Tag: Sharing

Collaboration

My dictionary defines “collaborate” as: [from the Latin collaboratus, past participle of collaborare, to work together from com, with + laborare, to work] 1. to work together, especially in some literary, artistic, or scientific undertaking. 2. to cooperate with the enemy; be a collaborationist.
   Paradoxically, many a great writer, artist, or scientist apparently has worked alone, either because of a quirk of personality or even a selfish desire to be a solitary achiever.
   On the other hand, what accomplishments are the fruit of exclusively individual invention or creation with no reliance on or influence at all from the work of confreres, predecessors, or antecedents?
   Collaboration is not a mathematical concept, in the sense that one and one makes two—for frequently and often the work of two people together can reach a level and attainment that exceeds the capacity of either separately!
   A collaborationist, literally, doesn’t have to be an enemy (the current usage of the word), but could refer to any group of people, joined together to some extent in seeking a solution to a common problem or working together to complete a common task.
   Further, collaboration certainly could include collaboration in the quest for meaning in our lives, knowledge of the will of God, faith, and religion.
   Genesis tells the story of Creation:
   In 1:26 it says: “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
   In 2:15 it says: “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
   “Have dominion” and “cultivate and care for” are collaboration mandates!

   Notwithstanding the many great writers, artists, scientists, and other specialists, from the beginning the plan of God for us involves and has involved collaboration—collaboration in the work of creation and in the care and shaping of the created world.
   Collaboration is related to “synodality” defined as: [from the Greek συν, together + ὁδός, way or journey] 1. The specific modus vivendi et operandi of the Church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all her members journey together, gather in assembly and take an active part in her evangelizing mission. 2. the involvement and participation of the whole People of God in the life and mission of the Church.
   The mission of the Church then is not merely the concern and responsibility of the clergy and the religious but includes the “laity” also—that is, it includes each and every one of the members of the Church!
   It’s an aberration if we’re all not involved in collaboration! Just because this may have been the practice for a long, long time doesn’t mean it’s right.
   Now, we’re trying to revise and restore the correct order of things and of responsibilities in the work of God.
   Is it disturbing? Of course, all radical change is disturbing!
   Do we get it exactly right? Hopefully, but, remember, we’re used to progressing through a process of trial and error.
   Don’t become frozen in place, but beware of thin ice as you try to get moving again!
   You’re not meant to be a monument to the past but may be challenged to be a pioneer—one of those who dare to go or lead the way to where few have gone before!


2 April 2023

Apostolic Development Officer

No, St. Paul was never called that, even though to some extent he was a fundraiser.
   He once appealed to the Christians in Corinth to be generous in providing aid to the poor Christians in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8-9). His appeal is a beautiful reflection on the nature of charity, practical and realistic as well. Here are a few excerpts:

   – I am not saying this as an order, but testing the genuineness of your love against the concern of others.
   – You know the generosity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, although he was rich, he became poor for your sake, so that you should become rich through his poverty.
   – I will give you my view of the matter: this is appropriate for you as you were the first, a year ago, not only to take any action but also even to desire the project. Now then, complete the action as well, so that the completion from your resources may match your enthusiasm.
   – For as long as the enthusiasm is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what a person does not have.
   –  It should not bring relief to others and hardship to yourselves; but there should be a balance—your surplus at present may fill their deficit, and their surplus may fill your deficit, so there may be a balance…(8:8-12)

   – But remember: one who sows sparsely will reap sparsely as well, and one who sows bounteously will reap bounteously as well.
   – Each should give as much as you have decided on your own initiative, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver… (9:6-7)
   – The one who provides seed for the sower and food to eat will supply and increase the produce of your righteousness.(9:10)

   Making charitable contributions is not just about having a deduction in your income tax. It’s also not just a gesture that will enhance people’s esteem of you when publicized.
   Giving also shouldn’t be determined by the worthiness or the attractiveness of the recipient. Many an old story told of helping a repugnant person who turned out to be the Lord, illustrating the judgement story in Matthew’s gospel: “…whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
   Frequently the demands on our generosity are unplanned, unsought, unexpected, unattractive—and also can be annoying, delaying, distracting, and even a little intimidating.
   How much, how often should I give, contribute, donate to needy persons or good causes? At least as much as you judge to be really needed and you can.
   Charitable contributions, gifts, and assistance to others are not according to a scheduled or traditional amount. And, we’re not expected nor required to rashly exceed our means, especially at a cost to those who depend on us. But, it can be commendable to sacrifice of ourselves to assist others.
   “Love one another as I have loved you.” This new commandment Jesus gave us has no fixed quantity or limit.
   Sometimes our easiest gift may be money. Giving time, attention, presence, ear, support, respect can be harder.
   How will you know if you have fulfilled his mandate and loved as he loves you? Not until you have nothing left to give except your very life itself, and you do!


