An Honorable Defeat

AN HONORABLE DEFEAT After Jesus died in the most humiliating way a person could die at that time, by being crucified, the first generation of Christians had a massive struggle with both the fact that he died and particularly with the manner in which he died. For them, if Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, he wasn’t supposed to die at all. God is above death and certainly beyond being killed by humans. Moreover, as a creedal doctrine, they believed that death was the result of sin and, thus, if someone did not sin, he or she was not supposed to die. But Jesus had died. Most faith-perplexing of all, was the humiliating manner of his death. Crucifixion was designed by the Romans not just as capital punishment but as a manner of death that totally and publicly humiliated the person’s body. Jesus died a most humiliating death. No one called Good Friday “good” during the first days and years following his death. However, given his resurrection, they intuited without explicitly understanding, that Jesus’ defeat in the crucifixion was the ultimate triumph and that the categories that make for victory and defeat were now forever different. For several years after the resurrection, Christians were reluctant to mention the manner of Jesus’ death. It was a defeat in the eyes of the world, and they were at loss to explain it. So, they remained mostly silent about it. St. Paul’s conversion and his subsequent insights changed this. As someone who was raised in the Jewish faith, Paul also struggled with explaining how a humiliating defeat in this world could be in fact a victory. However, after his conversion to Christianity he eventually understood how goodness could take on sin and even “become sin itself” for our sake. That radically flipped our conceptions of defeat and victory. The cross was now seen as the ultimate victory and, instead of the humiliation of the cross being a source of shame, it now became the crown jewel: “I preach nothing but the cross of Christ.” To read more click here or copy this link into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/an-honorable-defeat/#.YIHGjalKgq0 www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

5th Sunday of Easter

Short Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter (B) Readings: Acts 9: 26- 31; 1 John 3: 18-24; John 15: 1-8 Selected Passage: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you” (John 15: 7) Short Reflection: The challenge to each one of us is to remain steadfast in the faith both in good times as well as in bad times. The gospel tells us we need to connecte to Jesus in order to bear much fruit. The Father is the vine grower and we submit to his way of making us productive. www.badaliyya.blogspot.com DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD... Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps: 1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ… 2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…! It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

The Non-Violence of God

THE NON-VIOLENCE OF GOD There are a number of texts which, on the surface, seem to indicate that God is ordering violence. But they are really archetypal and anthropomorphic in nature and do not justify that interpretation. If we read the bible from beginning to end, a progressive revelation (or at least a progressive realization on our part) of the non-violence of God ends in Jesus, who reveals a God of radical non-violence. Here’s an example: In John’s Gospel, we see the story of the woman who has been caught in adultery. A crowd of pious persons bring her to Jesus and tell him that they have caught her in the very act of committing adultery and that Moses (their primary interpreter of God’s will) has ordered that, for this offense, she needs to be put to death. Jesus says nothing, instead he bends down and begins to write on the ground with his finger. Looking up, he tells them: “Let the person among you without sin cast the first stone!” Then he bends down and writes for a second time with his finger. Unbelievably, they get the message and lay down their stones and go away. Jesus’ gesture of writing on the ground with his finger is significant. Who writes with his finger? Who writes twice? God does. And what God writes with his finger and writes twice are the Ten Commandments, and he had to write them twice because Moses “broke” them the first time. Coming down the mountain, carrying the tablets, Moses caught the people in the very act of committing idolatry. Gripped in a fever of religious and moral fervor, Moses broke the tables of stone on the golden calf and on peoples’ heads. Moses was the first person to break the commandments and he broke them physically, thinking violence needed to be done for God’s cause. Then, having broken them, Moses needed to go up the mountain a second time and have them rewritten by God; but before rewriting them, God gave Moses a stern message: Don’t stone people with the Commandments! Don’t do violence in my name! Too often, in a variety of forms, we are still stoning people with the Commandments, falsely believing that God wants this violence. To read more click here or copy this link into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-non-violence-of-god/#.YHSziRRKjDY www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

2nd Sunday of Easter (B)

