Saturday, May 28, 2011

‘Love one another’
Today’s Gospel text in the Mass offers a remarkable insight into the vision of Jesus for the ‘new Israel’ he is establishing around himself at the Last Supper. As Israel was first constituted God’s people at Mount Sinai by an extraordinary encounter with the living God, so now the new Israel enters into a final covenant encounter with Israel’s God-made-flesh on Mount Zion.

A new commandment, a new covenant meal, a new leadership, a new theophany, a new exodus narrative, a new mountain, a new friendship with God.

Just as Moses had encountered God as “I AM” at Mount Sinai before the exodus, only to return to Sinai after the exodus to receive the commandments from God; so the disciples, who have heard Jesus name himself “I AM” during his public ministry, now receive his commandment to love God and one another.

Hallmark
We as Church are the new Israel, marked in our deepest core by this primal commandment. We are meant to represent ‘all things new,’ inasmuch as God in Jesus has chosen us to bear his new creation: humanity reconciled, icon of God’s original intention for humanity to be a community of love.

‘One another.’
Authenticity, which is nothing other than conformity with the author’s original intention, must be the soul of our identity and the foundation of our power to attract the rest of humanity to God’s new Israel. Jesus, in the Gospel texts this week, has made it clear that the way we love one another within the Church is the first and founding witness we can offer a world which Jesus notes is marked in its deepest core by the mark of Cain: hate.

How are we doing in our Church? Can the ‘world’ peer in to our ecclesial staffs and committees, associations and ministries, clerical and lay communities and say: “so that’s how it’s supposed to look!” I always say that if we lived our faith authentically, one who looks in the dictionary to define “love” should see in place of the first definition, “See Church;” and when they flip to the word Church, they would find, “see Christ.”

Hard as nails
This love is hard, excruciating, and admits of no rest from the struggle. My trek to monthly sacramental confession is my return to the Christ of the Upper Room, facing him as he issues that command afresh to me: love one another. And I feebly echo his command with the cry, Kyrie eleison.

But I leave that sacramental encounter with Christ re-invested with the power of his commandment which, as at the moment of creation, has the power to re-create me as an icon of his love: Fiat lux!

Let me be light, O Lord. Amen.
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2 comments:

  1. beads2rosariesJune 7, 2011 at 3:18 PM

    Indeed, what does the world say when it looks into our Church sees the functionality of the people working together? Unfortunately, the view is human beings working together amidst the sin which creates hurts, habit and hang-ups which altering our ability to relate to God, ourselves and other human beings. Even with the greatest of desires, the Church succumbs to sin. The world walks away perhaps thinking “I knew it – they are just like the rest of us”.

    BUT THEN – while the world turns away – the Church comes together again – asks for forgiveness, apologizes and grows into a better and closer walk with Our Lord. The lament – the world was not looking now when we are walking in love which mercy and forgiveness provides?

    The world takes note – albeit at times over there shoulder - they come to hate us because mercy and forgiveness are at best unfamiliar at worst not utilized. The world knows this behavior is not in the world which has them stuck and running in circles. The root of this hatred may be bitterness for not being unwilling to forgive or a persecution intended to inflict the a suffering which they are experiencing..

    Offering love and forgiveness, experiencing it from others, from God and his Church will change the world one soul at a time. So our response – to love more and to forgive more! When we respond in this way, a fresh wind will renew the face of the Earth. The Holy Spirit sent by the Son will change hearts and minds with the love expressed so perfectly on the cross. And the Christian people know that when lifted up [Jn 12:32] men are drawn to love – Jesus himself.

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  2. Thomas J. Neal, Ph.D.June 19, 2011 at 2:42 PM

    I think what you hit here is so core, exceptional, and on-target. It is mercy that is alone capable of making the wounded Church into the sacrament and sign of Christ; and it is repentance and forgiveness alone that permit divine mercy to effect that change. So, Beads2Rosaries, hats off to your insight yet again.

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