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Daily Scripture

+ 5th Week in Ordinary Time

It still has meaning.

1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13 Psalm 132:6-7, 8-10 Mark 6:53-56

The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place beneath the wings of the cherubim in the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the temple. There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets which Moses had put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel. [1 Kings 8:6, 8]
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In recent years there has been much discussion in liturgical circles about the proper location of the tabernacle in the worship space. The directives implementing the Constitution on the Liturgy by the Second Vatican Council prescribed that the tabernacle be located in prominent location in the church or chapel, preferably in a chapel dedicated to the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament and appropriate for veneration. In any case, it was not to be located on the altar table used for the celebration of the Eucharist. As a result in many churches renovations, the tabernacle was moved to the ‘side altar’ previously used for the veneration of the Blessed Virgin or St. Joseph and in some churches, it was placed on the old altar previously used for Mass. In situations the old altar was replaced with a permanent pedestal on which the tabernacle was placed.

In liturgical matters, nothing is simple. Those of a more conservative disposition insisted that the location of the Tabernacle on the side altar reduced the status of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist thereby diminishing its meaning in the devotional life of the faithful. Others of a more liberal persuasion opined that in fact, the location in a separate chapel within the church assigned to the sacrament greater prominence thereby increasing the devotional aspect. Moreover, in as much as an emphasis of the ‘action’ of the Mass as the repetition of the “Lord’s Supper” was promoted by the Council, it seemed to liturgists that the location of the tabernacle in the main sanctuary behind the free standing Eucharist table would compete with the ‘action’ of the Mass as a sacred meal.

The most recent prescriptions in the United States provide that the tabernacle be located in the main sanctuary on suitably ornate pedestal. It is ironic that in the major basilicas including the basilica of St. Peter in Rome, the tabernacle is located on a side altar that is not very prominent.

Whatever the location, it should not be a bone of contention worthy of a liturgical battle. The public and private devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is rooted in the long tradition of the Church and should not be disparaged. In the same way in which the tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments was symbolic of God’s presence in the temple, so too, the reservation of the Eucharist Bread has been one of the longest-standing practices of the devotional life of Catholics. It is intended to extend the meaning and the effects of the Eucharistic celebration into the life of the faithful who continue to spend time in prayerful meditation on the mysteries of the life of Jesus not the least of which is his faithfulness unto death on the cross for the salvation of the world. The two aspects of Eucharist need not be in competition. The ‘Mass’ continues to be considered a “sacrificial” meal. But we need to be clear that its connection with the passion and death of Christ even as the lamb of God is not to suggest that his death was mandated to satisfy and angry God. That in my opinion is not an appropriate application of Old Testament sacrifices. No, Jesus sacrificial death was the completion of his entire sacrificial life of unqualified and indiscriminate love in the same way as the sacrificial love of partners in marriage offer their sacrificial love to one another or in the manner that Mother Teresa offered her live in sacrificial service to victims of poverty in the streets of Calctta. It is in this sense that devotion to the Eucharist in the tabernacle takes its extended meaning.

During the celebration of the Eucharist, we become what we eat. Through our devotion to the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle, we are reminded that the Eucharistic presence in our mind, heart and soul extends into all the good works of our lives with the hope that we too will always think and act with the same sacrificial love as did Jesus in his earthly life.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Sunday July 11, 2010

There Are No Free Lunches!

The astute professor of philosophy decided to challenge his young inexperienced students with a summer assignment that would demand more reflection than study. Aware that their life experiences were too few to have achieved a great deal of wisdom, he nevertheless tested their acumen with a term paper entitled, “The Basic Rule For Successful Living—An Exigesis.”

Of course the students were anxious to please the professor and enthusiastic to win an A+ for their efforts. He did tell them to make it succinct but didn’t instruct them on the number of words or pages.

On or before the due date, the completed assignments started arriving on the professor’s desk. Few of them were less than one hundred pages. Instead of rejecting their efforts outright and because he was a compassionate professor unlike his confreres, he decided to give them a break and send them back to their computers with the direction, “say it fewer words.”

The deadline was extended twice and finally on the last day, one student arrived with his term paper of one page with one sentence that read, “There are no free lunches!”

To the scholar of the law who asked Jesus the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “How do you read the law?” and he might have added, “Say it in one sentence.” The lawyer did indeed respond in one sentence, ‘You shall lov the Lord, our God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” A+ __ ! Go to the head of the class!

How much more simply can it be stated? On these two commandments, the entire law and prophets are based.

But as with many of us lawyers searching for a legal loophole, the man had to complicate the matter by asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Do I have to love everyone even if some people don’t deserve it?

I came upon this bit of wisdom which couldn’t be stated any more clearly or cleverly than if I wrote it myself so I will quote liberally from the source. [Celebration: Preaching Resources, Pat Sanchez, NCR Publications,Kansas City, MO]

“As long ago as the fifth century B.C.E., the poet Pindar wrote: “Of the good things given between man and man, [sic] I say that a neighbor, true and loving in heart, is a joy beyond all things else.’ Among the Chinese, the following two proverbs about neighbors are popular: ‘Anyone can buy a good house, but good neighbors are priceless’ and ‘If at home you receive no visitors, then abroad you will have no host.’”

“Closer to our own times, G.K. Chesterton wrote, ‘your next door neighbor … is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a wall; he is drains that are worse than yours or roses that are better than yours.’ Martin Luther King Jr. called good the neighbor ‘who looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men [sic] human and, therefore, brothers.’ (Now we’re getting close.) Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggested that ‘neighborliness is not a quality that we must discover in other people before we accept them as neighbors ; it is, rather, their claim on ourselves. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must behave like neighbor to him.’”

“Then there are those who would quote the English proverb, ‘Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge.’” which is very similar to the sentiments expressed by my own father, “If you want to remain close to your family, don’t live next store to them.”

In the end it was the one who treated the wounded man with compassion that was identified as the neighbor and this man was a Samaritan! In our own times it might well have been a Palestinian reaching out to the Jew.

So in essence, Jesus defines “neighbor” as anyone in need, regardless of race, color or creed and his disciples as those who respond with compassion.

This is an interesting word which is a derivation of the Latin word “passio” to suffer and “cum” which means, “with.” And so to have compassion is to have sympathy for and empathy with another. I think however that compassion has an even more basic meaning and application. Compassion can also mean to walk with. Truly we do not know our neighbor until we have walked a mile in his shoes!

So there you have it. It has taken more than a sentence to explicate the message but it shouldn’t take a lifetime to put it into practice.

A young man approached me after early Mass this morning and asked if I could have said all of the above more succinctly – in one sentence, one page. I responded: “I did indeed say in one sentence on one page – ‘There are no free lunches!’”

Amen.