A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 36)
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – August 5, 2007
“Our Vocation to Beatitude”
BIBLE READINGS
Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23 // Col 3:1-5, 9-11 // Lk 12:13-21
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
The Bible readings of this Sunday’s liturgy give us some striking insights into the meaning of Christian vocation and baptismal consecration, the flowerbed of priestly and religious vocation and other forms of special consecration in the Church. As baptized Christians, we are reminded that ours is a vocation to wisdom, a challenge to seek true riches, a quest for the heavenly beatitude, and an impelling call to live our baptismal consecration in Jesus Christ.
In the first reading (Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23), Qoheleth, the purported author of Ecclesiastes, declares that the acquisitive life is vanity and that the feverish drive for material things is human tragedy. All of life is vanity, with all its attendant anxiety, sorrow, futile effort and restlessness. The purpose of Qoheleth is not to shock or discourage, nor to overwhelm with pessimism, but to put things in proper perspective. Not content with what is temporary, ephemeral, or vanishing, Qoheleth sees the emptiness and senselessness of a life of worldly acquisition and thus points toward the direction of the Absolute.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, page 149-150, comment: “His anguish, which we sometimes share, is a heartrending appeal not to be taken in by mirages, by those things that, in the end, are only vanity, only wind. But this anguish also – paradoxically – turns out to be an expression of a burning desire for the Absolute, and the deeply rooted certitude that it exists, that it will reveal itself. It is like a gulf, an abyss that God alone can fill, he who is not vanity. This is felt at least when the deception engendered by all things haunts the heart of a believer, and Ecclesiastes is definitely one of these believers, sharing much in common with other figures of the Bible. His cry will never cease to resound and find an echo in whoever is able to see through the fundamentally empty vanity of human efforts to create something more than the wind. He is irresistibly turned toward God, who not only stills his anguish, but redeems it.”
An example of a person who had experienced the anguish of meaninglessness and the emptiness of material goods, and had turned to the Absolute is Kurt, a good friend of the former hippie and drug-addict, Mike McGarvin, the founder of Fresno-based Poverello House. In his excellent book, PAPA MIKE (cf. p. 53), McGarvin narrates:
Kurt was a convert to Catholicism, which interested me. I was more or less journeying the same path he had already trodden, going from no religion to conversion. Kurt possessed a wealth of knowledge. Before entering the Franciscan order, he had been a lawyer in a western state. He’d had it all: money, women, luxury cars, an airplane, and prestige. One day, he asked himself, “Is this all there is?” Somehow, he realized that if he stayed in the fast lane that would be all there was, and he faced a crisis. He turned to the Church, and before he knew it, he was taking his vows as a Franciscan.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Lk 12:13-21) underlines the difficulty that attachment to possessions can create for the followers of Christ. Refusing to be an arbiter in a ticklish issue of inheritance, the Divine Master uses this occasion to enunciate his teaching about the necessity of seeking true riches – the spiritual treasures that truly matter to God. Material wealth and resources are not intrinsically evil, but the spirit of greedy acquisition and inordinate attachment to material possessions is an evil we must avoid. Jesus Master challenges all peoples, through time and space, with a clarion call to find true riches in God. He exhorts us to seek the Kingdom of God on earth, where every human being is a precious gift to be cherished. Jesus’ Gospel teaching about true riches helps us to focus on our fundamental vocation to be united with God, our absolute treasure and utmost good. In his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, God calls us to become his children and heirs of his blessed life. This call to the beatitude of heaven sets the standard for discernment in the use of earthly goods in keeping with the law of God. Confronting us with decisive choices concerning the use of material goods, the vocation to beatitude leads us to yearn for God more deeply and opens our hearts to the needs of others.
In Mike McGarvin’s book, PAPA MIKE (cf. p. 46-47), we find a beautiful example of a person who, after experiencing intense human tragedy, responded fully to the Christian call to beatitude. The following vocation story of Simon Scanlon, later to become a Franciscan priest who would be instrumental in the conversion of Mike McGarvin, is very interesting. It is a response to God’s call to live a more meaningful life and with greater love for his suffering, distressed people.
Father Simon had once been a businessman. He and his brother owned a medical sponge business in the ‘30s and’40s. It was a million-dollar-a-year enterprise, which was a huge amount of money back in those days. Then, World War II intervened, and Simon went off to Europe … Many of the men who saw action during World War II witnessed carnage on an unbelievable scale, and Simon was one of them. The war made life as he knew it come to a halt, and he returned, not as a victorious soldier, but a man whose soul had been ripped out and torn to pieces. Later in life, Father Simon told a newspaper reporter that after seeing so much bloodshed and death, nothing mattered except life. Making money no longer had any allure. He wanted to make a change, a radical change, so he signed over the business to his brother and entered the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church. Eventually he was ordained as a priest. He ended up at a tough parish assignment, St. Boniface Church in urban San Francisco. The area was like a vast bleeding wound. It was populated by people who just barely survived, who had long ago given up on life and were numbly eking out a daily existence on disability checks, meager old-age pensions, prostitution, or muggings. It was an area full of predators and victims. Father Simon responded by gathering some volunteers and opening the Poverello Coffeehouse. Poverello was a safe haven, a place of refuge. It was a small storefront room where people could find acceptance, hot coffee, and a few smiles. These weren’t earthshaking things, but they were rare commodities on the streets.