Short Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Easter (B): Divine Mercy Sunday Readings: Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5,1-6; John 20,19-31 Selected Passage: “Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 20:29) Meditation: Believing is not a question of seeing and touching. It is a question of TRUST! We believe in the testimony of the apostles and disciples – the companions of Jesus. They saw and believe that Jesus is truly RISEN from the dead. This is the faith handed over by the apostles and disciples from one generation to another. It is the same faith handed by our parents from generation to generation. We do believe that the Resurrection of Jesus is the testimony that in the end, we, too, shall be victorious over sin and death. The Divine Mercy Sunday proclaims the RICHNESS and the BOUNDLESS MERCY of God! www.badaliyya.blogspot.com DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD... Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps: 1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ… 2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…! It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Living beyond our Crucifixions

LIVING BEYOND OUR CRUCIFIXIONS The Gospels tell us that, on the morning of the resurrection, the women followers of Jesus set out for the tomb of Jesus, carrying spices, intending to anoint and embalm a dead body. What they find is not a dead body, but by an empty tomb and an angel challenging them with these words: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Go instead into Galilee and you will find him there!” Go instead into Galilee. What a curious expression! What is Galilee? Why go back? In the post-resurrection accounts in the gospels, Galilee is not simply a physical geography. It is, first of all, a place in the heart. Galilee is the dream, the road of discipleship that they had once walked with Jesus, and that place and time when their hearts had most burned with hope and enthusiasm. And now, just when they feel that this all is dead, that their faith is only fantasy, they are told to go back to the place where it all began: “Go back to Galilee. He will meet you there!” And they do go back, to Galilee, to that special place in their hearts, to the dream, to their discipleship. Sure enough, Jesus appears to them there. He doesn’t appear exactly as they remember him, nor as often as they would like him to, but he does appear as more than a ghost or a mere idea. The Christ that appears to them after the resurrection no longer fits their original expectation, but he is physical enough to eat fish in the presence, real enough to be touched as a human being, and powerful enough to change their lives forever. Ultimately that is what the resurrection challenges us to do, to go back to Galilee, to return to the dream, hope, and discipleship that had once inflamed us but that now is crucified. One of the essential messages of Easter is this: Whenever we are discouraged in our faith, whenever our hopes seem to be crucified, we need to go back to Galilee and Jerusalem, that is, to the dream, to the road of discipleship that we had embarked upon before everything went wrong. Christ always meets us on that road, explains the latest crucifixion to us, and sends us back – to Galilee and to our abandoned discipleship. Once there, it all makes sense again. To read more click here or copy this link into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/living-beyond-our-crucifixions/#.YGxvTWhMHDY www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

The Cross as Revealing the True Cost of Love

THE CROSS AS REVEALING THE TRUE COST OF LOVE Simply put, the cross says: “If you want real love beyond romantic daydreams, if you want to keep any commitment you have ever made in marriage, parenting, friendship, or religious vocation, you can do so only if you are willing to sweat blood and die to yourself at times. There is no other route. Love costs. What you see when you look at the cross of Jesus is what committed love asks of us.” This is not something our culture is keen to hear. Today we have many strengths but sweating blood and dying to self in order to remain faithful within our commitments is not something at which we are very good. We find it very difficult to make choices and then to do the hard things that need to be done in order to stick with those choices. Our problem is not ill-will or ill-intention. We want the right things, but every choice is a renunciation, and we would love to have what we have without excluding some other things. We want to be saints, but we don’t want to miss out on any sensation that sinners experience. We want fidelity in our marriages, but we want to flirt with every attractive person who comes round; we want to be good parents, but we don’t want to make the sacrifice this demands, especially in terms of our careers; we want deep roots, but we don’t want to forego the intoxication that comes with new stimulus; we want stable friendship, but we don’t want duties or obligations that tie us down. In short, we want love, but not at the cost of “obedience unto death.” And yet that is the message of the cross. Love costs, costs everything. To love beyond romantic daydreams means to “sweat blood” and “to be obedient unto death”. The cross invites us to look at the choices we made in love, see how they narrow our options, and, in that pain, say: “Not my will, but yours, be done.” To read more click here or copy this link into your browser HTTP://RONROLHEISER.COM/THE-CROSS-AS-REVEALING-THE-TRUE-COST-OF-LOVE/#.YFO8O2RKJDY www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

