Where are the prophets?

King, prophet, priest. Much is discussed about administration (king), cult and religion (priest) within religious life and the Church. But the heart of faith is not the Institution. Not that it is not important. Yet at times and in some places one gets the impression that some are trying to reorganize the chairs in the Titanic. What seems to be missing today within the Church is the prophetic voice.

What is a prophet? What is his/her “vocation”? Members of Religious Institutes should think deeply on this. After all, religious life, though part of the structure of the Church, comes about under the impulse of the Spirit and constitutes religious life as a charismatic dimension of the Church in the world.

In all religions and in secular society as well, the prophet must have a contemplative outlook on life that makes it possible to see through, over, under and in between the details to discover the impulse of Life that promises a true future where things are “made right”. For us Christians, the prophet searches to discern the will of God, the design of the Kingdom. And proclaims it without fear, cutting through rhetoric and the ambiguity of discourse. He takes risks and literally empties his/her self out for the sake of that which ought to be but is not quite here yet. Love and justice have been key words of prophets.

But there are also false prophets. Who are the real prophets today? Here is where discernment comes in, discernment carried out in common unity (community).

Look to the future!

A French philosopher writes: “Maybe the future does not need us. However, we need the future because it gives meaning to what we do”. I think of the future in terms of future generations, in terms of people, concrete faces that do not yet exist. We will be their past in the stream of an ever changing present. We must allow them to become present to us and make us aware that they are not only our “children” (that we generate a future) but also our parents (the future forms us). This makes us conscious of the serious moral responsibility each of us has – which, however, must not be motivated by guilt but by faith, hope and mercy.

Saint Alphonsus lived “eternity now” – he lived conscious that the past and the future are contained in the “now”, in the “here and now” that heals the past and projects a future of love. The key is the relationship with God who makes possible, in his unconditional love, a future that is ever new. His language and mentality were of the 1700’s Naples. The dynamic of his pastoral efforts and spirituality, however, have made possible a Redemptorist Family with a heart that beats with the same hope of an ever new future in love.

Live life!

Recently came accross this statement: Things just happen. One makes theories about life and life, in the meantime, happens. There is something interesting here. It reminds me of a song that says that one can forget to live life! We can’t control all that happens but we can do something to make life better and not just for us. Life is worth living despite the negative.

As we approach Christmas God tells us that we are worth his love. Saint Alphonsus insisted that God is in love with us – that is what the Incarnation is all about, that God becomes man to show and bring us all his love – and wants us to experiment that love… and live real life. If one experiences that love one cannot help but want others to experience it themselves. And the Kingdom of God happens, comes about more fully in love lived.

A Sense of Awe

An Italian writer wonders at what has happened in a relatively short period of time. It seems, he insists, we have seen just about everything. A dog in the moon, a wheeled robot in Mars, explosions in New York, London and Madrid and not only in Kabul and Baghdad, etc. He ironicallly concludes that next year there just can’t be anything new. The world will repeat itself like a television rerun. Even massacres will become boring.

In the midst of our fluid reality we cannot forget to have eyes and ears open to what is happening around us, underneath the surface, behind the words spoken or published. As Christmas approaches we cannot forget that the birth of Jesus happened without anyone realizing its significance. It wasn’t until much, much later that some began to consider it important and reflect on it. Except, it seems, for some poor folk who did see and hear.

God is still among us, he hasn’t given up on us. A sense of awe that springs from a soul filled with love will lead us to see and hear the wonders that happen everyday around us. Just maybe we should develop that kind of humility that will not be seduced by self-grandeur or the sensationalism of certain news sources.

These are further signs of the Kingdom, lessons to be learned from the preparation for Christmas.

God, in Christ, becomes poor and shares Himself

In the Gospels we find Jesus amidst the poor, the rejected, the lowest at the social scale. He moves with ease among them and they feel at home with him. They perceive that he genuinely cares about them, that he is on their side.

There is that privileged moment narrated by Luke, when he spontaneously prays to God, the Father: I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the educated and have revealed them to the little ones; yes, Father, for such was your merciful will. Jesus finds the wisdom of God among those little ones. He dedicates so much time to them, to sharing his own self with them and giving them his message of redemption.

Tomorrow’s Gospel reading at the Eucharistic Liturgy (December 6) gives us further signs of God’s loving and liberating presence. It is the well known text of the healing of many sick and the feeding of the four thousand plus (in Matthew 15). Great crowds come to him bringing all kinds of seriously sick friends and relatives. The mute speak, the maimed are made whole, the lame walk, the blind see. Then Jesus becomes quite concerned that they have been with him for three days and have not had much to eat. He just can’t send them away hungry! What is God revealing to us about himself in all of this?

