| SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C |
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| Written by Fr. Kevin O'Shea, C.Ss.R. | |||
Second Sunday of Lent, 2010 FIRST SERIES - THE HOLY OILS Lent looks to Holy Week. Many people think Holy Week is about Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. There is another main ‘event’ in Holy Week. It is called the ‘Mass of the Holy Oils’. There are three ‘holy oils’ used in sacramental rituals in the catholic church. One is the ‘oil of catechumens’, used in baptism. The second is known as ‘chrism’, used in baptism, in confirmation, and in ordinations of priests and bishops. The third is the ‘oil of the sick’, used in their anointing. These oils are blessed and consecrated, by the local bishop, at a special mass in one of the early days of Holy Week, often on the Tuesday of that week, concelebrated with most of the priests of the diocese. It is sometimes called the ‘mass of the oils’, and sometimes ‘the chrism mass’. After this mass, the oils are taken to the parishes, to be used there – for example, for baptisms and for anointing of the sick – for the coming year. The life of a baptized person is changed by the anointing with oil in the rite of baptism and confirmation. After baptism, we do continue to lead the life we previously led, but it is no longer the transitory life we all know. We are engendered into a new existence that never ends. It is eternal life, already. Likewise, priests and bishops who are signed with the oil of chrism in their ordination are initiated into a profoundly transformed life. They are conformed to Christ the Shepherd, and called to give themselves – dedicate themselves – daily for the Church in the service of all humanity. Through the anointing, the world is seen differently, people are seen differently. Ways to love and serve are made clearer. Death is no longer an irremovable obstacle to this ministry. Anxiety about how to cope with tomorrow is less relevant, as is fear of losing whatever we have gained in the past. Our real treasure is love, and through the anointing it is perceived as never ending. The result is a serenity, in the assurance of a joy that never goes away. We are not, and not meant to be, the source or the artisans of this way of living. We receive it as gift. We receive it in the communion that the Church is. We receive it through the sacraments. I think this changes how we see the Church itself. The Church is not a political party. It is not a government or non-government organization. It is not a supermarket distributing graces left right and center. It is not a moral watch-dog cautioning us about our wrong economic system and/or pan sexual mythology without reference to intelligence. Our society does not even look to the Church to do these things. Rather, the Church is a people chosen to manifest God’s love and desire for every person God has created. God’s ambition for us surpasses our capacity. If we stopped thanking God for this, the very stones would cry out and do it. The Church is in permanent mission to live like that, and integrate people into that. To do that, the Church needs to be, and to look like a consecrated group of people. The oil blessed in the ‘Chrism mass’ flows out to everyone, and consecrates them into the values of Holy Week. That is why, at this mass, the baptized and confirmed are asked to renew the promises of their initiation, and the priests and bishops are asked to renew the promises of their ordination. ---- SECOND SERIES - RIGHT-SIZING Today we read, this year from Luke, about the transfiguration of Jesus. It is interesting that Luke differs from Mark and Matthew in his account of the transfiguration. He does not use the word ‘transfiguration’ (metamorphosis) at all. It wasn’t a ‘great show’. Instead, he uses the expression, ‘his face was changed’. By face, he means, personality. His personality was changed. The way he was inside himself, the way he shone through to others, became different. He became a different kind of man. This happened whenever Jesus prayed. The literal translation of Luke’s Greek is: “the appearance of the face (of his countenance) was altered (was different) as he was in-the-praying (in a state of prayer).” I want to focus on the fact that “as he was in-prayer” the aspect of Jesus’ face was changed: God’s glory could be seen on his face. The Book of Sirach 13.25-26 tells us:
A person’s heart changes his/her face, The Book of Exodus 33, 7-11 relates the story of Moses’ encounter with Yahweh on Mt. Sinai and the effects of that encounter on his face. In Exodus 33.18, 20, we read that in the desert Moses used take the Tent and pitch it outside the camp. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who had to consult Yahweh would go out to the Tent of Meeting. When Moses went out to the Tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and station itself at the entrance to the Tent, and Yahweh would speak to Moses . Yahweh would speak to Moses FACE TO FACE, as a man speaks with his friend. When Moses descended from having spent 40 days and nights on the mountain with Yahweh, “he did not know that the skin on his face was RADIANT after speaking with Yahweh”. 34.29 And when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, the skin on his face shone so much that they would not venture near him…When Moses had finished passing on [to the people] all the orders Yahweh had given him on Mt Sinai, he put a veil over his face. 34.30,33 Whenever he went into Yahweh’s presence to speak with him, Moses would remove the veil until he came out again…[then] he would tell the sons of Israel what he had been ordered to pass on to them and [they] would see the face of Moses RADIANT. 34.34-5 In Numbers 6.22-27, Yahweh through Moses tells Aaron and his sons (the priests):
