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March 14, 2010
Lectionary Reflection
Fourth Sunday of Lent |
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Greetings!
This week's lectionary readings call us to promote forgiveness and reconciliation. As we again consider the story of the Prodigal son let us examine the role of the older brother and consider our own challenges in promoting the radical forgiveness that our Divine Father is asking us to do.
The Lectionary Reflections are offered by the Passionist office of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. Some of the resources come to us from the Education for Justice program. Please visit the Lectionary Reflection blog to offer some comments and to share your own thoughts.
The Passion for Justice blog has a number of post related to immigration in preperation for the March 22 lobby day with the Ecumenical Advocacy Days.Please visit the action links below for further information on our Passionist JPIC Resources.
Peace,
John |
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| Readings:
- Joshua 5: 9-12. The feast of Passover is celebrated on the plains of Jericho. The Israelites eat the produce of the Promised Land, and the manna ceases.
- 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21. "The old order has passed away; now all is new." Christ who never sinned became "sin" that we might become the very holiness of God.
- Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32. The parable of the prodigal son, the story of a father's forgiveness and a brother's anger.
Calendar:
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
March 17: Feast of Saint Patrick
March 19: Feast of Saint Joseph
March 19 & 20: anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq
March 20: First Day of Spring
March 21: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
March 22: World Water Day
Quotes:
Development requires attention to the spiritual life, a serious consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in Christ, reliance upon God's providence and mercy, love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. All this is essential if "hearts of stone" are to be transformed into "hearts of flesh" (Ezek 36:26), rendering life on earth "divine" and thus more worthy of humanity.
-Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth, 79
God is Love which saves, a loving Father who wants to see his children look upon one another as brothers and sisters, working responsibly to place their various talents at the service of the common good of the human family.
-Pope Benedict XVI, 1 January 2007
We cannot be frightened by the magnitude and complexity of these problems. We must not be discouraged. In the midst of this struggle, it is inevitable that we become aware of greed, laziness, and envy. No utopia is possible on this earth; but as believers in the redemptive love of God and as those who have experienced God's forgiving mercy, we know that God's providence is not and will not be lacking to us today.
-US Bishops, Economic Justice for All, 364
Daily human events clearly evidence how much forgiveness and reconciliation are undeniably needed for bringing about a real, personal, and social renewal. This is valid in interpersonal relations but also among communities as well as nations. ... The only way to peace is forgiveness. To accept and give forgiveness makes possible a new quality of rapport between people, interrupting the spiral of hatred and revenge and breaks the chains of evil which bind the heart of rivals. ...To love the one who offends you disarms the adversary and is able to transform a battlefield into a place of supportive co-operation. ... The Christian must make peace even when feeling as the victim of one who has unjustly offended and struck. ... In our times, forgiveness appears more and more as a necessary dimension for an authentic social renewal and for the strengthening of peace in the world.
-John Paul II, Lent 2001
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Thoughts for your consideration: By John Gonzalez
The theme with the lectionary readings for this week is reconciliation. Immediately after reading these Scripture passages I began to reflect on the book "The Shack" by William Young. As I was reading this book I recalled how I had to pause once I became aware of the crime that became the central issue for the main character. Mack (the main character) is a father who experiences the kidnapping and violent murder of his youngest daughter. As soon as I became aware of this crime in my own heart I deemed this experience to be unforgivable. I was not aware at that moment that the rest of the book was a mystical journey for Mack to forgive the unforgivable. This was a powerful narrative and to be sure I was moved and challenged by the journey that Mack had with the Holy Trinity. But could I take this same journey with God? I would like to hope so, but in my heart I remain very much challenged with regards to this dimension of reconciliation.
Paul tells us that "we are ambassadors for Christ" whose mission "was reconciling the world to Himself." The parable of the prodigal son is a challenging portrayal of paternal forgiveness. In the first reading we are told about how God reconciles with the Israelites who have entered the promise land in a place called Gilgal. We Christians know that we are called to forgive and to promote reconciliation with each other. Yet while we can accept this dimension of our Christian calling in theory, there comes a point where we ask the question that Peter poses to Jesus, "How often must I forgive my brother?"
Christian eschatology, the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God in our midst, is theologically understood in the "already but not yet" formula. Jesus declared that through him the Kingdom of God is already present, but with his ascension we also understand that the culmination of the Kingdom of God will happen sometime in the future. In Romans 8 Paul asserts that "all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now" and in this week's second reading Paul also reminds us that "whoever is in Christ is a new creation." Christian theology teaches us that in the Divine timeline the Kingdom of God began with Christ and we continue living in this transitional phase until the moment that the Kingdom of God is fully established in our midst, a moment we also call the second coming of Christ. What Paul is reminding us in the second reading is that during this transitional phase we are called to be ambassadors in our society for the values and principles of the Kingdom of God. An essential dimension of this is our obligation to end the social cycle of violence by promoting reconciliation in our world.
 We are imperfect ambassadors in this transitional phase. Radical forgiveness and reconciliation is a Christian value that will challenge us in the same way that it challenged the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. But what is just as important as the fact the father forgave his youngest son is that the father also goes out to the field to consult and journey with the older son to have him understand this challenging level of reconciliation. "The Shack" demonstrates this same point at a deeper and more intimate level when Mack journeys with each member of Holy Trinity.
In our world and in our society there will be events and incidence that will challenge our ability to forgive members of the human family that hurt us or our society. Our Christian commitment is to allow ourselves to be challenged and try in whatever capacity to at least comprehend our call to promote reconciliation between God and all humanity. There will be times that we fail and at the moment maybe we simply cannot forgive and instead we go out to the field in anger, but we are called to allow ourselves to be open to God during these challenging moments.
Now some may say, "well that is all fine and well in a parable or in a fictional book but where is this value reflected in real life?" I recall asking that very same question as I finished reading "the Shack". That following week a gunman shot all the girls at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. To my absolute amazement the Amish community, in an act of social reconciliation, forgave the gunman.
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Action -Links
 Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
The Passion for Justice Blog is offering a number of resources on the Catholic position on immigration in preparation for the Ecumenical Advocacy Days. Please visit the following posts:
We will have other post related to the Passionists ministries to the immigrant community and the advocacy position. World Water Day:
The International Solidarity and Mission Commission of the Passionist community has a Prayer resource for World Water Day which is observed on March 22. The Prayer service is for the international Passionist family so that we can all be sensitized to the suffering earth and celebrates the integrity of God's creation. The prayer service will be posted on the JPIC resource section of the website. Visit the official World Water Day site for information on this event. |
 We form part of human society, and cannot distance ourselves from the people among whom we live. Each community therefore must consider whether it is relating in a Christian manner to the wider community of the area. - Passionist Constitutions #35
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| North American Passionist JPIC Office |
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