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To imitate Jesus is to eradicate evil wherever we find it

Sunday, January 29, 2012, Year B

Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28

The gospels were written after the death and resurrection of Jesus, earth-shaking events to both Jesus and his followers. His death and resurrection forced his followers to view him in a completely different perspective. The prophetic dimension of Jesus' personality began to fade and was replaced by something rarely imagined before Good Friday and Easter Sunday: the divinity of Jesus.
The more the New Testament authors reflected upon Jesus, the more they moved away from his prophetic dimension and began to focus on his divine dimension. Yet one thing is true: during the three years of Jesus' earthly ministry, it was his role as a prophet which most impressed people. When he asked his disciples about how others judged him, most believed that he fit the image of the prophets of times gone by. Those with whom Jesus lived and to whom he preached were Jews and they understood the necessity of having prophets in their midst. Yahweh normally worked through prophets and his will was conveyed to people by prophets positioned among them.
This is why today's Deuteronomy Reading (Dt 18,15-20) is so significant. We usually think of Moses as a leader and liberator, but the community he led to freedom from slavery would also emphasize his prophetic ministry. Like all prophets, he was their conscience: the person who pointed out the future implications of their present actions. Without prophets, they would wander aimlessly through life, uncertain of the direction Yahweh wanted them to go. As Moses is dying, they are no longer worried about freedom. Moses had been Yahweh's agent in achieving their liberation and he completed this task. However, they would miss his prophetic input in their daily lives. Because of Moses’ imminent death, they could only fall back on Yahweh's promise: "I shall...raise up for you a prophet like (Moses) from among your kin, and put my words in his mouth ...." (Dt 18,15). In other words, God would always provide prophets amongng their communities. No wonder Jesus' first disciples often reflected on this passage for it helped them to figure out the role Jesus played in their lives.
Their original emphasis on prophecy seems to be one of the reasons why Mark chose exorcism as Jesus' first miracle (Mark 1,21-28). As with the other three gospels, the first miracle sets the evangelist's theme for his work. Mark believes Jesus' followers should imitate him and presents to the way we are to carry on Jesus' prophetic ministry. This is symbolized by Mark's story of how Jesus gets rid of the evil demon which controls the man in the Capernaum synagogue. Though it's impossible to imitate the divinity of Jesus, one thing is true: when we eradicate evil wherever we find it, we are to carry on Jesus’ prophetic ministry.
Even Paul appears to be emphasize the prophetic dimension of Jesus in his letter to the community in Corinth as being "anxious about the things of the Lord." (1Cor 7,32-35). This passage in a new translation is as follows: “I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you're unmarried, you're free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I'm trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions” (1Cor 7, 32-35, translation: The Message). Paul believes nothing should hold us back from leading our life in the direction of Jesus and he advises people not marry; marriage is a distraction from pursuing good. He presumes that Jesus will quickly return in what is called the Parousia. This Parousia, the coming of Christ, is something few of us presume today. As a good Jew, Paul thought no one should live a long, natural life and not be married. But at this point in his ministry, he simply didn't think anyone would live a long, natural life. No matter his beliefs, in verse 35 he still reminds his readers that not-marrying because of the imminent Parousia is simply a suggestion, not a command.
To summarize, “All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions” (1Cor 7,35). Am important aspect for our faith is Jesus' message: give food to the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, help the sick and visit those in prison – and eradicate evil wherever you can. That's what we are invited to do as friends of Jesus.

cf. www.dignityusa.org/node/774

God doesn't have to be faithful to God's word, as long as God is faithful to God's people

Sunday, January 22, 2012, Year B

Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 ; I Corinthians 7:29-31 ; Mark 1:14-20

In the text from the letter of St Paul to the community in Corinth, it's clear that early Christians felt called to turn the world upside-down. Paul states:“From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away" (1 Cor 7 29-31). The Apostle could easily have added, "And we Christians are the ones speeding up its passing."

Why did the followers of Jesus think they were responsible for the end of the world as they knew it? A clue is found in the passage of today’s gospel (Mark 1,14-20) and the story of Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Did Jesus call them to become priests of a new religion? Certainly not! It is clear for biblical scholars that Jesus called no one to be a priest, at least not as we know priesthood today, an institutionalized religion. For Mark, Jesus is calling his first four Christians.

It is a call for all followers of Jesus to reflect upon. We have all received this call. The evangelist emphasizes the immediate response of the men: “At once they left their nets and followed Jesus… Without delay they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Jesus.” None of them said, "Check back with me next week; I'm a little busy right now." Nor did any agree to follow him part-time, returning to their boats regularly to still help their father and friends. The separation to their former life became instant and complete.

But two other aspects in the passage stand out. First, people, not fish, were at the center of their lives. This would change the world. "I will make you fishers of people. I will send you out to fish for people" (Mark 1,17). Neither their jobs nor family attachments were to stand in their way of properly relating with other human beings. Second, they left job security and family attachments for the sake of a person - not for an ideal world or a new system of action - but for a real live person. They simply "...followed him." They couldn't be certain where he was leading them; this only become clear through time.

In the book of the prophet Jonah, the author emphatically agrees with Mark's call theology and is called by his God,Yahweh, to bring God’s message to the town of Nineveh. Jonah is a “runaway prophet”. He has a problem following Yahweh, the person.

In the book of Jonah, almost every living being repents: the storm-tossed sailors, the residents of Nineveh and their animals - even Yahweh repents! The book's only unrepentant individual is Jonah. The prophet is furious because Yahweh doesn't carry through with his promise to destroy the city of Nineveh and its inhabitants. Jonah is still angry when the book ends.He reminds God that he was sent to preach destruction, not repentance. He defends his running away to Tarsish by saying that he suspected Yahweh would end up changing his mind. He refuses to prophesy for such a God who is willing to repent, who is willing to change his mind. He represents someone who lives for a concept of God, but not for the person of God.

When I prepared this homily, I found a very beautiful sentence that explains Yahweh's repentance: "God doesn't have to be faithful to God's word, as long as God is faithful to God's people." This is certainly something we can use to meditate in our faith. Jesus is a person who puts people at the center of his existence. Those who have enough courage to imitate such a person can certainly turn the world upside-down.

cf: http://www.dignityusa.org/breath/201201

God has also let the Gentiles be part of the same body

Sunday, January 8, 2012, Year B

Paul, in his letter to the community in Ephesus, says: "...Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, and co-partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." In a more modern translation, it states: “Because of Christ Jesus, the good news has given the Gentiles a share in the promises that God gave to the Jews. God has also let the Gentiles be part of the same body” (Eph 3,5). One no longer is required to be a Jew in order to convert to Christianity. And this is where Matthew's Magi come in the picture. The men are pagan, uncircumcised, Gentile astrologers who travel many miles to find "the newborn king of the Jews." The Magi travel great distances, while Herod and his court, knowledgeable of Jewish Scripture, refuse to go the relatively short distance between Jerusalem and Bethlehem to find the child. The Magi reach their destination by following a star: a practice forbidden by Jews under the pain of death! Matthew's message is clear: God works through people who are at times under restrictive means. Those who truly follow Jesus must constantly go beyond their limits in order to discover God in their everyday lives.

