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Daily Scripture

+ 3rd Week in Ordinary Time

We swim in the sea of God’s space and God’s grace.

Readings: 2 Samuel 11:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17 Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6a, 6bcd-7, 10-11 Mark 4:28-34

This is how it is with the Kingdom of God: it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit. [Mark 4:28]

Were my mother alive and had she attended Mass this morning she would have commented to me afterward: “We could have done without that first reading.” The description of David’s abhorrent behavior solicitation of Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah is way over the top. On the other hand, I think we can safely conjecture that it was the intent of the author of to remind us that even Jesus’ human pedigree was stained – and ours is no better! David was not beyond redemption and neither are we.

But the real lesson for the day may be found in the Gospel reading. God’s grace is abundant and every day (and night) we are being inundated with God’s grace and goodness and it is working on us whether or not we are aware of it.

Even on a rainy day such as this, the drab can become bright if we put our mind to it. Perhaps it is another example of mind over matter.

Today is one of those days on which the readings could make good fodder for a retreat. I will admit that at this stage on my life, I am becoming more and more aware that there is a contemplative waiting to be set free in my soul.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 'B'

Saturday January 21, 2012

Where the rubber meets the road.

It’s still my favorite story of all times and all seasons., Victor Hugo’s timeless Les Miserables.

Jean Valjean is a simple character driven by “caritas”—an active, outgoing animating love for others. He helps the prostitute, Fantine. He protects his workers and gives constantly to the poor. But this was not always his greatest attribute. In his melodramatic conversion, in his promise to Fantine and in his unparalleled commitment to protect Cosette, he confronts the power of hell and dies in the arms of Cosette at peace with himself and with his God. It’s a touching scene that melts even the most hardened heart and moves a witness to tears. Put to music by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, it is even more dramatic and powerful.

Drama softens hardened hearts and moves even the most disengaged to action. It also has the power to expose the reality of evil that lays beneath the veneer of the self-possessed and the arrogance that controls the lives of others as if it were possible to unseat the eternal God or dismiss his universal embrace of humanity.

We have before us at the beginning of this third week in ordinary time, three dramatic readings. The first is a biblical cartoon, excessive in its humor; the second an urgent appeal excessive in its demands and the third a gracious invitation excessive in its naiveté. Yet all of the readings have the potential to move us to a new level of understanding of the kingdom of God and the beauty of discipleship in Christ lived within the ordinary circumstances of life.

But could we not cite other heroes in real time who have allowed themselves to be drawn into the circle of Jesus’ disciples, people who travel to foreign lands not with weapons but with healing tools to rebuild what warriors have destroyed? I’m thinking of movements and projects such as ‘Africa Surgery’, ‘Healing the Children’, ‘From houses to Homes’, or human rights activists and social service workers making God’s presence felt here in our own country.

Jonah was a reluctant prophet whose judgment of pagan Nineveh the Baghdad of Assyria was inconsistent with God’s opinion that they were worthy of onversion.

The letter of Paul demanding complete abandonment of the world including marriage and the attachment to any human emotion is an overstatement to make the point that nothing should cloud the pursuit of eternal values and eternal goals. Paul was writing in the conviction that Christ’s second coming was imminent.

The ‘kindom’ of God is our destiny and everything else must be subordinated to that end. Paradoxically, it is the pursuit of God’s glory that brings happiness on this earth and lasting beatitude in heaven. To think and act like God is the very reason for our existence. “God made me to know him, to love him and to show forth his goodness in this life and to be happy with God forever in next.” [Baltimore Catechism] It’s a definition that still works for old and young.

The disciples, ordinary men, were invited to abandon fish, fare and family for a noble purpose — the pursuit of justice, love and peace, with Jesus leading the way. This was not a repudiation of marriage or family but the extension of that commitment to embrace all humanity as one family.

Though our life stories are surely less dramatic than that of Valjean, or Jonah or Paul or any of the Apostles, we are challenged to broaden the context of our daily routine and open up to the fullness of God’s grace in our lives wherever we live, whatever our call or career. There is a standing invitation to do so. Our acceptance will move us from protectionist spirituality to a more outgoing all-embracing life rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s not likely that a walk through Nineveh or New York or Chicago or Morristown crying out “Forty days more and this town will be destroyed” will change the hearts of anyone. In fact, it might well result in a free ride to the psychiatric unit at the nearest hospital. Massive conversions don’t happen that way except in evangelical tents or stadiums but they are not usually lasting.

Far more effective in today’s world is a more subtle approach that arouses the curiosity of onlookers about our indefatigable pursuit of justice and goodness in the ordinary affairs of life. Actions still do speak louder than words.

If we are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see, we will become conduits of God’s grace for those we can see. Our unique vocation is lived in and through our marriage, our job, our public and private political life and our volunteer service. That’s where the rubber meets the road.