Weekday Readings

+Due to continued technical problems, weekday meditations are not available. Friday's meditation is offered. \ Friday, June 12 The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart, Cycle A Readings: Deuteronomy 7.6-11; 1 John 4.7-16; Matthew 11. 25-30 The article, “Ascension, Parousia, and the Sacred Heart: Structural Correlations,” by Giorgio Buccellati, appeared in the Spring 1998 edition of Communio which is a theological periodical dedicated to the living tradition of the Catholic Church, exploring the depths of the theology of Von Balthasar, De Lubac, Ratzinger, John Paul II and others. This meditation is based on the article. The quotes are from the article unless otherwise noted. The basis of the theology of the Sacred Heart is the real physical presence of the risen Jesus. That presence was manifested in a number of recorded appearances of the risen Jesus to His disciples, and before His final ascension into heaven. After His ascension, the physical presence of Jesus, glorified yet real, continues now in the mystery of heaven: “Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Quickly in the early Church several visualizations of the physical glory of the ascended Jesus take place. The first is to Stephen the deacon at his trial before his martyrdom. (The second is the appearance of Jesus to Saul on his way to Damascus.) Stephen bears witness not only to the Name of Jesus as Savior but to the presence of Jesus in the glory of God, sharing in the Glory of God. Stephen saw “God’s Glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.55) and then again, “Behold, I see the heavens open and the son-of-man standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.56). Stephen could have said “God validated the ‘message’ of Jesus, causing the person of Jesus to recede in the background in favor of his spiritual or social doctrine.” What fills Stephen with joy, and the members of the Sanhedrin with horror, is the risen humanity of a very concrete Jesus. Jesus, their immediate contemporary, is still perceived as sharing physically in the unimaginable glory of the Ineffable. A claim that would have been considered a blasphemy.” Think how this truth has an “impact” on the Church. “Jesus chooses to refer to himself as specially human and mortal at the very moment that he projects himself beyond death as resurrected. And Stephen is struck with a vision of Jesus’ risen humanity, a mortal Jesus who shares in God’s glory. … His very specific humanity, sealed by death, and then risen from it, was in some way on a par with the transcendence of the Ineffable.” Here’s where the concept of “parousia” comes in. The basic meaning of the Greek word, parousia, is presence. Usually parousia is used in the context of Christ’s second coming. But the more basic meaning is that the presence of Jesus is now; and it is so great and omnipotent, that it will endure until the end, when the presence will be made manifest completely throughout creation on the last day. Thus the humanity of Jesus is present because of its being filled with the glory of the Trinity, “seated at the right side of God.” In this mystery of the ascension, the apostles and the first Christians lived in the mystery of the Trinity without using the theological and philosophical terms the Church would later use to guard the Mystery in its being handing down faithfully throughout the ages. “Their contemporary Jesus, the human-mortal (son-of-man) who was now present and coming in divine glory (the parousia), was ‘sitting at the right sides of the Power’: this was their insight into the Trinity.” Our faith delivers to us the fact of Jesus’ ascension and His session (His sitting) in the glory of the Triune Godhead. The ascension must not be thought of as a myth, born out of the insight of the Apostles into the resurrection of Jesus as a divine manifestation. No. Jesus is particular and concrete, a fact. So is His death. So is His resurrection. So, too, is His ascension in the reality of His humanity. The Gospel and Acts of Luke, in their account of the ascension, are “intended to be as much of a factual account as the one relating the events of Pentecost, which are also found exclusively, and only once, in Luke.” Thus the early preaching of the Church is set on the witness of Jesus within two factual events of His life: from the baptism of John “until the day in which he was lifted up away from us” (Acts 1.21-22) and 1^st Timothy 3.16 which gives the “core of worship” as “a sequence which begins when Christ ‘was shown in the flesh’ and ends when he ‘was taken up in glory.’” The Ascension is not only an event but it is “a state.” It is a new beginning. As the Incarnation was an event at the annunciation to Mary, it also continues as a state. Jesus’ state as God and Man in the Person of the Word continues. So, “the Ascension is also a state which declares a new modality of being.” The enunciation of our faith is that Jesus “sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father” (the Council of Rome AD 382). “During Jesus’ lifetime, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, God was man. After the Ascension, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, man was within the Trinity.” And Stephen is the first martyr. That is, he witnesses in his own blood that Jesus is seated in the glory of God. All that we have said is related to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, in her assumption into heaven. The body of Mary shares in the glory of the ascended Christ. She shares as an anticipation of our own resurrection and our sharing in the glory of God corporeally at the last day and in the re-creation of the world in Christ’s final victory. “In this light, the Assumption is not an elegant act of kindness on the part of God for his mother; it is an ontological implication of her having been outside our culture of sin, and a proclamation of what the redemption of our culture will mean for us once restored to the same status.” In sharing with other religions in dialogue, as for example, with the Buddhists, we must maintain the absolute difference in our ontological understanding of what our ultimate state will be. We are not absorbed spiritually into a One so that all duality is lost. The concreteness and particularity of the risen and ascended Jesus, as this particular Man—son-of-man—is in glory. So we too are to be risen in our particularity and concreteness of persons. The mystery of our mysticism is that we are united completely to the Other in love in a sharing in the divine life while always remaining who we are, as Jesus remains who He is. Finally, then, devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the reality of the Heart of Jesus now in glory. Jesus now is in the glory of His ascended humanity. Jesus loves us with all His heart now in the most literal sense. The heart of Jesus is real; it pulsates with divine and human love in the oneness of that Divine Person, the Word who is Jesus. All the Sacred Scripture readings speak of the searching of Jesus for us, the lost sheep. When Jesus speaks of the greater Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise…. Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. When we sit or kneel in silent, silent prayer of the heart, we are one with the ascended Christ, one in the love of His heart. There are some verses in Ephesians which I find connect the heart prayer practice of sitting in the intentionality of love with “the session”—“the sitting”—of Christ in His glory: “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), AND RAISED US UP WITH HIM, AND MADE US SIT WITH HIM IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS….”(Ephesians 2.4-6). Even now! At this moment! And our prayer practice is the simple intentionality of consenting to this state of sharing in the ascended glory of the Son of God. The concreteness of our bodies attentive in quiet prayer is one with the fact of Christ’s ascension and His state of glory at this very moment. The act of our intention of love is one with the love in the heart of Christ. Let our Holy Eucharist be a thanksgiving for this mystery of our humanity sharing now in the glory of the Triune God which is heaven.
For questions, comments or other communication, please contact: William Fredrickson Fredrickson46@msn.com