29 August 2021

The Jewishness of John

In the beginning was the Word,
   and the Word was with God,
   and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
   and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
   and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
   and the darkness has not overcome it.
                        (John 1:1-5)

   In 2011, a first-of-its-kind book was published by Oxford University Press, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. It utilized the New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, but all the footnote commentaries and additional essays were the work of Jewish scholars.
   For me, this brought a deeper and challenging understanding of the richness of so many familiar verses of the New Testament, especially the words of Jesus.
   Professor Daniel Boyarin’s essay, “Logos, a Jewish Word, John’s Prologue as Midrash,” really struck me.
   He explained that “Word” in John was not merely the obvious translation of the original Greek word, “Logos,” but also expressed a then very current concept in some Jewish philosophical circles.
   The Word was understood as a kind of link between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human. The Word was the instrument of the Creator.
   Remember the preamble of Genesis, the story of the creation of the world? Each action of the Creator is presented as “Then God said: Let there be…” and then it happened. The spoken Word was the agent of creation.
   The Jewish philosopher, Philo, explained that, although the word of mortals is heard, the Words of God are seen as light is seen.

   Some even identified the Word as a second, more visible manifestation of God, a sort of second person in the Godhead.
   Official rabbinic theology was not so accepting of all of this, and some considered it the heresy of Two Powers in Heaven.
   On the other hand several Old Testament texts supported this understanding of the “Word” as a divine entity functioning as a mediator—for example, Proverbs 8:22-31:

The Lord begot me, the beginning of his works,
   the forerunner of his deeds of long ago;
From of old I was formed,
   at the first, before the earth.
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
   when there were no fountains or springs of water;
Before the mountains were settled into place,
   before the hills, I was brought forth;
When the earth and the fields were not yet made,
   nor the first clods of the world.
When he established the heavens, there was I,
   when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
When he made firm the skies above,
   when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;
When he set for the sea its limit,
   so that the waters should not transgress his command;
When he fixed the foundations of earth,
   then was I beside him as artisan;
I was his delight day by day,
   playing before him all the while,
Playing over the whole of his earth,
   having my delight with human beings.

   Thank God for the Jewish scholarship that helps Christians better understand their faith!


16 May 2021

The Early Christian Community

The first summary description of life in the early Christian community is found in the Acts of the Apostles (2:42-47):

They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. (Acts 2:42)

   – The teaching of the apostles referred to instructions for the members of the Christian community, explaining the scriptures in the light of the life and teachings of Jesus.
   – The communal life (or brotherhood or fellowship) referred to the sharing of goods and possessions which expressed and strengthened the community (or communion) of spirit.
   – The breaking of the bread referred to the Jewish meal at which the presider pronounces a blessing before dividing the bread (or distributing the food). For the early Christians, it denoted the Eucharist.
   – The prayers referred to the prayers in common (later, especially, the prayers of the Divine Liturgy or Mass).
   Verse 46 says:

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes.

   It seems to refer to a simpler version of what later evolved into what we now call the Divine Liturgy or Mass, before it became elaborated with ritual ceremonies and vesture and presided only by an ordained minister.
   This “communion” implied not only communion with the Lord, but also the communion of their common faith and fidelity to the apostolic teachings, of their sharing of goods and unity of spirit, and of their remembrance and thanksgiving for salvation in Jesus and unity in the one Spirit.