There is just one last point: the myrrh. It is an oil frequently employed to anoint dead bodies. It is Matthew's way of reminding his readers that those who follow Jesus must be prepared to die – just like even the child Jesus must be prepared to die. Perhaps we must die every day a bit, renounce our prejudices, leave our old ways – and so we may permit God to break through the restrictions we have imposed on her.

cf http://www.dignityusa.org/breath/january-8-2012-epiphany

Christmas - a feast of relationships

Sunday, December 25, 2011, Year B

I don’t know how you feel about social networks, facebook, google plus, twitter, I don’t know if you work or play with an iPod or an iPad or Android. Skype allows us to talk to anyone on the planet for nothing. It seems that we want to join others and that we want to be able to be joined by others. All this shows our longing for contact and relation.

This point of view of “relationships” plays a role on Christmas also in a different respect. On Christmas we make and receive presents on a scale that does not occur for the rest of the year. By giving presents we show our appreciation. They keep relationships alive.

Another aspect is that most of us try to spend Christmas at home, with our families. We try to spend at least some hours with people who are dear to us. There is this wish for peace and harmony, at least in the family – we all know that this often does not happen, that conflicts arise on Christmas Eve.

What I wanted to show is that Christmas is a feast of relationships, or at least a feast of a longing for relationships.

We just heard the beginning of the gospel according to John. Other evangelists put the story of the birth of Jesus in the first chapter of their gospel. The first chapter in John’s gospel is about relations: the relation between God and humanity. God himself comes down from heaven and is on the same level with humanity. A new basis for the relationship between God and humanity is created.

God who is Spirit, logos, becomes a human being, blends with humanity, and becomes one of us. God who is intangible allows human beings to touch him, to grasp and grab him.

So let us come back to this hymn John wrote in the beginning of his gospel. God tried to have a relationship with us – but he does not really succeed: “He came into his own world, but his own people did not welcome him.” (John 1,11).

If you wish to have a relationship this does not mean that the relationship succeeds. We all know this – and maybe especially on Christmas time: The happy family feast ends up in a family quarrel. So wishing a relationship does not create a relationship. The two sides need to approach each other.

God does approach humanity. He makes the first step. He takes the risk of being rejected.
To start a relationship you need to be prepared to run a risk. And the two need to meet on equal ground. Thus God becomes a human person. Once you are in a relationship, you are bound to the other; you have kind of surrendered to the other. Christmas might help us to make a step further: not only to long for a relationship, but to start a real relationship.

Yes, presents can help for this. But more important is to take time for the other, to approach each other, to start something, to get involved with someone. The holidays we have might be a good chance for this: we do have time which we can dedicate to one another.

This is the human level. But on Christmas we should also be aware that God took the initiative and approached us. He approached us in order to have a relationship with us. He has waiting for our answer ever since. We need to cultivate this relationship – otherwise it might get stuck in vague religious feelings. God approaches us, so that we can have a relationship with him.

What can we expect from a relationship with God? John describes this with the words “life, light, grace”. A bit abstract, a bit clumsy theologically, isn’t it? But we can ask ourselves how we would describe inner-human relations. Aren’t we also clumsy and maladroit? In a relationship we start living, everything seems bright and serene, such a relationship is a present, is an indescribable and incomprehensible gift.
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So this leads me to my wish for you: I wish you happy experiences of human relationships, I wish you the courage to deepen them so that they carry you when times get harder.

And I also wish you to be able to accept God’s offer of a relationship with him. That you be able to deepen your relationship with God and that you experience the joy and happiness that comes with a deep relationship to God.

Cf:http://www.redemptoristen.com/uploads/tx_predigtforumarchiv/bwt_pred.rtf

Change of Seasons

Sunday, December 11, 2011, Year B

This year, the change of the seasons was difficult to discern – were we still in autumn or was it already winter? According to the season and to the weather we dress ourselves. So we need to analyze the weather in order to see what clothing is necessary.

Maybe similarly to analyzing the weather, we may need to analyze our soul. What does my interior look like? If we have to adopt our clothing to the weather, maybe we also have to adopt our life to our soul: What do I need? Do I have to change something to be more in harmony with myself? What gives me joy and pleasure? What is good for me?

The third Sunday of Advent was called “Gaudete” – “Rejoice!” The liturgical color would have been rose-pink. Rose-pink is chosen for the “Gaudete”-Sunday in order to give more light, more joyfulness to the time of advent.

We call God’s presence upon us and ask for God’s encouragement and strength for our lives.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

St Paul: Recognize gifts in a community and integrate them!

Sunday, November 27, 2011, Year B

In today’s readings, there is one very important line which we often overlook. In the 1st letter to the community in Corinth, Paul writes something very beautiful and important: "... You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor 1 8)
Paul presumes his readers understand what he means by "spiritual gifts". But for those of us who aren't accustomed to his terminology, we have to turn to a different chapter of this letter to see some of them listed: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, and so forth.
Paul, as always, presumes each Christian community has been blessed with sufficient spiritual gifts to make it viable. Once its members commit themselves to imitate Jesus' dying and rising, the gifts come.
The problem Paul encounters isn't that his communities don't have sufficient gifts to carry on the ministry of the risen Jesus. The problem Paul encounters is that certain individuals don't recognize those gifts, that certain individuals do not know how to integrate gifts into the life of the community. Paul spends lots of time addressing those two topics: recognize gifts and integrate them.
The authors of the biblical books frequently warn their readers always to do what God wants them to do. As Isaiah says in today's first reading, it's easy to do "religious and good things" but still not to carry out God's will (Is 63) – “All our good deeds are like polluted rags” (Is 63 6).
No matter what we do in the name of our religion, if it isn't God's will, it's totally wasted.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons that in Mark's gospel Jesus warns his community, "Be watchful! Be alert!" (Mark 13 33) and "What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!" (Mark 13 37). We are invited to look out for the risen Jesus who wants to enter into our lives. Only those who are alert to that presence will be able to see it. In the same way, God's will comes gently into our daily lives - usually it isn't something which hits us over the head. Those who aren't anticipating that will never seem to notice it. Paul has a parallel insight about the Spirit's gifts: unless we're expecting them, we'll never notice them.
And here I would like draw the picture of leaders in communities, communities like All Saints. The number one gift a leader is expected to have is the gift of surfacing and integrating the gifts of everyone else in the community. In other words:
- a leader must be one of the most alert persons in the community
- a leader has an obligation to cut through all the prejudices and limitations which we face
- a leader has to overcome the prejudices which our culture and traditions impose on God's actions in our lives
- a leader has to point out how God is constantly blessing us with the gifts of the Spirit.
I am convinced that this must be a guiding motive for the newly elected mission and community councils.
Knowing Paul's theology about spiritual gifts, I wonder what Paul would say about our practice of "praying for vocations", or our complaining that we do not have enough people to run activities in the community. We pray for vocations because we don’t see them.
An image I found for this is the following sentence: "Sometimes we find ourselves praying for rain, standing in a downpour with an umbrella over our heads. Maybe we should simply pray for enough courage to fold up the umbrella."
The time of Advent is a time when we are called to be alert, called to discern God’s presence in our lives, a time when we are called to find the courage to fold up the umbrella so that we see the love, the life, the talents pouring down in our lives and in the lives of others. Amen

