More Reality TV

Look out, Dr. Phil! Move over, Tony Robbins. Mr. T. is on a mission to change real people's lives. In TV-Land's new Reali Tee show, Mr. T. dishes out a new kind of self-help and, of course, the name of the show is I Pity the Fool.
But this might not exactly line up with what Jesus says in the Gospel today. "Whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna." Jesus demands forgiveness in response to anger: 'Love your enemies'; 'turn the other cheek'; 'forgive 70 times 7 (i.e., endlessly)'On anger itself Jesus made rigorous demands, though not ones unknown within his Jewish milieu: 'If you are angry with a brother you will be liable to judgment . So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there . and go, first be reconciled' (Matt 5. 22-24). So anger - according to Jesus - must be overcome, controlled, dissipated, and as soon as possible, Quoting from Psalm 4. 4, the epistle to the Ephesians insists: 'Be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your anger' (Eph. 4. 26). So dissipate that anger before sundown or at least before the Mr. T. show comes on. If not, it will lead to judgement - God's wrath against us. So there is an implicit distinction here between righteous divine wrath and sinful human negative rage, the latter of which must be speedily overcome. How to overcome? Leave your gift: a gesture of humility. On the cross Jesus did not get angry with his enemies when he had every right to.
Surely if Jesus had said that anger could lead to damnation it could not here be encouraged. The only way around this problem was to make a further distinction within human anger, between 'righteous indignation' on the one hand (such as evidenced by Jesus himself in the cleansing of the Temple), and 'sinful anger' on the other, the former being wholly justified in some circumstances, but never if it led to the destructive consequences of the latter: either prophetic, righteous anger or negative, destructive anger.

In Paul's letter to the Galatians in chapter 5, Paul lists, on the one hand, the 'works of the flesh', which include 'enmities, strife, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions ..', and on the other hand, the 'fruit of the Spirit': 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control' (vs. 22-23). These are gifts of grace through faith in Christ. The prayers of Jesus' forgiveness from the cross has enabled us to receive these gifts from the Father through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reconciles us to God and to one another if we can these gift with wholeness and totality of heart. Receiving the gift of the Eucharist means letting go of our weapons, our grudges, our resentments and picking up the gift that is Jesus himself.

The Three Faces of Evil

The desert was scorching and the hot wind blew with a salty and alkaline tang that seemed to make you more thirsty than you were. This was the place that John the Baptist had known, but he was gone now. It was a long time: forty days and forty nights: the same time as that during which Moses remained on Sinai and the people of Israel succumbed to temptation. It was a long time: after the first temptation in the garden. The snake had slithered into the garden a long time ago to tempt Eve and Adam. And now the Great Tempter had returned not to the garden for it was gone now but to the desert where he had tempted so many after Adam and Eve. And he was always a liar. You will not die, he said, but they did. Make the golden calf, rebel against God, he won't do anything to you and now he dared to come before the Redeemer to tempt him, to draw him away from his mission and the will of the Father. Eat of the tree - it looked so good to Eve. Eat the bread you have made with your miraculous powers. What can be the harm in that? Jesus was very hungry. What's wrong with a little bread to nosh on? Miracles are for others, not himself. And so right at the beginning of his mission of healing the devil tried to divert him away from the true use of his powers- to heal and to save. “It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God.”
Jesus is aware of the importance of the second part of his mission: teaching. He is the Word of God, sent forth to teach. He tries to teach the devil the truth. The Father of Lies backs away and tries another strategy.
As if he were aware of the coming suffering of Jesus, he mocks Jesus' trust in the Father by quoting back at Jesus the great psalm of trust and confidence in the Lord.
Throw yourself down. Your whole mission here is suicide anyway. Get it over with quick. Unlike the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:16, Jesus refuses to "test" God by demanding from him an extraordinary show of power.
The Father of Lies tries another lie: I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. Ah, the temptation of politics and power. How many have so recently spent fortunes and principles and time to be No. 1! Jesus is already the King of Kings and he must be crowned with his crown of thorns. The worship of Satan to which Jesus is tempted is probably intended to recall Israel's worship of false gods. His refusal is expressed in the words of Deuteronomy 6:13. The devil left and the angels came. The devil had been one of them, but he had rebelled and now was in a permanent state of rebellion.
The angels ministered to Jesus in the desert as they had at his conception, his birth and his baptism, and now like the prophet Elijah, they helped him on his journey to the mountain of God.
Let us partake today of the Bread of Angels.

