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Day: October 26, 2008

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Current Events, Perspective, Political

Hey, President Nixon umm Bush

From The Guardian: US forces kill eight in helicopter raid on Syria

American helicopters flying from Iraq landed inside Syria yesterday and dropped special forces who killed eight people, the Damascus government said last night, as Washington admitted it had targeted “foreign fighters.”

Syria warned that it held the US “wholly responsible for this act of aggression and all its repercussions”.

It described the dead as Syrian civilians, five of them members of the same family. Syrian state television reported that the attack was against a farm near Abu Kamal, five miles from the Iraqi border. Doctors in nearby al-Sukkariya said another seven people were taken to hospital with bullet wounds.

The incident threatened to unleash a new wave of anti-American feeling in Syria and across the Middle East at a time when President Bashar al-Assad, already being courted by Europe, is looking forward to improved relations with Washington after the November 4 presidential election. News of the attack led bulletins across the Arab world last night – suggesting it will have wide resonance.

Syria summoned the US charge d’affaires in Damascus to explain the incident. It also called on the Iraqi government to prevent its airspace being used in this way in future.

Eyewitness accounts said eight US soldiers landed in two helicopters and that the dead were building workers. A senior Syrian source quoted by the official Sana news agency, said four helicopters violated Syrian airspace and described the target as a “civilian building under construction”.

In Washington an unnamed military official told the Associated Press the raid had targeted elements of a “foreign fighter logistics network”, and that, due to Syrian inaction, the US was “taking matters into our own hands”. It was the first known American attack on Syrian soil…

Reminiscent of President Nixon opening another front in Cambodia, which interestingly started with such raids. I wonder if a Christmas Day B-52 raid over Damascus is in the offing. That’s the problem with megalomaniacs. If they’re hunkered down on two fronts, they open a third.

Syria will draw closer to Iran, Hezbollah will be unleashed, Israel will get drawn into another conflict where civilians deaths will far outnumber combatant casualties, and all this on top of an already tense political-economic situation. The problem for folks like President Bush is that this will not unleash the Second Coming, it will only destroy more of God’s children.

God have mercy on us.

Everything Else, ,

Poetry Out Loud

Invite Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest into Your High School’s ELA Classrooms!

Register your school to participate in Poetry Out Loud!

Poetry Out Loud is a national program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure. Beginning at the classroom level, winners will advance to the school-wide competition, then to the state capital competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC. More than 100,000 students are expected to take part in Poetry Out Loud this year!

Upon registration, teachers will receive dynamic teaching tools that will invoke students’ excitement about literature and poetry recitation, including sample lesson plans, audio CDs of poets reciting their own famous works, publicity materials for school competitions, and a DVD of winning student performances from the 2007 Poetry Out Loud National Finals.

If you would like to bring Poetry Out Loud to you school, download a registration form.

Registrations must be received by October 31st!

For more information about registration, contact Sharon Scarlata.

Homilies,

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First reading: Exodus 22:20-26
Psalm: Ps 18:2-4,47,51
Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10
Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law tested him…

Over the past five weeks our Gospel readings have been taken from St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 21 and 22. Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph in Chapter 21 and had cleared the moneychangers from the Temple. Just before this grand entrance Jesus had reminded His disciples, for the third time:

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death,
and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Now the battle was on. Jesus was seated in the Temple precincts. The people were listening to Him. The Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, lawyers, and Herodians – none of whom really liked each other, put their focus on discrediting Jesus in front of His listeners, having Him arrested, and killing Him if at all possible.

They devised word traps aimed at proving that Jesus was a bad Jew and/or an enemy of Rome.

The disciples stood by and watched as every word trap turned into a trap for the hunters. Jesus used every occasion to enlighten His disciples and all who listened. St. John Chysostom in commenting about these chapters from Matthew states that Jesus not only turned their words against them, but used their words to show who He was.

For all the scheming and plotting the hunters never stopped to ask themselves whether their target, Jesus, might be the Messiah. They never stopped to consider, even for a moment, that Jesus might be Emmanuel, God among them. Jesus’ replies show clearly that He is God in their midst.

Brothers and sisters,

When the lawyer asked:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

He didn’t realize that he was asking the Teacher. He was asking God, who gave the law.