cf http://www.dignityusa.org/breath/

Christ the King

Sunday, November 20, 2011, Year A

When it comes to the structure of the Church, we often hear “the Church is not a democracy”! But in church history, we find something different. There was a certain pope Leo the Great in the 5th century. And he had said: "The one who governs all must be chosen by all."
Today's gospel passage has important implications in this respect. In the beginning of Christi-anity, people lived in tightly structured, hierarchical societies. Then Christianity appeared. It was a religious movement which insisted on the equality and dignity of all its members. To say the least, early Christianity was counterculture; it criticized the societies in which it imple-mented itself.
The first Christian communities were attractive for many reasons. People often converted to this new religion because of the importance given to each individual. This importance was giv-en to each individual of the community when he or she committed themselves to imitating the death and rising of Jesus. They themselves became "other Christs," they became equal mem-bers of the communities to which they belonged.
Long before Jesus, the classic Hebrew prophets also condemned anyone who treated others with disdain. And they criticized leaders – especially political and religious ones. Let us take the passage of Ezekiel we just heard (Ez 34,11-12.15-17). We hear about people crushed down by unfeeling leaders. To them the prophet promises that one day Yahweh will break into their oppressed lives, he promises that one day Yahweh actually will "shepherd" them: “I will look for my sheep and take care of them myself, just as a shepherd looks for lost sheep. I promise to take care of them and keep them safe, to look for those that are lost and bring back the ones that wander off, to bandage those that are hurt and protect the ones that are weak. Because I am a shepherd who does what is right.”
Paul carries God's promise to care for all one step further (1 Cor 15,20-26.28). He reminds his Corinthian community that whatever happened to the risen Jesus will happen to them. If Jesus died, they will die; if Jesus rose, they will rise. In our paragraph, Paul first takes us back to Ge-nesis: "For just as in Adam all die ..." but then he quickly moves to the present: "... so too in Christ shall all be brought to life. But we must each wait our turn. Christ was the first to be raised to life, and his people will be raised to life when he returns." The end result is that "God will be all in all! God will rule completely over all."
Today's gospel passage (Mt 25,31-46) is quite well known. Mathew presents us Jesus as some-one who is concerned that his followers recognize his presence in all those around them, espe-cially in those most in need. The message is: it's precisely when we reach out to the needy that we're reaching out to the risen Jesus: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers or sisters of mine, you did for me!" or “Whenever you did something for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”
We usually have little pity for the "goats" in today's gospel. The “goats” "go off to eternal pun-ishment". Why? Because they refuse to see the risen Jesus in the needy around them. Our in-ability to do what Jesus expects of all Christians might be the biggest "need" we Catholics have here and today.
As I said in the beginning: “The first Christian communities were attractive for many reasons. People often converted to this new religion because of the importance given to each individ-ual.” Why can't we again become what we once were?

Cf www.dignityusa.org/breath/

Love and Justice (Mt 22, 34-40)

Sunday, October 23, 2011, Year A

I would like to begin with two examples in order to illustrate today's gospel
(Mt 22 34-40).

Example one. There was a man who went on a walk in his neighborhood. As he reached the crosswalk, the traffic light switches from green to red and he stops. Meanwhile, on the other side of the crosswalk, there is a woman with a heavy paper shopping bag walking towards him over the red light. Suddenly, the shopping bag breaks and all the goods are scattered on the street. The woman tries to gather her things as quickly as possible and shouts to the man for help. The man does not react and says: “When the light is red, you should not cross the street. This is the rule.” After the woman finally gathers her things, she runs to the sidewalk and casts an angry stare as she passes the man. The man does not understand why the woman is angry at him since he was only following the rules.

Example two. The man continues his walk and meets a friend. The friend asks him to keep his wife's birthday present for a few days because it is a surprise. The man accepts, however, when he is asked to lie about the present he refuses. He says, “Never! you cannot ask me to lie; lies are against the ten commandments; no, never shall I do such a thing.” He then leaves filled with indignation.

Now we all may say that the man has acted wrongly. But why? He only stuck to rules and the Commandments: Do not cross the street with the traffic light red, and Do not lie. So why did he do something wrong? We probably all know similar situations when we have to choose between keeping the rules or putting a person's well being as a priority. Today's Gospel shows us how to react in such situations. Jesus puts an emphasis on the commandment of Love thy neighbor. The man in the story lacks love of neighbor. Rules that exclude love of neighbor imprison humanity. The love of law may be a praiseworthy quality, but we can only truly love another human being. The love of law is of extreme importance for an orderly society, but it must never go so far that it causes another human being to fail.

In this respect, Christians are invited to cast a critical eye on the events happening in our nations, economies and Church. How do our nations, economies and Church treat people? How do they treat those who are different because of their culture, traditions, religious affiliation or orientation? God shows us in Jesus Christ how far love can go. Jesus dies on the cross; but in his death out of love for humankind lies the germ of the resurrection. God became a human being, and by becoming a human being, God unambiguously put his love above justice, more precisely: Love is the justice of God. We celebrate God's justice every Sunday in the Eucharist.

Let us ask God to open our hearts, so that we can learn the following: That as loving human beings we are able to approach others with love and therefore we approach God's love as well.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

“Are you envious because I am generous?" (Mt 20,15)

Sunday Sep 18, 2011, Year A

Some words about the gospel (Mt 20,1-16a - Workers in a vineyard).
Unemployment is not a strictly modern phenomenon. In Jesus' day those who had no regular work went to the village marketplace every morning. There they hoped to find a day's labor in some field or vineyard. It was a buyer's market – those who wanted to employ workers could choose. And day laborers had to work for whatever they were given. The basic argument of Jesus' story, then, was as familiar to his first hearers as it is to us today.
But Jesus wants to tell a different story: The logic of human justice requires that those who work a full day receive a full day's wage and those who work one hour receive one hour's pay.
It is not so in the kingdom of God. Those who have labored in the ways of righteousness from early morning receive their full reward – that is OK for us. But the prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners who arrive at the eleventh hour receive no less – they also receive their full reward.
The laws of human justice are practicable under ordinary circumstances – 1 hour work 1 hour pay, 12 hours work 12 hours pay. But these laws of human justice are too narrow to contain the always astonishing and unexpected love of God. This is what the prophet Isaiah suggests when he says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways” (Is 55,8).
And here I see the link to the visit of Pope Benedict to Berlin: the Church is the servant of the kingdom of God, and the Church is bound by the laws of the kingdom, not by the way human law, human justice binds people. We are commanded to invite to sup-per not only those who have earned a place by their long fidelity – that they are in-vited is clear.
But we are also commanded to invite all those who have “just arrived at the gate.” The good and the respectable and the pious and the just – they may grumble a bit to find themselves cheek-by-jowl at the Lord's table with sinners. They don’t like to be with these people “auf Tuchfühlung” as we say in German. But the host in the gospel asks, "I am free to do as I please ... am I not? Or are you envious because I am generous?"
I would like to pray that the Church not only invites the good and the respectable and the pious and the just, - this is human justice. I would like to pray that our Church is open to practice God’s justice, a justice that cannot be contained by our human thoughts, our human laws and their application. A justice that is not so much the fruit of a legal-istic thinking but the fruit of an astonishing and unexpected love we are all offered by our loving God who time and again astonishes and surprises us with his total generos-ity.

