and your point is?
From darkness to light when all is dark
Apr 11, 2020
"I forgot to mention something in yesterday's Good Friday column: Jesus had it coming.
If we approach the account of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection from the standpoint we enjoy today, knowing how the story ends, then we see Jesus as the victim of injustice, the sinless man caught up in some psychodrama that went horribly wrong, or we dabble in those early beginnings of anti-Semitism by attributing motives to the religious elders of Jesus' time, assuming they acted as they did against Jesus to protect their social standing or some similar base motive.
In fact, the Jewish elders had good reason to be afraid. The Roman occupation was the greatest threat to the Jews' safety and identity as a people since the Babylonian exile and, indeed, disaster would come less than 40 years after Jesus' death with the destruction of the second Temple and of Jerusalem itself.
The centerpiece of Jewish identity and faith was the law and the Temple worship, and Jesus had challenged both. He had contradicted the religious obligations of his time, not only healing on the Sabbath, but justifying his actions by telling his followers that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He had promised he would destroy the Temple. The absconding, transcendent God of the Jews he dared to call by a familiar name, "Abba." He had dared to arrogate to himself a power no religious authority would have presumed to invoke, the power to forgive sins, a power that belonged only to God.
Now this Jesus had brought his blasphemies to Jerusalem. It was time to put him to the test. The religious leaders asked for a sign. Herod asked for a sign. Pilate asked for a sign. Dismas, the good thief, asked for that smallest but most tensile form of solidarity, remembrance, but the other thief tested Jesus in his last moments. Alas, do we not still put Jesus, and his church, to the test, demanding a sign and always a sign that conforms to our wishes and ambitions? How little has changed.
To recap: The religious authorities of the day, you might say the theological faculties of the day, had good reason to put Jesus to death.
It was not only the religious authorities who failed to perceive Jesus as the savior. His own closest followers were convinced it was all over. During the debate on episcopal collegiality at the Second Vatican Council, the secretary of the Holy Office, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, leader of the conservatives who wanted no changes whatsoever in the structures, liturgies and theologies of the church, rose to object to this new and pernicious doctrine. Solemn as ever, he told the assembled bishops: "I have searched the sacred Scriptures for some example of the apostles acting in a collegial fashion, and at long last I have found it." He paused for effect. "In the 14th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Verse 50: 'And they all forsook him and fled.' "
moar:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/darkness-light-when-all-dark
Now it begins
Apr 12, 2020
“Be not afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Matt 28:10).
Acts 2:14, 22-33; Matt 28: 8-15
Despite differences in detail, all four Gospels have the tradition of the empty tomb as essential to the church’s claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Matthew takes up what must have been a persistent counter claim that the disciples stole Jesus’ body, challenging the logic of saying that the soldiers guarding the tomb were asleep when this happened, adding that they were bribed to support this fiction.
Like his virgin birth in a hillside cave, the empty tomb protects Jesus’ mysterious arrival and departure from this world. The burial and resurrection scenes in a garden also provide rich biblical context for his mission to undo original sin by his death and resurrection. From womb to tomb, Jesus’ birth and death have extraordinary implications for all mankind.
Matthew, like Mark, also emphasizes that the disciples were to regroup in Galilee to encounter the risen Jesus. This had special meaning for believers who challenged subsequent efforts to enshrine the tomb or the mount of the Ascension as Jesus’ point of departure from this world and where he would return in glory. No, Matthew insists, Jesus has not left the world but has gone ahead of the disciples into the world. That’s where we will find him.
Matthew’s famous parable of the Last Judgement (25:31-46) tells us where Jesus is; among the poor, hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned and outcast of the world, waiting to be served. His Real Presence is among the least of his brothers and sisters, and this makes the Corporal Works of Mercy the surest way for us to find, worship and serve him.
Easter Week begins a time for us to absorb the mystery and to align our lives with the ongoing mission of the crucified and risen Christ in the world.
The Easter season lasts for 50 days until Pentecost
, when we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to be his presence and to take up this redemptive work with him."
moar:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/pencil-preaching/now-it-begins
Grief to glory
Apr 13, 2020
“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” (John 20:15).
Acts 2:36-41; John 20:11-18
Among the many horror stories from the pandemic are accounts of families kept from the deathbeds of loved ones dying alone in hospitals and nursing homes, then trying to locate and identify the body among hundreds of others sent to a refrigerated truck or makeshift morgue. The virus has taken a loved one and may even rob families of the chance to see them again to say goodbye.
