our sharing through faith and Baptism his own divine life/love?
I think my desire to write a blog in response to my experience befoere Mass this morning was a concern I have that many active Christians, including us Catholics, do not have an adequate ongoing person to person awareness of the Biblical Resurrected Jesus in our lives and tend to think and relate to the historical Jesus and the story of his historical life on earth, which amounts to a remembrance of Jesus from the past and relating to us as one of us rather than identified as God with all of the power goodness and divinity we normally identify with the Father and the Holy Spirit. so that we could trust him as we trust the Father and the Holy Spirit, adore and thank him with the same adoration and thanks we are accustomed to give the Father and the Holy Spirit. In this I would hope we could come to a point of successfully overcoming temptation in his name, appreciating why our prayer is accomplished and fulfilled in his name and consequently render him more perfect praise and thanks.
The Gospel passage proclaimed at Mass this morning, the feast of Pope Saint Pius X , was from the Gospel of John Chapter 21, verses 15 - 17. It tells of an incidenet that occurred some time during the forty days after the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. After spending a frustrating night out on the lake without catching any fish. just after daybreak when they came ashore Jesus meets them though none of them recognized him as Jesus. He asks if they caught anything and they had to say no. With a promise they will find something, the 'stranger' suggests they try again and cast their net off to the starboard side.
After experiencing a superabundant catch of fish the disciples recognized the 'stranger' as the Resurrected Jesus. He has breakfast of fish and bread all ready for them but asks they bring some of the fish they just caught to be added to what he had already prepared.
After this comes the passage we acclaimed at Mass this morning. Through the years I have found the general interpretation and response to this episode in John's Gospel has been to see in it a revelation and reminder of the compassion of God in Jesus. Three times Peter had denied he even knew Jesus when accused of being one of Jesus' disciples in the final hours before the crucifixion. Peter must have felt terrible and deeply ashamed of himself after that. Now to assure Peter his sin was forgiven and to grant him the comfort and peace that comes from experiencing a share in the infinite compassion of God manifest in the humanity of Jesus, Jesus grants Peter the threefold oportunity of explicitly expresssing and proclaiming his love for Jesus. That is certainly a valid and adequate intepretation of the passage from John.
But this morning in my reflection in preparation for offering Mass it occured to me to see an additional and more practically personal application rather than an interpretation of the Gospel text. Rather than see the same question posited to Peter three times I saw it as three distinct questions each seeking dictinctly different information depending upon an emphasis of three different words in the text. The first question is: Do you love me? The second question is: Do you love me? The third question is: Do you love me? I found the experience of answering these questions this morning a very useful one and a source of special grace in my quest for holiness and spiritual growh.
Who are you, Charlie Hughes in my case, whatever name is yours for anyone else. Each of us is one of the more than seven billion of us human creatures on earth today. Each of us is known and loved individually and personally by the same Creator of us all. Think, it has to be in general but in some cases specific, of all the words you have ever spoken, all the words that you have ever heard, the miles you have walked and traveled, your family, the sorrow you have felt, , the loneliness, the joy you have known, the good things you have done and those done to you, your sinfulness and repentance, your faith and your persenal relationship with God, the hopes you harbor for yourself right now.
All of the thoughts that come to mind in such an experience identfy us, tell us who we are. There is only one of each of us in the seven billion of us, only one of you, one of me. I and each of you are each a unique person whom God has chosen to exist and through our life's experiences come to a knowledge and love of God and the joy of accomplishing our individual unique plan God has for our life. WOW ! We could go on all day with something like this but you get the general idea as to what my experience was this morning. Just keep remembering that in our imagination it is Jesus asking the questions.
Do you love me? What comes to your mind when you think of love? Can we love an elephant? Can you see any consequences for God our Creator in the fact that genuine love must be free in order to be genuine love? Can you see in the definition that you give for love the basis for the proclamation of Jesus that the greatest love a person can have is to laydown one's life for another? Have you ever experienced how this bears out in love that you have received and given, and in God's love in the love of Jesus on the Cross, the Last Supper, the Mass, and in our tabernacles? What about the question of experiences of sickness, suffering, and death? Are these experiences of love? Have you ever experienced all of creation, colors, shapes, sounds, stars, sand, sunflowers and the sun itself, all of it as God telling us I love you?
Do you love me - Jesus? Put another way this question asks us what is the content of our identification of Jesus. Do you believe and realize in practical terms what it means to believe that I AM the Eternal Word , not measured by age but present with and in the Father and the Holy Spirit billions of light years ago when creation was that much younger than it is today? Do you realize the Jesus most people think of most of the time is the historical Jesus who without ceasing to be the Word, lived a genuine human experience on earth for a brief period of time around two thousand years ago? Do you realize the 'person' referred to as the Word and the 'person' referred to as Jesus is the same 'person' ? Do you realize well enough the implications of this truth to make you stand in awe and adoration before the Resurrected Jesus now free of the human limitations he once knew as one of us in history yet present to us by faith as the Redeemer of the world and as the Father's gift to us as the source of our sharing through faith and Baptism his own divine life/love?
