Kargador at Dawn

Kargador at Dawn
Work in the Vineyard

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Short Reflection for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a; Luke 14:1, 7-14.

Selected Passage:  "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” (Luke 14: 12-13)

Meditation:  The Gospel is a strong challenge to us and a reminder that the poor and the hungry must have places at our table else we are NO different from the Scribes and the Pharisees. .  If we invite only friends and kinfolks and the wealthy and the powerful, we have already received our rewards. So next time we throw a party, we simply ask whether the poor and the crippled are also fed else we simply follow convention.  The following of Jesus is NOT CONVENTION! BEWARE! Cf. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...
3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life.

Friday, August 23, 2019

Jesus Takes Away the Sins of the World

HOW JESUS TAKES AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD


We should be careful not to fall into a common misunderstanding about what this means. Because of certain biblical and doctrinal ways of expressing this, the impression can be given that Jesus' suffering and death took away the sins of the world by somehow paying off a debt to God, namely, that God took Jesus' suffering as compensation for our sin - implying that God had lived in anger since Adam's sin, waiting for someone to adequately pay the debt before that sin could be forgiven. The images and metaphors used to express Jesus' expiation for sin can, if taken literally, give that impression, but that is not what they mean.

Jesus takes away the sin of the world away by transforming it, by changing it, by taking it inside of himself and transmuting it. We see examples of this throughout his entire life, although it is most manifest in the love and forgiveness he shows at the time of his death.

In simple language, Jesus took away the sin of the community by taking in hatred and giving back love; by taking in anger and giving out graciousness; by taking in envy and giving back blessing; by taking in bitterness and giving out warmth; by taking in pettiness and giving back compassion; he taking in chaos and giving back peace; and by taking in sin and giving back forgiveness.

This is not an easy thing to do. What comes naturally is to give back in kind: hatred for hatred, anger for anger, coldness for coldness, revenge for hurt. Someone hits us so we hit back.

This dynamic is not just something we are asked to admire in Jesus. The incarnation is meant to be ongoing. We are asked to continue to give flesh to God, to continue to do what Jesus did. Thus our task too is to help take away the sin of the world.

We do this whenever we take in hatred, anger, envy, pettiness, and bitterness, hold them, transmute them, and eventually give them back as love, graciousness, blessing, compassion, warmth, and forgiveness.

August 29th Prayer Session


Badaliyya - Philippines
August 29, 2019

Dear Friends,

Every last Thursday of the month, Badaliyya-Philippines gather together for the regular updates on Muslim - Christian Relations and Prayers for Unity at the OMI Divine Mercy Spiritual Center in Tamontaka, Cotabato City. We will gather again on the 29th August from 2:30 – 5 pm. For our monthly Badaliyya prayer for Peace and Reconciliation we pray especially for the Holy Land, Syria, Iraq and Mindanao. Please join us in prayer.

Despite the increasing crisis in the world today our theme for our prayer is one of hope and courage. In his letters to the Badaliyya Movement, Fr. Massignon wrote of the encouragement that he received from friends and articles in journals. It is a tribute to Fr. Louis Massignon and his extraordinary faith and vision the Badaliyya Prayer Movement still continues to honor Muslim and Christian relations.

If you would like to know more details about the story of the Seven Saints of Ephesus please read the final chapter in "Dialogues with Saints and Mystics: In the Spirit of Louis Massignon"A short version of the original story can also be found in the Encyclopedia.

Thank you for your continuing interest in Massignon's Badaliyya Movement and for joining us in prayer and Spirit. May you find peace in your hearts and joy in the Spirit as we prepare for the Muslim New Year and always.



Fr. Jun Mercado, OMI
Badaliyya-Philippines
August 23, 2019


Wednesday, August 21, 2019

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Short Reflection for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

ReadingsIsaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30.

Selected Passage“Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” (Luke 13: 23-24)

Meditation:  To enter the Kingdom of God is not a question of strength and merit.  No one is strong enough and neither anyone is meritorious enough to win the Kingdom! It is a GIFT.  But walking along the path of Jesus means to bear fruits. And fruits associated to the lives of Christians are – justice, charity and mercy! These fruits constitute the narrow gate or the prophetic face of the following of Jesus. So pray for these fruits and stay the course. Remember that the Kingdom is God’s gratuitous offer to all! Cf. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...
3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Christ as Wounded

CHRIST AS WOUNDED


John of the Cross once laid out a series of spiritual counsels which, if followed, he believed, would lead to deeper intimacy with Christ. The first three of those counsels work this way:

1) Study the life of Christ. We cannot move into  deeper communion with Christ without first knowing who he is. Hence initially we must study his life, particularly as it is spelled out in the Gospels.

