The Debate Continues April 6

Pray

Jesus, it is so easy to turn off your message and let it be drowned out by the other messages blaring at us through the media.

It is so easy to forget from where we came. It is easy to forget how simple it is to become a citizen and pledge allegiance to the flag and to the grace that we all will receive in abundance for living in this wealthy nations and sharing our riches with others.

Help us to listen to you and to heed your message.

Keep us from erecting any borders between you and us so that at all times, your message is there for us to hear. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/040606.shtml

The debate continues…today Jesus definitely does not seem to making any headway with the Jews. In fact, they decide to stone him by the end of this encounter. They just can not accept his Word. This week’s debate recalls the first chapter of John where all the main themes are established and the Divine Credentials are delivered for our inspection.

However, when these themes are reiterated by Jesus in chapter 8, no one believes.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There is a famous book titled “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.” In this extended sequence that we read over several days, it’s as if the Jews of the Hebrew Bible have decided, “If you Meet the Messiah in the Temple, Stone Him, Turn Him Over to the authorities for trial, convict him for his alleged crimes, whip him, crown him with thorns, and then throw him a blanket before you crucify him.

What is Jesus possibly asking of us in this reading?

Imagine you are there at the temple…but it’s not the temple it is the gathering place in your parish. Imagine Jesus is there having the same debate in your parish. Walk into the back of the sanctuary. What would you do?

He decided to start his speech right AFTER communion. And Jesus stands right in the middle of the parking lot. Let’s listen in…

Beth, if you don’t keep my word, you will die.

Eddie, you do not know God but I know him.

Gerry, before Abraham came to be, I AM.

Through the mixed up tenses of the verb to be, Jesus injects more “tensions.” On Sideburn Road, how many people would run him over with their cars just trying to get home for the Redskins game? Or the Orioles game? Or the Wizards in the playoffs.

Action

Can we turn off Jesus and the Word as easily as we turn off the Gospel message? As easily as we ignore the Church leaders? As easily as we hit the remote control and turn to the all-sports, all-the-time network? Or, ladies, to the all home makeovers all-the-time network?

You sit there reading this thinking, “I don’t turn off the church leaders!" No? Jesus asks you, "Is that because you don’t turn them on?"

OK, Jesus now debates you. Did you listen to what Pope Benedict called for on April 3 and 4? Do you even know what he asked of us? A two-day fast for the people in Iraq?

Check out Catholic News Service! Oh, you get your news from Fox and from The Washington Post? Try checking out the unfiltered news from CNS…it is as close as the internet. Look at http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0601907.htm.

Did you write a letter or send an e-mail to Bill O’Reilly when he insulted Cardinal Mahoney and demeaned his message to help the least among us, even if they happen to be people of God without papers allowing them to be here? Didn’t we already go through this debate when the Italians tried to come over…we called them W.O.P.s in the 1930s…an insulting slang for "with out papers." Why do they need documents if God entrusted "the whole of Canaan to his people." There are Italians on the Supreme Court – Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. Did anybody ask if their family had papers when they first came here? What about Vince Lombardi? Joe DiMaggio or Joe Torre? Rudy Giuliani or Mario Cuomo, Jr.? Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese? Fermi or Marconi? Who in Congress is saying that today’s immigrants won’t make the same positive impression those Italians will make coming to America to study?

How many among us can deny that the new diversity on the American shores will not enrich our lives as they have before. Look up the story of how your family came to America. Share that story and this rainbow with a new immigrant.

Instead of just reading the local news, visit the CNS website for unfiltered Catholic news each week…bookmark it so it is easy to go back… http://www.catholicnews.com/