About Friar Musings

Franciscan friar and Catholic priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, VA

Responding to Mercy: context

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Friar Musings

¹¹As he continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he was entering a village, ten lepers met (him). They stood at a distance from him ¹³and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” ¹⁴And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. ¹⁵And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; ¹⁶and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

The narrative of the Journey to Jerusalem (begun in Luke 9:51) returns; new characters are introduced – ten lepers – the disciples play no role in this story. For a brief moment the on-going theme of forming discipleship seemingly takes a backseat, as the accent is upon God’s mercy and salvation. Several commentators hold that this account marks a new turn in Luke’s telling of the gospel moving from an accent on discipleship to the larger theme of “Responding to the Kingdom” as the cleansing of lepers is takes as a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom. Continue reading →

The Next Step

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Friar Musings

francis-in-stained-glass You have to feel for the disciples. In recent gospels Jesus has been asking some fairly extraordinary things of them – to give away their possessions, to forgive countless times, to take up his cross, and the list goes on. No wonder then, they ask for more faith. They don’t feel up to what is being asked of them, are anxious about the challenges ahead, and just can’t imagine accomplishing what is being asked of them.

It is a theme I hear a lot from you, the disciples of this age. The world around us seems to being going off the rails: armies are amassing around Aleppo, Syria; there are more shootings; a bank created fake accounts using our good name; as a nation it seems we are going to be voting against our candidates instead of for one of them. Add to all that the very personal details of our own lives – and too often I hear, “Father, it feels like my faith is under attack…I wish God would give me more faith.” Continue reading →

The Feast of St. Francis

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Friar Musings

francis-in-stained-glass In a 13th century text called the Il Foretti (The Little Flowers), a story is told about St. Francis in which a brother friar came to him and asked, “Why after you? Why is the whole world coming after you, wanting to see you, to hear you, to follow you?” Some 800 years after the life of St. Francis, this question remains. What is it about this unpretentious figure from the early 13th century which continues to exert such a perennial fascination for Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and agnostics alike? What is it that has made Francis the subject of more books than any other saint? Why has he inspired artists, led ecologists, peace activists, and advocates for the poor to claim him as a patron? Why has he inspired countless tens of thousands of men and women to follow his Rule of Life in religious and secular communities? Continue reading →

Faithfulness: what God requires

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Friar Musings

The Faith of a Mustard Seed. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to (this) mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. One might expect Jesus to well receive the request for more faith, but the response seems to imply that the disciples do not (yet) understand the real nature of faith. The saying is grammatically complex in Greek. The first part of verse 6 is a construct that implies the disciples do have the faith, but the second part of the verse contradicts that positive assessment with the implication that the disciples have not yet scratched the surface of the real nature of faith. Continue reading →

Faithfulness: praying

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Friar Musings

Praying for Faith: ⁵And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

Why do the apostles make the request: “Increase our faith”? Does their request indicate that one can have more or less faith? If one remembers that pístis (“faith”) is also translated as “trust” then our own experience is that indeed with can trust to different degrees. But what was it that indicated their faith was somehow lacking? Continue reading →

Faithfulness: forgiving

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Friar Musings

When to Rebuke, When to Forgive?

³Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.”

The disciples are warned to be on guard lest they become like the Pharisees. Several translations take the term adelphos as “disciple” but our translation does well to let it be literal as “brothers” [and sisters], retaining the communal kinship brought about by their common faith and service. Jesus is stressing that even individual sin has a communal element in that the sin of one may lead others astray. This sense of community is made clear in the Matthean parallel: Continue reading →

Faithfulness: scandal

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Friar Musings

Things That Scandalize

These two sayings are connected by the words skandala (v. 1) and skandalizo (v. 2). The original meaning of this word group skandal- was “trap;” or, more specifically a trap’s tripping mechanism. The word group is sued to translate the Hebrew próskomma, meaning both “trap” and “stumbling block” or, “cause of ruin.” In the latter sense, this transferred to the religious setting to mean “cause of sin.” But is “cause of sin” the best translation here? Paul says that “Christ crucified is a stumbling block (skándalon) to the Jews (1 Cor 1:23) and describes the cross as a stumbling block (skándalon) (Galatians 5:11). Consider three other modern gospel translations, all noted for faithful adherence to translation.

¹“Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! ² It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (NRSV)

¹“It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! ² “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (NASB)

“Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! ² It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (ESV)

Either “stumble” or “cause to sin” are valid translations. I would suggest “stumble” given the context of these verses following Jesus’ warnings (direct and via parable) against injustice, indifference, and a lack of hospitality towards those in need – “the little ones,” e.g., Lazarus (16:19-31), the prodigal son (15:11-32), and the poor, crippled, blind and lame (14:12-14). All of these demonstrated behaviors are hostile and in opposition to the Reign of God where the invitation is for all. To set up barriers that keep some outside the kingdom is to become a stumbling block of witness for all – especially those who would be found and restored to the community (cf. Luke 15:1-10, the parables of the lost and found).