I think my desire to write a blog in response to my experience befoere Mass this morning was a concern I have that many active Christians, including us Catholics, do not have an adequate ongoing person to person awareness of the Biblical Resurrected Jesus in our lives and tend to think and relate to the historical Jesus and the story of his historical life on earth, which amounts to a remembrance of Jesus from the past and relating to us as one of us rather than identified as God with all of the power goodness and divinity we normally identify with the Father and the Holy Spirit. so that we could trust him as we trust the Father and the Holy Spirit, adore and thank him with the same adoration and thanks we are accustomed to give the Father and the Holy Spirit. In this I would hope we could come to a point of successfully overcoming temptation in his name, appreciating why our prayer is accomplished and fulfilled in his name and consequently render him more perfect praise and thanks.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Blog # 265 Jn 6: 51 - 58
Blog # 265 Jn 6: 51 - 58
After having fed the vast crowd of hungry people, Jesus saw they would seek to make Him their King , so He fled back to the mountain alone. Jesus did not come, nor want to be, their King, to rule them. He came to give them more than a King could give, to give them a share in His own divine life, His eternal love.
In today's passage from John we find Jesus across the lake with His disciples. The people seek Him out. He is teaching in a synagogue. He expresses disappointment in knowing the people want from Him less than He has to give, less than He was sent by the Father to give. They want more ' bread' for the body' , gifts that are temporary, gifts that someone else other than He could give. Jesus wants to give them more, bread for their souls, "bread that will last unto life eternal".
This sounds attractive to them and they ask how to get it. Jesus tells them it is by faith they will receive such food. They do not like His answer and ask Him to prove Himself to them. In asking that faith be proven they are asking that it be destroyed.
The argument continues. "Do for us something like Moses did for our ancestors in the desert, giving them bread from Heaven to eat." I will paraphrase the thoughts of Jesus. "It was not Moses who gave them this bread, but my Father. The story of your ancestors in the desert is continuing now,in us. As for Moses in the desert, the bread he gave was from God and a sign of God's presence among them, His protection over them, and God's love for them. Just so, the bread I gave you yesterday is a similar sign for you of God's presence protection and love for you through me.
I am the Father's bread for you. This is what you must believe if you are to receive more than the passing gifts of ordinary 'bread', the good things of your temporary life on earth, things that you can receive from someone else other than from me.
And if you believe and receive in faith the bread I will give, you will never hunger or thirst for anything else again, for there is nothing, no pleasure, no value, no experience that is capable of nourishing and satisfying your soul as this bread will do. That is God's design! I have come to tell you this. The price I will pay for this bread is my greatest act of love, the giving of my life in your name unto the Father's will on the wood of Calvary. Please trust and believe me. Do not waste my love for the Father nor our love for you. You should not be working for perishable food alone, but also for food that remains unto life eternal".
This section of Chapter 6 gave me an invitation and opportunity to ask a few questions. What do I really want from life, and from God? What is it for which I am spending my money, time, energy, my life, my love? What did Jesus intend me to understand as the meaning, in concrete terms, of what He referred to as "food that remains unto life eternal"?
Are questions like this a part of your life? If not, how could God ever give you the "more" Jesus came to bring? I think they are good questions. What do you think?
After having fed the vast crowd of hungry people, Jesus saw they would seek to make Him their King , so He fled back to the mountain alone. Jesus did not come, nor want to be, their King, to rule them. He came to give them more than a King could give, to give them a share in His own divine life, His eternal love.
In today's passage from John we find Jesus across the lake with His disciples. The people seek Him out. He is teaching in a synagogue. He expresses disappointment in knowing the people want from Him less than He has to give, less than He was sent by the Father to give. They want more ' bread' for the body' , gifts that are temporary, gifts that someone else other than He could give. Jesus wants to give them more, bread for their souls, "bread that will last unto life eternal".
This sounds attractive to them and they ask how to get it. Jesus tells them it is by faith they will receive such food. They do not like His answer and ask Him to prove Himself to them. In asking that faith be proven they are asking that it be destroyed.
The argument continues. "Do for us something like Moses did for our ancestors in the desert, giving them bread from Heaven to eat." I will paraphrase the thoughts of Jesus. "It was not Moses who gave them this bread, but my Father. The story of your ancestors in the desert is continuing now,in us. As for Moses in the desert, the bread he gave was from God and a sign of God's presence among them, His protection over them, and God's love for them. Just so, the bread I gave you yesterday is a similar sign for you of God's presence protection and love for you through me.
I am the Father's bread for you. This is what you must believe if you are to receive more than the passing gifts of ordinary 'bread', the good things of your temporary life on earth, things that you can receive from someone else other than from me.
And if you believe and receive in faith the bread I will give, you will never hunger or thirst for anything else again, for there is nothing, no pleasure, no value, no experience that is capable of nourishing and satisfying your soul as this bread will do. That is God's design! I have come to tell you this. The price I will pay for this bread is my greatest act of love, the giving of my life in your name unto the Father's will on the wood of Calvary. Please trust and believe me. Do not waste my love for the Father nor our love for you. You should not be working for perishable food alone, but also for food that remains unto life eternal".
