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Prayer on the Lenten Journey |
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By Jane Deren
We travel through deserts and despair As we focus on how Christ was crucified, And is crucified in the world today.
We agree to make this journey, this pilgrimage, and to leave life as usual, business as usual, to pay attention, to be present to pain and suffering.
The journey to the Light of Easter can only go this way.
We choose to learn this hard truth, to accept the ashes, to witness the darkness, to walk the way of the Cross as it happens in our world.
Let us journey together, open to the world so we may be renewed and help bring to all the renewal Of Resurrection.
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Lectionary Reflection
Third Sunday of Lent
March 7, 2010 |
Greetings!
This week's lectionary readings will offer us a powerful image of Divine Justice through the parable of the barren fig tree. Jesus is the compassionate gardener who will tend to the social and environmental issues that hamper the fig tree's growth before he allows to be destroyed. The reflection is below but if you wish to read the original blog post and engage in a conversation please feel free to follow this link to the Lectionary Reflection Blog.
The Passion for Justice Blog will be promoting reflections and actions on the issue of advocating for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Also we are promoting the upcoming advocacy event by Churches for Middle East Peace on a reconciliatory process for the Israel/Palestine situation.
Please feel free to forward and to promote these relfections and actions within your community, family, parish or ministry.
Peace,
John
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Readings:
- Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15. God calls Moses and reveals himself as "I AM", from the burning bush.
- 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12. The exodus of Israel out of Egypt, through the desert, toward the Promised Land, "happened... as an example... [and] a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come."
- Luke 13: 1-9. The mystery of human events and the patience of God are typified in the fig tree.
Calendar:
March 8: International Women's Day
March 13: Pax Christi, an international Catholic peace organization, founded in France in 1945
March 14: Daylight Savings Time begins in the U.S. & Canada
Quotes:
The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every person to hear the pleas of their sisters and brothers and answer it lovingly.
-Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 3
Humanity needs a profound cultural renewal; it needs to rediscover those values which can serve as the solid basis for building a brighter future for all.
-Benedict XVI, January 1, 2010
Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.
-1971 Bishops' Synod, Justice in the World, 6
Workers must be paid a wage which allows them to live a truly human life and to fulfill their family obligations in a worthy manner. .... Economic progress must be accompanied by a corresponding social progress, so that all classes of citizens can participate in the increased productivity. ... the  economic prosperity of a nation is not so much its total assets in terms of wealth and property, as the equitable division and distribution of this wealth.
-John XXIII, Mater et Magistra 71-74
Because God is the creator, redeemer, lover of the world, God's own honor is at stake in human happiness. Wherever human beings are violated, diminished, or have their life drained away, God's glory is dimmed and dishonored. Wherever human beings are quickened to fuller and richer life, God's glory is enhanced. A community of justice and peace (thriving among human beings) and God's glory increase in direct and not inverse proportion.
-Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, She Who Is, 14 |
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Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez
The parable of the fig tree offers us an interesting point with regard to Divine justice. The fig tree is barren and unproductive. The owner represents a fairly typical social response to members of society that seem unproductive and worthless. From his perspective the barren fig tree should be cut down, "why should it exhaust the soil." I think this phrase is very interesting itself. Consider the argument used for the poor and low-income communities in our society. Generalities are thrown out there that deem this population as being unproductive and with no visible social worth. Arguments based on these generalities are used against social programs for these communities: "Why should they continue being a drain on our society?"
But Jesus plays the role of the pastoral gardener. His role in this parable is similar to performing social analysis and nurturing the environment that up to this point is keeping the tree barren. The gardener is nothing less than a community organizer whose organization is the Kingdom of God. Jesus the gardener recognizes the negative environmental influences that have contributed to the barren quality of the fig tree. He addresses that limited environment in order to give the tree every opportunity to blossom into a productive member of the Kingdom of God. The element of personal responsibility is not lost on the image of the fig tree however since the gardener accepts that if under these changed environmental circumstances the fig tree still remains barren then it must accept the consequence of its inaction. The point of the parable is that the justice of Christ will accept this judgment once the negative environmental elements are addressed.
 It is important to notice the issues that gave rise to this parable. Certain Galileans were judged to be great sinners because of the forms of natural (the collapse of the tower) and social (Pilate's atrocity) suffering they endured. Jesus points out very clearly that God's justice is not reflected in the way people suffer. Jesus also emphasizes twice that the inactive judgment by those who witness such suffering will lead them to a similar fate. We have recently witnessed a number of natural disasters in Haiti and Chile and social atrocities in Palestine and Somalia. Our role in following the good gardener is not to judge and dismiss the people who suffer but to analyze and address the negative social and environmental situations so that all people can have every opportunity to be productive members of a society that is based on the common good.
The first two readings emphasize this point even further. In the first reading God reveals his justice to Moses who will be His appointed agent for the liberation of the oppressed Hebrews. But in Corinthians we hear Paul offer us a symbolic interpretation of this historical liberation moment. Paul is warning the early Christians that they are living in the midst of this liberation moment. We, like the early Christians, are also living in the moment of liberation. We are called to liberate the world from social injustice and heal our society from natural disasters as part of our role of being gardeners for the Kingdom of God. Paul tells all of us who accept the responsibility of following Christ that we cannot accept a false sense of spiritual or social security that leads us away from the moral responsibilities we owe God and each other. Our Christian witness to the social and natural suffering in our days is not to stand by and cast judgments but to engage in solidarity with all who suffer and to cultivate the social and environmental landscape so that all our suffering brothers and sisters may have the opportunity to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. |
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Actions-Links:
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Campaign
The Passionist JPIC Office is promoting the Comprehensive Immigration Reform policies of the USSCB's Justice for Immigrant Campaign.
- Passion for Justice - For the next few weeks the Passion for Justice Blog will offer a number of post related to the official Catholic position on Immigration and our own spiritual reflection.
- Visit the Justice for Immigrant website for resources take part in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform postcard campaign
- The Ecumenical Advocacy Days will be advocating on Comprehensive Immigration Reform as well as issues related to migrants and refugees. Visit their site and register for the March 19-22 event in DC
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 We ought to be grateful and correspond to his divine benefits by loving justice, truth, and exercising charity and the works of mercy towards our neighbor, especially to the poor.
- St. Paul of the Cross
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| North American Passionist JPIC Office |
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