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20 Sep 2015 - Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. The passage from the Book of Isaiah may sound like a foreshadowing of Jesus in “the hand of his foes,” but the readings this week are not so much about predictions—even though Christ makes one himself in the gospel. Rather, the question is, which will prevail: the path of true wisdom or false, peace and justice or conflict and immorality?

Authors Joel Schorn

Justice Wisdom

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21 Sep 2014 - Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

The psalm offers a litany of praise for God’s sometimes surprising ways of mercy, compassion, and kindness—so different and above human standards of justice. This unexpected generosity presents the choice to “turn to the Lord for mercy” and “conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Authors Joel Schorn

Justice Mercy

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Sign & sacrament

24 Aug 2014 - Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

In the wake of devastating earthquakes, there often follows criticism that homes, schools, and public buildings had obviously not been built properly to withstand such events. Jesus uses similar imagery to describe the condition of those who rely only on the facade of doing good as their claim on salvation. He says it’s not enough to call him “Lord.” It’s not even enough only to “drive out demons” and do spectacular deeds in his name. All of that is good showmanship; it’s curb appeal, but if that pretty life is not built on the rock-solid gospel values of compassion, forgiveness, justice, and love, then one might rightly worry about the shifting tectonic plates below. We cannot control the changes and dangers in the world, but we can choose where we build and on what foundation.

Forgiveness Justice Love Compassion

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Exploring the word

20 Jul 2014 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

The familiar symbol for justice is a blindfolded woman. She balances a scale in one hand and displays a sword in the other. This personification of justice can be traced all the way back to ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman goddesses. The blindfold denotes the impartiality of Lady Justice. She doesn't "see" the parties in a case and therefore doesn't distinguish between them. The scale contains the merits of the case, which will sooner or later dip to the side that presents the weightiest evidence. The sword represents Reason, which slices through the fog of unclarity and misinformation; the sword also symbolizes the power of Justice, which punishes the wrongdoer with swift retribution. For better or for worse, since the time of ancient goddesses, that is how many think of justice. It's an interestingly mathematical proposition, all quid pro quo and even-steven. The personalities don't matter, just the particulars of the case. Through the balancing act of facts and witnesses, people arrive at a conclusion and then the sword falls against the guilty. Fade to black. Justice is served. Of course you also know it's not that simple. Sometimes, despite the weight of the evidence and the preponderance of witnesses, justice is clearly not served. The guilty party may get off on a technicality that shouldn't matter but, in the cold corridors of logic, becomes the deciding factor. Or maybe the guilty party is determined rightly, but because of extenuating circumstances--mental incompetence or prior abuse--such guilt might seem limited or even expunged. In a blind-justice universe, small factors may loom as immutable ones because of the ruthlessly rational calculus of law. So even when the scales are weighted and the sword falls, genuine justice is far from served. The Book of Wisdom declares that divine justice is superior to human justice because God adds mercy and clemency into the mix. Justice becomes no longer a matter of adding and subtracting and arriving at a final sum: innocent or guilty. Instead divine justice takes the full measure of the human person, and not only the deed in question, before rendering its verdict. Outcomes may be surprising. God is the one who searches hearts, Saint Paul says, which is why God allows the weeds to grow up along with the wheat before rendering judgment on the world altogether. Divine justice wears no blindfold. It does not accept collateral damage in the field as the price of doing business. Ends never justify means. When the eyes of justice are wide open and all-encompassing, everything counts and everything matters. Every staff of wheat is potential flour for bread. As such it must be given every opportunity to grow into wholeness and reach its fullness. God's lenient mercy buys you time to outgrow the weeds and produce your harvest. Related scripture links Not of this world: John 18:36 Justice and mercy: Pss. 25:6-7; 51:3-19; 130:1-8; 143:1-12; Isa. 1:18; Luke 1:76-79; Col. 1:13-14 With God all things are possible: Gen. 18:14; Job 42:2; Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:37 Catechism links Justice: CCC 376; 1805; 1807 Heaven: CCC 325-326; 1023-1029 Kindness: CCC 736; 827; 1832 Mercy: CCC 1829; 2447