The second reading (Col 3:1-5, 9-11) explicates the meaning of baptismal consecration. It is seeking what is above, where Christ is. Hidden with Christ in God, our Christian vocation-consecration necessitates a quest for the heavenly reality. It involves deeds that are compatible with our “new self”, renewed continually in the image of our Creator God. Indeed, our baptismal vocation leads us to be generous in sharing the spiritual graces we have received from God, such as the gift of peace and forgiveness.
The story of Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor (cf. GUIDEPOSTS, January 2007, p. 72-76), illustrates what it means to respond to our Christian vocation and the challenges of baptismal consecration. Her entire family, except for a brother who was studying abroad, was massacred. She herself was pursued and was able to survive by seeking shelter in the home of a local pastor. She hid for three months, together with seven other Tutsi women, in a tiny bathroom concealed behind a large wardrobe. After a dream and a vision of heavenly reality, she was able to forgive Felicien, the Hutu man who killed her mom and brother Damascene. Immaculee narrates:
After the war ended, I made my way to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, and started working for the U.N. But I couldn’t shake the sorrow that seized my heart whenever I envisioned how may family was murdered … Then one night, I didn’t have a nightmare, but an amazingly vivid dream. I was in a helicopter flying over my family’s house, but I was trapped in a dark cloud. I could see Mom, Dad, Damascene and Vianney high above in the sky, bathed in a warm, white light. The light spread across the sky until it engulfed the cloud hiding me. And, suddenly, I was with my family again. The dream was so real that I reached out and felt the warmth of my mother’s skin, the gentleness of my father’s touch … The following morning, I woke up feeling calmer than I had in months. The pain I felt had not vanished, but it began to ease … I went to the ruins of my family’s house to visit the graves of my mom and Damascene … And then it was time to do what I’d come to do: confront the leader of the gang who killed my mother and my brother … We had never learned for sure who had killed Dad and Vianney … Felicien couldn’t face me. His tattered clothing hung from his emaciated frame, his skin sallow and bruised. His face was hidden beneath a filthy beard, his bare feet covered in open sores. He was broken … I reached out, touched his hands lightly and said, “I forgive you.” Then, I suddenly understood why God had led me back to my village with a dream.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. Why does Qoheleth consider the feverish human drive for wealth and the acquisitive life “vanity”? Why does he say, “All things are vanity”? How is his anguish concerning the folly of human quest an expression of a burning desire for the Absolute? What does Qoheleth say to you personally concerning your relationship with material goods and resources? What personal insights can you glean from Qoheleth about your Christian vocation?
B. What is the challenge you have received from Jesus concerning true riches? How do you respond to his call not to hoard earthly treasures, but rather to seek the treasures of God? Do we allow our vocation to the beatitude in heaven to shape our moral choices, especially with regards to the use of earthly goods and material resources? Do we welcome the challenges given us daily by Jesus concerning our Christian vocation?
C. Are our words and deeds compatible with our baptismal consecration? Do we always seek what is above and put on our “new self” in the Risen Christ? Do we live our Christian vocation fully and thus become a testimony in the world about the beauty and goodness of the heavenly reality? Are we grateful for our Christian vocation and our life hidden with Christ in God? Are we generous in sharing the spiritual gifts we have received from the Lord, such as the grace of forgiveness and love?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Heavenly Father, I believe in your wisdom and love. I believe you created me for heaven, marked out for me the way to reach it, and await me there to give me the reward of the faithful servant. Give me light and show me this way. Grant me the strength to follow it generously. I beg this of you, through Jesus Christ, your Son and through Mary, my Queen and Mother. At the moment of death, may I be able to say with St. Paul: “I have finished the course. I have fought the good fight. Now there is laid up for me the crown of the just.”
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” (Lk 12:15)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that all Christians may understand the meaning of their vocation to beatitude and respond to the challenges of their baptismal consecration in the world today. Offer special prayers for Australia’s National Vocation Week to be held this week (August 5-12). Share your spiritual and material resources with the needy people around you and endeavor never to hoard any form of goods, for they are meant to be shared and multiplied.
ACTION PLAN: To help us respond more lovingly and intimately to the gifts we have received from the Lord and in order to live more fully our Christian vocation and baptismal consecration, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 35): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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Website: WWW.PDDM.US