In reply Jesus boils down the 613 Mitzvos into two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Further, He tells them that all law, all scripture, all of the prophets, in other words, God’s entire communication with humanity, hinges on these two commandments.

Love God, love each other. It as simple as that.

Some of the greatest philosophers and theologians have tried to capture and document the complexity of God. Who is He? Why does He interact with us? Why does He need us? How does He define Himself? What is the meaning of His self-revelation, suffering, death, burial, and resurrection? In contemplating God one could ask a million questions and find a million answers. I believe that those who come closest are those that define God as a simple being. God is One. He is all-in-all. He is simply love. Not wishy-washy romance or pining after a beloved, but pure, directed love.

Jesus directs and communicates the Father’s love. When Jesus tells us that we should come onto Him, take up His yoke; when He tells us that His yoke is easy, His burden light, He is telling us that perfection is found in our struggle to be like God; to be people of simple love.

My friends,

We are heavily burdened. If we were to enumerate the different costs associated with our lives they would amount to little except burden. The things occurring in the world this very days amount to unfathomable burdens. The credit crunch, failed banks and businesses, retirement savings accounts at half their value, terrorism, wars, our daily labors, getting up, going to work, struggling through the challenges that lie before us. Life would be a disaster if not for those moments that touch us, the moments that communicate simple love.

When we gather here in church to praise God, to communicate our love for Him, He communicates His love for us. When we see a new life, arising out of an act of love, we are filled with hope and promise. Celebrations that connect us to God and to our families, at Christmas and Easter, a wedding, and anniversary, a birthday, even a funeral are moments where burdens melt away and we are left staring at simple love.

These moments of love are moments in which we get to peer through a keyhole. We see the light and the promise on the other side of the door. The light on other side of the door is the love that we really long for, the love we need. That light is the perfection of love in God. Through the gift of faith we see that light and are left with a choice.

The choice God asks us to make, in all its simplicity, is this: Will we love God and love each other. When we decide to walk in God’s way, when we decide to live as children of God, children of the light, children of love, we become caught up in God’s life. We learn that love of God and love of each other is more than duty, but real joy – a gladsome burden. In making choices that reflect love of God and love for each other we grow to be more like Him. Each day we get better and better at living a life of love, at showing forth the light of God’s love.

During the Sermon on the Mount Jesus told us:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.—

Our light is the light of our Father in Heaven. It is the light of our brother, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the light of simple and direct love.

As we walk through the day, as we encounter those enumerable burdens, we meet them as changed people. When we encounter darkness we are to challenge it with the light of love. Unlike the challenge the lawyer in today’s Gospel presented, a challenge without love, we are to meet our challenges with love. It is as simple as that. The unruly child, the angry boss, the demanding customer, the rude driver, the terrorist, the disease we never expected, the person in our family who refuses to return our love, the untimely death. There is no room in any of these for fear, only love.

All of God’s revelation hinges on love. It is simple. Love God, love each other. Amen.

Fathers, PNCC

October 26 – St. John Chrysostom from Homilies on Matthew

“But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together; and one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Again does the evangelist express the cause, for which they ought to have held their peace, and marks their boldness by this also. How and in what way? Because when those others were put to silence , these again assail Him. For when they ought even for this to hold their peace, they strive to urge further their former endeavors,and put forward the lawyer, not desiring to learn, but making a trial of Him, and ask, “What is the first commandment?”

For since the first commandment was this, “You shall love the Lord your God,” thinking that He would afford them some handle, as though He would amend it, for the sake of showing that Himself too was God, they propose the question. What then says Christ? Indicating from what they were led to this; from having no charity, from pining with envy, from being seized by jealousy, He says, “You shall love the Lord your God. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

But wherefore “like this?” Because this makes the way for that, and by it is again established; “For every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light;” and again, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” And what in consequence of this? “They are corrupt, and become abominable in their ways.” And again, “The love of money is the root of all evils; which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith;” and, “He that loves me, will keep my commandment.”

But His commandments, and the sum of them, are, “You shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself.” If therefore to love God is to love one’s neighbor, “For if you love me,” He says, “O Peter, feed my sheep,” but to love one’s neighbor works a keeping of the commandments, with reason does He say, “On these hang all the law and the prophets.“

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