This section of Chapter 6 gave me an invitation and opportunity to ask a few questions. What do I really want from life, and from God? What is it for which I am spending my money, time, energy, my life, my love? What did Jesus intend me to understand as the meaning, in concrete terms, of what He referred to as "food that remains unto life eternal"?
Are questions like this a part of your life? If not, how could God ever give you the "more" Jesus came to bring? I think they are good questions. What do you think?
Friday, August 10, 2012
Blog # 264 Jn 6:41 - 51
Blog # 264 Jn 6: 41 - 51
Recall John's stated purpose in writing his Gospel: "...that through faith you may have life in His name." (Jn 20: 31). Our present Gospel passage ends with Jesus stating: "I myself and the living bread come down from Heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world".
Almost two thousand years later, we Catholics sort of take these words of Jesus for granted as applied to the new life we receive in Baptism and the nourishment love and Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in our reception of Holy Communion and in the tabernacle. To the extent we take the words for granted we are not challenged confused shaken up or changed by this incident in the life of Jesus in the Sixth Chapter of John when He shared them with us for the first time. .
But if we transport ourselves back to the time when they were first spoken by Jesus and recorded by John, and place ourselves among the people who were hearing them for the first time, the picture changes. We ask ourselves what could these words of Jesus possibly mean?; what to they have to do with my relationship to God and Jesus and to the world and people around me?
We begin to get the feel of what it was like to wonder what Jesus was saying when He first spoke them almost two thousand years ago. We know it must be something important to Him and to us, but yet we might feel a bit uncomfortable with the words, or not altogether confident that we heard and understood them correctly. These were the same feelings of the people and even possibly of John when Jesus spoke them for the first time.
As a result they were challenged by them. Some argue with Jesus and question His right to speak to them in the name of God. The discussion continues. Jesus does not back away from the point He has tried to make, and the truth He has tried to share. He presses it again and again. "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
Here are a few points to remember as we continue to reflect upon the sixth Chapter of John.
There is something God wants to say to us today as we read Chapter 6 that is the same as God wanted to say to the people who actually heard Jesus speak the words, and the people living at the same time as John who read them, as we do. In Chapter 6 we are dealing with a very important incident in the life of Jesus and in the retelling of that incident by John. It is a crisis moment for Jesus and His disciples. At the Chapter's end large numbers of the people will desert Him precisely because of this incident.
If it were not true, I would have a difficult time imagining the situation we have here in the US today with regard to the fact that not only a majority but almost all but a few of the many many Christian communities claiming to base their relationship with God through Jesus on the Bible join themselves with those who walked away from Jesus in response to the claim and promise He made in the 6th Chapter of St. John and we can read today in the King James version of the Bible.
I remember from years ago receiving a letter in the mail and on different occasions being given Bible tracts on the subject of the Last Supper from Pastors and members of various churches in the small towns where I was serving as a priest 'correcting' me with regard to my Catholic interpretation of the words "flesh " and "blood " as literally true rather than as mere symbols. It reminded me of the case of the Pharisees who were mere human creatures of God so regularly telling Jesus, (Who was God,) what God should be doing with the Sabbath and with the Bible of their day. And that would be like the clay telling the potter what he should be doing with the clay rather than the clay receiving from the potter what it should be.
Jesus was always trustworthy honest and clear in defence of His divinity. He told Pilot that God could send down legions of angels to defend Him from the threats and His rejection by the Pharisees if Jesus had asked his Father to do this. When Jesus was riding triumphantly into Jerusalem the final week of His historical life on earth some of the people and the children shouted out in acclamation of Him as King. Some others complained that Jesus should stop them from this because it sounded like they were acknowledging Him as divine. Jesus did not stop them but rather proclaimed if the children did not do this the stones would cry out.
In the light of the courage of Jesus as one of us, and in the light of His absolute power over creation, His divine wisdom , His complete obedience to the Father in all things He ever said and did, and His trustworthy total love for the Father and for us, we can easily and with our utmost praise and thanks receive as true the words of Jesus the Pharisees regarded as blasphemy.
If Jesus intended to mean 'symbol' I think He would have said symbol. I proclaim His words with well gounded faith joy confidence praise and trust. I am deeply saddened by what happened in the incident we are discussing in Chapter 5 and 6 of John. I am saddened too that after many Centuries people whose forebears shared the faith of Peter are now
passing down from generation to generation a gift of a symbol rather than the actual and real bloody Sacrifice of His Body and Blood on Calvary, presented Sacramentally at the Last Supper, and celebrated and received by those who did believe and those who today believe His words were and are trustworthy and literally true.
"There is no greater love anyone can have than to lay down one's life for a friend. ". "This is my Body given for you... This is my Blood poured out for you.....Do this". Peter said "To whom shall we go. We have come to believe you have the words of eternal life." Thomas fell to his knees and said: "My Lord, and My God."