Authors Alice Camille

Justice Mercy judgment

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Exploring the word

16 Feb 2014 - Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

My 85-year-old mother is addicted to cop shows and courtroom dramas. She's not an active lawbreaker herself, mind you, but she loves to invest her evenings in following criminals down their morally darkened paths outsmarting clever law-enforcers and heavily-degreed legal counsels by slipping through loopholes in jurisprudence and all but disappearing behind the wall of their crimes in triumph—until the end of the hour, that is, when some infinitesimal fact comes to light, condemning the guilty and vindicating the innocent. The disturbing thing is, I’m not sure which my elderly mother enjoys more: that justice is finally served, or that the perp almost got away with it! Many of us have a morally ambiguous relationship to law. We love having plenty of laws nailed into place to protect us and our property from other people. At the same time we play fast and loose with the laws that inconvenience us. Tax laws, traffic laws, and municipal laws are only three kinds of rules some of us are comfortable breaking if we think we can get away with it. Most of us are pleased to defend the rule of law until a particular facet of it gets in our way, and let’s presume that we churchgoers are the law-abiding segment of the population! Some folks have far less respect for the rules than we do. So we become glued to serials like The Sopranos, Damages, Breaking Bad, or any story where the moral lines are vague between the good guys and the bad ones. Like my mom, we’re attracted to stories that confess a disconcerting truth: We’re all ready to break the law given the right set of circumstances. Perhaps we’ve convinced ourselves that most laws are neither good nor bad but arbitrary. If a given law crosses our sovereign free will or basic self-interest, we might be willing to look the other way and “break bad”—just this once. Biblical law was established to be a different kind of law altogether from what folks were used to. The Hebrew word for law is more like “guidance” or “instruction” than a line drawn in the sand. Divine law wasn’t viewed as negatively prohibitive or punitive but positive and helpful. The point wasn't to constrict human freedom but to keep people safe, happy, and at peace. A red light isn’t meant to make you late for an appointment, after all—even if it does just that; it’s intended to keep you and your neighbor from plowing into each other at an intersection. Law was deemed such a cheerful thing in Israel that psalms were written to praise the joy of living lawfully. God’s gift of law is evidence that God is serious about wanting to preserve the happiness of the community so favored. When Jesus extends the laws as deep and high as you can conceive, is this his way of making life harder—or simpler than ever? Scripture links A new heavens and a new earth: Isa. 65:17; 66:22 God’s hidden mystery now revealed: Rom. 11:25-36; 16:25-27; Eph. 1:3-10; 3:3-11; Col. 1:25-28 The eyes of God behold human deeds: Ps. 33:18; 34:16; Heb. 4:13 Choose the path of life or death: Deut. 30:15-20 Catechism links Wisdom of the Creator: 216; 295; 299; 1954 The Commandments: 2052-2073

Authors Alice Camille

Justice Divine law Biblical law

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28 Jul 2013 - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

The reading from the Book of Genesis picks up basically where it left off last weekend. Having received Abraham’s hospitality and delivered to him some startling news, the three visitors now go to the next part of their mission: a fact-finding trip to Gomorrah and Sodom. Abraham, left with God, engages in a lengthy, even humorous, back-and-forth conversation with the Lord. But Abraham is not bartering to spare the two cities. He wants to find out just how just and forgiving God is and doesn’t let up until he’s sure God would spare an entire town for the sake of only ten innocent people. This great mercy shows up as well in the epistle, where we hear that God has “forgiven us all our transgressions,” and in the gospel where Jesus teaches that “everyone who asks, receives.”

Justice Mercy

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Who's listening?

04 Dec 2011 - Second Sunday of Advent, Cycle B

Those suffering great pain and sadness, feeling hurt and abandoned, will hear the news that God offers comfort and consolation to his people as good news indeed. Others--or perhaps those very same people--will ponder God's day of reckoning with fear and trembling. Each of us cries out for justice while knowing that we ourselves have not always been just. These conflicting spritual realities are what bring people to church each week. Help them navigate the crooked roads they travel by inviting them to consider what persons they ought to be.

