2016/01/17 — 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time — Year C

Clearly, the connecting thread between the first reading and the gospel is marriage, or perhaps celebrating marriage.

We are at the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (the first having been last Sunday’s Feat of the Baptism of the Lord), and instead of a reading from Luke, whose gospel will be read on the remaining Sundays in Ordinary Time, today we have a reading from John — as it happens the story of the wedding feast at Cana, which gives us the third “mystery” of the Epiphany, the changing of water into wine for the wedding guests.

We begin with Isaiah 62:1-5 — a passage about the restoration of Jerusalem. After words about a glory that is manifested to the nations — the theme of Epiphany — the prophets turns to images of marriage to describe God’s relationship with his restored people. It is not just that God cares for his people and sustains them, but he delights in them, marries them, rejoices in them as a bridgroom in his bride. This powerful imagery tells us how intense God’s love is for us. Indirectly, it shows us an ideal for marriage and underscores its value.

The responsorial psalm — Ps 96:1-3, 7-10 — returns us to singing God’s praises among the nations and calling them all to join his people, implicitly in light of his espousal of his people.

 
The second reading — 1 Cor 12:4-11 — begins a series from First Corinthians 12 and 15 which continues in the lectionary through the 8th Sunday. But Lent begins after the fifth Sunday, and the 6th through the 8th are superseded by the solemnities which follow Eastertide. At any rate, Paul is writing to the church at Corinth in these chapters about right order in the community. Here he reminds them and us that whatever gifts we have come from the Holy Spirit, as do other people’s gifts, and they are all given for the benefit of all. Therefore, we shouldn’t regard ourselves as special or privileged because of our gifts.

The gospel — John 2:1-11 — is full of elements worth considering. There is the matter of the relationship between Mary and Jesus in this context. Mary acts as intercessor for the couple. Jesus accedes to her request. Then there is the matter of Jesus’ “hour,” when he will fulfill his purpose by going to the triumph of the cross. And, clearly, there is the context of the wedding feast. When I was in school, ou catechism said that “a sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.” Of course, marriage existed before the time of Jesus. It existed before the covenant at Mount Sinai. Genesis indicates that it has existed throughout the existence of the human race. But our definition tells us that Jesus instituted the sacrament of matrimony, raising the human institution to that level. We were told that it was at Cana that Jesus made marriage a sacrament for his followers. I’d be inclined to suggest that when he speaks of marriage as an act of God joining man and woman together (Matthew 19:6 and parallels), it is at least as clear a teaching that marriage is a action of God. Still. this passage does show Jesus’ esteem for marriage, not only in that he attended the wedding, but that he insured that the celebration would go well.

But John refers to what Jesus did as a “sign.” It has a meaning beyond the actual event. This meaning was sufficiently evident to the disciples that they “began to believe in him.” An important part of that obvious significance was probably the matter of “Messianic abundance:” the expectation that in the Messianic age, there would be more than enough of everything. So, as with the later feeding of the crowds, the change from insufficiency to abundance is an sign that the Messianic age has begun with the coming of Jesus. Beyond that, there is a sign that would only later become clear. Jesus transforms water into wine, just as, at the Last Supper, he would transform wine into his blood. The Eucharist, the Mass, is the wedding feast of the Lamb of God, Jesus, with his bride, the Church, and we are all participants in the celebration, made joyful with the wine transformed into his saving blood.

2015/08/09 — 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday we continue to unfold the Bread of Life Discourse and consider what it means for us to live as members of God's chosen people, God's holy people.


The first reading — 1 Kings 19:4-8 — presents an incident with Elijah. The background is that King Ahab of Israel had married a pagan princess, Jezebel, and had turned to worshipping her gods. Elijah had defeated and killed the prophets of Baal in a public contest. (1 Kings 18:1-40) Jezebel was enraged and threatened to have Elijah killed. So Elijah fled for his life.

Elijah, in effect, attempts to resign from his vocation as prophet, but God refuses the resignation. Instead he miraculously provides food which enables Elijah to reach Mount Horeb (another name for Mount Sinai), where he would have a vision of God, as Moses had. This transformed his flight into a pilgrimage. There are other resonances with the story of the Israelites in the desert. There is the miraculous food, the manna provided to the Israelites. Elijah's 40 day walk to Horeb recalls the Israelites' 40 years in the desert and Moses' 40 days on Mount Horeb receiving the law. (Exodus 24:18 - 34:28 It also parallels Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness prior to the beginning of his public ministry.


The responsorial psalm — Ps 34:29 — invites us to "taste" the goodness of the Lord, who sends his angel and protects us as he protected and fed Elijah.


Today's gospel — John 6:41-51 — flows from last Sunday's, in which Jesus promises the people the true bread from heaven; but it takes it one step further. Jesus now identifies himself with the bread from heaven — more specifically, his flesh is the bread from heaven, and he will give it for the life of the world.

Jesus fulfills the prophecy (Isaiah 54:13, cf. Jeremiah 31:34) that the people will be taught by God: he is, in fact, God teaching them. The faith which is necessary to receive the eternal life conferred by the bread from heaven is itself a gift from the Father — one he will give to all who will accept it, since he wants all to be saved. All who have that faith, which is adherence to Jesus, already have eternal life.


