Out of the World May 20

Piety

Dear Jesus, if anyone knows the how the world can hate things from God, it is you. Maybe society and your adversaries do not come out and crucify you every day. However, little by little, they pound the nails in, hammering home hatred.

How do you cry out with each roadside bomb or insurgent attack in Baghdad, Kabul or anywhere that takes innocent life? How must each baby born into poverty, lacking adequate health care in the riches nations in history, remind you of your days wandering from the manger in Bethlehem to the desert in Egypt? How does your sadness increase as the environment is polluted and destroyed because we do not respect and care for the gifts of the Father with proper stewardship?

When we are in union with you, we feel the pain of the nail cutting through your flesh. Strengthen the voice of your faithful and the resolve of our actions. Increase the measure of our obedience in faith to you and to your commandment to love our enemies. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/052006.shtml

If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world , the world hates you. John 15:19

Jesus warns us that people are sometimes hostile in the way they react to God’s message as delivered by Jesus. The prevailing cultural imperatives try to shape us in ways that are counter to the message of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ message is “out of the world.” That doesn’t mean that it comes from Outer Space like My Favorite Martian or Mork, Alf or Gigantor, Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker. Rather it means that where Christ leads us differs from where popular culture would lead us. Christ was put in the world to take us out of the world and make us realize that we are children of God, here to build His Kingdom, not our own.

In an interview appearing in NCR Online, John Allen writes about a recent dialogue he had with David Schindler, academic dean at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C. (see "The Word from Rome," Vol. 5, No. 37, http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word051906.htm)

“The tendency is to get involved with the world as it is, accepting most things, but drawing the line at abortion or something like that,” Schindler said. “We think of the structures of liberal culture as given, and then we try to give them a religious intentionality.”

That, he said, is not enough.

Schindler went on to tell Allen that, “There aren't two ends to the human being as if there are two orders of existence. Politics has to be subordinated to the single ultimate end of human life.”

This reminds me of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernadin’s famous speech on the “seamless garment” consistent ethic of life delivered in 1983. In it he said: “Precisely because life is sacred, the taking of even one human life is a momentous event. Indeed, the sense that every human life has transcendent value has led a whole stream of the Christian tradition to argue that life may never be taken.”

Berndin said: "In an age when we can do almost anything, how do we decide what we ought to do? The even more demanding question is: In a time when we can do anything technologically, how do we decide morally what we never should do? Asking these questions along the spectrum of life from womb to tomb creates the need for a consistent ethic of life. For the spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modem warfare and the care of the terminally ill. These are all distinct problems, enormously complicated, and deserving individual treatment. No single answer and no simple responses will solve them."

Action

Cardinal Bernardin went on to connect the right to life to the quality of life. He challenged us to act accordingly:

"If one contends, as we do, that the right of every fetus to be born should be protected by civil law and supported by civil consensus, then our moral, political and economic responsibilities do not stop at the moment of birth. Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker. Such a quality of life posture translates into specific political and economic positions on tax policy, employment generation, welfare policy, nutrition and feeding programs, and health care. Consistency means we cannot have it both ways. We cannot urge a compassionate society and vigorous public policy to protect the rights of the unborn and then argue that compassion and significant public programs on behalf of the needy undermine the moral fiber of the society or are beyond the proper scope of governmental responsibility." (Emphasis added).

If we belong to Christ, we can expect to have trouble getting the world – and even sisters and brothers in the Church – to follow these thoughts. But the challenge remains as worthy today of our energy, our resources and our commitment as a Cursillo community and as a Church as it did when first discussed in 1983.

Was your plan of Christian action carried out last week? What is your plan for next week?