The Baptism of the Lord

The Trinity is manifested today in the sound and in the sight and in the motion. The sound of the Lord's voice above the waters had been heard for many centuries. The voice of the LORD is over the waters, the LORD, over vast waters. The voice of the LORD is mighty; the voice of the LORD is majestic. The Lord led his people through the depths of the Red Sea. The Lord led Joshua and the Ark across the Jordan river into the Promised land. The Lord led Elijah across the Jordan river to be taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot. The Father speaks today of the love for His Son. This is my beloved Son. We worship a God of love.
The sight of the Lord in the flesh is hidden in the mystery of the plan of creation. How could God take our flesh? He made our flesh. The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. Just as God brought the earth out of the waters of chaos, Jesus emerges today from the waters as creator, sanctifier, purifier, and healer. We worship a God who is close to us and cares for us.
The motion of the Holy Spirit is part of our everyday life as Christians and as spiritual persons. The motion of the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove
and coming upon Jesus, is setting the seal of the Spirit on the work of God. Our first day as Christians when we emerged from the waters, the Holy Spirit descended on us and gave us a new name: we are now like Jesus the beloved of the Father, adopted offspring of the Father, branches grafted onto the vine of life, newly born, washed clean and pure and innocent in the waters of new life. We have died and have drowned the old life and we have emerged from the waters and drawn in the breath of new life.
We could look at this moment as but the beginning of Jesus' public ministry as a teacher and healer and savior. Our baptism was but the beginning of our life as Christians and we learned and were healed and saved and we continue today in the mystery of the Eucharist to learn to be healed and to be saved.

Christmas

Who am I? The question was in every cry of the infant. I am Who am, he thought. The world is so big, as big as the Father's love, and I, I am so small in this shell of flesh. The bigness of the world recedes forever over the edge of the manger, in all directions, like a desert of sand, a tundra of howling snow, and the distance flees glimmering from me in all directions. Or in the next moment, the world is big, and the bigness grows tall and close, like walls coming together with a great weight and I am hugged and cuddled in my mother's arms, not crushed but loved.

Beginnings

Beginnings are mysterious because they come from the One who has no beginning or ending. If you look for the beginning of your vocation or the beginning of your romance, maybe you can trace it back to a specific event like the sock hop of 1956. Most life-shaping beginnings are built upon lineage. That's why a few days ago we had the genealogy of Mary and Joseph to show us that Jesus in the flesh had a lineage, but as the Son of God he had no beginning in his begottenness. Our Gospel text today is itself a beginning, the beginning of Mary's life as the Mother of God. She was blessed by the One who has no Mother with grace that kept her free from the taint of our nature and yet she was of our nature and still is of our nature. In Mary our nature is dignified by God's gift.
There is always a little pause before beginning. When confronted with the message of the angel, she ponders briefly the meaning of the message. She asks the question How can this be with reverence and faith, unlike Zechariah whose questioning of Gabriel meant skepticism and doubt. Zechariah did not seem to pause and reflect. St. Bernard of Clairvaux has a wonderful reflection on this pause of Mary. He says dont't wait too long because Adam amd Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David and all the great kings are waiting for your answer, the answer that will spring them from the depths of Sheol, the answer that was predicted by Isaiah. Mary gives the answer freely and without reserve: Be it done unto me according to your word. It has begun, that plan of God formed long ago. It has begun.
We must learn from this beginning: to love our lineage of love, to thank God for all our graces precisely because they are grace; to have that reflective habit of Mary when she pondered all these things in her heart; to carry the Word as Mary carried the Word, close to her heart, close to our heart.