Our union with God—his presence with us, in which our aloneness is banished and the meaning and full purpose
of human existence is realized—consists chiefly in a conversational relationship with God while we are each consistently and deeply engaged as his friend and collaborator in the affairs of the kingdom of the heavens.
… Dallas Willard, Hearing God
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JAS 5:1-6; PS 49:14-15AB, 15CD-16, 17-18,
19-20
MK 9:41-50
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink
because you belong to Christ,
amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.
"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to
enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
"Everyone will be salted with fire.
Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid,
with what will
you restore its flavor?
Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another."
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
Jesus, in these few verses, mentions the word “world” ten times and in a tone of distaste or derision. It can sound like His disciples have to stay in the “world” and He’s not going to take them out of it. So what is this “world” to Jesus and His disciples? Moses was sending his people into a Promised Land, Jesus was commending His people to stay in the
“world” and form it into a new Land of Promise. They are in the “world,” but do not belong to it as Jesus does not belong to it.
We receive these words of Jesus as He passes many images to us of who we really are. “Truth” seems to be the opposite of the “world”. The “truth” He offers each of the disciples and us as well is that we are who Jesus claims us to
be. The “world” claims us to a mercurial or ambiguous. The identity of our self is centered in the “Truth” of Jesus. “I am what he was” as Hopkins writes. We are consecrated in that “Truth” and the world “hates” us because it remains frustrated that it cannot give us a floating or identity which needs to be renamed, reformed, refigured.
More clearly now, the “world” loves
confusion and desires to pull us this way and push us that way, then up and now down. The “world” would invite us to obtain our name and fame which is here today and we wonder about tonight or who we will be tomorrow according to who the “World” thinks is really “something”, that’s it exactly! The “world” urges us to be a “something” a commodity a currency. The disciples, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, begin insulting the “world” just as Jesus did. He heard, received and lived His name,
His identity and He rejected any temporary now-you-have-it, now-you-don’t name. The disciples are consecrated, made holy, by being in His name, His “Truth” and so are we.
Moses went into the Promised Land embedded in the speaches, laws and encouragements of his Zavah’ah, the pages of Deuteronomy. Jesus Zavah’ah, or will is incarnated in the lives of His disciples who we
now are. The law and Spirit of Jesus is embedded in how we live as branches of His Vine, washers of feet, and insultors of the “world”. He did not take us out of the “world” but out of its ways.
- by Larry Gillick, S.J.
Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 51
“He is the Head, and we be His
members.” “Therefore our Father nor may nor will more blame assign to us than to His own Son, precious and worthy Christ” And at this point the shewing of the example vanished, and our good Lord led forth mine understanding in sight and in shewing of the Revelation to the end. But notwithstanding all
this forth-leading, the marvelling over the example went never from me: for methought it was given me for an answer to my desire, and yet could I not take therein full understanding to mine ease at that time. For in the Servant that was shewed for Adam, as I shall tell, I saw many diverse properties that might in no manner of way be assigned to single Adam. And thus in that time I stood for much part in unknowing: for the full understanding of this marvellous example was not given me in
that time. In which mighty example three properties of the Revelation be yet greatly hid; and notwithstanding this [further forthleading], I saw and understood that every Shewing is full of secret things.
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