Recall John's stated purpose in writing his Gospel: "...that through faith you may have life in His name." (Jn 20: 31). Our present Gospel passage ends with Jesus stating: "I myself and the living bread come down from Heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world".
Almost two thousand years later, we Catholics sort of take these words of Jesus for granted as applied to the new life we receive in Baptism and the nourishment love and Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in our reception of Holy Communion and in the tabernacle. To the extent we take the words for granted we are not challenged confused shaken up or changed by this incident in the life of Jesus in the Sixth Chapter of John when He shared them with us for the first time. .
But if we transport ourselves back to the time when they were first spoken by Jesus and recorded by John, and place ourselves among the people who were hearing them for the first time, the picture changes. We ask ourselves what could these words of Jesus possibly mean?; what to they have to do with my relationship to God and Jesus and to the world and people around me?
We begin to get the feel of what it was like to wonder what Jesus was saying when He first spoke them almost two thousand years ago. We know it must be something important to Him and to us, but yet we might feel a bit uncomfortable with the words, or not altogether confident that we heard and understood them correctly. These were the same feelings of the people and even possibly of John when Jesus spoke them for the first time.
As a result they were challenged by them. Some argue with Jesus and question His right to speak to them in the name of God. The discussion continues. Jesus does not back away from the point He has tried to make, and the truth He has tried to share. He presses it again and again. "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
Here are a few points to remember as we continue to reflect upon the sixth Chapter of John.
There is something God wants to say to us today as we read Chapter 6 that is the same as God wanted to say to the people who actually heard Jesus speak the words, and the people living at the same time as John who read them, as we do. In Chapter 6 we are dealing with a very important incident in the life of Jesus and in the retelling of that incident by John. It is a crisis moment for Jesus and His disciples. At the Chapter's end large numbers of the people will desert Him precisely because of this incident.
If it were not true, I would have a difficult time imagining the situation we have here in the US today with regard to the fact that not only a majority but almost all but a few of the many many Christian communities claiming to base their relationship with God through Jesus on the Bible join themselves with those who walked away from Jesus in response to the claim and promise He made in the 6th Chapter of St. John and we can read today in the King James version of the Bible.
I remember from years ago receiving a letter in the mail and on different occasions being given Bible tracts on the subject of the Last Supper from Pastors and members of various churches in the small towns where I was serving as a priest 'correcting' me with regard to my Catholic interpretation of the words "flesh " and "blood " as literally true rather than as mere symbols. It reminded me of the case of the Pharisees who were mere human creatures of God so regularly telling Jesus, (Who was God,) what God should be doing with the Sabbath and with the Bible of their day. And that would be like the clay telling the potter what he should be doing with the clay rather than the clay receiving from the potter what it should be.
Jesus was always trustworthy honest and clear in defence of His divinity. He told Pilot that God could send down legions of angels to defend Him from the threats and His rejection by the Pharisees if Jesus had asked his Father to do this. When Jesus was riding triumphantly into Jerusalem the final week of His historical life on earth some of the people and the children shouted out in acclamation of Him as King. Some others complained that Jesus should stop them from this because it sounded like they were acknowledging Him as divine. Jesus did not stop them but rather proclaimed if the children did not do this the stones would cry out.
In the light of the courage of Jesus as one of us, and in the light of His absolute power over creation, His divine wisdom , His complete obedience to the Father in all things He ever said and did, and His trustworthy total love for the Father and for us, we can easily and with our utmost praise and thanks receive as true the words of Jesus the Pharisees regarded as blasphemy.
If Jesus intended to mean 'symbol' I think He would have said symbol. I proclaim His words with well gounded faith joy confidence praise and trust. I am deeply saddened by what happened in the incident we are discussing in Chapter 5 and 6 of John. I am saddened too that after many Centuries people whose forebears shared the faith of Peter are now
passing down from generation to generation a gift of a symbol rather than the actual and real bloody Sacrifice of His Body and Blood on Calvary, presented Sacramentally at the Last Supper, and celebrated and received by those who did believe and those who today believe His words were and are trustworthy and literally true.
"There is no greater love anyone can have than to lay down one's life for a friend. ". "This is my Body given for you... This is my Blood poured out for you.....Do this". Peter said "To whom shall we go. We have come to believe you have the words of eternal life." Thomas fell to his knees and said: "My Lord, and My God."
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Blog # 263 Jn 6: 24 - 35
Blog # 263 Jn 6: 24 - 35
At the conclusion of last week's reading, Jesus, after having fed the vast crowd of hungry people, saw they would seek to make Him their King , so He fled back to the mountain alone. Jesus did not come, nor want to be, their King, to rule them. He came to give them more than a King could give, to give them a share in His own divine life, His eternal love.
In today's Gospel we find Jesus across the lake with His disciples. The people seek Him out. He is teaching in a synagogue. He expresses disappointment in knowing the people want from Him less than He has to give, less than He was sent by the Father to give. They want more bread for the body, gifts that are temporary, gifts that someone else other than He could give. Jesus wants to give them more, bread for their souls, "bread that will last unto life eternal".
