Kargador at Dawn

Kargador at Dawn
Work in the Vineyard

Monday, October 21, 2019

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Short Reflection for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings: Sirach 35: 12-14. 16-18; 2 Timothy 4: 6-8. 16-18; Luke 18: 9-14

Selected Text: “Two people went up to the Temple to pray: one was a Pharisee and the other was a Tax Collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O god, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous…But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner’.” (Luke 18: 10-11. 13)

Meditation: The story of Pharisee and the Publican offers to us two ways of “praying”. The former is self-righteous and enumerates his good works and the latter is asking for pardon and righteousness. The Publican went home justified, not the Pharisee. The Publican and the Pharisee tell of the two types of people: The former is a sinner and asking for forgiveness and thus receives forgiveness; and the latter is also a sinner but self-righteous, thus NOT receiving forgiveness! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisee.

Visit: www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...
1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...


3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)


Readings: Exodus 17: 8-13; 2 Timothy 3: 14- 4: 2; Luke 18: 1-8

Selected Text:  “The Lord said, ‘Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them’?”   (Luke 18:6-7)

Meditation:  The challenge of the Gospel is our fidelity and persistence in prayer.  Prayer is not something that comes out of the blue. We need to develop the habit and discipline of praying and remembering that God ‘secures the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night’.

The Church reminds us to pray for the Missions & Missionaries, particularly in most difficult situations and conditions. There, too, the Good News of Salvation has to be proclaimed that in the name of Jesus, the whole creation is saved. Lord, heal your land, bless ALL your people and spare them from any form of violence and injustice…


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


Wednesday, October 09, 2019

Family as a School of Charity

THE FAMILY AS A SCHOOL OF CHARITY


That idea, while not entirely wrong, is not quite what people like Thomas a Kempis (The Imitation of Christ) had in mind when they said that families are schools of therapy.

What a healthy family does is de-fantasize us, challenge us, dispel our illusions, demand unselfishness, and help us carry our pathologies. Practically, this means that if we give ourselves over to the rhythms of family and community life, we will constantly be corrected in how we perceive ourselves, deflated in our egoism and inflated self-importance, asked to be less selfish, stretched in how we see the world, and exposed in our faults.

At the same time, if the family is healthy, we will also be met at that deep place in our hearts where we need the familiar, given a home (in the real meaning of that word), and helped to deal with our sickest secrets. This latter point is especially important.

Anthropologists tell us that one of the major functions of family is to help carry the pathologies of its members. They also point out that in previous cultures, where the family unit was much stronger than today, there was much less need for private therapy than there is now. Family life was the essential therapy for its members. That is an important truth.

Without family, I am truly alone before my inner sicknesses and sins. Today that is often not understood. We have a virtual library of literature on dysfunctional families. Valuable as that is, it generally fails to point out that all families and communities are dysfunctional. Thus, the question is not so much, “Is your family dysfunctional?” but rather, “how dysfunctional is it and how are we helping to carry each other’s pathologies?”

Families are schools of charity – and also our primary clinics for therapy. To live in a family is to be in therapy.


Tuesday, October 08, 2019

A Crisis of Imagination

A CRISIS OF IMAGINATION


Now … imagine another night. You wake up from a fitful sleep and are overwhelmed by the sense that you don’t believe in God. You try to convince yourself that you still believe, but you cannot. Every attempt to imagine that God exists and to feel his presence comes up empty.

You feel empty and you feel the emptiness of the world itself. Try as you like, you cannot shake the feeling that you no longer believe. Try as you like, you can no longer regain the solid ground you once stood on.

Does this mean that on one of these nights you have a strong faith and on the other you have a weak one? No! On the one night you have a strong imagination and on the other you have a weak one.
On the one night you can imagine the presence of God and on the other night you cannot imagine it. Imagination is not faith.

Daniel Berrigan, in his usual colorful manner, states the issue laconically, crassly, but accurately: Where does your faith live? In the head? In the heart?

Your faith, he assures us, is rarely where your head is at, just as it is rarely where your heart is at. Your faith is where your ass is at! Where are you living? What are you doing? These things – our actions, our charity, our morality – are what determine whether we believe or not.

Passing strange, and strangely true, the posterior is a better indication of where we stand with these than are the head and the heart. For we all have the experience of being within certain commitments (a marriage, a family, a church) where, at times our heads and our hearts are not there – but we are there!

