Friday of the Second Week in Advent
(Isaiah 48:17-19; Matthew 11:16-19)
It is curious to hear people making excuses for not exercising daily. They say that early in the morning they are not ready to move their bodies and that later in the day they are too busy. Or that they are too cold in the morning and too tired in the evening. Doctors, no doubt, wonder if this kind of patient really wants good health.
Jesus feels the frustration of doctors in the gospel passage today. He sounds amazed that the people refuse to repent despite the testimony of God’s best preachers. John, who warned the people to repent or face God’s wrath, was rejected because he lived on grasshoppers and honey. Then Jesus, who preached a similar message of repentance but for the motive of sharing in God’s goodness, is repudiated for eating and drinking with everyone.
We are required to repent and our repentance must be on-going. Perhaps it is more helpful to use the word conversion. The twentieth century theologian Bernard Lonergan wrote of the need for ever deeper conversion. He says that we convert intellectually by knowing ever more deeply through experiencing, understanding, judging, and believing. Then we convert morally by calling good not what satisfies but what corresponds to true value. Finally, we convert religiously by falling in love as God loves which, we may say, is the full realization of sanctifying grace.
Showing posts with label Bernard Lonergan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bernard Lonergan. Show all posts
Homilette for January 14, 2008
Monday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
(Mark 1:14-20)
In a recent book evaluating the great Catholics theologians of the twentieth century, the author reserves the highest praise for the Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan. Fr. Lonergan’s Method in Theology not only contains keen theological insights; it also answers modern philosophy’s challenges to the theological enterprise. For Lonergan the concept of conversion that Jesus has in mind when he calls for repentance in the gospel today is as basic to writing theology as it is to living the Christian life.
We might hear the call to repentance as meant for other people. After all, we are already in church when the gospel passage is read. But, as Bernard Lonergan would say, conversion or repentance is a life-long process that every person must strive for in order to experience the Kingdom of God. All of us continually have to examine the principles by which we live, ask ourselves where we fail to measure up to the standards that God has set, ask forgiveness for any harm that living by the old principles has caused, and then amend our lives to incorporate the gospel. As extended as this list is, true conversion is even more challenging because it means going against established routine. But, of course, the happiness of the Kingdom provides the necessary incentive and the Spirit of Jesus, the extraordinary means to take up the quest.
To achieve full repentance religious have formed the habit of frequent participation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. They seriously look at their lives once a month or even once a week. They note where they have strayed from the gospel values that they have learned. And they confess these sins with the firm resolve not to fall again. This practice is not the reserve for those who have vowed themselves to a religious community. It is the model for all Christians who take their faith seriously.
(Mark 1:14-20)
In a recent book evaluating the great Catholics theologians of the twentieth century, the author reserves the highest praise for the Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan. Fr. Lonergan’s Method in Theology not only contains keen theological insights; it also answers modern philosophy’s challenges to the theological enterprise. For Lonergan the concept of conversion that Jesus has in mind when he calls for repentance in the gospel today is as basic to writing theology as it is to living the Christian life.
We might hear the call to repentance as meant for other people. After all, we are already in church when the gospel passage is read. But, as Bernard Lonergan would say, conversion or repentance is a life-long process that every person must strive for in order to experience the Kingdom of God. All of us continually have to examine the principles by which we live, ask ourselves where we fail to measure up to the standards that God has set, ask forgiveness for any harm that living by the old principles has caused, and then amend our lives to incorporate the gospel. As extended as this list is, true conversion is even more challenging because it means going against established routine. But, of course, the happiness of the Kingdom provides the necessary incentive and the Spirit of Jesus, the extraordinary means to take up the quest.
To achieve full repentance religious have formed the habit of frequent participation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. They seriously look at their lives once a month or even once a week. They note where they have strayed from the gospel values that they have learned. And they confess these sins with the firm resolve not to fall again. This practice is not the reserve for those who have vowed themselves to a religious community. It is the model for all Christians who take their faith seriously.
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