REFLECTION

Ricardo Martín

METANOIA 2.0

Ash Wednesday inaugurates a new season of Lent. Lent can become an anecdote, a missed opportunity, if we do not become very intentional about it. The forty days of Lent are an invitation to change.

When Jesus calls us to “metanoia” he is not only calling us to “repent” (as we will hear when a cross of ashes is drawn on our foreheads), but also to change. Metanoia means change, change of heart, conversion (if you prefer a more religious language.) Repentance seems to be only one step in the process of change, and it connects directly with sin when we may be asked to change things that are not necessarily sinful. Repentance also seems to reflect about the past, a past action, and change is a reference to a hopeful future.

REFLECTION 

A “SELFIE” WITH A CELEBRITY

Dolors Puértolas

I’d like to begin this reflection considering two words that we today use often (and maybe together in the same sentence): “selfie” (a picture taken of yourself with your mobile phone) and a celebrity.

The sociologist Neil Postman[1] says, recollecting something often noted, that our current culture is a culture of the image (or television), as opposed to the previous culture that was of the book and reading (or printing). And certainly, the image dominates in this century well above the written text. A long list of authors have mentioned this paradigm shift.

Some time ago it was autographs that proved that we had met someone, but now it is the "selfie" we can show from our phone, share on Facebook, whatsapp or by other means. And it seems that a lot of people are interested in having "selfies" with celebrities. The passion for "selfies" may denote an emphasis on the importance of one’s self-image rather than one’s values​​, insight or thought. It can also suggest some self-centeredness. In the case of "selfies " with celebrities, it seems that we are talking about getting some kind of trophy to show off to others.

A few days ago I considered taking a "selfie" with someone who has been in a certain way a celebrity for me in this past year. This is someone that I value as important and is significant for me. In August we learned of the need of a young woman, 27 years old, of an urgent heart surgery. We contacted friends and some people who had met Altagracia and knew of her disease. Thanks to the response of many, she was able to have her surgical procedure done successfully in October, recovered and is in good health.

When I went to visit her, I wanted a "selfie" with Altagracia.  And I took it.  I considered that a woman of her age, married, who lost their first baby by complications in the pregnancy, and is at this later age studying to have a degree due to lack of financial resources, who is struggling to support a family, and she had to face not only a surgery of life and death but also the challenge of not having resources and be forced to seek funds anywhere… That is for me a well-rounded celebrity!

And also she is a celebrity because it was around her person and her need that a number of people felt touched and responded generously to the call. So doubly important.

If we stop to remember from this past year an important person with whom we would take a picture, perhaps what will come to mind is a different kind of celebrity: a fighter for human rights, a person with good values ​​, a person who has suffered ... Each of us will have our own “important” person, whether it be a relative, an acquaintance or even (why not), many anonymous people, who may have abandoned a country fleeing from hunger, to escape war or searching for a better future for their children. Those we can think of would be so many that would not fit into a single "selfie." Let us look back for a moment on the past year and imagine which celebrity we’d like to make a selfie with.

PS: (I never published the “selfie,” it didn’t turn out, but it is well guarded in my heart).

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[1] Neil Postman, Divertirse hasta morir, La Tempestad, Barcelona 2013.

REFLECTION 

THE STAR OF HOPE

Michael Wolfe

We all know well the tradition of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem for the census, and that it was there that Jesus was born (Luke 2:1-7). Today, if you visit Bethlehem, you can go to the Church of the Nativity, which is built over the grotto that is traditionally held to be the place of Jesus’ birth. There in the floor is a silver star meant to mark the place where he was born.

The pious practice within the Church of the Nativity is to kneel by the star and kiss it; but in order to reach the star, one must bend down, as there is a low ceiling.  This of course lends itself to having a reverent approach to the site, but it also serves as a reminder to us who visit there that if we have to stoop down to reach the place, how more so was it for the Son to humble himself in this great way?

www.sacred-destinations.com

I have been blessed with the opportunity to visit the Church of the Nativity.  And it is certainly a powerful experience to kneel down and kiss the site that tradition has held as the place where Jesus was born for at least 1700 years.  But what struck me most when I was there was when I walked out of the church and looked out at the modern city of Bethlehem.  Social conflict is prevalent and obvious throughout the city, and is most captured by the gigantic military wall that runs withinit.  Regardless of one’s thoughts on the wall, it stands as a clear demonstration of the level of conflict that exists in the region between different cultures, societies and peoples. 

