Saturday, April 12, 2014

What Are We Going To Do?


Thus says the Lord GOD: I will take the children of Israel from among the nations to which they have come, and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.  I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all.  Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.  Ezekiel 37:21-22

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.  But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do?”  John 11:45-47a

Piety
Archbishop Oscar Romero Prayer: A Step Along The Way
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

(*This prayer was composed by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted for a homily by Card. John Dearden in Nov. 1979 for a celebration of departed priests. As a reflection on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Bishop Romero, Bishop Untener included in a reflection book a passage titled "The mystery of the Romero Prayer." The mystery is that the words of the prayer are attributed to Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.)

Study
The last day of the last week of Lent.  Holy Week commences tomorrow with Palm/Passion Sunday.  And the question hangs in the balance for us:  What are we going to do? No more can we look back to see how we did with our prayer, fasting and almsgiving over Lent.  Now is the time for action.  “Do or do not. There is no try.”
We have not just the five weeks of Lent.  Many of us have 25 or 55 or 75-plus years of five weeks of Lent.  But the question remains.  What are we going to do?
We, like the Pharisees have heard the Word.  We see the sunrise.  We see the miracle of birth.  We see people with illnesses cured.  Yet, despite all this, Jesus is about to be executed – a victim of the cruelest form of capital punishment: crucifixion.  Why?  If his message was about love, what got people so riled up against him?  Maybe his core message was not just a happy-slappy, hippy-dippy lovefest.  Think back to the very roots of his opening message:  “After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:  “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
What are we going to do?

Action
Last night, at the Franciscan Mission Service annual benefit and celebration, award honoree Jack Jezreel of JustFaith Ministries, in accepting the Anselm Moon award, noted that this idea of the kingdom of God or reign of God is mentioned by Jesus dozens of times in the New Testament. 
What is this Kingdom of God?  As we bridge from Lent to Holy Week, we will have the chance to spiritually experience this and answer that core question.  What is this Kingdom of God and What are we going to do to bring about its reign?
During Holy Week, we will go to church.  For some of us, we will go many times more than any other week in the year.  As the message sinks in, we also will leave church.  How will we make the great commissioning at the end of every Mass resonate in how we live out that Good News with love in action for our neighbors, strangers and enemies that build the kingdom brick by holy brick?

“It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”

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