+Due to continued technical problems, weekday meditations are not available. Friday's meditation is offered.

\
Friday, June 12

The Solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart,
Cycle A
Readings: Deuteronomy 7.6-11; 1 John 4.7-16; Matthew 11. 25-30

The article, “Ascension, Parousia, and the Sacred Heart: Structural Correlations,” by Giorgio Buccellati, appeared in the Spring 1998 edition of Communio which is a theological periodical dedicated to the living tradition of the Catholic Church, exploring the depths of the theology of Von Balthasar, De Lubac, Ratzinger, John Paul II and others.

This meditation is based on the article. The quotes are from the article unless otherwise noted.

The basis of the theology of the Sacred Heart is the real physical presence of the risen Jesus. That presence was manifested in a number of recorded appearances of the risen Jesus to His disciples, and before His final ascension into heaven. After His ascension, the physical presence of Jesus, glorified yet real, continues now in the mystery of heaven: “Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
Quickly in the early Church several visualizations of the physical glory of the ascended Jesus take place. The first is to Stephen the deacon at his trial before his martyrdom. (The second is the appearance of Jesus to Saul on his way to Damascus.)
Stephen bears witness not only to the Name of Jesus as Savior but to the presence of Jesus in the glory of God, sharing in the Glory of God. Stephen saw “God’s Glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.55) and then again, “Behold, I see the heavens open and the son-of-man standing at the right side of God” (Acts 7.56).
Stephen could have said “God validated the ‘message’ of Jesus, causing the person of Jesus to recede in the background in favor of his spiritual or social doctrine.” What fills Stephen with joy, and the members of the Sanhedrin with horror, is the risen humanity of a very concrete Jesus. Jesus, their immediate contemporary, is still perceived as sharing physically in the unimaginable glory of the Ineffable. A claim that would have been considered a blasphemy.”

Think how this truth has an “impact” on the Church. “Jesus chooses to refer to himself as specially human and mortal at the very moment that he projects himself beyond death as resurrected. And Stephen is struck with a vision of Jesus’ risen humanity, a mortal Jesus who shares in God’s glory. … His very specific humanity, sealed by death, and then risen from it, was in some way on a par with the transcendence of the Ineffable.”

Here’s where the concept of “parousia” comes in. The basic meaning of the Greek word, parousia, is presence. Usually parousia is used in the context of Christ’s second coming. But the more basic meaning is that the presence of Jesus is now; and it is so great and omnipotent, that it will endure until the end, when the presence will be made manifest completely throughout creation on the last day. Thus the humanity of Jesus is present because of its being filled with the glory of the Trinity, “seated at the right side of God.”

In this mystery of the ascension, the apostles and the first Christians lived in the mystery of the Trinity without using the theological and philosophical terms the Church would later use to guard the Mystery in its being handing down faithfully throughout the ages. “Their contemporary Jesus, the human-mortal (son-of-man) who was now present and coming in divine glory (the parousia), was ‘sitting at the right sides of the Power’: this was their insight into the Trinity.”

Our faith delivers to us the fact of Jesus’ ascension and His session (His sitting) in the glory of the Triune Godhead. The ascension must not be thought of as a myth, born out of the insight of the Apostles into the resurrection of Jesus as a divine manifestation. No. Jesus is particular and concrete, a fact. So is His death. So is His resurrection. So, too, is His ascension in the reality of His humanity. The Gospel and Acts of Luke, in their account of the ascension, are “intended to be as much of a factual account as the one relating the events of Pentecost, which are also found exclusively, and only once, in Luke.”

Thus the early preaching of the Church is set on the witness of Jesus within two factual events of His life: from the baptism of John “until the day in which he was lifted up away from us” (Acts 1.21-22) and 1^st Timothy 3.16 which gives the “core of worship” as “a sequence which begins when Christ ‘was shown in the flesh’ and ends when he ‘was taken up in glory.’”
The Ascension is not only an event but it is “a state.” It is a new beginning. As the Incarnation was an event at the annunciation to Mary, it also continues as a state. Jesus’ state as God and Man in the Person of the Word continues. So, “the Ascension is also a state which declares a new modality of being.”
The enunciation of our faith is that Jesus “sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father” (the Council of Rome AD 382). “During Jesus’ lifetime, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, God was man. After the Ascension, faith in him entailed the recognition that, in him, man was within the Trinity.” And Stephen is the first martyr. That is, he witnesses in his own blood that Jesus is seated in the glory of God.
All that we have said is related to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, in her assumption into heaven. The body of Mary shares in the glory of the ascended Christ. She shares as an anticipation of our own resurrection and our sharing in the glory of God corporeally at the last day and in the re-creation of the world in Christ’s final victory. “In this light, the Assumption is not an elegant act of kindness on the part of God for his mother; it is an ontological implication of her having been outside our culture of sin, and a proclamation of what the redemption of our culture will mean for us once restored to the same status.”
In sharing with other religions in dialogue, as for example, with the Buddhists, we must maintain the absolute difference in our ontological understanding of what our ultimate state will be. We are not absorbed spiritually into a One so that all duality is lost. The concreteness and particularity of the risen and ascended Jesus, as this particular Man—son-of-man—is in glory. So we too are to be risen in our particularity and concreteness of persons.
The mystery of our mysticism is that we are united completely to the Other in love in a sharing in the divine life while always remaining who we are, as Jesus remains who He is.
Finally, then, devotion to the Sacred Heart is devotion to the reality of the Heart of Jesus now in glory. Jesus now is in the glory of His ascended humanity. Jesus loves us with all His heart now in the most literal sense. The heart of Jesus is real; it pulsates with divine and human love in the oneness of that Divine Person, the Word who is Jesus.
All the Sacred Scripture readings speak of the searching of Jesus for us, the lost sheep. When Jesus speaks of the greater Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise…. Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.
When we sit or kneel in silent, silent prayer of the heart, we are one with the ascended Christ, one in the love of His heart. There are some verses in Ephesians which I find connect the heart prayer practice of sitting in the intentionality of love with “the session”—“the sitting”—of Christ in His glory:
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), AND RAISED US UP WITH HIM, AND MADE US SIT WITH HIM IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST JESUS….”(Ephesians 2.4-6). Even now! At this moment! And our prayer practice is the simple intentionality of consenting to this state of sharing in the ascended glory of the Son of God.
The concreteness of our bodies attentive in quiet prayer is one with the fact of Christ’s ascension and His state of glory at this very moment. The act of our intention of love is one with the love in the heart of Christ. Let our Holy Eucharist be a thanksgiving for this mystery of our humanity sharing now in the glory of the Triune God which is heaven.