This same region in which Jesus was born has been the meeting place of very different cultures, societies and peoples since even before his time.  In many ways, it is the place where East meets West.  Such diversity was the case during Jesus’ life as well - it says a lot that the Gospel of John specifies that the sign placed on the cross was in three different languages (John 19:20). With great difference oftentimes has come great discord and violence

So it struck me that day in Bethlehem, after having bent down to venerate the silver star, that it was at this place on Earth that Jesus was born: the meeting place of peoples throughout the world.  Indeed, how fitting that this be the site where all of humanity was lifted up to new dignity through the grace of God, by the Son taking on human form.  Likewise, how fitting that this site, so full of violence throughout human history as those differences collide, be where the Prince of Peace entered into human history. 

Christmas is the day when we commemorate this event of incomparable import for all human kind.  It is good that we celebrate it with different signs of love for our families, friends and coworkers. Such signs are through food, cookies, gifts and social events. But hopefully, as we reflect on the significance of the day, we also remember the stranger, the other, those who are different from us. For that event that we celebrate, which is marked by that silver star in the floor, was for all of humanity.  Thus regardless of differences, we are called by our belief in Jesus to acknowledge the dignity of each and every human person.   

REFLECTION 

BUILDING GOOD BRIDGES

Michael Wolfe

This past Sunday, Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to the United States.  The whirlwind tour was full of many firsts: not only was it the first time that he had ever visited the country, but during his days in Washington DC, he addressed Congress during a joint session, the first pope ever to do so.  Recognizing the significance of Pope Francis’ visit to the Unites States as a whole, and especially the historical event of his address to Congress, I’d like to share with you some of what I consider the salient points of that address in relation to our readings from Mass this past Sunday[1] (which was the last day Pope Francis’ celebrated Mass in the U.S.).  I do so in large part because Francis himself made it very clear that he was not only addressing the legislators present, but the entire people of the United States.  And of course, his content is applicable to all people of faith.

REFLECTION

WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS?
(From the Gospel of the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time)
José Nieto

Can you imagine Jesus asking this question to you in front of everybody else at church on a Sunday mass? What would you say? Most probably we would give an answer like Peter’s - "Jesus you are the Christ! Jesus, you are the messiah, the King!"

And there is no reason why Peter or anyone of us would not answer in this way, unless Peter’s concept of messiah would be the wrong one. Could we also be wrong about what kind of messiah Jesus is?

Indeed, Peter is mistaken about Jesus’ messianic identity. It is true, of course, that Jesus is the messiah, the Christ. But when Jesus explained the suffering and the road to the cross he would have to undergo, Peter’s idea of a triumphant messiah becomes an obstacle for Peter’s understanding. For him, the idea of suffering and dying does not belong to the idealized messiah that he confessed just few verses before.

Like Peter, we can also be caught up with the wrong idea of Christ. Sometimes we can even accommodate Jesus’ role to our convenience, thinking according to our logic but not as God would. A clear example is when we think of Jesus as a judge and not as a merciful Lord. It may happen that our logic would demand to think of Jesus as a punishing judge for those who do not follow the law. This would be the way of human logic. But in God’s mind, human judgment falls short compared to his infinite mercy and love. Sometimes our way of thinking demands a logical consequence for a cause. But in God’s eyes, we are always seen as his most precious creation, those who were made in his own image. When thinking about Jesus, and who he is, we should always be aware that his love will always overcome any of our human expectations.

So, before we get the wrong idea of Christ, we should ask ourselves - Am I thinking like God does or as humans do, when answering the question, who do you say that Jesus is?

REFLECTION

EAST OF KIDRON

Martí Colom

It is not hard to imagine Jesus sitting on an bank of the Mount of Olives, maybe with his back against the trunk of a sturdy tree, perhaps with a sprig of rosemary on his lips, looking, across the Kidron Valley, at the breathtaking view of the temple, with the sun shining on its perfect walls and huge blocks of yellowish stone.

