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| Lectionary Reflection and World Water Day |
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| Fifth Sunday of Lent |
March 21-22, 2010 |
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Greetings!
This week's Passionist JPIC e-mail offers a lectionary reflection for the 5th Sunday of Lent as well as resources in observance of World Water Day. The International Solidarity and Mission Comission for the Passionist community has developed prayer resources so that the international Passionist family can celebrate international observances as a global family. This monday is World Water Day and on this day we would like to call to mind this precious and sacred resource that is essential for human life.
This week's lectionary reflection is offered by Fr. Stephen Dunn, CP. In this reflection our sacred Scriptures will challenge us to keep our eyes open for the ever creative power of the Holy Spirit. The virtue of justice is never as clear cut as we imagine it to be. In this week's Gospel reading Jesus finds a new and creative way to address a socially perceived injustice. We too must keep our minds open to new and creative ways to bring about the message of God's love for all creation. Please visit the Lectionary Reflection Blog to offer any comments or thoughts on this topic.
This weekend is also the same weekend when many members of the Christian faith will go to DC to march and advocate for immigrants, refugees and displaced peoples. Visit our Passionist JPIC website section below for information and resources on this event and issue.
Peace,
John |
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Lectionary Readings:
- Isaiah 43: 16-21. See, I am doing something new; opening a new way through the mighty waters.
- Philippians 3:8-14. I push on to what is ahead - to know the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and to arrive at resurrection from the dead.
- John 8:1-11. Jesus forgives the adulterous woman. Everyone sins and all have need of forgiveness.
Calendar:
March 19 - St. Joseph feast day
March 21 - Immigration March and Rally
March 22 - Ecumenical Advocacy Days
March 22 - World Water Day
Thoughts for your consideration: By Stephen Dunn, CP
I am thinking that today's Liturgy is especially relevant for social justice advocates. It occurs as the liturgical year is carefully guiding us toward the events of Holy Week. In other words, it is there to assist us in the impossible task of squarely facing the heart of darkness, a place where those dedicated to social justice attempt to walk bravely.
Our time may not be worse than other human epochs, but it surely feels replete with the darkness of war, torture, slavery and so many forms of economic and military oppression. Perhaps it's not intensity we feel, although a case might be made for that, but that we are sensitive to the "omnipresence", the blanket of media attention, so inescapable in our time, relentlessly keeping the brutality of the dark side of life as our constant waking companion.
Media coverage of "honor killings" has transported their horror from far away places to our doorstep. Not so long ago, we in North America would have read today's Gospel in terms of a sexual disorder -- severely, even excessively, punished. Today we know it to be one of patriarchy's sickest sins, unaffected by presumed cultural sophistication, present even now in far too many places. Thinking in that way makes the dilemma Jesus faced much more fundamental than juggling the niceties of moral law. It has to do with deep human darkness.
Although the incident happens in the vicinity of the Temple, the Gospel account begins with the poignant reminder that Jesus had just returned from the Mount of Olives, the historical place, where he himself is soon to face the ultimate darkness of feeling rejection by the God he called Father.
In the first reading the prophet Isaiah wants his people to remember Yahweh's ancient intervention to end the darkness of their slavery, by parting the seas, ensuring their escape. It put me in mind of a contemporary "parting of the seas" as described by Fr. Rick Frechette, the Passionist doctor-priest working in Haiti. He describes, in his new book*, the day kidnappers took the whole Haiti airport road by storm. Amid the chaos, he and his associates attempted to rescue friends who were deep inside the slum. The crossfire was too intense, so he decided to wait. "Suddenly, a truck full of heavily armed men, all in black, drove up to the intersection from inside the slum ... They shot heavy artillery into the air. They were dressed like the special police force, but it was easy to see they were frauds. How? Because the special police eat well, and are strong from bodybuilding. These men we so thin; their clothes were hanging off of them. They were "chimeres" ) ghosts from the slums. ... Raphael understood at once that they were clearing the way for us to in to get the wounded, which we did...and raced them to town, to the surgeons of Doctors Without Borders".
"The Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters" declares: "See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
Fr. Rick has learned to be creatively respectful of the heart of goodness as he stands adamantly against the heart of darkness. Like Paul, speaking to the Philippians in our second reading, he "continues his pursuit" of the heart of goodness "in hope". His hope allows him to be both courageously forthright with gang members and tenderly healing of traumatized children, body and soul.
