COSMO-COMPASSIONATE LITURGY

Cosmo-Compassionate Liturgy

The word “liturgy” comes from the Greek “leitourgia” which means “service” or “work” of the “people”. It more than meets the eye, is more than bells and smells and strange-sounding words, and requires more than an actor, a policeman or a scientist. The liturgy is about the very self-actuation of the Church as it reveals the very face of Christ whose presence is named in the action. Jesus Christ is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, and, as such, is in the dynamic of self-offering to the Father. Since his Incarnation he draws all men and creation into this majestic surrender; and we would do well to attach ourselves to him as individuals and as a body, the Church. The myriad galaxies with their myriad forms of existence and life are included in this magnificent makeover to God. This is the movement we commonly call sacrifice, from the Latin “sacrum facere” – “to make sacred”. As men of faith we need only affirm the existence of the subhuman species to place them on the cosmic trajectory to the divine. This is the cosmic liturgy which has been made possible by the Incarnation of the Word of God.

The Word now reverberates in the “Liturgy of the Word”, and the world awakens to present its ambassadors – bread and wine – that gladly melt into the furnace of divine love to visibly proclaim the apex invention of God, the Holy Eucharist! Man and universe gasp in wonderment at this unspeakable humility that enables the God-man encounter to bear fruit in man’s divinisation. Every crumb of host contains his whole presence; every cell in our body contains our unique DNA. We recognise the sacred nature of both as we absorb God with our very gut, flesh and blood.

The liturgy is indeed personal, but cannot be celebrated without the community of the Church, the world and the cosmos, for “God still loves the world” that he created by his love-word: “let there be”. There is no one and nothing that God does not call his own, and the liturgy is there to celebrate it.

This is why “sacrifice” (such a convenient action-word), indicates the “making sacred” of the world and its people that henceforward do not belong to themselves but to God; for whatever or whoever is of God is sacred. This is the heart of human and ecological dignity.

The Word creates, builds, consoles and compassionates. We need only contemplate the High Compassionate Celebrant, Jesus Christ, who, while remaining divine, is the résumé of created nature in his dynamic intent towards God. And by that very token he takes us deeply into the wonder of our own human mystery and the astonishing mystery of the cosmos, thereby igniting a fierce desire to rescue the world as “body of God” from injustice, poverty and violence. These are issues crying for attention, which should not be sidelined in pursuit of ritual purity and doctrinal orthodoxy (though these are important in themselves). Liturgy that refuses to engage with the raw realities of life and death is reduced to a tinkling bell and a meaningless melody. Compassion is the heart of the Word and the Gospel of life, which is more than priestly cult and grudging servanthood. Keep in mind that the original meaning of liturgy is service!

 Saint Pope John Paul II wrote: “The Incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God of everything that is flesh and that is cosmic, the first-born of Creation unites himself with the entire reality of humanity, within the whole of Creation”, proving once more that liturgy is intimately human and utterly universal.

“My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which, in a moment, will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit” (Teilhard de Chardin).

                                                     

COMPASSIONATE HIGH PRIEST - 2

THE COMPASSIONATE HIGH PRIEST

(Part II)

Even though I grew up in a very encouraging and constructive parish environment, I came to realize that morality was not normally a matter of doing violence to myself, and the action of God’s grace respects my present limitations. People must be charmed into righteousness. The desire to change others, as the desire to change oneself, can too easily come from a basic intolerance, and that is why it is vitiated at the source. Change is welcome, if it is sweetened by reasonableness and understanding. But as often as not, there is an element of intolerance in it, and this is what we must warn ourselves against.

            You know, for example, when you take seriously the call to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” a curious twist occurs with the first fervour of conversion. We want to institutionalise our spirituality; we want to domesticate and tame the Spirit of God, living by law rather than spirit. So we construct systems, invent rules, and settle for a religious externalism. It’s the instinct within us to be in control of everything, including the Spirit of God.

Our late dear Holy Father, Blessed Pope John XXIII, when he was Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, wrote in his Journal of a Soul: “Watchful kindness, patience and forbearance get one along much further and more quickly than severity and the rod. I would not mind being thought a fool if this could help people to understand what I firmly believe and shall assert as long as I live, that the Gospel teaching in unalterable and that in the Gospel Jesus teaches us to be gentle and humble; naturally this is not the same as being weak and easy-going. Like John XXIII, most long-lived people have a sense of discipline. This does not mean driving the self despotically but imposing a pattern on the ordinary events of the day. Pope John also had the other qualities needed to age well: a sense of humour, a twinkle in the eye and impishness, and something to live for.