This sounds attractive to them and they ask how to get it. Jesus tells them it is by faith they will receive such food. They do not like His answer and ask Him to prove Himself to them. In asking that faith be proven they are asking that it be destroyed.
The argument continues. "Do for us something like Moses did for our ancestors in the desert, giving them bread from Heaven to eat." I will paraphrase the thoughts of Jesus. "It was not Moses who gave them this bread, but my Father. The story of your ancestors in the desert is continuing now,in us. As for Moses in the desert, the bread he gave was from God and a sign of God's presence among them, His protection over them, and God's love for them. Just so, the bread I gave you yesterday is a similar sign for you of God's presence protection and love for you through me.
I am the Father's bread for you. This is what you must believe if you are to receive more than the passing gifts of ordinary 'bread', the good things of your temporary life on earth, things that you can receive from someone else other than from me.
And if you believe and receive in faith the bread Iwill give, you will never hunger or thirst for anything else again, for there is nothing, no pleasure, no value, no experience that is capable of nourishing and satisfying your soul as this bread will do. That is God's design! I have come to tell you this. The price I will pay for this bread is my greatest act of love, the giving of my life in your name unto the Father's will on the wood of Calvary. Please trust and believe me. Do not waste my love for the Father nor our love for you. You should not be working for perishable food alone, but also for food that remains unto life eternal".
This section of Chapter 6 gave me an invitation and opportunity to ask a few questions. What do I really want from life, and from God? What is it for which I am spending my money, time, energy, my life, my love? What did Jesus intend me to understand as the meaning, in concrete terms, of what He rreferred to as "food that remains unto life eternal"?
Are questions like this ever a part of your life? If not, how could God ever give you the "more" Jesus came to bring? I think they are good questions. What do you think?
At the conclusion of last week's reading, Jesus, after having fed the vast crowd of hungry people, saw they would seek to make Him their King , so He fled back to the mountain alone. Jesus did not come, nor want to be, their King, to rule them. He came to give them more than a King could give, to give them a share in His own divine life, His eternal love.
In today's Gospel we find Jesus across the lake with His disciples. The people seek Him out. He is teaching in a synagogue. He expresses disappointment in knowing the people want from Him less than He has to give, less than He was sent by the Father to give. They want more bread for the body, gifts that are temporary, gifts that someone else other than He could give. Jesus wants to give them more, bread for their souls, "bread that will last unto life eternal".
This sounds attractive to them and they ask how to get it. Jesus tells them it is by faith they will receive such food. They do not like His answer and ask Him to prove Himself to them. In asking that faith be proven they are asking that it be destroyed.
The argument continues. "Do for us something like Moses did for our ancestors in the desert, giving them bread from Heaven to eat." I will paraphrase the thoughts of Jesus. "It was not Moses who gave them this bread, but my Father. The story of your ancestors in the desert is continuing now,in us. As for Moses in the desert, the bread he gave was from God and a sign of God's presence among them, His protection over them, and God's love for them. Just so, the bread I gave you yesterday is a similar sign for you of God's presence protection and love for you through me.
I am the Father's bread for you. This is what you must believe if you are to receive more than the passing gifts of ordinary 'bread', the good things of your temporary life on earth, things that you can receive from someone else other than from me.
And if you believe and receive in faith the bread Iwill give, you will never hunger or thirst for anything else again, for there is nothing, no pleasure, no value, no experience that is capable of nourishing and satisfying your soul as this bread will do. That is God's design! I have come to tell you this. The price I will pay for this bread is my greatest act of love, the giving of my life in your name unto the Father's will on the wood of Calvary. Please trust and believe me. Do not waste my love for the Father nor our love for you. You should not be working for perishable food alone, but also for food that remains unto life eternal".
This section of Chapter 6 gave me an invitation and opportunity to ask a few questions. What do I really want from life, and from God? What is it for which I am spending my money, time, energy, my life, my love? What did Jesus intend me to understand as the meaning, in concrete terms, of what He rreferred to as "food that remains unto life eternal"?
Are questions like this ever a part of your life? If not, how could God ever give you the "more" Jesus came to bring? I think they are good questions. What do you think?
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Blog # 262 Jn 6: 16 - 21
Blog # 262 Jn 6: 16 - 21
After Jesus breaks away from the crowd and goes up the nearby mountain alone there is a short passage in John's Chapter Six that is not included in the series of six Sunday Gospel readings from John yet is very important in helping us grasp the meaning and current application of Chapter 6. Including the miracle in Chapter 5 in which Jesus heals a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, and the second miracle in Chapter 6 in which He miraculously feeds a vast crowd of people , we have a third miracle here. Each of the three miracles has something special about it that helps us clarify the 'work' or purpose John had in mind in writing Chapter 6.
In this miracle, with the disciples about three or four miles out from the shore of the lake , Jesus comes to them walking on the water.