Suffering Justice

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The inner word

14 Aug 2011 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Isaiah asks us to "maintain justice" by doing "what is right." Think of an instance when you had to make a difficult choice in order to do what was right. Where did you find the strength? Paul talks of God's mercy in the face of our disobedience. When have you most needed, and felt, God's mercy at work in your own life? We need to be mindful of what "comes out of our mouths," to avoid causing harm to others. When you have found yourself saying something that you later regretted? What have you been able to do to make amends?

Isaiah god´s mercy Justice

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Exploring the word

17 Jul 2011 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

THE WHEAT AND the weeds grow up together: That is a succinct description of human history. Certainly it was true in Jesus’ own biography. He chose 12 apostles to be his intimate associates, and was not one of them a sometimes negative presence? It may be unfair to single out one betrayer, however, when others would also desert, deny, grow skeptical, jostle for power, and make inquiries that prove there really is such a thing as a dumb question. The same gospel teaching is available to all disciples. How few receive it, and how rarely even they apply it. Salvation history is acres and acres of weeds competing with the wheat for space, resources, and attention. Every Abel faces his Cain, and every David faces his own reflection in the mirror. Good and evil are rarely distinct characters in the story. Growing up in such close proximity, the wheat and the weeds frequently seem to be offshoots of the same stalk. Our task is not to separate out the bad elements in our society from the good ones but to acknowledge that all are tainted. We’re each capable of monstrous choices—which also means we’re equally capable of heroic ones. In the same way, the weedy parts of our past can still produce wonderful fruit. If we’ve suffered, it may make us more compassionate, gentle, sympathetic. If we’ve sinned, we can more easily forgive, offer guidance, encourage repentance in others. While we’re fixated on weeding out the dark elements in the societal field, our gaze is too often turned outward, externalizing what’s bad. The blame game implicitly exonerates us. Even if we find fault with ourselves, the blaming principle seeks to assign responsibility further: “He made me angry.” “They raised me to be a loser.” Don’t most of our confessions begin or end with extenuating circumstances that render us technically pre-absolved? If we surrender the impulse to blame and let God be “the source of justice” as Wisdom teaches, we find that God’s justice is much kinder than our variety. That may be what we’re most fearful of: that God won’t punish our foes enough to satisfy us. How many movie villains, intent on taking down the hero, wind up hurtling into the evil trap they themselves had set? When we insist on divine vengeance, we’re like those evil geniuses, teetering on the edge of our own hell. Jesus tells us it’s not for the servant to tell the householder how to tend his weedy field. When we allow God to be God, we’re also freed to be simply ourselves. Deprived of divine responsibilities, we no longer have to decide who’s righteous. We can also enjoy the benefits of God’s remarkable clemency. Related scripture links Imminence of the kingdom: Mark 1:15; Matt. 3:2, 4:17, 5:3-11, 6:10; Luke 4:18-21, 17:20-21 Belief more powerful than appearances: Mark 10:51-52, 11:22-24; Matt. 17:19-20; Luke 11:9-13; John 14:12-14; 2 Cor. 5:7 Patience as a kingdom virtue: Luke 21:19; Gal. 5:22-23; Rom. 8:25 Judgment is God's: Isa. 28:6, 30:18; Matt. 5:21-41, 7:1-2, 10:12-15, 42, 12:36-37; Luke 3:17; Rom. 2:1-8 Catechism links Justice: CCC 376; 1805; 1807 Heaven: CCC 325-326; 1023-1029 Kindness: CCC 736; 827; 1832 Mercy: CCC 1829; 2447

Authors Alice Camille

responsibility Wisdom Justice judgment clemency

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10 Jan 2016 - Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Cycle C

The readings for the Baptism of the Lord have an “Epiphany” feel to them. God is revealing something about Jesus, about how to follow Jesus, and ultimately about God’s self. The Messiah you have been expecting, God says, has arrived. All will see him. His appearance will be proclaimed from mountaintops. He is the anointed one, the favored one, the beloved Son. Like the Israelite exiles leaving enslavement in Egypt or returning to a restored Jerusalem, his disciples are to imitate him in doing good, living righteously, showing kindness, and bringing about justice without violence—the human power of violence that God’s power and word outlast and that has no place with God who cares for people like a shepherd.

Justice

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