Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Feathered Sentinels

Taking the Plunge

How might we know what went on in Jesus at the wedding in Cana?

Click on the link below.

Taking_the_Plunge

Mexican Street

A Feast of Solidarity

“Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.”  The religiously good people of Jesus’ day may not have had that saying, but that was surely what some of them felt towards Jesus’ association with the “sinners” of their society.

For them, no self-respecting Jew would have spent so much time in the company of tax collectors and prostitutes. But these were the very people Jesus spent time with and broke bread with.  Such a strange attitude was there right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, at his baptism.

John the Baptist asked Jesus, “Why are you here with all the sinners? You don’t belong with them.” But Jesus told him that he knew what he was doing.

In effect, Jesus was saying, “I am part of the human family, and if human beings have turned against God or each other, I won’t distance myself from them. I won’t claim immunity, even though I might have a right to. The human family is my family and I’m part of them.” (St. Paul was getting at the same thing in his letter to the Philippians when he wrote that Jesus didn’t regard divinity as something to be held onto but was willing to empty himself to be like us.)

This season of the year when the Church celebrates the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, you might find some value in thinking about how you see Jesus standing with you, not just at your best but also at your worst, and about how you stand with others at their best or their worst.

Epiphany Journey

The feast of Epiphany, observed this year on January 3, commemorates the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem after their journey from the East in search of newborn king of the Jews.

We might think that this feast doesn’t have much to say to us since most of us aren’t traveling royalty. But pared it down to its essentials, Epiphany is about people who left their lands to follow a new star to an unknown destination, and that is something to which we can relate.

After all, most of our lives are full of journeys from one place to another — sometimes external journeys, sometimes interior ones — not really knowing the details of the way or what we will find at the end, but knowing that we have to leave where we are in order to find something of great significance.

With luck, we have a star to guide us as they did. Our star may be a dream, an intuition, a calling, or anything else that points the way and keeps us on track. If we have such a “kindly light” (to echo Cardinal Newman’s poem/prayer) to lead us on, we are blessed.

As you and I make our journeys through this coming year, it’s surely worth asking where we are headed and what guiding star we follow.

=================

The Newman Poem

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.