2) Strive actively to imitate Christ. For John of the Cross, imitation is not a matter of trying to somehow mimic what we think Jesus might have looked like or of trying to parallel what Jesus actually did (he taught, healed, and fed people; thus I will be a teacher, a nurse, or a social worker).  For John of the Cross, imitating Jesus means trying to have the same motivation he had, trying to feel like he felt, and trying to do things for the same reason the did them.

His next counsel, however, has a strange sound to it. It reads this way: Endeavour to be inclined always: not to the easiest, but to the most difficult; not to the most delightful, but to the harshest; not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant; not to what means rest for you, but to hard work; not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling; not to the most, but to the least; not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised; not to wanting something; but to wanting nothing; do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and desire to enter for Christ into complete nudity, emptiness, and poverty in everything in the world.(Ascent to Mount Carmel, Bk. I. Chapter 13)

John doesn't say "choose" what is more difficult, but "endeavor to be inclined towards it". It is rather a counsel for discernment. Ultimately what it is saying is that we know that we are actually imitating Christ when humilation, the lowest place, emptiness, the unpleasant, pain, and wound actually enter into our lives.

Reversely stated, if we are perennially standing on the side of glamour and success, admired, without wound and humiliation, we are probably not really following Christ - who is marked, first of all, by wounds - but are probably serving ourselves in his name.

It is not incidental that, in Christianity, we worship the humiliated one.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Short Reflection for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings: Jeremiah 38: 4-6, 8-10; Hebrew 12: 1-4; Luke 12: 49-53

Gospel Passage:  "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! (Luke 12: 49-50)

Meditation:  Jesus spoke of his own Baptism of fire – his suffering, death and resurrection that others may have life.   It is the fire that burns yet purify.  The fire in our life is always the symbol of energy and zeal.  This is our zeal for the kingdom of God made manifest in our love of God and Love of neighbors, especially the least. Hold on to that fire else we become a “walking dead”.  Cf. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
1st step: Write the Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the Dhikr remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the Dhikr silently as often as possible...
3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the
Dhikr in your life. 

Our Solidarity with the Poor


Solidarity with the Poor…

“We are disciples of Christ, the Poor, to whom we radically witness by our simple and flexible life style and in our solidarity with the poor.”

Solidarity is best described by an Australian aboriginal woman when asked about assistance to the poor. 

“If you have come to help me,
You are wasting your time.
But if you have come,
Because your liberation is bound up with mine,
Then let us work together.”

Our discipleship of Christ the Poor and our radical witnessing is, in fact, bound up with the liberation of the whole person and all men and women.  This is solidarity that involves the whole person and all.

Solidarity is becoming part of the historical movement giving birth to a new life…
·      to end suffering from injustice everywhere,
·      to stand with those who are oppressed,
·      to be beside them in the struggle for justice
·      to fight with them NOT for them.

The Jesus Paradigm

1.     God’s love is fully revealed in Jesus Christ – life death and resurrection.

            Kenosis – Phil. 2: 5-11:

 “Have this mind among you yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with Gid a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being in the likeness of men, and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death , even death on a cross.”

            In our being disciples of Jesus Christ, the question asked in not HOW?  This provides an escape from the clear call of following and obedience and of standing naked before the Lord and allowing Jesus to interpret us…!

2.     Discipleship and adherence to Christ.  Adherence is sharing in Jesus’ death and resurrection – the logic of Calvary.  In fact, when Jesus calls… it means come and die with me.  Yes, it is an invitation to martyrdom. 

            Old person giving way to the new person in Christ
            Old wine and wineskins to new wine and wineskins
            Death to Resurrection.

3.  Transcendence as manifested at his Transfiguration is an invitation to Going Beyond, that is,  to become bigger,  greater and larger!  Liberation from parochialism, provincialism and sin… To be totally  persons for others!

Fr. Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI
#Badaliyya-Philippines
August 14, 2019


Tuesday, August 13, 2019

The West and the Muslim World


CRISIS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE MODERN MUSLIM WORLD

by  Fr. Eliseo R. Mercado, Jr., OMI
Professor – San Beda University – Graduate School of Laws
Notre Dame University – Graduate School of Laws
Senior Policy Adviser of the Institute for Autonomy & Governance

                  There is a fundamental malaise in the modern Muslim World. Muslims sense that something has gone wrong with Islamic history.  The root of this malaise stems from an awareness that something is awry between the religion that God has appointed and the historical development of the world he controls.
           