All three miracles clearly proclaim the divinity of Jesus. In the healing of the crippled man the compassion of Jesus for a single person is at issue. Everyone counts with God. But not everyone is crippled or sick. Not everyone needs physical healing. All of us however experience hunger. We need to be nourished or we die. In the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish the whole community is affected. Everyone is invited to sit down and eat. The compassion of the Eternal Word of God in Jesus is infinite, unlimited, enough for all to receive as much as they need and desire. That is a distinctive element of the second miracle. We will consider how beautiful and broadly applicable it is in our current moment of history in a future blog.
The third miracle, in the short passage we are considering here, is significantly different from the other two. In the other two miracles the deed accomplished or physical reality produced by the miracles was not supernatural, namely the healing of the sick or the bringing on of more bread and more fish. A physician, a baker, and a fisherman can all be agents in accomplishing natural experiences of healing multiplication of bread and of fish.
The supernatural element of the first two miracles miracles was the way or manner in which the natural deed came about. The accomplishment of the third miracle was not to give Jesus miraculous feet but to change the nature of water! In the third miracle the deed accomplished is supernatural. The divine Jesus, one with the Father as Word, perfectly obedient to the Father as one of us, is in total control over creation! That will be important for us to understand and to carry with us as we continue on with our response to Chapter 6.
Based upon the divinity of Jesus and His consequent divine power over all creation we can see a parallel between what He did with regard to the water and what He does with regard to the bread and wine we offer in our experience of the Mass. It is not natural for water to be qualified for someone to walk on it. It is not natural for bread and wine to be anything other than bread and wine. In considering this parallel I think we will be able to understand more clearly what Jesus does with bread and wine at the Last Supper and at Mass.
After Jesus breaks away from the crowd and goes up the nearby mountain alone there is a short passage in John's Chapter Six that is not included in the series of six Sunday Gospel readings from John yet is very important in helping us grasp the meaning and current application of Chapter 6. Including the miracle in Chapter 5 in which Jesus heals a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, and the second miracle in Chapter 6 in which He miraculously feeds a vast crowd of people , we have a third miracle here. Each of the three miracles has something special about it that helps us clarify the 'work' or purpose John had in mind in writing Chapter 6.
In this miracle, with the disciples about three or four miles out from the shore of the lake , Jesus comes to them walking on the water.
All three miracles clearly proclaim the divinity of Jesus. In the healing of the crippled man the compassion of Jesus for a single person is at issue. Everyone counts with God. But not everyone is crippled or sick. Not everyone needs physical healing. All of us however experience hunger. We need to be nourished or we die. In the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish the whole community is affected. Everyone is invited to sit down and eat. The compassion of the Eternal Word of God in Jesus is infinite, unlimited, enough for all to receive as much as they need and desire. That is a distinctive element of the second miracle. We will consider how beautiful and broadly applicable it is in our current moment of history in a future blog.
The third miracle, in the short passage we are considering here, is significantly different from the other two. In the other two miracles the deed accomplished or physical reality produced by the miracles was not supernatural, namely the healing of the sick or the bringing on of more bread and more fish. A physician, a baker, and a fisherman can all be agents in accomplishing natural experiences of healing multiplication of bread and of fish.
The supernatural element of the first two miracles miracles was the way or manner in which the natural deed came about. The accomplishment of the third miracle was not to give Jesus miraculous feet but to change the nature of water! In the third miracle the deed accomplished is supernatural. The divine Jesus, one with the Father as Word, perfectly obedient to the Father as one of us, is in total control over creation! That will be important for us to understand and to carry with us as we continue on with our response to Chapter 6.
Based upon the divinity of Jesus and His consequent divine power over all creation we can see a parallel between what He did with regard to the water and what He does with regard to the bread and wine we offer in our experience of the Mass. It is not natural for water to be qualified for someone to walk on it. It is not natural for bread and wine to be anything other than bread and wine. In considering this parallel I think we will be able to understand more clearly what Jesus does with bread and wine at the Last Supper and at Mass.
Blog # 260 John 5
Blog # 260 John 5
Beginning today , the seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 29, 2012, for five Sundays the Gospel readings will be consecutive passages from the SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. We had been taking the Gospels of the previous Sundays in Ordinary Time this year from the Gospel of Mark. After five weeks we will immediately return to Mark for our Gospal readings. This abrupt and unusual interruption in our readings from Mark and our concentration upon a single Chapter from John for five consecutive weeks in itself would seem to invite us to discover something especially important in John that the Church wishes to focus and emphasize for us.
To help us appreciate more fully the impact of Chapter Six we should consider it in the context of John's entire Gospel. Matthew Mark and Luke wrote their Gospels pimarily to tell the story of Jesus so that people who would come after them would have a record of what Jesus thought and said and did. John was writing decades after Peter Paul James and other leaders of the early Christian community as well as many ordinary faithful people who knew loved and trusted Jesus enough to suffer martyrdom rather than betray Him had died.
