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| Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1659–1660), Rembrandt |
COMMENT:
MAGNIFICAT
July 2015
Magnificat
com, the Meditation, on this occasion is appreciated.
At
the same time, I am not bright enough to grasp Adrienne von Speyr’s nice logic –
looking for clarity of mystic and stigmatist; help!
SATURDAY 4TH, MASS
Alleluia,
alleluia! Let your face
shine on your servant, and teach me your decrees. Alleluia!
• Surely the bridegroom's attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them .•
A reading
from
the holy
Gospel according to Matthew 9:14-17
JOHN'S DISCIPLES CAME to Jesus and said, "Why is it that
we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?" Jesus replied, "Surely the bridegroom's attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come
for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of un shrunken cloth on to an old cloak, because the
patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. No; they put new wine into fresh skins and both are preserved."
The Gospel of the Lord.
•
MEDITATION OF THE DAY
•
What
is the New
Wine?
by Adrienne von Speyr
No
one is such a fool
that he would pour new
wine into old
wineskins. New
wine ferments: it has a power
whose effect must be reckoned
with, a power that lies
outside the realm of the
exactly predictable. It
takes up more room than old
wine. Old wine has
already settled and lost its fermenting
power; it can be poured
into an
old container. New wine
is different. It deserves
from us-if we want to keep it-a
vessel that is up to
the challenge.
No one does this.
So a Christian,
or someone who is becoming
a Christian, may
not do it
either.
How
is it with the new teaching, which is like the
new wine? It needs room, for when it does not have enough,
it bursts the vessel and the teaching too is lost. So
we are to search for room, to clear things out, to find vessels, that do not
burst, for the loss of the skins involves
the loss of the wine and the teaching. In
all Christian things, it is
so: wherever something is lost, more
is lost than we can measure. There is no
calculable Christian loss .. "
Teaching
that has undergone a renewal, in the Lord's
time and every time, must be able to fill us as it would
a new wineskin. This means that we may not understand ourselves in any other
way than as vessels:
vessels in the sense of pure instrumentality,
vessels that are really there only to
receive the new wine. And the new wine is the entirety of the teaching, the
entirety of
the Christian life for which we have opted, the entirely
of the vows, the absolutely unconditional and incomprehensible nature of an
assent. All we know about this assent is
that it should be uttered in a spirit of service,
so that the wine may find enough
room in us and expand according to the power of its
newness.
ADRIENNE VON SPEYR Adrienne von Speyr (t 1967) was a Swiss physician, a mystical writer, and a stigmatist. With Hans Urs von Balthasar, she co-founded the Community of Saint John.
Prayer for the Evening
Vigil of the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time In Christ Jesus, God speaks to us the living word: let us listen and rejoice!
JULY LECTIO DIVINA
Lectio Divine
A PRAYERFUL READING OF
SACRED SCR1PTURE
The Gospel for the
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark 6:1-6a
Jesus went to his home
town and his disciples accompanied
him (6:1).
Saint Peter Chrysologus: "In
truth, Christ goes out and comes in not of himself, nor for himself, but in
you, and on behalf of you, until he recovers you from your exile,
and calls you home from your captivity."
Although the disciples who accompany Jesus play no role in this account, their
presence here prepares us for Mk 6:7-13,
when Jesus will send them out on mission. Jesus
dares to allow his disciples to witness the cynicism, the prejudice, and
perhaps the envy of his own kinspeople toward him. Jesus risks his disciples
developing the same petty, deprecatory attitude that his townspeople bear
toward him. The disciples must judge for themselves "what
kind of wisdom" has been given to Jesus ...
and so must we. The way we know it is real is by the way it has changed us.
With the coming of the
sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue and most of them were astonished
when they heard him. They
said, "Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been
granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him?" (6:2).
Astonished: see Mk 1 :22; 7:37;
10:26; 11 :18. Although
God never fails to astonish us, one of the greatest marks
of immorality in LIS is our resistance
to this astonishment when it breaks into our life. Whenever
we attempt to measure or refashion Jesus according
to our own image,
we diminish and delimit him who has come to reveal
us to ourselves. Catena in
Marcum (5th century): 'The
people look
down upon Jesus on account of their familiarity.
And they were
astounded by
LECTIO DIVINA 73
the extraordinariness
of his words and the incredible nature of his
works, but they did not honour
him on account of these things and they disparaged
him on account of their familiarity with his earthly
family. Consequently, what happened
to them, as the saying goes, was the common experience
of those who have no faith. So
the Lord does not lead people
like that into accurate
knowledge of himself." What mighty
deeds have been wrought in your life by the hands of
Jesus Christ? What is it
about Jesus that astonishes you and
moves you to get to the source
of his wisdom?
'This is the
carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of lames and Ioset and [ude and
Simoni His sisters, too, are
they not here with us?" And they would not accept him (6:3).
Justin
Martyr: "Jesus was merely
a carpenter, making ploughs
and yokes, and instructing us by such symbols of righteousness
to avoid an inactive live." Saint Ephrem the Syrian:
'The ordinary workmen will come
to the son of Joseph singing: 'Our
whole craft praises you, who are our
eternal glory. Make for us a yoke that is light, even
easy, for us to bear. Establish that measure in LIS in which there can be no falseness."
