Jesus and the cure of the sick man (c5:1-47) Part 2 (vv19-30)

Posted on October 3rd 2010 in St. John's Gospel

The conflict between ‘the Jews’ and Jesus is behind this section that follows the healing of the paralysed man on the Sabbath. The sovereignty of God allowed Him to give life and pass judgement on the Sabbath, babies are born, other people die. These activities are the work of God alone. The Jews publically observed the Sabbath to mark the creative and redemptive work of God, and refrain from work. The healing of the paralysed man on the Sabbath equates Jesus to God. To the Jews this is blasphemy; to the believer this lies at the heart of Jesus’ identity.

The defence that Jesus mounts in the trial scene that follows is based on two key ideas, first, He has not usurped the place of God and, secondly, He has not abolished the Sabbath. Jesus begins His defence by saying He can do nothing by Himself which introduces and concludes this section. He begins in the third person (the Son) v19 and concludes in the first person (I) v30. Jesus takes on these activities, of giving life, reserved to God because they have been given to Him. The image here is of a craftsman who hands over his trade secrets to an apprentice.

This remarkable action demands a response and He challenges His audience. Those who believe in the life-giving activities of Jesus enter into eternal life here and now. This life is not insulated from the vagaries of normal existence; good must still be chosen over evil, and physical death cannot be avoided. However, beneath all this rests the saving power of Jesus Christ. St John’s careful use of tenses is demonstrated here. He uses the verb ‘having passed’ is in the perfect tense, and this deliberate choice emphasises the present power of a passed action, the passing of Jesus through death into life. This is a key feature of St John’s theology, of the reality of heavenly life already lived in anticipation of the end of the world.

The use of the expression ‘Son of Man’ by Jesus in His defence against His accusers points back to an earlier conversation with Nicodemus, known only to the believer and not the protagonists, when He explains that the Son of Man must be lifted up. The lifting up of Jesus on the Cross is His crucifixion which will become the focal point of Christian belief, and the place of judgement. Do they believe or not?

Amid the stresses of daily life we need to make space for silence so that we may find God

Posted on October 3rd 2010 in Weekly messages

Last Friday, 1st October, the Church celebrated the Feast of St Therese of Lisieux, the Carmelite nun who died at the tender age of 24. Her short life was remarkable, both for the intensity of her activity, and for the depths of her spiritual insight. From an early age she wished to become a saint, and in that anticipated the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the Christian’s call to holiness. Pope Benedict emphasised the same theme to the young people gathered outside Westminster Cathedral. How could they hope to achieve this aim? The entry into holiness begins by recognising the love shown to us, especially through our parents, through God as the source of all, and the love that we show to others, hard that this may become.  This natural dialogue of heart speaks to heart expands to embrace the love Christ has for each of us when we penetrate the depths of our own heart.

This internal journey always requires discipline because, in relation to the pressing demands of the moment, looks a supremely wasteful activity. The effort is worthwhile because, ‘in discovering our true self we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his church and the redemption of our world.’ In the quiet of her Carmelite convent St Therese of Lisieux discovered her vocation as to love in the heart of the Church. This vocation to love took place in the limited surroundings of the enclosure within the jealousies and rivalries of community life, and the debilitating effects of prolonged illness. In other words, her circumstances were essentially little different from that of a normal family. The burning desire St Theresa possessed to become a saint began in the smallest matters, the mortifications of daily life, and therefore is not the preserve of the few. Each of us in the particular circumstances of our own lives may embrace our responsibilities with a cheerful disposition even when our wills seem the least inclined. This might involve the practical actions of responding generously to one’s husband, wife, or children after a hard day of work. Alternatively, it might be the ability to refrain from demanding too much from one another. Every one of these choices is the product of prayer and directed will power, of both being generous and self-restrained.

The life of St Therese mirrored this Sunday’s Gospel about diligent service. Jesus’ concluding words to His disciples were ‘Remember we are merely servants; we have do more than our duty’. The assumption of duty is the hallmark of the Christian, a duty that embraces God, family and society, especially the poor in our midst. Another expression for this is working for the common good. The ability to serve is the basic building block to sanctity. The opposite, ‘I will not serve’, was first uttered by the devil and his rebel angels. The consequence of ‘I will not serve’ is pride, the first and most dangerous sin, because anyone consumed by pride has no way of looking at anything or anyone other than as a projection of his or her own self-interest.

The silence of the Carmelite Convent was the place St Theresa discovered the depths of her vocation, and Pope Benedict emphasised the same point outside the Cathedral. In his words, ‘Even amidst the business and stress of our daily lives we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God. And it is in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his church and the redemption of our world. Heart speaks unto heart’.

The positive role of conscience is the ‘care of the whole’

Posted on September 26th 2010 in Weekly messages

The current inquest into the shooting of the barrister Mark Saunders at his home in Markham Gardens has brought to the fore the dangerous way in which professional procedures leave so little space for individual initiative or the voice of conscience. Last week one of the officers involved explained they had no way of backing down once an incident begins with a firearm. As he said, ‘It is a tried and tested method, I cannot move outside those barriers otherwise I’m not doing my job’. This makes for depressing reading because, while the public expects the police and the other front-line services to act professionally, the complexity of human affairs does not lend itself to rigid procedures and processes alone. The inevitability of a tragic ending to the police stand-off with this deeply disturbed man raises the issue as to the practical role of conscience in professional life, and that procedures are no substitute for thought and compassion.

The role of conscience here does not mean the rejection of a professional code of behaviour, but the raising of the question as to whether the methods were appropriate for the situation at hand. The safety of the public is paramount, for which the police force is established, but was this safety in fact under threat? The quiet of our own homes is very different to the demands of split second decisions needed to be taken in the heat of the moment. Yet if there is no quiet reflection taking place that can grasp the wider picture, then every professional process in life becomes a managerial procedure that seeks its own fulfilment. The ancient Greeks, and later St Thomas Aquinas and the Christian tradition defined conscience as the care of the whole in relation to the particular decision to be taken. This ‘care of the whole’ is fundamental, because the role of conscience is linked to the truth and to what exists as such. Both truth and existence find their fullness in God. This positive role for conscience is far removed from the popular misconception that conscience is merely about deciding personally what is right or wrong, as if personal choice alone can make an action right or wrong.

In this way Cardinal Newman could make his, often misunderstood, toast to the Pope but to conscience first. The Pope and conscience are not two competing sources of truth, which are popularly thought of as firstly the symbol of the authority figure, beloved by psychologists, modelled on a dominating parent, while the second is seen as more like teenage rebellion that in reality fossilises into middle aged rigid practices. The Pope does not propose truths independent of revelation of God, nor offer different teachings to that of the grammar of the universe as that which exists. The recent visit of Pope Benedict has emphasised just the positive role of conscience as ‘the care for the whole’ when he addressed civil society in Westminster Hall. Faith, and a faith formed conscience keeps alive that middle ground between revealed religion and reason, which is the patrimony described as Christian humanism. This should be open to natural reason, but the distortion owing to sin makes this ‘middle ground’ difficult to recognise. This is certainly the case in the relationship between authority and conscience. The battle between the two tendencies, the voice of authority or the voice of freedom treat truth as if it were a rugby ball with each side is trying to grasp it for itself to the detriment of the other.  Newman’s toast goes to show that such a conflict is misleading and spiritually deadening.     Fr Peter