The temple that Jesus observes is quite new: Herod the Great began to lift it some twenty years before the birth of the son of Mary, and its construction lasted until recently. Thus Jesus is seeing a building that has just been completed, in all its glory and radiance, a structure designed to impress and provoke admiration, another large edifice of a king who has loved ambitious architectural projects (like Caesarea by the Sea or his palace in the fortress of Masada). With this magnificent temple Herod intended to leave the final imprint of his own name and a permanent reminder of his long reign in the city called holy. Herod was a remarkable politician who managed to stay in power for over thirty years thanks to both shrewdness and brutality. By building the temple he, whose Jewish identity had always been questioned because of his Edomite origin, wanted to win the support and appreciation of the people and of the powerful Sadducee party.

 

What nobody knows yet is that the temple will not last a century, and that in the year 70 the wrath of Rome will demolish Herod’s great project. Now, when Jesus of Nazareth looks at its defiant walls with concern, the temple seems destined to remain here for a thousand years.

What does Jesus think? What does he feel? Let's imagine it: Jesus suffers. He opposes everything this temple represents. Throughout a long personal itinerary that took him from his native Galilee to spend time with John the Baptist in the desert, and then back to Galilee, now he clearly sees the incoherence, the absurdity, the distortion of the faith that this temple embodies. In the fertile lands of Galilee Jesus has grasped that the Spirit of God is present in every person and in daily life. He has understood that all exclusions are manmade and only serve the interests of those who wish to impose their will on the rest. Jesus has chewed the verses of Isaiah in which the prophet speaks for God saying, “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats… learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:11, 17).

And now this new temple disfigures again the compassionate face of God, poisoning its tenderness, masking its sweetness. The temple is conceived as a series of separate spaces that sharply divide the world of the “sacred” from that of the “mundane”, when in fact this beautiful world and everything in it is God's work! Jesus knows that the well-defined areas of the temple, ever more exclusive (the courtyard of the gentiles, the space for men, for the priests, the holy of holies...) serve to reduce men and women to the stature of children or even worse, slaves. The temple is a monument to fear, yet God is a breath of hope. And worse still: the temple is also a lucrative business where some take advantage of the sincere faith of the people.

Jesus suffers. East of Kidron.

This vignette of a tired, even outraged Jesus, sitting and watching with pain the temple from the Mount of Olives, provides an image to indicate that there are still today other "Kidron rivers": they are the lines that define where do we stand in relation to religious power. Maybe they will not be a stream or a mountain, but they are present in our decisions, in our way of looking at the world, in our hearts. It remains very important, if the experience of Jesus matters to us, to be able to remain always east of Kidron.

East of Kidron we realize that all spaces are God’s, not just the temples. More so, east of Kidron we learn that very often the paraphernalia of the great shrines is of little help to the liberation of those who open themselves to God in their hearts, being able to see and recognize God in others, in human situations of joy or pain, in the streets, on the road. East of Kidron we learn not to trust puritan views that promote sharp separations between saints and sinners. We fear, east of Kidron, the attraction of magical places: and we fear it because we know that when someone decides that this or that space is a promised land, soon others will say that it is “my” promised land where “you” have no right to live. And in the process, once again, we will have forgotten that all land is holy. East of Kidron we sense that the splendor and the magnificence of our buildings are projections of the importance that we would like to have, but inaccurate readings of God’s soul. God loves discretion and simplicity. Huge temples do not speak about God’s goodness; they speak of man’s arrogance, of our delusions, of our need for admiration and of our power struggles. East of Kidron we grow in relationship with a God that cares deeply for all people. East of Kidron we decide not to seek refuge in artificial languages, in affected gestures or in pretentious religious titles; all these would soon become reasons for us to move away from people, with the excuse of getting closer to God. East of Kidron we use everyday language, we show ourselves as we are, we live without hierarchies and we know that we get closer to God as we get closer to others. East of Kidron there is a garden without walls, an open space where everyone is welcomed. There, nothing protects us and nothing asphyxiates us. East of Kidron we find the land of men and women that want to live their dignity in freedom, as adults.

REFLECTION

THINKING ABOUT POPE FRANCIS: NOTES ON FAITH, TRUTH AND MERCY

Martí Colom

Francis’ pontificate, and especially the issues that the Pope wanted to include in the agenda of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, have caused uneasiness in some sectors of the Church (no doubt that at the same time they have been received with great joy by many others). And it has become common to hear among those who look with some doubts at the direction of this papacy the opinion according to which, in their estimation, the Pope’s message will eventually force us to choose between truth and mercy, between right teaching and compassion, between doctrine and a welcoming spirit. 

