A Jesuit Adventure

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. The first reading taken from the prophet Ezekiel is set at the time of the exile when Nebuchadnezzar forced Jerusalem’s population into exile in Babylonia between 598 and 587 BC. The text describes Ezekiel’s commissioning – a divine call to speak on behalf of Yahweh through which the people were made aware of God’s continuous involvement in Israel’s life. Even when there seemed to be little hope for the Israelites in exile, a prophet was raised up and sent to speak to a stubborn and rebellious people. A rebellion against Yahweh that began almost immediately after they were freed from Egyptian slavery. However, the issue wasn’t only the sins of their ancestors, but their own sins. Not only were they physical descendants of their rebellious forefathers but also spiritual descendants. They stubbornly resisted following Yahweh and it was that stubbornness that resulted in their exile. However, there w...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time year B. This week’s readings take us deeper into the subject of life and death. Death is perhaps the most common thing around us. It affects every living being be it human, animal, bird, or insect. However, our society today does not want to accept the reality of death. Just go around a supermarket and you will see shelves full of products designed to keep us young; anti-wrinkle creams, energy drinks, vitamin supplements – everything gives us a message that we can put off death for as long as we like. Quite often we play the blame game, blaming God for all that is happening in our lives, right from natural disasters to war, it's all God’s fault. Death raises the question about the meaning of human life. Is death merely the dissolution of the physical body or is it a larger reality? It is in this context that the first reading from the book of Wisdom of Solomon wants to give us the message that God’s creat...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. The first reading taken from the book of Job presents before us a very puzzling narrative – God’s reply to Job. Job as we know was an upright and pious person, who loses everything as Satan tries to prove that Job’s piety has ulterior motives. In his lament, Job questions both the order of the cosmos and the existence of divine justice because he did not deserve any of the tragedies   he faced. The LORD responds by questioning Job’s knowledge of God’s mysteries and purposes. Though we find God being described as “a divine architect of the cosmos” in ancient literature, in the book of Job, Yahweh is imagined as a midwife, helping the sea to be born, quickly making clothes for it out of the clouds and swaddling it in the deep, beautiful colours of the night sky. While this image conveys that God has power over natural elements it also has a deeper significance. In ancient Near Eastern literature, ...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. The first reading taken from the prophet Ezekiel is an allegory set at the time of the exile. The allegory in the preceding verses deals with the nation of Judah represented by the cedar tree and its rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, by siding with Egypt, both of whom are represented by eagles. Amidst political and social turmoil, Ezekiel proclaimed God’s promise of salvation - God will take a clipping from a cedar tree and plant it in a safe place high on a mountain. There it will grow mightily , and birds will live in its branches. All the other trees in the surrounding field will know about this cedar and the God who planted it. This is a Messianic prophecy, which promises that the Messiah’s kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. Though it will start small and insignificant, like a tender sprig, it will grow and bear branches, and birds of every sort will make their nest in i...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. The readings today focus on the theme of discernment between listening to the voice of God and the voice of the evil one. In contrast to the first creation account in Genesis which presents God as distant and majestic, the second creation narrative which we hear in today's first reading, presents a more anthropomorphic view of God which means that God is presented as having feelings or characteristics like a human being. God is more closer to humans, He walks and talks with them. It's a very beautiful image to think of - a deep level of intimacy between God and humans. God seeks out humans, however, the man and woman hide themselves among the trees in the garden when they hear God approaching (Genesis 3:8b). The Garden of Eden resembles a courtroom where God is examining the accused. As is common to human nature, they start the blame game instead of accepting responsibility for their actions. While A...

    Father Walter J. Ciszek, a Jesuit missionary, imprisoned for more than 20 years in the Soviet Union, writes these words while reflecting on the reverence for the Mass by some prisoners in the labour camps "...sometimes, when the guards were observing us too closely and we couldn't risk saying Mass at the work site, the crusts of bread I had put in my pocket at breakfast r emained there uneaten until I could get back to camp and say Mass at night… We would be severely punished if we were discovered saying Mass, and there were always informers. But the Mass to us was always worth the danger and the sacrifice; we treasured it, we looked forward to it, we would do almost anything to say or to attend a Mass." My dear friends today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as the Feast of Corpus Christi. Before we get to the readings let us have a quick look at the history of this feast.   Having originated in France in the mid-th...