Thoughts on the First Readings
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
In recent comments for a Commonweal article Luke Timothy Johnson, a respected scripture scholar, observed that every theologian’s first question has to be, what is God doing in the world? I’d add, that’s the first question every Christian has to ask!
Many Catholics today struggle to maintain confidence in authority’s ability to provide them a useful answer to that question. It seems sometimes that our leaders fear the messiness of the new experiences and situations within which faith must operate and are simply attempting to mandate attitudes and solutions from a previous age. We view this as a dead end. Accepting that life and faith-life are always lived in a fumbling, insecure and restless world we choose to move ahead bringing what ancient treasures we can carry and counting on the Holy Spirit and our sense of the Tradition to help us construct what we need as we proceed. As we journey, we hold tightly to two basic elements of Catholic life.
First, we are a Eucharistic community. This means much more than that we go to Mass. It means that we’re committed to the promise of Jesus. It means that we’re confident that the Holy Spirit works through our lives. It means we believe that God will accomplish through us the just world that he promised. We celebrate the renewal of that promise every time we pray the Eucharist. We unite ourselves to God’s work and one another’s when we share Christ in Communion.
Next, the world that we live in, as unfulfilled and painful as it often is, is the gift God gives for our joy and fulfillment. It is a sacrament; it is God’s realm. God didn’t enter this world because there was no other way to communicate his love for us. He entered it because it’s his gift to us and he loves it as he loves us. Our world is not intended to be a vale of tears but a wondrous home. Our faith is not to flee this world but to immerse ourselves in it and complete it.
If we know where we’re going, if we’re committed to the journey, if we know what to carry, we’ll arrive in God’s time. We have his promise.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Joe, as usual your observations are timely and compelling. I am especially concerned at the posturing the Church is conducting to complete what It perceives, to be a strengthing of a certain relationship of the faithful to the mass. This seems to be more a reassertion of control than a true and compelling guide to a better form of worship. Control and respect lost due to the human failings of priests which the Church is still struggling to accept and acknowledge! I often wonder the extent to which they have gone to actually do something to correct that problem. Their failure seems to parallel your comments on the practice of community in the Eucharist. We need leadership not new doctrine to bring us together for a common good.
ReplyDeleteI was also encouraged by your comments on God's gift to us. This world was/is ours to perfect. We have, up to this point, pretty much failed on that charge from God. One can only hope that the Holy Spirit will be able to trigger a group response that will ultimately lead us to our Lords expectation for the goal He has for us while on this earth.