John Allen, Boston Globe, writing about “Catholicism growing in the heart of Muslim World,” has insight that is essential to North Americans taking on the broader vision of what it means to be Catholic
“The typical Christian in the world today isn’t a middle-class white male in Dubuque pulling up to church in his Lincoln Continental. She is an impoverished black mother of four in Nigeria, or a Dalit grandmother in India, or an exploited Filipina maid in Saudi Arabia. They often face hardships that are hard for most American Christians, accustomed to material comfort and lacking any real experience of religious persecution, to fathom. Until you get that, you won’t see the full story of Christianity in this era.”
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Command these stones… Jesus is challenged to show that he qualifies as Messiah by change the stones into loaves of bread. In the Lukan version (Lk 4:3) the challenge is “stone” and “load.” Without entering the argument of whose version is more the original, what is clear is that the stones/loaves are a challenge to satisfy more than just Jesus’ hunger. Jesus is tempted to use his divine power for his own advantage to accomplish God’s will rather than to trust in his Father’s plan.
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