With the graphic image of the millstone (see note below), Jesus says it would be better to drown than to become the barrier to another’s repentance and restoration. The watery death is a echo of the fate that befell the rich man (16:24-28) who suffered eternal, fiery torment.

Notes

Luke 17:1 Things that cause sin: skandala, a cause of offense or stumbling. The word group is sued to translate the Hebrew próskomma, meaning both “trap” and “stumbling block” or, “cause of ruin” either with idols in view or offenses against the law. As a ground of divine punishment skándalon can then denote an occasion of sinning or a temptation to sin. will inevitably occur: Matthew asserts that it is necessary that sin occurs. Luke notes only that sin is impossible to avoid. woe to the person: this is the 11^th woe spoken by Jesus in Luke’s gospel, but the first directed towards the disciples.

Luke 17:2 were put around his neck: The Greek phrase, perikeitai peri ton trachêlon, does not refer to tying one end of a rope a person’s neck and the other end of the rope to a large mill grinding stone. Rather it literally means to insert the person’s head into the hole at the center of the stone – some of which were three to four feet in diameter. to cause … to sin: skandalízō. See note on 17:1. Skandalízō is from the same word group

Sources

Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995, c1985).

Stahlin, skándalon , 3:339-58
Stauffer, epitimáō, 2:623-7
Behm, metanoēsē , 4:948-80

Scripture – Scripture quotes from New American Bible by Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. ©

Faithfulness: context

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Friar Musings

¹He said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. ²It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. ³Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.” Continue reading →

Closing the Divides

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Friar Musings

Lazarus-Rich-Man “…between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.…” Such are words spoken about Lazarus and the rich man, traditionally known as Dives. The words describe their fates in the afterlife: Lazarus comforted by Abraham while Dives languishes in a hellish afterlife.

But here is the thing – the chasm really wasn’t new; it was fixed a long time ago and made wider every time the rich man came and went to his safe, secure and plush home and ignored Lazarus. Don’t get me wrong, this parable indeed talks about the eternal consequences of the life we lead, but it is also about our lives now. And maybe, just maybe, St. Luke has been talking to us about the chasms, the great divides we have slowly built into our lives – and our failure to see them in the here and now. Continue reading →

Life in Prayer

Posted on September 24, 2016 by Friar Musings

power-of-prayer It’s hard to sustain a regular life of prayer. Why? Why is it so difficult to pray regularly? Some reasons are obvious: over-busyness, tiredness, and too many demands on our time, constant distraction, spiritual laziness, worship services that bore us, and methods of prayer that leave us flat and inattentive.

But there is another reason too, suggested by monks and mystics. The problem we have in sustaining prayer, they say, is often grounded in the false notion that prayer needs to be interesting, exciting, intense, and full of energy all the time, but that is impossible. Nothing is meant to be exciting all the time, including prayer and church services, and nobody has the energy to always be alert, attentive, intense, and actively engaged all the time.

Sometimes we don’t pray regularly precisely because we simply cannot find within ourselves the energy, time, intensity, and appetite for active participation that we think prayer is demanding of us. But prayer respects the natural rhythms of our energy. Praying is like eating. You don’t always want a banquet – sometimes we just want a quick sandwich by ourselves.

Eating has a natural rhythm: banquets and quick snacks, rich meals and simple sandwiches, high times with linen serviettes and low times with paper napkins; meals which take a whole evening, and meals which you eat on the run. And the two depend upon each other: You can only have high season if you mostly have ordinary time.

Healthy eating habits respect our natural rhythms: our time, energy, tiredness, the season, the hour, our boredom, our taste. Prayer should be the same, but too often we are left with the impression that all prayer should be this wonderful moment sensing the presence of God. And when it is not, we wonder about our faith, our prayer, or if God is listening.

Monks have secrets worth knowing. They know that it is the rhythm, routine, and established ritual of prayer that is key. For monks, the key to sustaining a daily life of prayer is not so much variety, novelty, and the call for higher energy, but rather a reliance on the expected, the familiar, the repetitious, the ritual, the clearly defined. They know that what’s needed is a clearly delineated prayer form which gives you a clear time expectation and does not demand of us an energy that we cannot muster on a given day. What clear, simple, and brief rituals provide is precisely prayer that depends upon something beyond our own energy. The rituals carry us, our tiredness, our lack of energy, our inattentiveness, and our indifference. They keep us praying even when we are too tired to muster up our own energy.

The rhythm, routine, and established ritual of prayer can sustain our love for God and our neighbor – even if we don’t have the energy for it.

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