(Cf. Lectionary reflections by Fr. John Bucki sj, www.educationforjustice.org)

Jeremiah and his quarrel with God

Sunday Aug 28, 2011, Year A

I like the prophet Jeremiah. Although I would not like to be in his situation, I am im-pressed by how openly he speaks to God.

Jeremiah is enticed by God to spread the message in good faith. But now he is in a jam –the more he spreads God's message, the more he is ridiculed and mocked by his compatriots. When God does not react to his dilemma, he begins to ques-tion God: Where is God? Where is the support he so firmly relied upon this time of need? Jeremiah is bitterly disappointed with God and addresses this with Him head on.

He says: “You took advantage of my willingness, of my lack of experience, of my stu-pidity. You have duped me, enticed me. I fell for you when I said “Yes” to your command. Not in the least had I ever had cast an eye on the prophet's office. You have talked me into taking it. I accepted because I had believed in your strength, in your power and I had trusted in the fact that you help me and stand by my side. I have been taken in with you. You abandoned me. I am laughed at and mocked. I have become an outsider, an out-cast. You got me into all of this, God. I have become a victim of my obedience towards you.”

Jeremiah “has what it takes” to confront God. Although he feels abandoned by God, he still has the courage to tell Him how he feels without nagging or screaming. Jeremiah does not grumble hidden in a corner, he does not arouse others against God nor does he take revenge by executing God's order carelessly. In-stead, he reproaches God with an enumeration of objective points. As if “man to man,” Jeremiah challenges the one he holds responsible for his unfortunate situa-tion: God.

I admire that Jeremiah takes God's mission seriously– he does not sneak away be-cause he feels overburdened; Jeremiah stands by God when God does not want to know how the powerful exploit the weak and when God gets angry about the powerful not following God's orders or respecting their fellow human beings. Je-remiah must appeal to the conscience of the unjust; they must be stopped. Jere-miah is ready to take on this task and to say “Yes” to God's order.

But then the unexpected happens: Jeremiah, who is prepared to commit his life to God, feels abandoned by Him. Not only does he suffer failures, but he is con-fronted with suspicion and ungratefulness. Those who commit their lives to God often face misfortune. So I admire how openly he communicates with God – in spite of his own misfortune and failure. Jeremiah is certain that he can interact with God and to confront Him.

I invite you to see the faith and trust that is behind Jeremiah. It is not presumptuous nor arrogant, but fair. Jeremiah does not look for allies among the enemies of God; he does not incite others to protest or ridicule God, he does not put God aside. Jeremiah knows that people cannot live without God in their life and that the happiness of his wealthy and powerful contemporaries does not last forever. Therefore, Jeremiah's quarrel with God shows that he takes God and His mission seriously.

What is important is the fact that from the outside, nothing has changed: Jeremiah does not have any success. But from the inside, from the point of view of the rela-tion between God and Jeremiah, the quarrel assured him that he could speak to God openly without being repudiated. Indeed, Jeremiah can be a model for our relationship with God. Although Jeremiah does not always understand God’s ways, he remains open to accepting God's mission.

God sometimes knocks on our door and invites us to take on situations of distress or disaster. Will we say “Yes” to God when He asks us to take on issues affecting the world we were given or those living on it? We therefore need to decide if we will say “Yes” to God's mission without understanding His call or without Him answer-ing our own personal requests. When deciding how to answer God's call, we should use Jeremiah as a role model.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The Holy Trinity is a model for a relationship of love and respect

June 19, 2011, Holy Trinity, Year A

Today, on Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the wonder of relationships including our relationship with God. God as the Trinity reminds us that we are "all connected" as a community of faith, hope and love. We want to become a community that brings both rich and poor together to bring forth justice in the world. We have been created with the desire for mutual and loving relationships. We are invited to work together to form healthy relationships of mutual respect and collaboration which lead toward justice and peace between individuals, nations and groups. In some ways, today's scriptures are stories of discovery: the discovery of God, who he is, what he is like and what he offers to us.

1st reading [Exodus]

On the mountain, Moses finds a God with whom he can converse and walk with in a familiar way. Moses asks this God to journey with all the people. Again and again, in the scriptures we discover a God of relationship. God is more than “totally the other”. We discover a God who travels with us and the whole community. Our God is a social God -- a God who is concerned with our world and its people.

2nd reading [2 Corinthians]

The second reading reminds us that the relationship that exists within God also mirrors the relationship that should exist within us as a human community. This relationship within God – which we call the “trinity” --is a mutual relationship of support, love and respect. We are invited to imitate this relationship. In the 1920s, the theologian Erik Peterson (1890-1960) said that the Trinity was a model for democracy and that modern Western democracies could only function with the theological concept of trinity. He also stated that strict monotheism lead to dictatorship, tyranny and totalitarianism.

Gospel [John 3 16-18]

Jesus reminds us in the gospel that God travels with us not to condemn us but to love us– God travels with us to help all of us. Our teaching about God and the great mystery of God is a social teaching. God is a social being and so are we. Any good theology of God has social implications which call us to social values. Our religious faith involves a community of mutual support and discovery and a set of values that we share in common that call us to share with each other. Therefore, we are concerned with the issues of the world and everyday life, justice and peace and the common good. We have hope in the midst of all the problems and challenges of the world. This is how the trinity is a model for how we live, how we love and how we change the world.
(for the whole text cf. http://www.educationforjustice.org/node/1866 - Fr. John Bucki SJ)http://www.educationforjustice.org/node/1866.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The Spirit of discernment favors unity in diversity