The head tells us this doesn’t make sense; the heart no longer has the type of feelings that would keep us there; but we remain there, held by something deeper, something beyond what we can explain or feel. This is where faith lives and this is what faith means.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)


Readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; and Luke17:11-19
(In the Philippines, October is dedicated to the Indigenous Peoples)

Selected Passage:   “Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?  Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" (Luke 17:17-18)

Meditation:  Gratefulness is a virtue of the heart.  Remember that only through the hearts can we see the wonders and the miracles of God.  Often what is truly essential, as the Little Prince said, is invisible to the eyes. Only through the heart and a grateful one can one truly sees the real, true and beautiful. Of the ten lepers healed, one one bothered to return to Jesus and thank him for the healing power of God.

We are invited to reflect on our ways in dealing with the Indigenous Peoples – they are the poorest of the poor in the land. They are deprived of any development; they have poor access to primary heath care & education; and they are robbed of their ancestral domain.  Yet, they are the “ORIGINALS” in the land.

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

Friday, October 04, 2019

St. Francis of Assisi


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BadalSt. Francis of Assisi

It is enough to utter his name and everyone knows who he is.  St. Francis was a man of God. And because he was a man of God, he always lived what was essential.  So he was a simple, courteous and gentle to everyone, like God in his mercy.

The Phenomenological Manifestations of our epoch…

·      Emptiness.  It is born of a feeling of impotence.  There is very little we can do to change our life, our community and society. Finally there is really nothing important…

·      Loneliness. It is an experience of loss of contact with nature and others in terms of friendship and gentleness. There is the lack of courage to commit oneself.

·      Fear.  It is the fruit of objective threats to life, to employment, to collective survival of humanity in general.

·      Anxiety. It has its origin in imagined fear, ignorance as to what one ought to do, in whom to trust, and what to expect.  When anxiety grips an entire society it means that the whole society feels threatened and senses its approaching end.

·      Aggressiveness without objectives.  It reveals a rupture with the norms of relationship without which a society cannot be built or defended.  What results is anonymity and the loss of the meaning of the self, that is, the worth and sacredness of human person.

From the above, Two consequences ensue: first is Emptiness and second is Loss. It is the loss of language of everyday communication, the loss of meaningful relationship and the lack of vital relationship with nature and habitat.

The New Ethos…  It is a new way of life with many and varied relationship to nature, to others, to religion and to God.  In St. Francis, it was through Pathos (Sympathy) and Eros(fraternal communication and tenderness).  The manifestations are the following:

·      His Innocence
·      His enthusiasm for nature
·      His gentleness to all beings
·      His capacity for compassion with the poor and “confraternization” with all elements and even death itself.

To Be Saint … in the case of Franci, is…
·      To be Saint, it is necessary to be human.
·      To be human, it is necessary to be sensitive and gentle.

“A person knows as much as he/she does.” Francis’s gentleness was demonstrated, especially in his human relationship.  He broke the rigidity of the feudal hierarchy and called all persons as brothers and sisters.  He himself was called “little brother” (fratello). He wanted to unite great and small, to treat the wise and simple with brotherly affection, to bind with tie of love those who were held at a distance.  He treated everyone with outmost courtesy, even Saracens, Infidels and thieves.

Francis of Assisi and Islam

In 1219 a meeting took place between Francis and Sultan al Malik-al-Kamil of Egypt at Damietta (a Northern City in Egypt). It took place over a period of three week during the fifth Crusade.  The encounter had deep impact on both (Francis and the Sultan and his Vizier). 

The original call of then 5th Crusade in 1213 came with the Encyclical – Letter, Quia Maior. The letter established a comprehensive practical as well as religious framework for the new crusade – support the Crusade material and spiritually. The Letter and 4th Lateran Council and the Crusade presented Islam as the enemy of God; enemy of the faith and it was evil. This was in keeping with then approach taken by Bernard of Clairvaux in his call for the 2ndCrusade.

Francis arrived at the Crusaders’ Camp and he tried to dissuade the soldiers to engage in combat. He foretold their defeat at Damietta.

There are two strands in the desire of Francis to meet the Sultan.  First was Francis’ FERVOUR OF CHARITY and 2nd was his DESIRE FOR MARTYRDOM.  

The Sultan and his Vizier recognized in Francis the HOLINESS akin to the Muslim Sufi. The Vizier of the Sultan was a well-known and respected Sufi - Fakr-el-Din-Farsi (in his tomb were written these words: “this man’s virtue is known to all. His adventure with al-Malik al-Kamil and what happened to him because of the monk, all that is very famous”). They listened to him as Francis proposed to undertake the test of faith by fire to which Francis, the Sultan and his Vizier would endure.  The Sultan refused the challenge but continued to respect Francis who eventually returned to the Crusaders’ Camp.  In the final farewell, the Sultan asked Francis to pray that he might receive from God a revelation as to which faith is most pleasing in God’s sight.