Looking at the Gospel story that way, it seems to me that Jesus is similarly facing down darkness in search of a regeneration of heart: his, first of all, since it must have seared him to come so close to this barbarity, but also those of the scribes and Pharisees and the terrified woman who was to be the victim of this patriarchal madness. Scholars tell us that peasants of Jesus' time would do as he did, "doodle on the ground" when they felt too distraught to engage people directly. But he masterfully challenged everyone to look into their own hearts: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her".
And that is why I think this liturgy is so apt for those committed to social justice. The logic of adjudicating sins to lay blame is opaque to God's ability to "part the waves" to find a path that reveres human dignity, it does not allow God to "make a new thing" among the people. Its certitude or sense of rightness stifles hope, which is the lifeblood of the heart of goodness in the environment of darkness. Fr. Rick is fond of saying "think with your heart". The results, in faith hope and charity, are as remarkable as "neither will I condemn you, go, and walk not in darkness".
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Celebration of World Water Day: March 22, 2010
On March 22 the international community observes is World Water Day. The international Passionist JPIC Commission has developed a full prayer resource for communities to apply. This resource offers a community prayer ritual for us to become spiritually sensitive to God's gift of water and the contemporary social issue regarding its scarcity. To download the full resource please go to the Passionist JPIC resource page. Below is another prayer resource from the education for justice website for communities to incorporate with other groups or ministries.
Opening Prayer:
Creator God, whose Spirit moved over the face of the waters, who gathers the seas into their
places and directs the courses of the rivers, who sends rain upon the earth that it should bring forth
life: we praise you for the gift of water. Create in us such a sense of wonder and delight in this
and all your gifts, that we might receive them with gratitude, care for them with love, and generously
share them with all your creatures, to the honour and glory of your holy name.
(Psalm 65)
Forgive us, we pray, for the times we
have failed to recognise our relationship with Sister Water,
have not used water wisely,
have not called others to awareness,
have thoughtlessly polluted instead of protected our water sources,
have ignored the needs of our brothers and sisters around the world. (pause)
Prayer of Water:
(Let us pray together)
"Praised be You my Lord for Sister Water, who is useful, humble, precious and pure."
As St. Francis prayed in great gratitude for Sister Water, we pray in thankfulness for her lifesustaining
generosity.
Oh water, in your mysterious beauty you cause the desert to bloom. One tiny drop spread collected
with thousands of drops water seeds and future harvests to feed us and all creatures.
One tiny drop multiplied quenches our burning thirst.
Our bodies, like the body of earth, are over 75% water.
We are a water people. We are a water planet.
Oh compassionate God, Creator who breathed over the waters, we seek forgiveness for our
mindless use of water. We beg for wisdom to know how to conserve and cherish water. We ask
healing for the ways that we disrespect and contaminate our sister.
In this drought time we wait and watch for the gift of rain upon the earth. We watch and wait for
the rain of grace into our souls. Come free us from the hatred, greed, fear, and our lack of love for
your gifts upon earth.
Transform us into living streams of water, flowing green and moist with life, hope and love for
earth and all peoples.
We pray this prayer in the name of God who is gracious Creator, Jesus who is Eternal Word and
Spirit who is Wellspring of Wisdom. AMEN.
Closing Ritual:
The Leader invites each of those gathered to name one thing they are committed to doing to
raise awareness of water issues, or to restore right relationships with water. Then using
water from the bowl, all are invited to bless themselves asking for a gift they need in order
to complete their commitment. When all have had an opportunity to share, close with an
appropriate song.
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Passionist JPIC Website
The Passionist JPIC website has been recently updated. The Passion for Justice Blog has resources regarding immigration to coincide with the immigration advocacy days in March. In a couple weeks we will be profiling some ministry experiences regarding criminal justice and the death penalty. Also visit of Lectionary Reflection Blog post. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts on these issues.
Also we have just started to update the resource page and we hope to integrate with more Passionist ministries in the links section. News and information has been recently updated.
The Passionist JPIC resource page will have the pdf for international observances that are developed by the International Solidarity and Mission Comission. Currently we have the World Water Day observance but as we develop resources for the other main observances we will also post them.
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Listen to the sermons of the flowers, the trees, the bushes, the heavens, the sun, and all the world. You will find they preach of love and praise of God, and invite you to magnify the greatness of the Sovereign Artist, who gave them being.
- St. Paul of the Cross |
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| North American Passionist JPIC Office |
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