                 Beginning in the 18th century, Muslim society began its serious decline.   There was a disintegration of military and political power.  There was enfeeblement of commercial and political power.  Intellectual effort stagnated.  An effete decadence infected art.   Religious vitality ebbed.  The writing of the great masters elicited commentaries rather than enthusiasm, and the classical systems were used to delimit the road that one must travel rather than provide the impetus for one's journey.
           
                 In brief, the Muslim World once gloried on its grip on the world and history from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 seemed to have lost the capacity to order its life effectively by the beginning of the 18th century.  Worst, the degeneration of the Muslim World coincided with the exuberance of the West..   At about this time, Western Civilization was launching forth on the greatest upsurge of expansive energy that human history has ever seen. Vitality, skills, wealth and power vastly accumulated.  With them, the West began not only to shape its own life but also the life of the entire world including the Muslim World.
            
                 During the 19th century, the Western pressure and domination increased.   The Dutch in Indonesia; The British in the subcontinent of India and Malaya; Russia in Central Asia; and the British and the French in North Africa and Middle East.  All at once, the western powers ruled Muslim society in full formality.  While the Ottoman Empire retained political sovereignty up to the end of World War I, it was independent without being free.  Apart from the matter of political control, Muslim society, once forceful, dynamic and alert, was, everywhere in drooping spirit, and subject both in initiative and delivery to forces outside Islam.
           
                 It is with the contemporary manifestation of this problem and crisis that is paramount in the understanding of the modern phenomena like Islamic revivalism, activism or modern aggressive Islamic movements like Muslim Brotherhood, Jemaah Islamiyya, al-Qaeda and ISIS.
           
                 The first Islamic movements in the modern period were protests against the internal deterioration.  It was a call to stop the decadence in Muslim society by summoning back the believers and the community to the first purity and order of Islam.   One of the earliest of those movements was the Wahhabiyah in 18th century Arabia.  It was puritanical, vigorous and simple.  Its message was straightforward: A return to Islam during the Medinan period.  It rejected the corruption and laxity of the contemporary decline.  It also rejected the accommodations and cultural richness of the Islamic empires  - the Ummayads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans.
         
                 The Wahhabis insisted on the Shari'a, the Hanbalite version stripped of all innovations developed through the intervening centuries.  Obey the pristine law - fully, strictly and singly  - is Islam; all else is superfluous.  This interpretation of Islam is strictly and seriously to be implemented.
           
                 The second Islamic movement that dominated the scene was the Pan Islamic movement of Jamalud-din Afghani (1839-97).  It was an Islamic revival movement that sought to reawaken the Muslims' consciousness of how they had once been mighty, but now is weak.  This recalling of erstwhile Muslim grandeur incited the Muslims to discard resignation in favor of plunging into the task of creating the kind of Islamic world that ought to be.  The Qur’an verse: "Verily, God does not change the condition of people until they change their own condition"  (S 13:11) had become the inspiration for the Muslim resolve to take into their own hands the refurbishing of the Muslim world and its earthly history.
           
                 Indeed this call to action was the transition from a non-responsible quietude to a self-directing determination.  The Pan Islamic Movement believed that Islamic history should once again march forward in full truth and full splendor.
           
                 The bitterness of the Muslim disillusionment of the West has gone very deep.  The West is perceived to work against them.  It is accused to engage on a deliberate vast enterprise to disrupt Islam.  Apart even from military and political domination, Western power has other manners of imposing its weight.  The most pervasive is the economics.
            
                 The Muslims perceive that the West has been bearing down upon the Muslim World with what appears to be saying in effect:  "give up those antiquated ways, those superstitions, those inhibitions; be modern with us, be prosperous, and be sophisticated.  Emancipate your women, your societies and yourselves!”
           
                 Many Muslims do succumb or see their children succumb.   The west continues to seduce them from their traditional loyalties. The reaction to perceived western attack is very visible, in the activist movements, chiefly the Ihwan al Muslimun  (The Muslim Brotherhood).  This activism represents in contemporary times the new determination to sweep aside the degeneration and stagnancy in the Muslim world.  It aspires to get back to a basis for Muslim society.  It is a vision, and a go forward in transforming the Muslims to become operative force at work in modern times.
            
                 Unfortunately for the adherents of this activist movement the re-affirmation of Islam has become an outlet for emotion.  It has become the expression of the hatred, frustration, vanity and at times destructive frenzy of a people who for long have been the victims of poverty, impotence and fear.  The vehemence and hatred in their literature point more to a group of people who have lost their way, whose heritage has proven unequal to the challenges of modernity.  The Pakistan counterpart of Ihwan is the Jama'at group.
           
                 The common recurrent themes in these Islamic revival movements are the following:

1.     Modernization is seen as a westernization and secularization;
2.     The sense that existing political, economic and social systems have failed;
3.     The disenchantment with and at times a rejection of the west; and
4.     The conviction that Islam provides a self-sufficient blueprint for state and society.
           