Today’s Gospel about Mary at the tomb has all the shock and drama of such human suffering. She is not there to see a resurrection. She has already seen the terrible death and the rushed burial of a corpse, drained of blood and breath, battered almost beyond recognition, and does not imagine she will ever see Jesus alive again. Mary is there to complete the anointing, to grieve and say goodbye.
But she cannot find the body, and this last cruelty is more than she can bear, so she weeps inconsolably. “They have taken him away and I can’t find him,” she says to two strangers who intrude on her grief to ask why she is weeping. She says the same to a curious gardener, accusing him of moving the body. Only when he says her name, “Mary,” does she know that it is Jesus.
But the story becomes stranger still. When Mary reaches out to embrace him, he tells her not to hold him, for he is in transition. Noli me tangere, Latin for “Do not hold me,” inspired Fra Angelico’s image of a dancing Jesus, which reveals Mary’s final loss, for her beloved teacher must go to the Father to complete his transformation, and Mary must let her human love for Jesus be transformed as well in order to know him as Lord and Christ.
Mary teaches us by fully grieving the death of Jesus, emptying herself of any illusion that death is not real or not a devastating attack on hope and human love. Mary lets despair strip her of sentiment, enduring the ache of losing everything she had in this world. Only then, helpless before death’s power, does real faith begin, bridging her into a new relationship with Jesus, who is now the Christ.
Like Peter, Mary’s grief was what baptized her to be the Apostle to the Apostles, the first one to hear the Gospel. Like the prophet Elijah, sheltering in a cave on a mountain, Mary has felt the wind, the earthquake and the fire (1 Kgs 19:12) before she finally hears the tiny whisper of God saying her name, and she knows it is Jesus, calling her to a new life and a new mission.
Mary’s tears are part of our search for the body of Jesus. To know him as risen we must also know him as crucified. True compassion connects us to the grief of others. It also prepares us for our own death by a lifelong process of emptying ourselves in the service of others. Then, when the time comes for us to surrender ourselves to God, we, too, will hear Jesus calling us by name and welcoming us into the company of the saints."
moar:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/pencil-preaching/grief-glory
A Comparison Of Lockdown UK With Non-Lockdown
Sweden
Tue, 04/14/2020 - 04:20
"So far as I am aware, Sweden remains the only major Western country that has not imposed a strict lockdown on its citizens to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak. Other than a ban on gatherings of 50 or more people, and advice such as over-70s being urged to stay at home, Swedish schools, shops, restaurants and pubs all remain open. It almost seems to me that the Government there has decided to treat grown adults like they are … well grown adults.
However, despite being a sovereign nation, with the right to set its own policy, it appears that this is not acceptable to the “international community”, and the Swedish Government is coming under huge pressure to change course. The World Health Organization (WHO), for instance, recently called for the nation to impose more restrictions, saying that it is “imperative” that Sweden:
“increase measures to control spread of the virus, prepare and increase capacity of the health system to cope, ensure physical distancing and communicate the why and how of all measures to the population.”
Donald Trump also felt the need to give his two cents as well:
“Sweden did that, the herd, they call it the herd. Sweden’s suffering very, very badly.”
But is Sweden really suffering very, very badly in comparison to other countries that have imposed severe restrictions? Is it really imperative that they change course and fall in line with what most other countries have done? Or do these calls proceed from a different motive entirely: a fear that Sweden’s comparatively measured approach of dealing with Covid-19 without introducing the most draconian civil restrictions ever seen and without crashing its economy might actually work and in so doing show the response of other countries to have been wildly disproportionate?
This is not something we should leave to a matter of opinion, so let’s instead look at what the data tells us. Below are four charts comparing the UK, which went into lockdown on 23rd March, with Sweden and its far more relaxed approach. All the data on these charts comes from the official reports from both countries up to and including 11th April (here and here). It comes with the caveats that of course this is by no means final and the situation may well change to produce a very different picture in the coming weeks, nor is it possible to know with any certainty whether both countries are counting their cases and deaths in a way that is consistent with one another. Nevertheless, since it is from official data sources, it is the best guide we currently have to what is happening in both countries.
(Note: Charts 1 and 3 compare cases and deaths in absolute terms. Charts 2 and 4 take into account the relative population sizes (UK = 67.9 million; Sweden = 10.10 million) by looking at the number of cases per million people)."
moar:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/comparison-lockdown-uk-non-lockdown-sweden
boom
its ok to be wrong now say you are sorry! :D