Some of the early Christians thought Jesus would soon return in glory. John was aware this was not to be. Aware of a very strong well rooted faith his fellow Christians would need in the years to come, John wanted to assure his readers of the absolutely trustworthy source of their faith, based as it was on the testimony of Jesus who was divine. We find John grouping several discources and sayings of Jesus as a proclamation of divine wisdom . He groups miracles of Jesus as evidence of the divine power of God in Jesus. He shows Jesus as an example and expession of the divine compassion of God in the obvious compassion Jesus had for the poor, sorrowing, and handicapped. In line with this , Chapter Five serves as a good introduction to Chapter Six.
Chapter Five begins with a story of a man who had been handicapped for thirty-eight years. (Jn 5: 1 - 18). In all that time no one had enough compssion for him as to let him be plunged into the healing waters of the Bethesda pool ahead of their closer relatives or friends.. With divine compassion and power Jesus heals the man without the water. A problem arises for some of the people who witnessed the miracle in that it was done on a sabbath. An argumant between these people and Jesus ensues. Jesus defends himself not merely by saying he is interpreting the law diferently but that He is the author of the law! John makes the issue of the divinity of Jesus in this instance very clear. "The reason why the Jews were even more determined to kill him was that he not only was breaking the sabbath but ,worse still, was speaking of God as his own Father, thereby making himselfl God's equal." (Jn 1: 18).
The remainder of Chapter Five has Jesus arguing with His opponents, clearly staking a claim for His divinity and the authenticity of His ministry based as it was on His obedience to His Father who sent Him for this. His claim was a plea for them to to have faith in Him, to trust Him as they would trust God .
Beginning today , the seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 29, 2012, for five Sundays the Gospel readings will be consecutive passages from the SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. We had been taking the Gospels of the previous Sundays in Ordinary Time this year from the Gospel of Mark. After five weeks we will immediately return to Mark for our Gospal readings. This abrupt and unusual interruption in our readings from Mark and our concentration upon a single Chapter from John for five consecutive weeks in itself would seem to invite us to discover something especially important in John that the Church wishes to focus and emphasize for us.
To help us appreciate more fully the impact of Chapter Six we should consider it in the context of John's entire Gospel. Matthew Mark and Luke wrote their Gospels pimarily to tell the story of Jesus so that people who would come after them would have a record of what Jesus thought and said and did. John was writing decades after Peter Paul James and other leaders of the early Christian community as well as many ordinary faithful people who knew loved and trusted Jesus enough to suffer martyrdom rather than betray Him had died.
Some of the early Christians thought Jesus would soon return in glory. John was aware this was not to be. Aware of a very strong well rooted faith his fellow Christians would need in the years to come, John wanted to assure his readers of the absolutely trustworthy source of their faith, based as it was on the testimony of Jesus who was divine. We find John grouping several discources and sayings of Jesus as a proclamation of divine wisdom . He groups miracles of Jesus as evidence of the divine power of God in Jesus. He shows Jesus as an example and expession of the divine compassion of God in the obvious compassion Jesus had for the poor, sorrowing, and handicapped. In line with this , Chapter Five serves as a good introduction to Chapter Six.
Chapter Five begins with a story of a man who had been handicapped for thirty-eight years. (Jn 5: 1 - 18). In all that time no one had enough compssion for him as to let him be plunged into the healing waters of the Bethesda pool ahead of their closer relatives or friends.. With divine compassion and power Jesus heals the man without the water. A problem arises for some of the people who witnessed the miracle in that it was done on a sabbath. An argumant between these people and Jesus ensues. Jesus defends himself not merely by saying he is interpreting the law diferently but that He is the author of the law! John makes the issue of the divinity of Jesus in this instance very clear. "The reason why the Jews were even more determined to kill him was that he not only was breaking the sabbath but ,worse still, was speaking of God as his own Father, thereby making himselfl God's equal." (Jn 1: 18).
The remainder of Chapter Five has Jesus arguing with His opponents, clearly staking a claim for His divinity and the authenticity of His ministry based as it was on His obedience to His Father who sent Him for this. His claim was a plea for them to to have faith in Him, to trust Him as they would trust God .
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Blog # 261 John Chapter Six - (Jn 6: 1 - 15.
Blog # 261 John Chapter Six - (Jn 6: 1 - 15).
In Chapter Five John has Jesus engaged in an extensive argument with people who had heard of his healing of a crippled man on a sabbath and in response to it began to persecute Him. Jesus defends himself by setting before them a claim to be justified in acting as He did. His claim is that God is His Father and all that He does is done in obedience to the Father. Toward the end of the Chapter John gives us an idea as to how frustrated and sad Jesus must have been in witnessing the unwillingness of the people to trust Him as a messenger from God in spite of the evidence he had shown for His authenticity in the miracle He had wrought. "I have come in my Father's name yet you do not accept me. But let someone come in his own name and him you will accept. How can people like you believe, when you accept praise from one another yet do not seek the glory that comes from the One (God)?"