June 12, 2011, Pentecost, Year A

Pentecost is the feast of the Church. It is not as popular as Christmas nor Easter for it offers nothing that we can touch or marvel at; there are no presents, fir trees nor egg hunts yet it is full of images: fire, storm, water – all symbols of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost links the Church to its mission: “Go out and make God’s spirit visible and touchable among your fellow human beings!” It makes God’s spirit visible through loving God, oneself, our neighbors and even our enemies. The mission is to develop enthusiasm within the church in order to spread God's faith among all people. As the coronation of Easter, it helps us cope with diversity by avoiding the simplification that leads to uniformity.
The first disciples, both male and female, were shaken by the Holy Spirit. For the young Christian community, it was a confirmation that they were following the right path not only in the sense of a “sacrament”, but as an “evidence” by the Holy Spirit. Whomever left their locked room and ventured past his or her comfort zones may have felt vulnerable, even assailable. Thus the confirmation brought great joy and energy for the early Christiaans to move ahead. This joyous energy, however, cannot be confined behind closed doors, it needs open spaces and,at times, silent moments to recharge the inner spirit.
Discernment, a gift of the Spirit, helps us to differentiate between the Spirit that comes from God versus other sources. God's Spirit helps us to deal with plurality and diversity by avoiding simplification, uniformity and indoctrination. The Spirit that comes from God helps us to live as a unity in diversity – within our Church, our family, society and nation. When we look around us– do we see the Spirit at work? Is it a spirit that favors unity in diversity or rather a sprit that favors uniformity?
To remain open for discernment is not an easy task. It is easier for us to rely on prejudices and to judge others by applying broad assumption than to open ourselves to change. Discernment starts by saying “no” to what has been taught and indoctrinated over centuries. Discernment starts with the courage to speak up against hypocrisy, even within the Church. Discernment starts with the courage to think for yourself, to put oneself in the position of others and to speak each other's language in order to better understand one other.
Pentecost did not result in a homogeneous language for all Christians– on the contrary, Christian understood the Spirit in his or her own unique language. This ties into the new English translation of the missal which will be used starting November 2011. The new translation is a single, identical English translation for all English speakers of the whole world in the eleven national bishops’ conferences and the fifteen associate –member conferences present in ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy). This translation is close to the original Latin missal and there using it will require quite an effort for those in front and behind the altar; prayers will be spoken and pronounced correctly with difficulty.Why is the new translation so close to the original Latin text that it almost loses its English character? It is due to the fact that the new English translation serves as a reference for the translation of many less commonly spoken languages. Discernment in the spirit of God might have led to a different result.
Unity yes, uniformity no! The Holy Spirit taught the friends of Jesus to conquer the fear of diversity by speaking in each other's languages and remaining open to plurality.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

June 5, 2011, 7th Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Paschal Mystery is composed of four inter-related components: the suffering and death; the resurrection; the ascension; and the sending of the Spirit. The resurrection states that the crucified Jesus is alive and the ascension proclaims that the risen and living Jesus has entered into close communion with his father thus opening the door to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The feast of the Ascension does not commemorate a departure, but rather celebrates the living and lasting presence of Jesus in his Church. The following short story illustrates the relationship between God's presence and absence.

Years ago, a fishing fleet went out from a small harbor on the east coast of Newfoundland. In the afternoon there came a great storm. When night settled down, not a single vessel of all the fleet had found its way into the port. All night long, wives, mothers, children and sweethearts paced up and down the beach, wringing their hands and calling on God to save their loved ones. To add to the horror of the situation, one of the cottages caught fire. Since the men were all away, it was impossible to save the home. When the morning broke, to the joy of all, the entire fleet found safe harbor in the bay. But there was one face with a picture of despair – the wife of the man whose home had been destroyed. Meeting her husband as he landed, she cried “Oh, husband, we are ruined. Our home and all it contained was destroyed by fire.” But the man exclaimed, “Thank God for the fire. It was the light of our burning cottage that guided the whole fleet into port." (Fr. Eugene Lobo, SJ, http:msjnov.wordpress.com)

The interplay between presence and absence may not be understood at the beginning of the story, but as the story progresses, the presence of the Spirit becomes clear similar to the history of humanity and the Church.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope

May 29, 2011, 6th Sunday of Easter, Year A

This is what we are told in the second reading from the first letter of Saint Peter. This is not only an encouragement, but a high expectation demanded of the early Christians of this time by the author of this letter. The letter is addressed to the Christians of the end of the 1st century who were living in a non–Christian environment and therefore regarded with suspicion because of their beliefs. Despite the religious discrimination, the author encourages Christians to be true to their faith in Jesus without the need to defend themselves or be pretentious because the reproach against them is not justified. He encourages Christians to remain calm and serene.

The author demands for Christians to justify their faith not only by words, but by their way of life. Don't we also live in a non-Christian environment today? Don't we also receive questions like: “Why do you go to church on Sunday? Isn't your church old, boring and dusty? Isn't your church narrow-minded and unwilling to adapt to the times? Doesn't your church forbid too many things? Where is the joy of belonging to the church? Where is the joy of your faith?” And finally: “Well, if you feel the need “to belong to the church”, that might be fine for you – but as for me…”

The Christian faith should be visible. When questioned about their beliefs, Christians are expected to live according to their faith by showing the joy and difference that faith makes in their lives. Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher, states: „Me too, I would believe, if the Christians would only look more redeemed.” This is a strong encouragement for us to accept the gift of faith, of God’s nearness and love for us and the world. If we are attentive to see signs and traces of His love, we need not worry about how to explain our faith to others; we can speak about how it lives in us, how it strengthens and encourages us, and how it consoles us without needing to quote dogmas or truths written in books.

People who know us may see how our faith strengthens us and, as a result, they may express interest in our faith. Let us transmit God's love for us to those who need a sign of encouragement in their lives: “So I pray that God, who gives you hope, will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him. May you overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 15, 13)

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Auf Wiedersehen, Father Mertes...

Life in Abundance
(John 10:1-10)

May 15, 2011, 4th Sunday of Easter, Year A

Two sentences of today’s gospel are present to me: “Jesus told the people this story. But they did not understand what he was talking about” and “I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest”, have life “abundantly”.
Are we acquainted with the image of the shepherd and of the sheep? Do we understand what Jesus wanted to say? It’s about “life”, food and security. In the time of Jesus, the images for this were the sheep and the shepherd, the sheep looking for food and shelter and the shepherd protecting them from thieves and wild animals. We do have similar experiences, but we have other images, probably more complex and more varied. For us today, we may say that we as human beings depend on others when it comes to our lives. This interdependence is nothing new, but we speak of it in a different way than Jesus did.
Jesus promises us “life in abundance”. This is more than just more food and more security. Life in abundance has to do with our relationship with Him and our relationship with others. We depend on others – and the bible text illustrates this when it speaks of the sheep, of the shepherd, of thieves and of people destroying what belongs to others.
We depend on others – so we have a responsibility for one another. We are responsible for the lives of others, for their dignity and welfare. Indeed, our Christian faith is political – because the main topic of politics is life, or at least should be “life” with dignity for all.
As Christians we can never distance ourselves from politics. The Church as such is also always political. This text in John's gospel is political. It deals with our responsibility for each other.
There is moreover a religious dimension to this text. The religious leaders want to influence the lives of others. They want to give others rules, directions and laws and they judge others. Here Jesus opposes them fundamentally.
Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14, 6). So Jesus, not the religious leaders, is the one who offers the way to the Father.
I would like to invite you to reflect upon some questions the text poses to us as individuals and as a community. What responsibility do I, do we, have for the lives of others? How do I see my role: am I more like an open door or do I send others away? Am I a door for others and towards life, a door to God or am I like a thief, only taking and never giving? What does my longing for life, for life here in this world and for life beyond this world, have to do with Jesus and with my faith?
A part of the answer is that which we do together at this Eucharist: sharing bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood, at this meal for the goal of becoming one body.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Thomas discovers that Jesus is resurrected
(John 20:19-31)

May 1, 2011, 2nd Sunday of Easter, Year A

Let us look at Thomas who is so shaken by the brutal death of his friend Jesus on Good Friday that he is not able to react to when his friends tell him that Jesus is alive. Thomas does not believe his friends; he doesn’t trust them.

Do we always believe that Jesus is alive and among us? That he is an active member of our world?