Saint Bede: "For it is almost natural for men to envy
their fellow-townsmen; for they do not consider the present
works of the man, but they remember the
weakness of his
infancy." Symeon
the New Theologian: "It
is certain that
anyone
who now
hears Christ cry out daily through the holy
Gospels, and proclaim
the will of
his blessed Father, but does
not obey
him with fear
and trembling and keep his
commandments-it
is certain that such a person would have
refused
to believe
in him then, if he had been present, and seen him, and
heard him teach. Indeed there is reason to fear that
in his total incredulity he would
have blasphemed by regarding Christ
not as true God, but as an enemy of God."
0 Jesus, may our know/edge
of you as Son of Mary be for
ever our greatest claim on your
mercy!
74 LECTIO DIVINA
And Jesus said to them,
'~prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in
his own house;" (6:4).
This
well-known proverb in the ancient world
is quoted by all the
Evangelists: Mt 13:57; Lk
4:24; Jn 4:44.
The other place in the Gospel of Mark that mentions
this dishonour is
the parable
where the
tenant farmers treat the son of the
owner of the vineyard shamefully: Mk
12:7-8. As Jesus enters into
his Passion, some of his
enemies will blindfold
him, hit him, and spit on
him saying, Play
the prophet! (d. Mk
14:65).
And he could work no
miracle there, though he cured a
few sick people by laying his hands on them. (6:5).
John
Cassian: "The
bounty of God is
actually curtailed temporarily
according to the
receptivity of our faith. If the
faith of those who bring
them or of
the sick is lacking, it may
prevent those
who possess the gift of
healing from
exercising it."
Cured a few sick
people: Origen:
'Thus the power in Jesus
overcame even their un
belief."
He was amazed at their
lack of faith (6:6a).
Amazed: see
Mk 5:20; 12:
17; 15:5, 44. The
Evangelist Mark on lack of faith (apistia):
see Mk 4:40; 9: 19,
23, 24; 11 :31;
16: 11, 13, 14, 16. Pope
Benedict:
"Faith is something living
that demands
our whole existence,
understanding, our will, our feelings, our
love. It requires
letting go of ourselves. It is
a fundamental
option that
affects every domain of our existence,
our whole self."
Lord
we implore
you to give us great faith,
so that we may be
receptive to all that
you, in your
wisdom, have to
teach.
SUNDAY 5TH JULY p.75
Suggested Prayer of the Faithful
(Each local community should compose its own Universal Prayer, but may find
inspiration in the texts proposed here.)
Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy. Turning to the Father, we pray:
That, during this Year of Consecrated Life, God will continue to
enrich the Church by calling
forth sons and daughters to live lives of consecration.
That
political responsibility may be lived at all levels as
a high form
of charity. (Holy Father's Universal Intention)
That Christians who work in education and healthcare may be free to assist others without having to abandon
their ethical principles.
That our parish may flourish in faith, hope, and love.
For those burdened
by poverty, hardship, oppression, and persecution: that God will rescue them and lift them up.
For the
grace this week to live with great confidence in the
goodness
of God.
Loving Father, we are content with
weaknesses, insults, hardships, and persecutions. For when we are weak, then we are strong. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. _
A Strange Adventure
Faithful friends of Magnificat are invited to read the story of Jacob’s struggle with the angel (Gn 32:23-31) as an allegory of their prayer life. Is it not similar to a battle of faith, crowned by the victory of perseverance? Yes, at times in our prayer we are like Jacob in his quest for God in the depths of the dark night, in his fight to know God’s true name and to contemplate his true face, in Jacob’s vigor and resolve to ask for God’s blessing and a new name for rebirth…
Outside the realm of the spiritual life, this combat proves difficult to interpret. “A strange adventure,” writes Elie Wiesel, “mysterious from beginning to end, breathtakingly beautiful, intense to the point of making one doubt one’s senses. Who has not been fascinated by it?” Moderns see it as a universal symbol of the internal struggle “against all that hinders the creative fulfillment of a being: darkness, chaos, and the forces of evil.” And, indeed, is not the victory over self the most necessary victory of all? Deeply Catholic, Baudelaire saw in this battle “a fight between natural and supernatural man, each according to his nature.” Lamartine, inspired by the struggle between the muse and her chosen one, gives a glimpse into the great mystery:
Finally, from the dark hours/ When evening battles with shadows,/ At times vanquished, at times victorious,/ Against this unknown rival/ he fought till dawn…./ And it was the spirit of the Lord!
Here Rembrandt chooses not to represent a particular episode in the combat, but to focus directly on the eschatological issue at stake: it is at the outcome of a decisive trial, a baptism, that one receives the grace of God. Through the strength and persistence of his faith, Jacob emerges victorious and blessed in this struggle. But contemplation of this masterpiece, particularly the placid beauty of the angel, unveils an even greater mystery: in his purple tunic, Jacob appears as the figure of the One who, conceived and begotten in the bosom of God as his eternal Wisdom, wholly deigned to be born and ever remain the son of man. Yet here, at the break of dawn, this true God, rendered handicapped—and what a handicap for a God to be mortal!—prevails over the almighty God, wresting from him, in a hand-to-hand Eucharistic battle, the perpetual blessing that revokes the original curse weighing upon humanity.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1659–1660), Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany. © BPK, Berlin, Dist. RMN-GP / Jörg P. Anders.