The Impact of the Encounter on Francis, the Sultan and the Vizier?  

The encounter between Francis, the Sultan and his Vizier was a powerful foundational experience that FREES both of them from the limits of one’s vision and understanding of life. This foundational experience allows the possibility of movement from one horizon to another. And movement into a new horizon may involve what Fr. Lonergan speaks of as an “about face” – a new sequence that can keep revealing ever greater depth and breadth and wealth. Such an “about face” and new beginning is what is meant by a conversion.  Fr. Lonergan describes Conversion in Method in Theology as a “process of sublation that keeps all the essential features of what is sublated but carries these forward to find FULLER REALIZATION WITHIN A WIDER AND RICHER CONTEXT”.

·      The meeting or encounter between and among the ‘friends’ of God;
·      Appreciating the value each represents and criticizing their defects, yet allowing one’s living to be challenged at its very roots by their words and deeds;
·      Such an encounter is a way in which self-understanding n and horizon can be put to test.

Francis was never the same again after the encounter at Damietta…This found expression when he re-wrote Chapter 16 of the Rule.  He did NOT speak anymore of martyrdom but told his brothers who wished to go as missionaries to the Muslims “to heal the violence of the world; testify to their Christian faith by a simple, peaceable presence and a disposition to service”He left respectful of Muslims to the point that he encouraged Christians to emulate them in prayer and prostration, and to join Muslms — and others — in service to all despite their different religions, and he specifically told his followers not to try and convert them. 

Having seen Muslim prayers while in Egypt he declared for his followers: “You should manifest such honour to the Lord among the people entrusted to you that every evening an announcement be made by a town crier or some other signal that praise and thanks may be given by all people to the all-powerful Lord God.”

And, “At the mention of His name you must adore Him with fear and reverence, prostrate on the ground ... so that in word and deed you may give witness to his voice and bring everyone to know that there is no one who is all-powerful but Him.” And instead of seeking converts among Muslims, in missionary work he charged his followers: “[The brothers] are not to engage in arguments or disputes, but to be subject to (serve) every human creature for God’s sake.”  Those words calling us all — Christian and non-Christian alike for the sake of our shared humanity under God-Most-High — to service Him alone.  Based on all that, I think it’s pretty obvious that in those three weeks St. Francis learned that Muslims were God’s people too.

And what did knowing St. Francis of Assisi do to Sultan al Malik al Kamel? Ten years later, in 1229, by diplomacy alone and by no act of warfare, he ceded control of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a corridor from there to the sea to the Christians, saving only the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque for the Muslims, and the temple area for the Jews.

Peace…  One of the global values lived by Francis was Peace.

·      The World is the “regio dissimilitudinis” and behind these dissimilarities are camouflaged injustices and violence.
·      Every time Francis began his preaching, he invoked Peace… saying: “the Lord gives you peace.”  It is Peace and all good (Pax et Bonun).  His group carries out a true mission of peace – “Legatio Pacis”.
·      The peace that is proclaimed in word ought always to be present in the heart.  Let no one be provoked by us to anger or scandal, but rather let all through your gentleness, be led to Peace, Tranquility and agreement.  “BE KINDER WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS.”

The Role of Mediation…  

During the Crusades, Francis had a profound impact on the Sultan and owing to his sympathy, tolerance and respect and love for peace.  Francis gave a vote of confidence to the liberating capacity of kindness, gentleness, patience and understanding. Peace in his own PERSON manifested in his words, poetry and song. 

PEACE IS NOT ONLY A GOAL THAT MUST BE REACHED, IT IS ALSO A METHOD.

Final Note:  Francis was able to transform enmity to friendship; revulsion to love.  The stigmata was also intimately tied to his experience at Damietta. When Francis heard of all the preparations for yet another Crusade and the mighty army of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1224, Francis with few close companions went to La Verna to do a ‘Lent of St. Michael’ –an intense prayer and fasting on behalf of his brother al-Malik al-Kamil.  The mystical experience of Francis at La Verna is called the ‘Soul’s journey into God’.  The Stigmata of Francis was his identification of what signified in the Cross of Jesus.  St. Paul’s writing to the Ephesians says: “for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he may create in himself one new man in lace of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.  And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near”. (Ephesians 2: 14 – 17)

Bapa Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI
# Badaliyya – Philippines
October 4, 2019

Note: Sublation may refer to:
       Sublation, a translation of the German term aufheben
       Ritual purification, the purification or exaltation of matter by its negation or redirection (Source: Wikipedia)