   “Common”—“communal”—“community”—“communion”—even “communism” are all related words, although they certainly have a very wide range of meanings and usages nowadays.
   But, it helps to know what they share in their root meanings and how they have evolved and changed in their usage. It may help us to use and understand them better.
   Under Pope Pius XII, archeological investigations were initiated to unearth the grave and relics of St. Peter the Apostle.
   According to tradition, the main altar of St. Peter’s basilica was built over his tomb.
   Researchers began to explore the area.
   Beneath today’s basilica were the remains of the first basilica. Beneath the remains of that Constantinian era basilica were the remains of a much earlier monument.
   That monument was built in a Roman cemetery, even damaging some of the nearby graves. The cemetery was next to the Circus of Nero on a road out of the city near the Vatican hill.
   How hard it is to imagine the original site of Peter’s crucifixion and burial as one stands in the great basilica of our day—but it is the very place!
   As the centuries passed and as one structure was built on and elaborated over another it became harder and harder to recognize the grave site itself.
   Our words are like that, especially our religious words. They sometimes have been elaborated and embellished, successively enlarged and rebuilt almost to the point that it’s hard to imagine their original meanings.
   Dig carefully for the original sense, but don’t destroy all the good, grandeur and development over the centuries!


2 May 2021

Holy Land Long Division

What we fondly call the Holy Land is a very polarized place.
For example, if one speaks with the slightest empathy about the plight of Israelis hit by Hamas rockets, many Palestinians make an immediate accusation that this is collusion and political support for Israeli arrogance and Zionist imperialism.
Conversely, the slightest display of empathy for the plight of Palestinians in Gaza in the aftermath of the recent Israeli incursion is often labeled as tolerant of terrorism and even as anti-Semitic.
As is often observed, both parties see themselves as a little David threatened by the other, Goliath.
The seeds of the Holy Land’s recurring conflicts were planted a long time ago.
After World War I, the League of Nations entrusted the area of Palestine to Great Britain with a mandate to guide its inhabitants to eventual independence.
However, Britain failed to resolve its dual encouragement of conflicting Jewish and Arab national aspirations in Palestine and finally turned the matter over to the United Nations. On 29 November 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to terminate the British Mandate by the following year and to partition Palestine.
Because of the unique spiritual and cultural importance of Jerusalem to Christians, Jews and Muslims, the city was to be established as a separate entity under a special international regime. The mission of the regime was to “foster cooperation among all the inhabitants of the city” and to “encourage and support the peaceful development of the mutual relations between the two Palestinian peoples [i.e., Jews and Arabs] throughout the Holy Land.”
The plan for the rest of the Palestine Mandate territory was to create two separate independent Arab and Jewish states, but joined in economic union.

Two diametrically opposing principles underlaid and motivated the U.N. partition resolution: sharing and dividing. Sharing applied only to the city of Jerusalem. Dividing applied to the rest of the land.
The rationale for sharing Jerusalem was that it was too important to each of the three great monotheistic faiths and the two peoples to be divided. However, even though a case could be made for applying a similar rationale to the entire Holy Land, the opposite principal was applied to all but Jerusalem — divide and separate.
Almost the entire history of the past 61 years can be interpreted as the sad story of the destructive implementation and the abysmal failure of the principle of division.
The land is divided into major zones of control — Israel, West Bank, Gaza. Political divisions and social tensions grow within each. Authority is fractious, whether of the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority. The “fence” or “wall” is both a symbol and a reality of division.
Ironically, it is the extremists on both sides that reject division and the two state premise. Militant Palestinian Arabs demand the repossession of all the land. Militant Israeli Jews refuse to surrender it.
The ill-used and neglected principle of sharing is the only one that leads to peace. Arabs and Jews once knew this and knew how to live together. Would that they relearn how to do this before it is too late.
The Holy Land is too important and precious to all to be exclusively for one. It is not so important who controls the land — and whether the state is Jewish, Muslim or Christian — as it is for all its dwellers to respect the dignity and rights of each other.


