In the third and final of a series of Lenten lunch-time reflections presented at St Stephen’s Cathedral on Wednesday, president of St Paul’s Theological College, Brisbane, FR DAVID PASCOE explores how, having our eyes opened by Jesus, how we might see “with” each other as the Church
OVER the past couple of weeks, with the title Gathered for Giving, I explored in my first reflection the hospitality of God’s open invitation to all to live in communion with God as God’s friends.
In a second reflection I looked to the definitive expression of God’s hospitable invitation to communion with God as it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
As I took note from the opening words from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, God has expressed God’s good pleasure and revealed through Jesus Christ God’s will, to gather all things “in heaven and on earth. (Eph 1: 6-10)”
I concluded last week’s reflection with the following question: With our eyes opened to see all of reality differently, not only how do we see each other, but how might we see with each other as the church?
It is with a focus on how we might see with each other as the Church that I continue.
It is Jesus who not only opens our eyes, but also gives us the way to see reality differently.
As with Jesus’ giving sight to the man blind from birth (Jn 9: 1-41), through Jesus we become a new creation.
Re-created from Jesus’ touch we are given the vision to see all that exists in the way Jesus sees, with the view of God’s reign both among us now and, yet, still to come.
I am thinking here too, for example, of Jesus’ teaching, and the questions he sometimes asked himself to focus his words of explanation to those around him, which would allow them to see with greater clarity.
“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts for large branches, so that the birds of the air can makes nests in its shade.” (Mk 4: 30-32)
With Jesus how is it that we might see together with this vision and clarity as the Church?
I have entitled the final reflection in this Lenten series, “Gathered for Giving: Our Heart’s Burning Within Us”.
As you will be readily aware the phrase “our heart’s burning within us,” comes from the Emmaus story in Luke’s gospel (Lk 24: 13-35). After recognising Jesus in the breaking of bread the two disciples from Emmaus run back to announce the good news to the other disciples who gathered together in Jerusalem.
At that moment they discover that that they are not the only one’s to have been gifted with a visit from the risen Jesus.
Those gathered together were saying: “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”
This focus on the gathering together of the disciples to tell their stories of seeing Jesus alive after his death is important here.
One significant point is, that it was groups like these first disciples that remembered and drew together in the decades after Jesus’ death the stories of Jesus and of his teaching, which eventually came together to give us the New Testament Scriptures.
The same passion and zeal of those first disciples for announcing the good news, telling Jesus’ stories, his teaching, and indeed, the telling of their experiences of Jesus, in life, death and resurrection continued.
Generations of Jesus’ disciples handed on in faith, and over time wrote down his stories and teachings, so that the words “the Lord has risen indeed”, would be told over and over again.
We are gathered here today in this church building because those stories and what they mean have continued to be handed on in faith over millennia, and still to us.
As Jesus’ disciples today we remain dependent on the words of Scripture to hear God’s hospitable invitation as this has been definitively expressed in Jesus Christ.
We can say that to be the Church, and to accomplish our purpose as the Church we need to rely on the Scriptures as at the heart of our identity.
Like those gone before us in faith we too need to hand on the word of God that is the good news of the Scriptures, with the same passion and zeal of the first disciples.
The opening words of the first letter of John declare that the joyful fulfilment of who they are as a community of Jesus’ disciples is dependent on announcing the good news to others.
“We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 Jn 1: 1-4)
A more contemporary expression of this task of hopeful joy is offered by John Paul II as he names the Church’s task to proclaim the good news of the Scriptures.
“Let us take up this book! Let us receive it from the Lord who continually offers it to us through the Church! Let us devour it, so that it can become our life! Let us savour it deeply: it will make demands of us, but it will give us joy because it is sweet as honey.
“Filled with hope, we will be able to share it with every man and woman whom we encounter on our way.” (Ecclesia in Eurpoa 65)
John Paul II’s words remind us of our identity as the pilgrim people of God, we are on the way. Yet, while we are on the way as pilgrims we are still very much a people embedded in the world, like all humanity.
But, as the Second Vatican Council reminds us still, our way as the Church is fulfilled in this world as bearers of the good news.
“Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community of people united in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit in their pilgrimage towards the Father’s kingdom, bearers of a message of salvation for all of humanity.
That is why they cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history. (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. 1)
However, the task to be bearers of the message of good news and to “take up this book,” as John Paul II exhorts us, can at times seem rather daunting and overwhelming.
Where do we begin?
This seemingly discouraging task of approaching the Scriptures is in no small measure due to the relatively recent re-discovery of the central nature of the Scriptures for the Church’s life and mission.
As Stephen Binz notes in his Introduction to the Bible: A Catholic Guide to Studying the Scriptures:
“One of the most significant changes of the Second Vatican Council was the Church’s direct encouragement for Catholics to rediscover the Bible. The reformed liturgy contained a wide selection of readings from both the Old and New Testaments.
“The Church places the Sacred Scriptures at the heart of liturgical preaching, religious education, and personal devotions.”
However, Binz also explains that with this shift in understanding of the place of the Scriptures in the Catholic Church, many Catholics started reading the Bible as never before: and, I venture, not only simply reading and praying with the Bible.
Further, many more Catholics have come together to study and reflect upon the Scriptures as Vatican II urged all in the Church (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 25).
In line with both this acceptance of the centrality of the Scriptures and hunger for drawing on the Scriptures for guidance in life, Archbishop John Bathersby exhorted the faithful in our local Church to continue in their faith formation through his Advent Pastoral Letter last year.
He urges this participation “because life is just too short to have a less than adequate experience of what faith should mean for ourselves, and could mean for other people.”
The Archbishop continues in this vein of thought though his words in the Preface to this year’s Lenten resource, Gathered for Giving. For him the resource, “can inspire and challenge us as we live out our mission as followers of Jesus.
“Jesus welcomes all people into the household of God, to… make your home in me, as I make mine in you (John 15:4). In turn we are called to welcome those around us with open hands and grateful hearts to share in this divine communion of life and love.”
By way of a conclusion and an answer to how we might see together with greater clarity the way Jesus sees, and so become the hospitable voice, hands, and indeed people we are called to be by God, let me conclude with some of the words of invitation that open the resource Gathered for Giving.
These words reflect on the possibilities of gathering together to share our faith in grappling with the Scriptures as Jesus’ disciples.
“The Holy Spirit is the energiser or animator of the communion in your faith-sharing group. The fruits of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) nurture the discussion group as it develops into a small Christian community.
“The Spirit then empowers you to take those fruits to your family, workplace and community. Through the common prayer and the faith sharing in your group you are connected with other groups in your local area.
“In a symbolic way you are also linked to all the gatherings of the Church, past, present, and future, as the Spirit guides, inspires and breathes life through Christ.”
In this way, might not the Spirit again burn within our hearts as we are offered a way to re-create the Church in Jesus’ image, and in turn offer the gift of the well-spring of life to our world, as we seek to fulfil the hospitable mission given us by God.