It is important to recognize that those sick people suffered beyond their physical condition. They were also ostracised from society and the Temple (the “house” of God, the organizational center of society). [See, for example, the crippled beggar in Acts 3, who cannot enter the Temple.] However, they surround Jesus and come to him like to a friend and begin to discover that God loves them in a special way. Walls break down and they are brought together into a new way of being a people around Jesus. They are not only taken in but are recognized as precious before God and men. They not only discover that their needs are satisfied but also that in this new way of being a people of the God of Jesus there will be enough to go around and then some, in sharing the way God shares!

These are also fundamental aspects of Eucharist.

Signs of the Kingdom

During this first week of Advent the readings of the Liturgy give us signs of the presence of the Kingdom of God. Today we see Jesus healing the servant of a Roman soldier. The sick man was paralized and suffered greatly. The faith of this pagan and foreign soldier was such that Jesus was overtaken and healed the servant. Jesus reaches out beyond the critical boundaries established by religion and by the state, even willing to go to the soldier’s house. Further, disease can burden and limit the relationship among persons.

Jesus’ healing of the servant breaks down several critical boundaries. Relationships are transformed. Here is the reigning of God at work! The Kingdom of God is coming about in history!

How does our faith stand in comparison to that of the Roman soldier? What signs do we perform as Church, as communities, that show the world that God continues to establish his reign through us?

First Sunday of Advent: God’s Ways

The responsorial Psalm [24 (25)] cries out: Show me your ways, Oh Lord. This whole season of Advent (Cicle C) leads us to a closer relationship to the God who reveals himself in history.

The dominant socio-economic system in many parts of the world wants us to think that the individual is supreme (and not for selfless reasons). Extreme individualism is the order of the day is so many communities and nations. This has led to religious manifestations that center on the individual in such a way that there is little place for the other. The consumer is such also in religion. There are countless sects, movements, etc., that cator to the individual’s tastes and moods.

But the ways of God are so different. He makes himself known in history as the Father of all and the Lord of Justice, Mercy and Love. He wants all – not just some – to be happy and is willing to forgive everything in order to transform reality for all. In his Love relationships are made new: a world of solidarity and justice. From the Exodus to Jesus Christ his project has been perceived as one of Liberation – from evil and from everything that oppresses human beings. It is a task that is being brought about in history, that will reach its culmination in a future known only to him.

This is the Hope that drives us towards a new heaven and a new earth. That God is on the side of the little ones, of the suffering, of the rejected, on the road towards a new world that we contribute to shape according to his Plan of Liberation, according to his ways.

The Core of the Charism

The following of Jesus according to Alphonsus, is lived in preaching the divine word to the poor, as the Lord already said of himself… The Spirit has sent me to preach the Good News…(Luke 4, 16). The lifestyle proposed, then, does not seek to imitate the virtues of Christ and performing ascetical practices. Alphonsus does not intend us to be photocopies of the Lord. For him, the following of Jesus is understood in the dynamic modeling of the Congregation’s purpose according to the very Mission of the First Missionary of God’s divine Mercy.

To follow Jesus and to give ourselves to the preaching of Good News to the poor constitute a unified process, just as fulfilling the Father’s will and preaching the good news to the poor were one and the same for Jesus. Everything Jesus said and did, his whole life, was intrinsically related to his Mission – and so it should be with us. We are touching here the core of our charism. From this underlying “principle” flows the unifying force of Redemptorist spirituality.

Alphonsus and God’s Love

Alphonsus’ relationship to God was characterized by an experience of God’s passionate love for us in Jesus. If faith had not assured us of it, writes Alphonsus, who could ever have believed that a God, almighty, most happy, and the Lord of all, should have condescended to love man to such an extent that he seems to go out of himself for the love of him? Over and over, at the heart of his counsels, arguments, pleas, preaching and exhortations, we find the experience of this love.

This love sows in us the desire to be with and live for the one who loved us first. In our relationship with Jesus, his love moves us to look beyond the status quo to generate a new vision of life and to continually seek to make ever more sincere and generous our response to his love. We just will not be content with mediocrity and injustice.

Spirit of Contemplation

Jesus went about with his eyes open to what happened around him. One day he was in the Temple and saw a situation that escaped nearly everyone – or, at least, its significance. He saw the rich putting their money contribution into the “basket”. He then saw an old, very poor widow put in a few coins. He knew the situation of these women – there were so many around, particularly in his own town. It hit him: this old lady had put in more than the rich for she gave from what she truly needed to survive, not from an excess that could be used for anything.

Besides making us aware of what real generosity and self-giving are, this incident and comments of Jesus makes us realize that we also should move about during the day with our eyes open to what God has to say and teach us. With our eyes and ears open, in a spirit of contemplation, we become open to what daily life and reality has to reveal to us about God and our life in the Spirit. Seen from God’s perspective reality can be perceived in a totally different way. What seems insignificant acquires tremendous depth. And vice-versa, certain things that seem important can be seen for what they are: empty of meaning, hypocritical, maybe even malicious.

This attitude and spirit of contemplation are a fruit of the life in the Spirit of Christ. We need to develop and mature in this capacity to “see”, “understand” in order to act rightly.