Against Lying

Against Lying… The Church should be a living witness to the truth. By Rita Ferrone | United States We're seeing an epidemic of lying in America. In fact, it's gotten so bad that I wish we would hear more preaching on the Eighth Commandment. You know, the one that tells us not to bear false witness against our neighbor. The most alarming symptom of this epidemic is the spread of the "Big Lie" that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election—a lie he and his political allies continue to propagate. But more fundamentally his whole presidency legitimated and instrumentalized habitual lying as a political tool. The more often lies are circulated, the more distrust grows. In the absence of truth, the door is thrown open to conspiracy theories and fantasy. The problem is not just Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell pushing baseless claims on television, or MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell making deranged videos that purport to prove voter fraud. It's also the sinking feeling that we have drifted into a disorienting "post-truth environment" where the difference between fact and fiction no longer matters. I admit that politics has always been rampant with temptations to spin the facts. But nowadays it has become easy to reach beyond garden-variety exaggeration or prevarication and go for outright lies. It's the Trump ethos. The more brazen the untruth, the better. When politicians model themselves on Trump, they become impervious to facts. For example, the Washington Post recently reported on a whole string of blatant falsehoods that Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) employed during his campaign for Congress. He claimed that he was going to attend the Naval Academy when, in fact, his application had been rejected. He said that he was accepted by Harvard and Princeton; this too was untrue. Did his friend really leave him for dead at the scene of his terrible accident? The friend and the medics who aided him deny it. Beyond flagrant misrepresentations of his own personal history, he also lied about others in order to advance his career. He won votes by using a manipulated video clip of his primary opponent that totally misrepresented her views, then traveled to the southern border of Texas and proclaimed that thousands of American children were being kidnapped by drug cartels and sold as sex slaves, "one of the greatest atrocities I can imagine. "Except that it never happened. Why does moral opprobrium no longer attach to lying? Another newcomer to Congress who strives to emulate Trump, Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), has likewise been called out for telling tall tales. Her oft-repeated account of why she began to carry a firearm is a prime example. A man was "beaten to death" in front of her restaurant, she says, and seeing him victimized so brutally made her feel the need to protect herself. Horrible, right? What really happened, however, was that the man died of a drug overdose in an alley several blocks away. The story earned her three Pinocchios from the Washington Post, and was debunked by the fact-checking website Snopes. She remains unfazed and unrepentant. Why does moral opprobrium no longer attach to lying? Have we forgotten that bearing false witness is wrong? How could it be possible that Donald Trump lied to the public more than thirty thousand times while in office, yet suffered little or no loss of support from Christian churches—including many of our Catholic bishops and parishioners? You could theorize that his supporters are cynical or gullible, but the fact remains that a serial liar was our president for four years and millions of Americans were prepared to vote for him again as though it didn't matter. Such gross mendacity in American public life ought to be cause for alarm. Our bishops and pastors should be losing sleep worrying that their flocks are falling prey to those who would exploit their credulity. And what of the people who have accepted the view that it is fine to defame others if it serves "the cause"? It should bother us that conspiracy theories circulate with such reckless abandon and lives are being jeopardized by disinformation—whether about election fraud, climate change, face masks, or the COVID-19 vaccines. People can die because of lies. Rarely have we seen the consequences of lying so vividly displayed in a single day as we did during the violent January 6 assault on the Capitol. Precisely because those who attended the rally-turned-insurrection believed the "Big Lie" that Trump's "landslide" victory was being viciously stolen, they stormed the seat of American democracy, terrorized elected officials and their staffs, killed a police officer, injured many others, and vandalized public property. The Church needs to do something about this. A line from one of our Eucharistic Prayers speaks to me in this regard: "May your Church stand as a living witness to truth and freedom, to peace and justice." Is the Church really "a living witness to truth" in America? And if not, how can we make it so? Rita Ferrone is the author of several books about liturgy, including Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paulist Press). She is a contributing writer to Commonweal.This article first appeared in Commonweal Magazine. Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/politics/against-lying/14060?utm_source=NewsLetter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20210401_mailjet