            We do not know all the mixed questionable motives that lie behind our actions. We are not called to know everything or to justify ourselves. Fortunately we are called to lay ourselves and our actions upon the altar. It is only there, where we and our actions are received, blessed, broken and used by Christ our Priest in God’s work that we can speak of good deeds, of humbly rendering to God and his creation.

            Back to the heavy stuff. Properly speaking, sovereign priesthood belongs to the risen Jesus Christ, and to him alone. “There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind – Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” On this the New Testament is adamant. By his offering of himself in life and death, and by virtue of his being forever in an eternal present before God as God and man, he is the eternal High Priest who has made a once-for-all sacrifice.

 Jesus Christ, by the very fact of his Incarnation, is the primordial priest, since the Son of God takes upon himself human nature that includes all created nature. By the Incarnation man and God have a purchase on each other, for Jesus is God turned towards man, and man turned towards God. This is the essence of mediatorship, and comes into play every time the Eucharist is celebrated. Christ is the mediator par excellence.

If you think that you are left out, think of the first man and woman who were placed on this earth precisely to develop and enhance creation, which is what the priestly office is all about. The priesthood of all believers, which is based on their Baptism, demands their services to others, their “living sacrifice” of self to God, the daily attempt to close the gap between the words of prayer and a life that is one seamless prayer. In Baptism the Christian is assimilated to Christ who is priest, prophet and shepherd-king.

 Here is the prayer of a great anthropologist who was alone on the vast grasslands of Asia, without altar, candles, and prayer book; a prayer you can make your own. This prayer is a superb example of an imagination that is eminently catholic and priestly.

PRAYER OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

O Lord, since I have neither bread nor wine nor altar here on the Asian steppes, I lift myself, far above symbols, to the pure majesty of the Real; and I, your priest, offer to you, on the altar of the entire earth, the travail and suffering of the world.

Yonder breaks the sun, to light the uttermost east, and then to send its sheets of fire over the living surface of the earth, which wakens, shudders and resumes its relentless struggle.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which, in a moment, will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit.

Amen

(concluded)

COMPASSIONATE HIGH PRIEST - 1

THE COMPASSIONATE HIGH PRIEST

(Part I)

                                                                                                 

            Different peoples and different tribes have their own ways of describing Jesus, the Compassionate One. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews had already called him the Compassionate High Priest who knows our weaknesses and sympathizes with us. Now that’s a very attractive start. I could have begun by expounding high theology about Christ the Great High Priest who is the prime analogue of the priesthood and we priests secondary analogues of the priesthood by our ordination, and lay people who also participate in the priesthood in a general way by their Baptism. And I wouldn’t be wrong. But we’ll keep that for later. For the moment we’ll keep to the grass roots.

            The American Indians labelled Jesus as “The Little Buffalo Calf of God” because he nourished and sustained their bodies. An African tribe describes him as “the Serpent that moves through the forest without fear.” In the Andes in South America the people like to picture him as a weeping child removing a thorn from the sole of his foot. His tears help them better to understand how he shares their human condition. The thorn in the foot reminds them of his passion and suffering for their salvation. This is the Christ whom they feel very comfortable with. He is one of their own, easily recognizable and belongs. Hopefully, he will become one of our own, too.

            “…for us who must sometimes wonder and worry, for us who feel dread in the face of final suffering, death and the possibility of annihilation, then belief in a full human Jesus who, like us, trembles with fear, who is uncertain of the outcome, who experiences an agonizing sense of failure – this is one who is completely on our side, who completely takes the part of humanity. And that is the Jesus whom the Gospels present – one who was not spared anything that is our lot in this world, and whose final destiny transforms the destiny of all creation” (Donald Spoto, The Hidden Jesus, pg. 72)

            This conveys better the picture of Jesus, the compassionate High Priest. On his way to Jerusalem one day, Jesus and his disciples tried to take a short cut through a Samaritan village. The Samaritans just wouldn’t allow them, simply because they were making for Jerusalem. The disciples went berserk and requested Jesus to call down fire on the inhospitable Samaritans. Jesus moderated their harshness, and to drive the point home he delivered the parable of the Good Samaritan in the very next chapter of the Gospel. The passage about the Samaritans’ unfriendliness is taken from chapter IX of Luke’s gospel.  And in the very next chapter, there is the parable of the traveller set upon by thugs, and Jesus makes out the rescuer to be a Samaritan, humanly speaking the very last choice after the way Jesus was treated. Here was another example of the large heartedness of Jesus; and, I am sure, were there Samaritans among his hearers, they would have warmed to him. When we accept those who are relatively unattractive, we’ve gone halfway to enabling them share our faith.