(Published as
“Peaceful Principles” in
one, 35:2, March 2009)

Ring Around a Rosy

I was born in New York City, but my family moved to the city of Yonkers when I was a boy. The two cities are adjacent. One blends into the other, and only a marker on a lamppost calls attention to the boundary.
Would that Jerusalem were like that!
When Israel took possession of the old city of Jerusalem in 1967 — after 19 years during which no Jew was allowed even to enter the city — it fulfilled the deepest religious longings of the Jewish people.
No Jewish Israeli can conceive of relinquishing possession of the city of Jerusalem ever again. In fact, Israel has declared the city its indivisible capital for ever. It is the heart of the Jewish people — they cannot live without it.
I notice two things happening to Jerusalem. First, its boundaries keep growing at the expense of Arab lands. After 1967 the municipality was much extended, and continually new tracts of land here and there are added to the city.
Second, Jerusalem is becoming increasingly severed from the land to its north, east, and south — that is, from the Israeli-occupied Arab Palestinian areas, the West Bank.
The roads leading in and out of Jerusalem to the Occupied Territories for years had small military check points — usually just a few armed soldiers to examine documents.
Now they’ve grown quite substantial. They increasingly resemble border control stations, and the military presence is enormously increased.
You see, for almost two years, Jerusalem has been closed to the West Bank. Anyone living in the Occupied Territories may not enter the city without a permit from the Israeli military authorities.

The permits are hard to come by, are issued after long waits, and are usually for a relatively brief period of time.
Why? Why this ring around Jerusalem?
Israel is firmly committed to freedom of access to the Holy Places for all — but because of its overriding concern for security, Christian and Muslim Palestinians in the Occupied Territories rarely if ever can visit and pray at the shrines in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem not only contains their major holy places, but also their main hospital and other institutions. All roads lead to Jerusalem; travel from North to South is extremely difficult without access to Jerusalem.
The closure of the city to the West Bank threatens religious practices, health care, education, and many people’s livelihood.
For Christian and Muslim Palestinians, Jerusalem is their heart also — they cannot live without it.
Israel and Palestine are like Siamese twins. They are joined at the heart, and they are inseparable. Cut them apart, one must die.
Both peoples must have security. Both peoples must have life.
The plight of Jerusalem reminds me of the children’s rhyme:

Ring around a rosy!
A pocket full of posy!
Ashes! Ashes!
All fall down!

 
Published in
Catholic Near East, 21:1, January 1995)

Holy Places

Monument [from the Latin monere, to remind] 1. A statue, pillar, plaque, etc. erected to perpetuate the memory of a person, event or historical period. 2. A tombstone. 3. Any conspicuous or fine structure surviving from the past. 4. An area or plot of land having some special or historical interest and set aside by a government as public property.

Shrine [from the Latin scrinium, a case or chest] 1. A receptacle for sacred relics. 2. A place, as a tomb or a chapel, sacred to some holy personage or considered as sanctified by the remains or presence of such. 3. A thing or spot made sacred by historic or other association.

Usually once a year I have the happy privi­lege of leading a group of pilgrims on a journey through the Holy Land. As they visit sites that appear so different from their childhood images, most question, “Is this really the place?”
I explain that not all holy places are the same.
Some holy places are actual historical locations, identified by traditional, docu­mentary, and archeological evidence
Other holy places only serve to focus our reflection on some aspect of our faith or biblical happening
As we walk from place to place, in our minds and hearts we are journeying through space and time from one event to another, meditating on the mysterious designs of God.
Over the centuries, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have built great shrines in the Holy Land to remind pilgrims and visitors of persons and events of the past.

Some of these shrines mask the place they commemorate. For example, the mosque-synagogue in Hebron covers the cave of Machpelah, the burial place of the Patriarchs. The Cenacle, which pilgrims visit in Jerusalem, is but the remains of a church built over the spot where the house of the Last Supper once stood.
Other shrines reveal not only the place they enclose, but even the history of faith associated with it. In Nazareth, the Church of the Annunciation marks the place of the house of Mary and even shows the remains of the successive churches built on the site over the centuries.
“Exactly where is the spot?” pilgrims ask at many shrines. “Was it right here or over there or where?”
What’s the difference! If you’re praying at Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, clearly the crucifixion took place in the immediate area. If you’re anywhere in Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Jerusalem, you’re incontestably visiting a holy place.
For that matter, if you’re in Israel or Palestine — or Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt — for sure you are in a part of the Holy Land. In fact wherever you are, you’re in the one world made holy by the creation and intervention of the one God, Lord of all.
Alas, believers often quarrel about the access to, use, or possession of shrines or monuments. Would that we would all realize that we live in and share one holy place.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 20:6, November 1994)