Our own painful life experiences can often cast a shadow on Jesus' presence in our lives. We fail to see him because our negative experiences overshadow the written word about Jesus' resurrection causing his presence among us to appear implausible. Words are often too weak to overcome our doubts, fears and negative experiences – and so Thomas requests a sign that will contradict his bad experiences.

Thomas wants to believe that Jesus is present in his life. He asks for a sign,“First, I must see the nail scars in his hands and touch them with my finger. I must put my hand where the spear went into his side. I won't believe unless I do this!”

Jesus grants his request and gives him proof. Thomas proclaims: “You are my Lord and my God!”

Similar to Thomas, we ask for sign of Jesus' presence in our lives. We ask for positive experiences – experiences that assure us of his presence. What is amazing about this story is the fact that God understands Thomas' need for signs and is willing to satisfy it.

Yes, we too need signs. Thomas' story invites us to search for the signs of Jesus' presence in our lives and in the history of the Church, societies and nations. He is present and he is active. These signs can be ambiguous, unexpected and surprising, but hint at the role of Jesus in our lives.

Signs, not proof! Signs are often ambiguous and need interpretation. A believer can interpret a sign in order to facilitate his or her faith, but cannot be forced to believe. The story of Thomas ends with the following words: “The people who have faith in me without seeing me are the ones who are really blessed!”

We are invited to believe the witnesses of the resurrection, we are invited to discover signs about the resurrection, signs that show us that Jesus is alive. Discover God in all things – as the founder of my order Ignatius of Loyola once said. Discover God’s traces and activities in all things so you too may experience Jesus' proclamation: “The people who have faith in me without seeing me are the ones who are really blessed!”

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Mary Magdalene turns around to experience Easter
(John 20:1-9)

April 24, 2011, Easter, Year A


I would like to invite you to accompany Mary Magdalene in her loneliness as she goes to the tomb of Jesus – alone.

Mary Magdalene should not be alone – not on a day like this. Try to imagine what she is feeling as she recalls past events, her deep disappointment and loss of hope as she stands in front of the tomb. She is feeling alone and abandoned. To her, this warm, sunny morning near Jerusalem is a dark, cold night shadowed by disillusion, buried promises and lonliness. Or perhaps her head is simply empty with grief and she is not able to perceive her surroundings? The stone of the tomb has been removed, the very stone that marks the border between the dead and the living and places such heavy burden on so many hearts. Mary remains outside and looks into the empty tomb. “Where have they put the dead body of Jesus?” She looks around, she turns around. Was there a noise behind her back? She sees the gardener; she recognizes Jesus.

I would like to focus on the fact that Mary Magdalene turns around. She is doing something: she is being active. Easter is when we turn around. If we do not turn around, we only see the tomb and death. If we fail to see the risen Lord, we cannot meet life. Mary Magdalene turns around and faces life. Death no longer has power over her heart and her thoughts; she is set free. When she changes the direction of her sight and her houghts, she can see new life.

This is Easter – turn your eyes away from the tomb stone and the empty tomb to meet the living Jesus and life anew. There is no use in scrutinizing the stone – the stone will never tell us about life. But if we turn around, we no longer see the stone, we see Jesus with new life waiting for us.

Although we have accompanied Mary Magdalene in her lonliness – the truth is that Mary Magdalene has taken us with her. She has brought us to the garden and the gardener. She has taught us that by turning, we can encounter life by meeting Jesus who, by overcoming death, has made our fears, guilt and resignation disappear. In him, we meet a new creation. Mary Magdalene is to bring the message to the disciples – the male disciples who did not know much, nor understand much – certainly less than Mary Magdalene. She is to bring the message of life made anew to all of us.

Let us remain a few moments with Mary Magdalene and experience her emotions. These may tell us more about Easter than words could ever explain.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Come out from the Narrowness of your Grave (John 11)

April 10, 2011, Year A

You may remember last week’s Gospel about a blind man who was healed and the disciples who ask Jesus, "Why was he blind? Why is there illness, suffering and invalidity?" Jesus does not give an answer yet he announces that God loved all his children. Today, we address: "Why is there illness and suffering and invalidity? Why is there death? Why does God let people like Lazarus die? Why are we subject to dying and death?"

Jesus was moved by the death of his friend Lazarus. According to the Gospel, Jesus was “distressed and deeply troubled” and “he was crying”. Distressed, troubled, crying- it is seldom that the Gospel refers to such feelings in describing Jesus. Let us recall what we see everyday in the media. Isn't it a bit like a danse macabre, a death dance, when we see how the areas around the Fukushima nuclear plant have become uninhabitable? A danse macabre consists of the dead or of Death personified summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave. The danses macabres were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and the vanity of earthly life. It is only now that we recall Chernobyl, the catastrophe that took place 25 years ago. In 2010, it took millions of tons of oil released in the Gulf of Mexico to make us aware of what is happening in Africa such as oil companies in Nigeria exploiting the land and its people. Isn’t it often that safety, sustainability and human life are neglected for pure greed of quick money?

The Gospel says: "Life will triumph over death”. Life will triumph over death. Can we believe this when we see these horrible pictures in the media? Isn’t it a bit like on a ship of fools where people celebrate unaware of their sinking ship in a cheerful and happy apocalypse? They are like the sorcerer’s apprentices who are not capable of getting a grip on the elements. We are like sorcerer’s apprentices.

So now let us come back to the Gospel. What use is there for Jesus to bring Lazarus back to life for some years to be subject yet again to death? Was it really Lazarus' desire to come back to a life of suffering?
The Gospel tells us something very important, Jesus states, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me shall live even if they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” And he goes on to say, “I am the way and the truth and the life”. When we reread the text, we are consoled. Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out!" Come out from the narrowness of your grave. Come out, Lazarus, there are no more ties around your hands and your feet, you no longer are subject to the conditions of a dead body. Lazarus, something new can begin for you!" As we heard in the first reading: “I am now going to open your graves; I shall raise you from your graves, my people, I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. I, the LORD, have spoken!" Resurrection is not something in the far future, no, resurrection begins in the here and now. But it assumes trust in God, the future, in others and in ourselves. Trust in spite of violence, brutality, greed and the worldly stench which sometimes cannot be avoided.

Every day, we have the chance to unbind the ties of death, to break the rigor mortis of our lives and to lead a life in the spirit of Jesus that is marked by the power of love for God, our friends, our enemies and ourselves. Let us help each other so we are able to lead such a life and share it with others wherevever we are.

cf.: www.predigtforum.at, 5th Sunday of Lent A (Max Angermann)

The Use of Encouraging Words Should be a Reflexive Action

February 27, 2011, Year A

Let us concentrate on the few lines of our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 49 14-16).

The people of Israel are in exile and feel abandoned by God. Their dream is to one day return to their homeland. The passage begins: “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me” (Is 49 14). Isaiah makes God answer their lamentation and God responds: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?” Of course no mother can do this. God continues: “Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49 15) And is followed by: “See, I have written your name on my hand, you are ever before me. “

Isn’t this knowledge wonderful and consoling? Even in times of despair, abandonment, harassment or mobbing, there is someone who does not forget you, who has your name written on his hand, who has your face always before him. Someone – and not something!