 I sometimes wonder if the disciples remembered to be grateful to Jesus for being accepted themselves as they were; rough hewn, undeveloped, leaving much to be desired. That is something all priests and teachers should remember. I daresay Jesus had quite a job with the twelve who not only had very raw ideas of the Kingdom but also wanted everyone to march into it in double quick time. Something like that used to happen in the dark days of the Church’s history when Jews were dragged into churches, ropes tied round their necks, and made to listen to the sermons about the way to salvation. And once a year in Rome the Jews men, women and children had to run down the main street in Rome called the “Corso”, with the Christians showering them with sticks and stones and abuses. We have come a long way since then. I believe we appreciate our beloved High Priest’s compassion more than ever before.

We priests and lay people just want to be like him!

                                                                                                                         (to be concluded)

PREDESTINATION

PREDESTINATION

Romans 8:29-30 tells us, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Ephesians 1:5 and 11 declare, “He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Many people have a strong hostility to the doctrine of predestination. However, predestination is a biblical doctrine. The key is understanding what predestination means, biblically.

The words translated “predestined” in the Scriptures referenced above are from the Greek word proorizo, which carries the meaning of “determine beforehand,” “ordain,” “to decide upon ahead of time.” So, predestination is God determining certain things to occur ahead of time. What did God determine ahead of time? According to Romans 8:29-30, God predetermined that certain individuals would be conformed to the likeness of His Son, be called, justified, and glorified. Essentially, God predetermines that certain individuals will be saved. Numerous scriptures refer to believers in Christ being chosen (Matthew 24:22, 31; Mark 13:20, 27; Romans 8:33, 9:11, 11:5-7, 28; Ephesians 1:11; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1-2, 2:9; 2 Peter 1:10). Predestination is the biblical doctrine that God in His sovereignty chooses certain individuals to be saved.

The most common objection to the doctrine of predestination is that it is unfair. Why would God choose certain individuals and not others? The important thing to remember is that no one deserves to be saved. We have all sinned (Romans 3:23), and are all worthy of eternal punishment (Romans 6:23). As a result, God would be perfectly just in allowing all of us to spend eternity in hell. However, God chooses to save some of us. He is not being unfair to those who are not chosen, because they are receiving what they deserve. God’s choosing to be gracious to some is not unfair to the others. No one deserves anything from God; therefore, no one can object if he does not receive anything from God. An illustration would be a man randomly handing out money to five people in a crowd of twenty. Would the fifteen people who did not receive money be upset? Probably so. Do they have a right to be upset? No, they do not. Why? Because the man did not owe anyone money. He simply decided to be gracious to some.

If God is choosing who is saved, doesn’t that undermine our free will to choose and believe in Christ? The Bible says that we have the choice—all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10). The Bible never describes God rejecting anyone who believes in Him or turning away anyone who is seeking Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). Somehow, in the mystery of God, predestination works hand-in-hand with a person being drawn by God (John 6:44) and believing unto salvation (Romans 1:16). God predestines who will be saved, and we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Both facts are equally true. Romans 11:33 proclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”

LIFE IS YOUR PRAYER

Life is Your Prayer

by Neale Donald Walsch 

The Importance of Prayer

Prayer is the most important part of the human experience. It is the most important part of our daily activities. The reason it is the most important part of our experience and our activities is because it is the process by which we create our lives. It should be understood by anyone examining the subject of prayer that everything we think, see, and do is a prayer. Life is a prayer in the sense that it is a continuous request to the universe and its God to present us with what we choose and desire.

God understands our desires not just through the occasional utterances that we call "prayers" in the traditional sense, but through every thought we think, every word we speak, and everything we do. Our thoughts, our words, and our actions are our prayers. Most people do not think of life as a constant prayer; most people believe they are praying only when involved in that deliberate, peculiar activity we know as prayer. Thus, many people feel that their prayers either go unanswered or or are answered sporadically and only in the affirmative. But the truth is, prayer does not begin with kneeling down, or lighting a votive candle, or sitting in meditation, or picking up our prayer beads, or performing some outward or inner ritual.

Beginning and Ending of Prayer

Prayer begins at the moment of our birth and ends with our death, if we speak in the classic terms of most human understanding. Of course, if we more beyond the notions of birth and death to reach higher understandings, we learn that birth and death are merely the beginning and the end of an ongoing, cyclical experience through which we move throughout the ages and for all time.

But in normal human terms, in our relative world, I would use the word "prayer" to create a greater understanding among a larger number of people. Our prayer begins within the moment of our birth in this particular lifetime. And at our death this particular version of our prayer ends. But at no time between our birth and our death do we cease our prayer.

What Is Prayer?

