Category: Lent

Pope Francis visited Brazil from the 22 – 29 July 2013.

While returning to Rome aboard the papal plane, Pope Francis engaged in a remarkable candid dialogue with journalists.

He took questions from reporters traveling aboard the papal plane for a full hour and 21 minutes with no filters or limits and nothing off the record.

Pope Francis stood for the entire time, answering without notes and never refusing to take a question.

The final query was an incredibly delicate one about charges of homosexual conduct against his recently appointed delegate to reform the Vatican bank, and not only did Francis answer, but he thanked reporters for the question.

The Pope’s response reverberated throughout the whole world.

People rubbed their ears and asked themselves or others, ‘Did I hear right?’

Pope Francis words were, “Who am I to judge them if they’re seeking the Lord in good faith?” “Who am I to judge them?”

Today’s Gospel (Jn. 8:1 -11) is prefaced in the Gospel I use with the heading, ‘The Woman Caught in Adultery’, and every Bible I could lay my hands on at the time had the same heading!

However, let us be clear about one important point right from the start: this story is not about adultery!

When we know something of the culture in which Jesus lived, our understanding is broadened.

At the time of Jesus, men were allowed multiple wives, and women were regarded as property.

This story is about retaining ‘my property’.

In our world and social norms, we regard adultery as sexual almost exclusively.

In the culture of Jesus, it is about property rights!

This Gospel is not about adultery!

It is about men, using, judging and condemning women.

Little of that has changed!

This Gospel is not about adultery!

It is about finger-pointing, and, as I have said more than once, “to point a finger at another one needs to point three at oneself.”

“Let anyone without sin cast the first stone.”

We read of a gospel riddled with the unacceptable, the suspect, the devious and the weak — for the lepers and the Samaritans and the women.

We read of Jesus with thieves, of Jesus with tax collectors, of Jesus with sinners.

“Who am I to judge?”

“Let anyone without sin cast the first stone!”

The famous painting, the Mona Lisa, hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Painted by the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guiness World Record for the highest known painting insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962, equivalent to $1 billion today.

The painting was stolen in 1911 and was missing for two years.

During that time more people went to steer at the blank space in the museum where it had hung, than had gone to look at the masterpiece in the twelve previous years it had hung there unmolested.

This may tell us something about ourselves and about our human condition.

It highlights our all too human tendency to fail to take adequate note of precious things while we have them.

Yet, let one of them be taken from us, and we become painfully aware of the ‘blank space’ in our lives, and our attention is sharply focused on that blank space.

What is constantly granted is easily taken for granted.

Is it any wonder the father ran? “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him”. (Lk 15: 20)

Go to a marae and before you enter the wharenui you will remove your shoes.
Shoes sit in front of the door to the wharenui (meeting house).

When visitors enter a wharenui they should remove their shoes and leave them at the door (though there are some wharenui in which shoes may be worn inside).

One explanation for this is that the dust from the marae ātea (courtyard), which is the domain of Tūmatauenga, the god of war, should not be brought into the wharenui, the domain of Rongo, the god of peace.

Another explanation is that the wharenui, also known as the whare tipuna (ancestral house), represents a tribal ancestor.

The tekoteko (carved figure on the gable of the house) is the head, the maihi (barge boards) are the arms, the tāhuhu (ridgepole) is the backbone and the heke (rafters) are the ribs.

Respect is shown for the tipuna (ancestor) by removing shoes.

We are who we are today due to those who have gone before us.
Family is where our stories begin.

When inside the whare tipuna we have entered “holy ground”.

Today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus is the story of the encounter between Moses and his God (Ex. 3: 1-8ff) .

“When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He answered, “Here I am.”

God said, “Come no nearer!

Remove the sandals from your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground.

I am the God of your fathers, “he continued,
“the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” (Ex. 3:4 6)

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the tipuna of Moses; it is where his story began.

Their story is his story.

The story is “holy ground”.

L’Arche is an international movement concerned with the care of people with intellectual disabilities.

Many of these people live together in community.

One such community member was a man named Pierre.

Pierre had a mental disability.

One day, one of the workers in the community asked Pierre, ‘Do you pray?’

Pierre answered, ‘Yes’.

And the questioner asked, ‘And what do you do when you pray?’

Pierre answered, ‘I listen’.

‘And what does God say to you?’

‘God says, “Pierre, you are my beloved son”’

Maybe this too is what we ought do – listen.

The author, Max Picard, in his book titled “The World of Silence” writes, “When language ceases, silence begins. But it does not begin because language ceases. The absence of language simply makes the presence of Silence more apparent.”

And in the quiet listening space hear a Voice say, ‘You are my beloved.’