Chapter Six has Jesus across the Sea of Galilee with a vast crowd following Him "because they saw the signs He was performing for the sick.". John throws in an apparently unrelated detail: The Jewish Feast of Passover was near." Both in the miracle of the healing of the man crippled for thirty-eight years with no friends to help him, and here with a vast crowd of hungry people with but five barley loaves and a couple of dried fish John has an occasion to call our attention not only to the power of God in the two miracles but also the compassion of God manifested in the compassion of Jesus. All of these seemingly insignificant details, taken together, are useful in helping us understand and apply the complete message John wants to share with us in Chapter six.
On the occasion of both miracles Jesus was challenged saddened disappointed and frustrated in the response of the people. In both instances the people responded with responses Jesus did not intend them to make. They missed the point or complete purpose of what Jesus had done.
In the first instance Jesus was making a claim for His divinity. Other Prophets, sent as messengers from God, were often authorized in their ministry through having miraculous power to heal the sick. There would be a danger of Jesus being regarded and counted among them simply as one of them and equal to them in His ministry of healing. That is where the detail of Jesus healing on a sabbath comes in. As God's Son, Jesus would have authority and power not only over the illness but over the sabbath law! His claim was to be divine, "speaking of God as his own Father, thereby making himself God's equal". (Jn 5: 18). Just try to imagine how Jesus, ever obedient to the Father, and as human as we in all but sin, must have felt, when the people's response to His miracle of healing on the sabbath was to persecute Him, and their response to His claim of divinity was to be more determined to kill Him. (Jn 5: 16 - 18).
In the second instance , the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, we do not have the problem of the sabbath. The response of the people was not that of rejection but rather one based upon a lack of understanding of the spiritual meaning and purpose at the root of the physical multiplication of the loaves and fish. In response to the power manifested by Jesus in the multiplication of the loaves and fish they hoped for a similar miraculous power He might exert as their king in doing battle with the Romans under whose power they now lived after being conquered by the Romans in war. Jesus did not come, nor want to be their king. He came and desired to be their God, to give them MORE than a king could give, to give them Eternal Love.
When Jesus realized they would carry Him off to make Him king he fled back to the mountain alone. He needed to spend time with the Father in prayer, to consider what he would do next. .
In Chapter Five John has Jesus engaged in an extensive argument with people who had heard of his healing of a crippled man on a sabbath and in response to it began to persecute Him. Jesus defends himself by setting before them a claim to be justified in acting as He did. His claim is that God is His Father and all that He does is done in obedience to the Father. Toward the end of the Chapter John gives us an idea as to how frustrated and sad Jesus must have been in witnessing the unwillingness of the people to trust Him as a messenger from God in spite of the evidence he had shown for His authenticity in the miracle He had wrought. "I have come in my Father's name yet you do not accept me. But let someone come in his own name and him you will accept. How can people like you believe, when you accept praise from one another yet do not seek the glory that comes from the One (God)?"
Chapter Six has Jesus across the Sea of Galilee with a vast crowd following Him "because they saw the signs He was performing for the sick.". John throws in an apparently unrelated detail: The Jewish Feast of Passover was near." Both in the miracle of the healing of the man crippled for thirty-eight years with no friends to help him, and here with a vast crowd of hungry people with but five barley loaves and a couple of dried fish John has an occasion to call our attention not only to the power of God in the two miracles but also the compassion of God manifested in the compassion of Jesus. All of these seemingly insignificant details, taken together, are useful in helping us understand and apply the complete message John wants to share with us in Chapter six.
On the occasion of both miracles Jesus was challenged saddened disappointed and frustrated in the response of the people. In both instances the people responded with responses Jesus did not intend them to make. They missed the point or complete purpose of what Jesus had done.
In the first instance Jesus was making a claim for His divinity. Other Prophets, sent as messengers from God, were often authorized in their ministry through having miraculous power to heal the sick. There would be a danger of Jesus being regarded and counted among them simply as one of them and equal to them in His ministry of healing. That is where the detail of Jesus healing on a sabbath comes in. As God's Son, Jesus would have authority and power not only over the illness but over the sabbath law! His claim was to be divine, "speaking of God as his own Father, thereby making himself God's equal". (Jn 5: 18). Just try to imagine how Jesus, ever obedient to the Father, and as human as we in all but sin, must have felt, when the people's response to His miracle of healing on the sabbath was to persecute Him, and their response to His claim of divinity was to be more determined to kill Him. (Jn 5: 16 - 18).
In the second instance , the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, we do not have the problem of the sabbath. The response of the people was not that of rejection but rather one based upon a lack of understanding of the spiritual meaning and purpose at the root of the physical multiplication of the loaves and fish. In response to the power manifested by Jesus in the multiplication of the loaves and fish they hoped for a similar miraculous power He might exert as their king in doing battle with the Romans under whose power they now lived after being conquered by the Romans in war. Jesus did not come, nor want to be their king. He came and desired to be their God, to give them MORE than a king could give, to give them Eternal Love.
When Jesus realized they would carry Him off to make Him king he fled back to the mountain alone. He needed to spend time with the Father in prayer, to consider what he would do next. .
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