If we understood that every word, thought, and action was a prayer sent right to God, a request sent right to the Heavens, I believe we would change much of what we think, say, and do. Further, I believe we would better understand why our more formalized prayers seem to be answered only sporadically, if at all. For here is what really happens: In our formalized prayers we seek God's intercession or intervention in our affairs, hoping that God will somehow alter or create something for us. Yet these formal prayers only take a moment or two each day, or for some, each week. The rest of our time -- probably 95 to 99 percent -- is spent sending, oftentimes unwittingly, prayers to God that work exactly in the opposite direction of our formal prayers.

So we pray for one thing and we go out and do another. Or we pray for one thing and we go out and think another. Let me give you a typical example. We may pray for greater abundance in our life, or for help with a financial problem. Those prayers are earnestly offered, earnestly said, and earnestly sent to God during our formal, ritualized time for prayer. Then for the rest of the week we go around harboring thoughts of insufficiency, saving words of insufficiency, and demonstrating insufficiency in the everyday actions of our lives. So 95 percent of the time we send prayers that affirm we don't have enough and 5 percent of the time we ask God to bring us enough. It is very difficult for the universe to grant us our wishes when 95 percent of the time we are, in fact, asking for something else.

The Answer to Our Prayers 

This is the single most misunderstood aspect of prayer in our human experience. This truth is that the universe is a giant xerox, sending us, all the time, the answer to our prayers. And we are, in fact, sending prayers to the universe all the time, from morning till night, from birth till death. This is at once both empowering and, for people who are unwilling to take the responsibility it inherently creates, frightening. Only for those who understand the great gift that God has given us -- the gift of our ability to create what we want -- does this form of prayer seem inviting. For those unable to accept this level of responsibility for their actions, this form of prayer -- morning to night, birth to death, in the shape of our words, thoughts, and actions -- seems intimidating at best and unacceptable at worst.

Only when we are willing to accept that our words are creative, our thoughts are creative, and our actions are creative, could this be attractive. Many are unwilling to accept this as truth because they are not very proud of the majority of their thoughts, words, and actions and certainly don't want them to be considered as actual requests to God. And yet they are.

The injunction then is to speak, think, and act in a way of which we can be proud -- in a way that sends to God our grandest thoughts and produces our highest visions and thus creates Heaven on Earth for all of us.

Your Life Is Your Prayer

The thoughts expressed here are not new nor are they what one would usually think of as "new age". As a matter of fact, a wonderful minister at the Marble Cathedral in New York City named Dr. Norman Vincent Peale spoke many of these same words when he authored what is arguably one of the world's ten most famous books, The Power of Positive Thinking. What Dr. Peale said is what I am saying here: Your entire life is your prayer.

When we become consciously aware of this, and when we accept this truth with joy, our entire lives change -- sometimes virtually overnight and other times more slowly and subtly. When we accept this truth, we suddenly understand that God is our best friend and has given us tools of unlimited power to create the reality we seek to experience.

Talking With God, or Talking To God

I have had the beautiful gift of experiencing my own conversation with God, and the most urgent prayer of my life has been answered through that conversation. Every question I ever had in my life was answered in that conversation, including how best to pray. Two important points about prayer were made in that conversation. The first point is that the most powerful prayer is the prayer of gratitude. When we thank God in advance for what we wish to use and experience in our lives, we affirm that we have already received it and all that is awaiting is our perception of receiving it. Therefore, the power of a prayer exists in direct proportion to the degree of gratitude contained within the prayer.

The most extraordinary prayer I have ever heard is one sentence I find myself saying continually throughout my life: "Thank you God for helping me to understand that this problem has already been solved for me." This prayer has moved me through the most difficult moments in my life into peace and equanimity and even serenity.

My second major point about prayer is that everyone may have a conversation with God. The process by which we communicate with God and by which God communicates with us is open to all of us, not just to a select few -- not to the prophets, the sages, and the wisdom bringers of all time but to the butchers, the bakers, and the candlestick makers, and the barbers, lawyers, homemakers, politicians, teachers, and airline pilots -- all of us.

Gratitude Prayer

God's communications with us is two-way, not one-way. God says to us that it is not necessary to pray a prayer of supplication. A prayer of supplication is a statement that we do not now have something, or we would not be asking for it. Therefore, asking for something literally pushes it away, for one does not ask for something one already has. In the request, then, is hidden our scarcity. That statement produces the result of not having. That is why all the great sages and all the great teachers of all the world's mystical and religious traditions, bar none, have said to pray a prayer of gratitude. Thank you, God, for allowing me to know that this problem has already been solved for me.

Then go on with your day and notice the miracle.