In the second reading — Ephesians 4:30 - 5:2 — Paul spells out an aspect of the meaning of our having been brought into God's people. We have received the Holy Spirit, who now dwells in us. He is grieved by unloving attitudes, words, and deeds. (Note that here Paul does not speak of sins of sex and violence, which he writes against elsewhere. here is more to Christian life than avoiding those sins.) Kindness, compassion, and forgiveness make us imitators of the self-giving Christ. Our goodness rests, most fundamentally on our being children of God, rather on simply following some system of ethics. Bt if we are God's children, we live as such. So we do need to have our consciences formed according to the truth that sets us free.


St. Bernard says, "I love because I love, I love in order to love;" and St. Augustine teaches that receiving the Body of Christ — the bread from heaven which gives life to the world — makes us the Body of Christ. This is what we do every Sunday at Mass.

Last week I suggested the hymn "Bread of Heaven" as a meditation on the gospel and first reading. This week, the hymn "Panis Angelicus (Bread of Angels)," with a text by St. Thomas Aquinas, can serve. Here's a video with Luciano Pavarotti. The opening words are taken from last Sunday's psalm, whichsays, "Man ate the bread of angels," and the first two lines paraphrase the line. The word "figures" sees the manna, which the psalm refers to as a "type," a prefiguring, of the sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, which Jesus calls the true bread from heaven. The stanza ends in an expression of awe at this sacrament.

Riots in Britain — A Differing View

63mago has linked another opinion piece. This one is also worth considering, IMO. It's from Tony Blair.

Riots in Britain

Another blogger posted a link to this article. Not living in GB, I can't know how valid the analysis is, but I think it's worth considering. I think that there is validity to the suggestion that there had been a breakdown in morality in the West, but I'm not sure exactly how that relates to the riots. Anyway, I think the piece is worth reading and thinking about.

The "Barcode of Life" by Rick Baker

I think Rick expresses very well some things that are terribly wrong with America: the reduction of employees to commodities, the idolization of technology, the obsession with sports, the loss of meaningful cultural traditions. Read his post. Scrooge lives, and it is what America wants.

PEI Family Visit/Ball Game with Bob and Mark/Commenter's Block

Last week I went to Prince Edward Island for a brief visit. I flew there by plane and was on the ground for just over 72 hours. The first evening I had dinner with the family of the youngest of my second cousins. He and his wife have four children —one starting his second year at university, teen-aged girl, teen-aged boy, and a 14 month old son. After dinner, another cousin (I'll call her "Marian") took me to her place, and later we attended a singer's performance in a rural restaurant.

The next day, I visited the widow of my mother's first cousin (the mother of the second cousins) at the ancestral farm, and my mother's remaining first cousin in the city. Marian had me peel onions that were going to become part of a chow that some of her siblings and their mother would make the next day. We were visited for supper by a friend of hers and the two autistic boys the friend is caring for. Next another cousin dropped off her 12 and 10 year old sons for an overnight. We all went to a ceilidh (pronounced kaylee), a performance of traditional music with fiddling, singing, and step dancing. We met the friend and the autistic boys there. Marian says her nephews' regular bedtime is 7:30, but they were up until about 11:00 that evening.

The boys played in the yard in the morning and we all took a walk along a trail in the woods at before lunch. Then the mother picked the boys up.

My last morning there, Marian sent me to the Premier's office to pick up an item he was donating to her organization's auction.

What struck me from the visit is the sense of family and community — people taking care of each other, doing things especially for family members as a matter of course. This is not something I experienced growing up. Most of the family was too far away for easy contact. One grandmother and an uncle lived 15-20 minutes away, but I didn't observe a lot of back-and-forth. So I learned to be pretty much on my own, not expecting to be called on by relatives for help nor expecting to get much from them, resenting interferences in my routine. Coming to know these cousins as I have over the past four years has reminded me how self-centered I have become — something I need to work on if the second great commandment is to love others as I love myself.

Yesterday (Wednesday) evening I went to a Red Sox baseball game with Bob, who organized it, and Mark. I hadn't been to a major league baseball game for decades. It was thoroughly delightful. We met in Kenmore Square and went to a restaurant nearby (where I was recognized by the past commodore of my yacht club, who was with a group at the adjacent table). Our seats were high above left field, with a good view of everything except a corner of left field.

It was great meeting Bob and Mark, both nice guys. And we had such a lively conversation that I actually paid less attention to the game than if I had been at home in front of my TV. Of course, at the park, there's a lot more to look at than the small pice being shown on TV at any moment. And the experience of being there, just being part of the event (including singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th inning stretch), felt exciting.

I sometimes wonder if I would like some bloggers I really like over the internet if I were to meet them irl. Well, with Bob and Mark, I was not disappointed. I like them just as much in person as I did in cyberspace and I'm sure I'd enjoy seeing each of them again.

I wouldn't recommend people under 18 meeting with adult bloggers, but for adults who have built up some degree of acquaintance and cyber-friendship, it can be worthwhile. Of course there is always an element of risk, as there is in any first encounter. The other guy could be an axe-murderer, someone who wants to out you if you're closeted, or just a jerk. And it's always wise to meet in a public setting for starters. But when you like what you know of someone from the internet, it can be worth a try, IMO. It certainly worked out very well for me. Just a wonderful evening with friends. And the Red Sox won!

Since I got back from PEI, I seem to be experiencing some commenter's block. I'll look at new posts on blogs I like and just not be able to come up with a worthwhile comment. There probably aren't many of you who notice when I don't comment on your blog, but if you have been missing my comments, let me assure you, it's not that I've stopped liking you or your blog. My feelings haven't changed since last month. But I have been thinking that I should cut down the time I spoend on the internet, and I should spend a bit more time at some websites I was a regular at before I discovered blogging. So maybe I won't have as many comments. But I'll be following you as I have been.