Certainly, the Pope and those who are in tune with him insist in the need to make of mercy the mark that would identify Christians. Those who hesitate about this attitude accept, obviously, that compassion is desirable and rooted in the Gospel, but they listen to the call to build up a more welcoming and merciful Church (the famous “war hospital” of which Francis has spoken about) and then ask themselves: Will we have to end up giving up the truth in exchange for the pastoral and welcoming style that Francis is asking of us?

It seems to me that to frame the issue in these terms (truth or mercy) is a mistake. Perhaps we have to reach the point where we can declare that our truth, our right teaching and our doctrine are first of all mercy, compassion and hospitality.

No truth should ever weigh more for us than the respect towards the dignity of every human being and the promotion of his or her wellbeing. When we forget this and we begin to think about mercy as an aspect of our faith that is desirable but somehow secondary, then we have emptied Christianity of its very essence.

To be Christian is not to follow a collection of finished, intellectually understood religious and moral truths as much as it is an attitude in life, grounded in the example of Jesus of Nazareth, a way of being in the world and to relate to others; an attitude which has an enormous potential to transform our reality and to help us be open to God. Our faith resembles more a search for the Divine, a slow and humble approach to the Mystery, than the mandate to guard an unchanging body of truths. In fact, it is when we believe the latter that the defense of these truths ends up justifying the exclusion and even condemnation of those who do not accept them.

Therefore, it is simply false that we are moving towards a dead end where we will have to forget about truth in order to be able to practice mercy. What we will have to forget are partial understandings of the faith, easy suspicions, simplistic dichotomies and legalistic reduction-isms of the Gospel that so often disfigure the merciful and welcoming face of Christ.  

REFLECTION

FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY: THE SHOCK WAVE OF THE GOOD NEWS REACHING US

Ricardo Martín

Still in the Season of Christmas, we celebrate today the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany, in our faith context, means the manifestation of Christ to all the Nations.

In the readings of these last days we have been hearing all these stories about the birth of Jesus from the two gospels that have them, Luke and Matthew. One of the beautiful things of all these texts in Christmas is to see how the Good News of the birth of Christ has this expansive effect: first, only Mary knows about it; then Joseph; then Elizabeth and Zachariah; then the shepherds (representing the downcast of Israel); and today it reaches all the Nations. Using 21st century language, Jesus goes viral at the Epiphany.

This manifestation of Christ is still happening to us, and it is a matter for us to hear it, and be transformed as the Magi were transformed. When the gospel begins, the Magi are looking for Jesus in Jerusalem, in the center of power of the time, and they thought Herod would be of help. But at the end of the gospel, transformed by the encounter with Christ, they realize that they have to avoid Jerusalem and Herod, to return as different people, carrying with them the good news of Jesus.

We can look at the attitude of the Magi in today’s gospel and learn from them how to let Jesus transform our lives:

(1) The Magi were people on a journey, who were searching. The opposite of that is our tendency to settle, in life and in faith, and to stop searching. We tend to become people with all the answers instead of people of questions.

(2) In their search, they read a sign–a star. We believe God continues sending us many signs on how to find Jesus. People and events that happen in our lives are messages from God, but we often do not pay attention, in the midst of our busy lives. We have lost the sensitivity to discern signs.

(3) Once they encounter Jesus, the Magi gave him everything. They gifted themselves to the Child: Gold, representing their material wealth; Frankincense, representing their faith, as incense has in many cultures been a sign of our relationship with the Divine; and by gifting him with myrrh, they have given him also their suffering and their eventual death, as myrrh was used in antiquity as an ointment with medicinal effects, also used to prepare a body for the funeral rituals. The opposite happens when Jesus does not change anything in our lives, as we live faith on the surface. We compartmentalize lives and we do not live all dimensions of our lives following the values of Jesus.

(4) And they were “overjoyed” upon encountering Jesus—and we continue preaching that joy is a choice we make. We all have problems and depressions, and excuses not to be joyful. Does the encounter with Jesus fill us with joy?

The Epiphany is an explosion of joy and meaning, and its shock wave is reaching us today. We learn from the Magi how to set ourselves to continue the journey that takes us to the Child and beyond–in constant journey of transformation.

Are we still searching? Are we making the choice of Joy? Are we giving everything to God or in what areas I am still holding back?