This is one of the most tender passages of the Bible. The bond between God and humanity is like the bond between a mother and her child. God is compared to a mother who reassures his people that even if a mother forgets her own child, God will never forget his creation. One of the greatest sufferings a person can endure is to be forgotten and ignored by his own community. Isaiah reminds his people that God remembers, protects, supports and takes care of them. This assertion is especially significant in the Old Testament. In the Book of Isaiah, the relationship between God and Israel is presented in the form of parent-child relationship. The Bible is full of words and similar scenes – words of tenderness, love and intimacy that encourages one to stand back up on their feet in times of despair.

Jesus is good at using encourging words. Let us think of Zacchaeus, the tax collector. For Jesus he is not only a tax collector and a collaborator of the Roman occupation forces, but a being with a name, a son of Abraham. Jesus invites himself to his home and this becomes the turning point in Zacchaeus life. Up to this point, Zacchaeus had only been hoarding money, but now he is spending it.

Jesus encourages people to stand with confidence – but speaking words of comfort and encouragement are not a privilege nor a task of God or Jesus. We are invited to speak supportive words to one another. And I am certain that you will experience that words of encouragement are stronger than words of criticism. There are so many chances to say encouraging words – in family life, in our work place, to our friends - to ourselves. To use supportive words that inspire trust in oneself should be a reflexive action and an ongoing attitude. Words that make others feel bad should be erased from our vocabulary. Encouraging words should also show appreciation, endorsement and respect for others. Why not say more often: “Well done”, “I like that”, “I enjoy that”. And of course, “I like what you do”, “I like you” or even “I love you”.

There is a well-known saying in German: "Das Wort, das du brauchst, kannst du dir nicht selber sagen." – „The words you need cannot be said by yourself”. They must be said to you by someone else – by God, if we are believers, and by other people. Let us become the messengers of these good, encouraging, life-giving words: “The words you need cannot be said by yourself, the word we need cannot be said by ourselves”.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Love with the love of God

February 20, 2011, Year A

(Matthew 5:38-48)

The gospel readings of last and of today’s Sunday belong together. Jesus develops the thinking he receives from his Jewish contemporaries. Jesus somehow says: “You are called to much more than what the existing rules and laws prescribe. You can do much more if you let your heart govern you.” And Jesus brings examples how this might work practically.

The rule of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” comes from the Old Testament. It is also in the codex Hammurabi and was meant to protect people of unrestrained revenge. So it was not a call to counter-attack, but a call to moderation and to temper oneself. Revenge in this context is OK, but it must be moderated and tempered.

Here Jesus goes one step further. He invites us to renounce revenge and retaliation altogether.

The motto “Do onto others as you would onto me" should not be the motto for believers in Christ; instead, we are invited to follow the path of love. Jesus gives his reason: “Your heavenly father makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, he causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” God loves all of his children. We are images of God and as such should imitate our creator by treating others as our brothers and sisters. God takes no revenge, God does not insist on retaliation – therefore we should also dismiss revenge and retaliation.

This explains the somewhat excessive examples in today’s gospel. Jesus shows his friends and followers to always counter evil with good thus undermining evil with love. So does Jesus act accordingly? Does he accept violence and evil without protest? No, he does not. Jesus does NOT keep silent when confronted with evil yet he never counters evil with evil; he never counters injustice with injustice. To oppose evil with love is not a sign of weakness or of a cowardly way. To oppose evil with love is a form of active resistance which weakens evil. And if evil is weakened, it can no longer grow and escalate.

This may all seem a bit theoretic and not very palpable. But let us look at some examples how the expectations of Jesus might be put in practice in our everyday life.

For example:
- We should refrain from every form of hatefulness or nastiness in a quarrel
- when there are reproaches we should not counter them with new reproaches but take the time to see if there are bits of truth in the reproach
- if there was a mistake, a failure with someone, we should not again and again trot out this mistake or failure
- if we are disappointed in a relation, we should not break the relation without thinking about it
- if someone is maladroit or clumsy, we should not brand him or her a fool or an idiot
- if someone refuses to take a council or an advice from our part, we should not let this person down and abandon him or her
- if we are exploited, if we are taken advantage of all too often, then we should not refuse to help others or to support others.

These are some examples which illustrate what Jesus might expect from us today. And thus this old “tit for tat” can be surmounted, because in the other we still see God’s image. Jesus did not presuppose that we are perfect. But he did not want to spare us the effort to explore the love to which we are able. To explore this capacity to love and not to give up too quickly. Jesus urges us to be “perfect as the Father is perfect”. If we transcend the ordinary, the usual, the normal, then we approach our humanity, we come nearer to our being the image of God.

I like a phrase by Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher and theologian. He said: “The one I am greets nostalgically the one I would like to be”. In German: “Der, der ich bin, grüsst wehmütig den, der ich sein möchte“.

Let us pray to strengthen this longing and yearning that time and again we leave the out-trodden ways of Christianity to become the Christians we would like to be.

“The Church we are greets nostalgically the one we would like to be”.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Living in God’s presence

February 13, 2011

A Siberian shaman asked God to show him someone that He loved. The Lord advised the man to look for a certain farmer. When he found the farmer, the shaman asked him: “What do you do to make the Lord love you so much?”
The farmer replied: “I say His name in the morning. I work all day and say His name before going to sleep. That’s all.”
The shaman thought: “I think I found the wrong man.”
Just then the Lord appeared and said to the shaman: “Fill a bowl with milk, and go to town and then return without spilling a single drop.”
The shaman did what the Lord had asked from him. On his return, the Lord wanted to know how many times the shaman had thought of Him.
The shaman answered: “How could I? I was worried not to spill the milk!”
And the Lord said: “A simple bowl made you forget me, and the farmer, with all his tasks, thinks of me twice a day.”

http://msjnov.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/sixth-sunday-of-the-year-february-13-2011/

Sense of reality - sense of potentiality

January 30, 2011, Year A
(Matthew 5:1-12a)

We distinguish people according to the color of their skin, according to their age, their sex, their formation, their social position, their achievements: people come in very different ways. From time to time we may encounter someone who impresses us, not because he or she is white or young or male or female, because he or she is wealthy or sportive or has a university degree. No, just someone who makes an impression on us. Who are these people?
In today’s gospel, Jesus shows us people who may make an impression on us. Jesus presents people as models for us. Those who are poor, who mourn and grieve, who manage to live their lives without violence, who seek to make the world a more just place. People who ask for God, who can wait for God. People who know that God can fulfill their hopes.
Jesus speaks well of those who are humble and merciful, who make peace, who suffer because of their wish that everyone be treated right. This is how the friends of Jesus ought to be: humble, merciful, promoting peace, and working for a more just world.

