Adrienne von Speyr SATURDAY 4TH, July 2015

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.

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MEDITATION   OF THE     DAY

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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 (5^th 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.