                 The contemporary Islamic revival movements have common grounds.  The key components of their program are:  

1.         Islam is the answer; 
2.         A return to the Qur'an and the Sunnah (traditions) of the prophet; 
3.         The community is to be governed by the Shari’a (Islamic Law); and
4.         All who resist, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are enemies of God.

By way of conclusion…


I conclude this presentation by recognizing that the wounds of centuries of colonialism are, indeed, very deep and closely familiar to individuals, peoples and communities.  The conquests, subjugations and colonialism brought trauma and pains that continue to exercise tyranny over the spirit of the peoples. Notwithstanding the independence that came after World War II, the politics and economics of former colonies continue to be dominated by the west and the relations between and among peoples are, largely, shrouded in mutual suspicion and mistrust.         

I wonder if this is what the martyred President of Egypt Anwar Sadat expressed at the Knesset during his historic visit of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

“… Yet, there remains another wall.  This wall continues and constitutes a psychological barrier between us, a barrier of suspicion, a barrier of rejection, a barrier of fear, of deception, a barrier of hallucination without any action, deeds or decision.  A barrier of distorted and eroded interpretation of every event and statement. It is this official statement as constituting 70% of the whole process. Today, through my visit to you, I ask why don’t we stretch out our hands with faith and sincerity so that together we might destroy this barrier?”

The power and economic relations have to give birth to a new partnership between the west and the Muslim that heals and empowers. New Politics and fair economics would shape that meaningful relationship and partnership. Our common humanity and concern for the survival of the planet, as well as, our religious traditions have the power to transform conflictual relationships to common enterprise that saves and nurtures not only our common humanity but also the planet earth.

Before I end this presentation allow me tell yet another story - a parable of the Little Salt Doll taken from a Zen Buddhist tradition.

There is a wonderful story about a little salt doll.  The doll had the urge to discover the world and went on a journey, experiencing all kinds of new places and adventures. Then one day she came to the edge of the sea and was quite astounded by the restless surging mass of water. “What are you?” she cried. “Touch me and you will find out,” answered the sea.  So the little salt doll stuck her toe in, and had a truly lovely sensation. But when she withdrew her foot, alas, her toe has disappeared. “What have you done to me”? she cried. “You have given something of yourself in order to understand,” the sea replied.”

The little salt doll decided that if she really wanted to know the sea, she would have to give more of herself. So next she stuck her whole foot, and everything up to her ankle disappeared. Surprisingly, in an explicable way, she felt very good about it. So she continued going further and further into the sea, losing more and more of herself, all the while understanding the sea more deeply.  As a wave broke over the last bit of her, the salt doll was able to cry out, “Now I know what the sea is. It is I.”

There are only three kinds of people who are capable of the act akin to the doll salt.  First, the people of faith second the people of art and last but not the least are the people “touched” by God (a euphemism for fanatics and the crazy).  But in a real sense, building and creating new humanity and civilizations are like the sea.  And to really know and understand it fully there is the need to give ourselves like the little Salt Doll. Paradoxically, religion provides that élan and passion to let go and lose all – the self-expenditure required that others might live and live to the full.

Selected Bibliography (for the present section)

1.     Abu-Nimer, Muhammed. Reconciliation, Justice and Coexistence: Theory and Practice. Lanham, MO: Lexington Books, 2001.
2.     Banton, M. (ed.). Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. NY 1966.
3.     Barazangi, Nimat et al. (eds.). Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice. Gainesville, Fla. U. Press of Florida 1993.
4.     Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. NY: Doubleday 1967.
5.     Biggar, Nigel (ed.). Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000.
6.     Colletta, Nat J. and Michelle L. Cullen.  Violent Conflict and the Transformation of Social Capital:  Lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, & Somalia. Conflict Prevention Series 2000, Washington DC. World Bank.
7.     Connor, Walter. Ethno-nationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: PUP 1994.
8.     Gellner, E. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion.  London: Rutledge, 1992.
9.     Hampson, F.O. Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail. Washington DC: USIP Press 1996.
10.  Hange, Roy. Curtains of Fire: Religious Identity and Emerging Conflicts. MCC Web page.
11.  Harowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: UCP 1985.
12.  Hefner, R. W. The politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.
13.  Hefner, R. W., & Horvatich, P. Islam in an era of Nation-States: politics and religious renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.
14.  Hewstone, M & Brown, R (eds.). Contact and Conflict in Intergroup Encounters. Oxford & NY: Basil Blackwell 1986.

#Badaliyya-Philippines
August 13, 2019