Our faith marks our lives – or at least it should.
If we believe in a God who is merciful, sincere and just, we cannot be unmerciful, insincere and unjust. Faith finds its expression in the lives of all those who believe in God. We are certainly people with a sense of reality – otherwise we would not be fit for modern societies. Although we need this sense of reality, people of faith also need a sense of potentiality: of what is possible, desirable and what we aspire to do.
As believers, we do not only see what the world is like now, but what the world could and should be like. We thirst for justice, wanting everyone to be treated justly. We see the possibilities, the potentiality for change and we aspire for it. In our eyes, the future is not determined, fixed, finished and automatic like a machine. We do not capitulate in front of the future. As believers, we can leave out-trodden ways – without being mere dreamers. As believers, we see hope, future and open horizons where others don’t. As believers we see the potentiality of our world – and we try to follow and live up to what Jesus said to his friends: Do not use violence, be merciful, have a pure heart, promote peace and justice. This is the wish and the vision of Jesus.

People with a sense of reality and at the same time people with a sense of potentiality – this is what we should be or become. In the light of faith we can see the potentiality of our world. And we know our world embedded in God’s hands.
This leads me to the words of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. In a book called “Ignatian workout”, an American theologian formulated a thought of Ignatius in modern words:

“With regard to any project,
we must put ourselves in God’s hands
as if our success depended on Him,
but with regard to choosing the means and doing the work,
we must labor
as if everything depended on us.”

Isn’t this the good mix between the sense of reality and the sense of potentiality? Choose the means we need to make the world a more just world, or at least a less unjust world with our sense of reality. And at the same time admit that it is God who created everything, who holds the world in his hands, who inspires us this sense of potentiality when we see the world through the eyes of God.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world

January 16, 2011, Year A

We quote this phrase in all our Euchrarists. It may seem to be a bizarre and incomprehen-sible phrase: “Lamb of God”, “sin of the world” – what does this mean?
Indeed, this phrase could also be understood as a summary of our faith.
I would like and try to show you that it can be understood as a summary of our faith.
This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
… the sin of the world. What is this sin of the world? My interpretation would be that it is sinful when people don’t believe in the meaningfulness of the world, when people don’t believe in the meaningfulness of life.
For many, the world has no sense, no meaning – now, after catastrophes like in Brasil or in Australia or the shooting in Tucson, many will say: “All this does not make any sense, it is absurd, how can God permit this?” But this is the exact opposite of what Jesus says.Jesus says that the world is little by little becoming the kingdom of God.
“The kingdom of God”, that means a world where we are all brothers and sisters, where we serve the others, where we love one another.
The sin of the world now is, not to believe in this, the sin is “not to believe that the world has a meaning as being part of the project of God with his creation”.
So now John says in our Gospel of today:
This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus takes away the sin of the world. How does he do this? I propose a very simple in-terpretation: Jesus showed that the world has a meaning. Jesus showed the true mean-ing of the world and he realized and put into practice this true meaning in his life. Je-sus really believed in the meaning of the world – that we become more and more the kingdom of God, the kingdom of solidarity and brotherhood – and Jesus acted accord-ing to this.
He was near to the poor and the outcast – and he loved them. Jesus told them that the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is nearer to them than to the establishment, than to people with influence and prestige. Yes, Jesus believed in the meaning of the world – and he continued to believe this even when facing a mortal danger for his own life. Jesus was hated by the authorities and for them he was a public scandal. And nev-ertheless, he continued to do what his conviction, what his faith told him:
He did everything to show that the world has a meaning, he did everything to give this meaning to the world. Jesus spoke and acted out of this conviction that we become lit-tle by little the kingdom of God if we become brothers and sisters, if we help one an-other, if we love one another.
This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus showed the world its meaning, its sense. And we may call this: “taking away the sin of the world” like the evangelist John does. But was Jesus really able to do it? Was he able to take away the sin of the world? Do we not all continue to suffer from this sin of the world? Isn’t it more correct to say that Jesus was taken away by the sin of the world?
This sin of the world was the winner over Jesus – Jesus died on the cross… Jesus died like so many other martyrs of all times, of all religions who believed in this sense of the world. Let us think of Socrates, Gandhi or Martin Luther King. The unnecessary death of these people – doesn’t it prove that the sense of the world is just a utopia? That the world is void and empty of sense? If the world has no sense, then it would be better to be “realistic”! Then it would be better to think only of oneself, of one’s own life, one’s own wishes and not to bother about the others…
So what is the difference between Socrates, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus? Is there any? Martyrs for the sense of the world they are, and they all have been killed.
Let me try to point out the difference between them and Jesus : only in the case of Jesus we believe that his view of the world full of meaning is confirmed by his death. Only in the case Jesus we believe that in his death we have a prove of the faith that the world has a meaning, that death is not the winner over life. In this sense we can say : Jesus took away the sin of the world! Jesus showed that we can believe that someone who failed and who was put to death can accomplish his life.
So many people believe in Jesus and in his message of the kingdom of God, his message that we are on the way towards the realisation of this project God has with his world.
And the catastrophes and atrocities and wars? They show us that it is up to us to work that this world has its meaning, and that we show that brotherhood is the winner and not death, that we live in a world full of meaning and not in an absurd world, and that it is our task to make the world more human, nearer to God’s project, no matter where we are and how old we are and what faith we have.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The Baptism of the Lord and our own vocation

January 9, 2011, Year A

In most the religious congregations, there is someone responsible for “vocations”. Often they are called “vocations manager”. Their main task is to help young people discern if they have “a vocation”.
When you hear “vocation”, do not think of strange events like the conversion of the apostle Paul who fell from his horse. Or the vocation of a prophet who stands up and speaks against kings and rulers. No, vocation as I see it means that God speaks to us through the ordinary events of our everyday life. We are often able to discern tendencies in economics, in the media, in politics. But we are often unable to discern the signs God gives – because we are not open to them, we have “no eyes” for them.
We often speak different languages and understand what other persons try to tell us. But we are often unable to understand what God might want to tell us – because we do no longer know how to listen.
It can be so easy to discern God in our lives, to know what God expects from us: our talents, our preferences, our visions and dreams, but also our aversions and weaknesses can become occasions to get in touch with God, to ask ourselves, to ask God: What does God want to tell me in my talents, my preferences, and in my aversions?
“Find one’s task, one’s place in life” – in spite of our weaknesses, but thanks to our talents. This is the task we all have as human beings.
“Find our place in God’s project with his world, with our world”. This would be the religious language to express the same idea. The human experience of life and of faith and of love becomes a religious experience as soon as it is seen in the light of God, as soon as God’s guidance is accepted.
In today’s gospel we hear of the baptism of Jesus. For me this is a new beginning in the life of Jesus: in this baptism scene, Jesus accepts his vocation. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. This is my own dear Son, and I am pleased with him.”
And what is true for Jesus is also true for us: when we accept our vocation, then we accept to be God’s children.
Baptism is a sign for this. When we receive baptism as a child, our parents say “yes” to this vocation, as adults we are time and again invited to say our “yes” to our vocation.
Today’s feast, the baptism of the Lord, is a good occasion to listen to our own vocation, to listen to what God expects from us, to discern our place in God’s project with our world.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Holy Family

December 26, 2010, Year A

Christmas is the feast for the families. We give presents to express our love and respect and appreciation for someone. Mainly because we really want to express these feelings, sometimes we give presents only because we feel obliged to. We spend time with people we love, who are important to us, who need us. People we meet on a daily basis like our family or people we see once a year – on Christmas we spend time preferably within our family.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family – Mary, