1. --
Lanie LeBlanc OP
2. --
Dennis Keller
3. --
Paul O'Reilly SJ
4. -- (Your
reflection can be here!)
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1.
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Sun. 6 A 2023
The same thing happens to me every time our first reading
from the Book of Sirach comes up in the liturgical cycle. I
always have to stop after the third word... "If you choose."
My mind goes straight to "If I had... or if I hadn't
chosen..." It is much like a mini-inventory of the good
choices and the not so good ones I have made. I think we all
second guess ourselves sometimes, often in hindsight.
The power of personal choice, however, remains
unmistakable! Everything in life is a choice in one way or
another. God offers us to choose water or fire, namely life
or death. Would that it were so easy! I can anticipate my
Legal Eagle teenage granddaughter thinking, maybe even aloud
: "well, water can flood and fire can warm, hmm."
Ah, perfect timing for "the talk" about discernment! It
always amazes me how much I take away from her insightful
comments and arguments. Evil usually appears as looking
good. How does one choose the better way?
Our second reading from the first letter to the
Corinthians tells us that the Spirit scrutinizes everything.
That suggests that praying will help one understand the
mysteries and wisdom of God, even if they are hidden.
Meditating on Scripture and sharing one's thoughts with
others who do is also a turn in the right direction.
Jesus himself gives us more insight in the long Gospel
selection according to Matthew. Jesus came to fulfill the
law of his time and he did so by trying to show its intent
rather than just adhering to its literal words. Some of the
examples are hot button topic these days, for sure. Whatever
our personal preference on any of those, it is necessary to
find the way to get ourselves closer to the underlying
principle it fosters. Again, not easy. I think that is why
we are still grappling with some of these situations even to
this day.
This wonderful granddaughter of mine does have her
moments! Here I thought I was in pretty good shape, at my
age, in the wisdom department ...and then she, at 14,
speaks! I have discovered that the most essential key to
acting more wisely is openness to hear and then wrestle with
uncomfortable ideas, then or later, knowing that ultimately,
God is Truth. I do have enough wisdom to choose "later"
quite often these days so I can get my own act more
together!
Blessings,
Dr. Lanie
LeBlanc OP
Southern
Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one
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2.
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Sixth Sunday in Ordered Time February 12, 2023
Sirach 15:15-20; Responsorial Psalm 119;
1st Corinthians 2:6-10; Gospel Acclamation Matthew 11:25;
Matthew 5:17-37
Following two Sundays of discipleship training we come to
the discipleship easiest to comprehend. It is about
compliance, about rules and regulations. The focus appears
to be on will-power. That’s what it seems like. The reading
from Sirach sets the theme very clearly. "If you choose to
keep the commandments, they will save you: if you trust in
God you shall live. …. Before man are life and death, good
and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him." That is
a clear statement about will-power, choice. There seems to
be nothing about using our heads to think, to discover
meaning, nothing about growing spiritually, nothing about
forming our personal characters. Just show me the rules,
give me the commandments, let me know what behavior is
expected and I’ll choose life. And when I mess up – and I
most certainly will because there are strong enticements
that beckon us as did the Sirens in the Ulysses story – I
have available to me a couple of sacraments. We can approach
God’s mercy seat in confession and, in the moments before
our passing from this world, we have available to us an
anointing and Apostolic Blessing that gets into right
relationship with our Creator. In the early stages of
spiritual life that seems pretty much how it ought to be for
us. Stick to the letter of the law and we’ll be saved from
an eternity of damnation.
Unfortunately, just keeping an eye on measures of
behavior is an endless cycle. For awhile it’s okay – like
during adolescence. That’s when we need guard rails to keep
from falling into in the ditch. In adulthood we get tired of
trying and allow sin a place in our hearts. It’s like the
laws don’t have the power to keep us growing.
Confusion comes in with Jesus continuing educating his
disciples. Of course, murder is contrary to the
commandments. But Jesus pushes the envelope. He teaches even
anger is wrong. Calling your brother bad names is wrong.
Anything that harms a person’s standing in the community or
thinking harm to that person is wrong. Jesus is loading up
the commandments with matters of intention, movements of the
heart. This is much more than mere compliance. This is
commandments on the steroid of love.
Then that most favorite of all commandments about
adultery. Seems sins of sexuality carry a special guilt and
condemnation. Humans are preoccupied with sex. Jesus pushes
the envelope again: lustful language, lewd remarks, wishful
thinking, all these are adultery. Again, Jesus looks into
the intention, the allowance of irreverence and disrespect
toward another person as sinful and thus harmful to a
person’s spiritual life, detrimental to a person’s spirit
and living. Mere following the letter of the law isn’t what
Jesus expects of his disciples. Here is a much farther
reaching on thoughts and deeds. Here Jesus is speaking of
the contents of our intentions, the very movements of our
hearts that we allow and even exercise. In that allowance
and exercise we strengthen a false use and abuse of God’s
creation. That disrespect, that irreverence harm us even if
we remain compliant to the commandments in what we do.
Jesus speaks with authority. The Pharisees, the Scribes
would present their arguments by prefacing their instruction
with "it is written." Jesus taught using his own authority.
The pharisees and the Scribes were very careful in their
teaching. Not working on the Sabbath was one of their
favorite studies. The objects of their thinking was to
certify what was work and what was allowable on the Sabbath.
As an example, writing is considered to be work. How much
writing was allowable before writing violated the Sabbath?
The thoughts of the Scribes and the Pharisees were overly
complex and difficult to follow. Writing in their mode of
spirituality had to be defined. The definition is all about
detail and lacks complete the spirit of respecting and
revering God’s Sabbath of rest. "He who writes two letters
of the alphabet with his right or with his left hand,
whether of one kind or two kinds, if they are written with
different inks or in different languages is guilty." And it
goes further. Such detail is not easy to be remembered,
especially when there are concerns about earning a living,
educating children, the situation of governance, etc. A
commitment to abide by the law became burdensome and
impossible for the majority of people. This was the enhanced
Law of Moses taught by the Scribes and the Pharisees. This
was not the law of Moses Jesus taught. That adjusted law was
promulgated by the insistence of men seeking their own
importance.
The Law of Moses is not lost in Jesus teaching and
practice. Jesus denies the frills and exaggerations, the
application by studious persons that make the Law
irrelevant. The Law upon which Jesus builds his church is
summed up in one of two words: that law demands respect and
reverence. The commandments present humanity with
fundamental principles: respect/reverence for God and for
God’s name, and for God’s day in each week. These principles
insist on respect/reverence for parents, for property of
others, for personalities of others, for truth, for the good
name of others. The principles include respect and reverence
for ourselves so that what are charge of our persons. Thus,
we are free of the temptations and enticements of the way of
the world. We avoid ceding self-mastery and self freedom to
those with evil intention.
The commandments, the Law of Moses is about right
relationships. Violating right relationships brings persons
to mortgaging freedom to forces robbing us of peace, of
truth, of the way of the Christ. In the teaching this
Sunday, Jesus focuses on the most common of evil masters
seeking to steal our freedom and happiness. The first is
anger. Don’t allow it to rule you! Then he speaks of lust.
That most powerful of urges in humanity is intimacy.
Intimacy leads us to the birth of another human being – but
also to bonding woman and man into one body. That bonding is
a manifestation of the intensity of the bond among the
Persons of the Trinity. Yet, the man or woman who surrender
freedom to lusting after another ultimately loses mastery of
their own lives. Jesus speaks of the dissolution of the bond
between man and woman. That divorce brought on by lusting
for intimacy with another, is adultery. Truth is critically
important. Giving an oath for the follower of Jesus is
irrelevant. Hiding behind lies, fabrications, three second
sound bites meant to mislead damages the human spirit. Let
yes be yes and no be no, all lacking in subterfuge.
The commandments are principles. It is up to each woman
and man to apply those principles, those principles that
require respect for self, for others, and for all of
creation. That respect becomes more than a passive reaction
to what is self, spouses, others, creation, and ultimately
God. As life’s experiences stack up, respect becomes a more
active reverence and an appreciation for self, for others,
for creation, and, thusly, God, those three persons united
in reverence and held in totally uncompromising unity by
Love.
The way of the world build on violence, a manifestation
of anger. Consider the offerings of entertainment. Violence
is advanced by technological wizardry to a compelling level.
We find ourselves wishing for victory for the "good guys and
gals" ignoring the awful slaughter and blood-letting.
Consider entertainment and advertising. The more scantily
clad are actors, the more attention these entertainers and
advertisers achieve. Think of our social and political
environment. Lies, fabrications, and spin gain credibility
by way of repetition. If a reality is tied to the incipient
victimhood of persons. A consistent repetition captures
persons. Falsehood is thought to be truth and the captured
are swayed into action, often violent action with a total
disregard and respect for what is true. The resulting
condition is that we lose the freedom with which the Creator
endowed each and every person. Respect for self, for each
other, for institutions meant to protect and encourage
growth are destroyed. Peace and happiness are victims on the
altar sacrificed to power, wealth, influence. Chaos, hatred,
falsehoods mimicking truth, violence and lack of respect for
persons stolen by lust – these are the thieves of character
and the growth of our spirits. Jesus speaks of his mission
as: "I came that you may have life and have it in
abundance."
Dennis
Keller
dkeller002@nc.rr.com
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3.
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Year A: 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time
"If your eye should cause you to sin, pluck it
out."
Do you happen to know any professional con men?
I don’t just mean ordained ministers of religion who
attempt of a Sunday morning and with varying degrees of
success to put before the congregations images of righteous
upstanding faithful Christian living which are often
difficult of recognition to their families, friends and
religious communities, more familiar with their weekday
appearances.
The true professionals regard those rather snootily as at
best gifted amateurs. No, the true professionals are a rare
and exclusive breed, rather like neurologists or Chihuahuas
who guard their professional boundaries jealously and do not
take well to interlopers on their professional turf.
Well, one of the nice things about saying masses in
prisons is that I get to meet a remarkable range of people I
would never otherwise meet and experience the full range of
their extraordinary skills. (I will long remember one mass I
celebrated in which the Reader was in for fraud, the
Sacristan for supplying Class A substances and both of the
Eucharistic Ministers had convictions for murder by
poisoning, but that’s another story.)
But one of the most remarkable is that of a man whose
words I have never believed. He is a lovely man, gentle,
refined, humorous, well-spoken in many languages, quietly
respectful to authority, mild and wise in administration,
careful and meticulous in his work and gentle in the
exercise of his own authority. He is of course a
professional conman and, when I met him, he had just been
put in charge of the prison kitchens.
Although he had no previous experience of catering, he
ran those kitchens excellently, better than any managing
director I have met before or since. And, as I got to know
him better, he began to tell me things about himself. All
the good that he had done in his life, all people he had
helped, all the people he had served and made a difference
for, thinking only of their needs and never of himself. And
he told me about other people who had caused him to suffer –
people apparently motivated solely by the malign
determination to do him wrong. People had calumnised him,
called him names he had never heard in the Bible, laid false
accusations against him, when all the time, he was a simple,
honest man attempting to make his way in the world according
to the light of Christ.
Of course, I put up with just about as much of this
nonsense as I could. That is part of what it is to be a
prison chaplain. It transpired that the allegation for which
he was being held on remand was one of fraud. The sum
involved was a matter of some dispute – somewhere between
£40 million and £170 million – as the prosecuting counsel
dryly put it, both quite large sums of other people’s money.
Our hero, naturally denied all charges against him, claiming
that – well, I forget the precise details of his defense,
but it was along the lines of: he never had the money, the
allegation was fraudulent, or it all been stolen by two big
boys who had just run away. Although he constantly protested
his innocence, I could not help but feel that the court
would probably take a different view.
So, it was a surprise to me when he was acquitted on all
charges and discharged without a stain upon his character.
While, naturally rejoicing in the release of one of my sheep
from wicked and baseless charges and the vindication of his
innocence, I could not help but feel that it would not be
long before other quite large sums of other people’s money
found themselves missing. But, where the courts have spoken,
it is not for humble prison chaplains to demur.
So I was not at all surprised when I received a letter
from him, written from his new cell in a similar
establishment in a remote part of Scotland. I naturally
assumed that another of his little schemes had gone
unaccountably awry. But, on reading the letter, I discovered
that this was a different kind of cell, one in a monastery.
He wrote to me to tell me of the change that he felt had
taken place in his life in his time alone, in the prison
cell. Never having been in prison in this country before, he
had read about the British prison system and how it had been
designed to give prisoners an experience of solitude and
silence in which to contemplate the world and their own
place within it. And it had caused him to reflect upon his
life as a conman. He described it as a kind of addiction –
when you know the one thing in life that you are really good
at is lying, deceiving other people, influencing them
towards your own ends, it simply seems like the most natural
thing in the world to be doing. When the "fluence" is upon
you, when you are "in the zone", when you can make anyone
believe almost anything you want, there is not a feeling
like it in the world. It is very, very moreish. Like those
last few squares of chocolate calling to you from the
fridge, it becomes almost irresistible. And that, he had
found, had led him deeper and deeper into the morass of
untruth and finally, when even his lies ran out, into
prison.
And, having spent some time alone in reflection, he had
realized that this life was not enough. And so he had
decided to live remainder of his life in a different way and
in a different place. As he put it, "Where there is no
money, I cannot be a fraud. Where there are no words, I
cannot be a liar. Where I am alone with God, I cannot be a
deceiver. Believe it or not, Father, (and I will understand
if you find it hard to believe) I hope to become an honest
man."
Let us pray that each and every one of us may find some
place in the world where we can be honest women and men;
where we can be simply ourselves; where we can simply be the
people God made us to be.
Paul
O'Reilly SJ <fatbaldnproud@opalityone.net>
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4.
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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections,
and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the
preaching you hear. Send them to
preacherexchange@att.net. Deadline is
Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr. John Boll, OP
