Sabado, Setyembre 1, 2012

From the Taize Community and the Focolare Movement


http://www.taize.fr/IMG/mp3/taize_podcast_2012_09_01.mp3

Meditation by Brother Alois: Saying a lifelong yes to God 

Weekly meditation by Brother Alois: Christ brings us together beyond all borders 

Bible texts with commentary
These Bible meditations are meant as a way of seeking God in silence and prayer in the midst of our daily life. During the course of a day, take a moment to read the Bible passage with the short commentary and to reflect on the questions which follow. Afterwards, a small group of 3 to 10 people can meet to share what they have discovered and perhaps for a time of prayer.

September 2012

Luke 4:14-30: Keeping Our Eyes on Christ
Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
 
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
 
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
 
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
 
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
 
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4:14-30)
This short account of Jesus’ visit to his hometown is disturbing: how could he stand such a change? At the beginning people are amazed at him, and then all at once the crowd seems to turn into a lynch-mob.
The people are all waiting for the Messiah (Luke 3:15), who was to come in order to create communion with God and among human beings.
Jesus’ reputation precedes him (Luke 4:14)—undoubtedly as well as news of his healings and his concern for the poorest of society, who feel close to him—and this is true for the people in Nazareth, too. Now he comes to his hometown himself, to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom there as well.
After Jesus reads out the words of Isaiah, all those present in the synagogue open their eyes wide: they see in the man standing before them the Messiah announced by the prophets and then by John. And Jesus himself confirms this: “Today this scripture is fulfilled” (Luke 4:21).
Looking with amazement is, in the Bible, the constantly repeated reaction of human beings to an encounter with God. Have not we too experienced this wonder during meetings or experiences that allow us to glimpse something of God’s presence?
Following this acclamation, the question “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” marks a turning-point. Instead of common rejoicing at God’s presence, a doubt insinuates itself, almost undetected, into the assembly: Is he not one of us, a simple man who left town and now all of a sudden, promoted to a higher rank, comes back? Why him? Does he still belong to us?
At that time, as today, people looked at themselves and others, often unconsciously, comparing and delimiting in order to define who belongs to a community and who remains outside: between neighbors in the small town of Nazareth, or with the inhabitants of neighboring Capernaum, in families, at work, or in one’s circle of friends. Such behavior creates a safe haven and bonds people together.
But as soon as the eyes that were at first turned towards Jesus begin to turn away from him and compare—worrying about their own standing—Jesus seems to become a danger that needs to be done away with.
With examples taken from Bible history, Jesus tries to explain that the community formed by God does not come into being in this way. When God becomes human—coming as close to us as the son of their neighbor Joseph—in order to open a way of communion, he goes beyond all human borders and calls into question the order of society which sets “ours” in contrast to “theirs.”
So as more and more to be people of communion, this text invites us to keep our eyes focused on Christ. Then our way of looking at ourselves and others gradually changes. We discover that it is not our boundaries that make community possible, but rather that he is the one who brings us together.
- How do we look at ourselves and other people? Why is it that so often we compare ourselves to others?
- What holds our communities together? What divides them?
- What turns my eyes away from Christ? What helps me to keep my eyes focused on Christ with amazement?

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:13–14).
In this “pearl” of the Gospel, Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman near Jacob’s well, he speaks of water as the simplest of elements, but one that proves to be the most desired, the most vital for whoever is familiar with the desert. No great explanations were needed to convey the importance of water. Well water is for our natural life, whereas the living water that Jesus is speaking of is for eternal life.
Just as the desert blooms only after an abundant rainfall, similarly the seeds buried in us at baptism can bud forth only if sprinkled with the word of God. Then the plant grows, giving off new shoots and shapes that become a tree or a lovely flower, all because it receives the living water of the word of God, which gives it life and preserves it for eternity.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus’ words are addressed to all of us who are thirsty in this world: to those who are conscious of their spiritual aridity and who still suffer thirst, and to those who are not even aware of the need to drink from the fountain of true life and of the great values of humanity.
Jesus is actually extending an invitation to all men and women today, revealing where we can find the answer to our questions and the fulfillment of all our desires. It is up to us, therefore, to draw from his words, to let ourselves be imbued with his message.
How? By re-evangelizing our life, measuring it against his words, trying to think with the mind of Jesus and to love with his heart.
Every moment in which we seek to live the Gospel is like drinking a drop of that living water. Every gesture of love for our neighbor is like a sip of that water.
Yes, because that water, which is so alive and precious, has something special about it. It wells up within us each time we open our hearts to others. It’s a wellspring of God that gives water to us in the measure in which it flows out from us to quench the thirst of others through small or big acts of love.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
We’ve understood: to avoid suffering thirst, we must give to others the living water within ourselves that we draw from him.
Very little is needed — at times a word, a smile, a simple gesture of solidarity, to give us a renewed sense of fulfillment, of profound satisfaction, a surge of joy. And if we continue to give, this fountain of peace and life will pour out water evermore abundantly and will never dry up.
Jesus revealed to us yet another secret, a kind of bottomless well from which we can draw. When two or three are united in his name, by loving one another with his very own love, he is in their midst (see Mt 18:20). And it is then that we are free, that we are one, full of light, with rivers of living water flowing from within us (see Jn 7:38). It is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, because it is from Jesus himself, present in our midst, that thirst-quenching water wells up for eternity.
Chiara Lubich
Originally published in 2002 (New City Magazine)
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