This is how you are to bless the sons [and daughters] of Israel. I want to reflect today, not on Jesus directly, but on ourselves. Does our face change like that? Would we like it to? I think we all live with a lot of superfluous stuff in our lives. If we got rid of that, people might even see our face! I think the superfluous stuff comes mostly from the workplace, it comes with the job (whatever job we have). It’s full of paper (or, more recently, e-mails!). It’s an endless round of meetings, consultations, circulations, deliberations, delegations, staying in the information ‘loop’. We go round and round in it all. The more administration staff there is, the less workers there seem to be. We have got used to needing subordinates, regardless of how much (or little) really needs to be done. It is all about salary, status, standing. Bureaucracies feed themselves. Committees do too. I read something the other day that said that beyond twenty members, a group is structurally unable to reach real consensus! If there are more than twenty, each member adopts the opinion of the majority of immediate neighbors. Big groups, and we live in them, splinter into subgroups with increasing internal but un-thought-out agreement and increasing (perhaps permanent) disagreement with any other group. I think we all subliminally know all that….but we know, too, that it hides our real self, and makes it certain that no one can see our face. Perhaps we settle for it so much we can’t even see our own face…. We know that deep down somewhere the real person is still there, but we lose touch with the real person and forget the real face. Does going to church help us find it? If you don’t believe in miracles or devotions or the ‘traditional’ kind of God, what’s the point? ‘That kind of religion never did much for me’. None the less, none the less… there is a basic sense of ultimacy, a kind of foundation or ground to who we really are as persons. There are issues we are genuinely serious about without reservation. We all experience this, and we all find it hard to articulate. Believing it can make a huge difference to life, and to the look on your face. Reflecting on it can put sparkle in your eyes….I don’t mean believing in things like nationalism (try Hitler or Stalin) or material success or economic power (all that is just idolatry). I mean believing in love… Take a deep breath and ruminate on it, on love. Your face will look better afterwards…. I think we pick up lots of metaphors to convey something of this. I think we choose among them the metaphors that we feel we can live by. Sometimes I have some anxiety about some of the religious metaphors (especially some that keep coming up in Lent). ‘Taking up your cross’, ‘the cost of discipleship’, ‘losing your life to save it’, ‘being in the world but not of it’, ‘seeing the world as hostile’, ‘spiritual warfare’, ‘Christian soldiers’, etc etc. These metaphors are very military. They cover up the face, they don’t transfigure it…. Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’. What changes your face, and make you the good person you really are, is the way you think. It is basically trusting God. It is seeing a beautiful world around you and knowing it is God’s gift to you and knowing that you haven’t seen the half of how good God is to you….there’s more coming! If you thought about in this way, the future is one long series of inner miracles… Happiness doesn’t come from what you do (or all you did). It comes out of realizing that you never needed to do most of these things and you still don’t need to. When you get to hang loose of the feeling of needing things, soon there will be nothing you lack. That’s where happiness comes from. That’s what puts peace on your face. One way of saying this is to ‘right-size’ your life. There’s a ‘good-enough’ level about most things.. Someone once said that you are rich if you can satisfy the requirements of your imagination. I’m not sure. I think you are rich if you can give up imagining that you have to do it all yourself. Let God do at least some of it for you! Happiness is gift, and comes when you stop pursuing it… There are two Aramaic expressions (about face-change) that are interesting here:
This was a sign of mourning, despondency, withdrawal.
This was a symbol of confidence, positivity, boldness, aliveness, vitality. A ‘change of face’ can mean an unveiling, a move from down to up. There is a Greek word, used often by Luke in Acts, that captures this. It is ‘parrhesia’. In Luke’s Greek, parrhesia literally means ‘saying all there is to be said’. It implies a great inner freedom, a visible positivity, a facing of life and reality front on. It means batting off the front foot, looking at the person or the situation straight in the eye. Lift UP your hearts! -----
SECOND SERIES: RIGHT-SIZING Today we read, this year from Luke, about the transfiguration of Jesus. It is interesting that Luke differs from Mark and Matthew in his account of the transfiguration. He does not use the word ‘transfiguration’ (metamorphosis) at all. It wasn’t a ‘great show’. Instead, he uses the expression, ‘his face was changed’. By face, he means, personality. His personality was changed. The way he was inside himself, the way he shone through to others, became different. He became a different kind of man. This happened whenever Jesus prayed. The literal translation of Luke’s Greek is: “the appearance of the face (of his countenance) was altered (was different) as he was in-the-praying (in a state of prayer).” I want to focus on the fact that “as he was in-prayer” the aspect of Jesus’ face was changed: God’s glory could be seen on his face. The Book of Sirach 13.25-26 tells us:
A person’s heart changes his/her face, The Book of Exodus 33, 7-11 relates the story of Moses’ encounter with Yahweh on Mt. Sinai and the effects of that encounter on his face. In Exodus 33.18, 20, we read that in the desert Moses used take the Tent and pitch it outside the camp. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who had to consult Yahweh would go out to the Tent of Meeting. When Moses went out to the Tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and station itself at the entrance to the Tent, and Yahweh would speak to Moses . Yahweh would speak to Moses FACE TO FACE, as a man speaks with his friend. When Moses descended from having spent 40 days and nights on the mountain with Yahweh, “he did not know that the skin on his face was RADIANT after speaking with Yahweh”. 34.29 And when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, the skin on his face shone so much that they would not venture near him…When Moses had finished passing on [to the people] all the orders Yahweh had given him on Mt Sinai, he put a veil over his face. 34.30,33 Whenever he went into Yahweh’s presence to speak with him, Moses would remove the veil until he came out again…[then] he would tell the sons of Israel what he had been ordered to pass on to them and [they] would see the face of Moses RADIANT. 34.34-5 In Numbers 6.22-27, Yahweh through Moses tells Aaron and his sons (the priests):
This is how you are to bless the sons [and daughters] of
Israel. I want to reflect today, not on Jesus directly, but on ourselves. Does our face change like that? Would we like it to? I think we all live with a lot of superfluous stuff in our lives. If we got rid of that, people might even see our face! I think the superfluous stuff comes mostly from the workplace, it comes with the job (whatever job we have). It’s full of paper (or, more recently, e-mails!). It’s an endless round of meetings, consultations, circulations, deliberations, delegations, staying in the information ‘loop’. We go round and round in it all. The more administration staff there is, the less workers there seem to be. We have got used to needing subordinates, regardless of how much (or little) really needs to be done. It is all about salary, status, standing. Bureaucracies feed themselves. Committees do too. I read something the other day that said that beyond twenty members, a group is structurally unable to reach real consensus! If there are more than twenty, each member adopts the opinion of the majority of immediate neighbors. Big groups, and we live in them, splinter into subgroups with increasing internal but un-thought-out agreement and increasing (perhaps permanent) disagreement with any other group. I think we all subliminally know all that….but we know, too, that it hides our real self, and makes it certain that no one can see our face. Perhaps we settle for it so much we can’t even see our own face…. We know that deep down somewhere the real person is still there, but we lose touch with the real person and forget the real face. Does going to church help us find it? If you don’t believe in miracles or devotions or the ‘traditional’ kind of God, what’s the point? ‘That kind of religion never did much for me’. None the less, none the less… there is a basic sense of ultimacy, a kind of foundation or ground to who we really are as persons. There are issues we are genuinely serious about without reservation. We all experience this, and we all find it hard to articulate. Believing it can make a huge difference to life, and to the look on your face. Reflecting on it can put sparkle in your eyes….I don’t mean believing in things like nationalism (try Hitler or Stalin) or material success or economic power (all that is just idolatry). I mean believing in love… Take a deep breath and ruminate on it, on love. Your face will look better afterwards…. I think we pick up lots of metaphors to convey something of this. I think we choose among them the metaphors that we feel we can live by. Sometimes I have some anxiety about some of the religious metaphors (especially some that keep coming up in Lent). ‘Taking up your cross’, ‘the cost of discipleship’, ‘losing your life to save it’, ‘being in the world but not of it’, ‘seeing the world as hostile’, ‘spiritual warfare’, ‘Christian soldiers’, etc etc. These metaphors are very military. They cover up the face, they don’t transfigure it…. Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’. What changes your face, and make you the good person you really are, is the way you think. It is basically trusting God. It is seeing a beautiful world around you and knowing it is God’s gift to you and knowing that you haven’t seen the half of how good God is to you….there’s more coming! If you thought about in this way, the future is one long series of inner miracles… Happiness doesn’t come from what you do (or all you did). It comes out of realizing that you never needed to do most of these things and you still don’t need to. When you get to hang loose of the feeling of needing things, soon there will be nothing you lack. That’s where happiness comes from. That’s what puts peace on your face. One way of saying this is to ‘right-size’ your life. There’s a ‘good-enough’ level about most things.. Someone once said that you are rich if you can satisfy the requirements of your imagination. I’m not sure. I think you are rich if you can give up imagining that you have to do it all yourself. Let God do at least some of it for you! Happiness is gift, and comes when you stop pursuing it… There are two Aramaic expressions (about face-change) that are interesting here:
This was a sign of mourning, despondency, withdrawal.
This was a symbol of confidence, positivity, boldness, aliveness, vitality. A ‘change of face’ can mean an unveiling, a move from down to up. There is a Greek word, used often by Luke in Acts, that captures this. It is ‘parrhesia’. In Luke’s Greek, parrhesia literally means ‘saying all there is to be said’. It implies a great inner freedom, a visible positivity, a facing of life and reality front on. It means batting off the front foot, looking at the person or the situation straight in the eye. Lift UP your hearts! -----
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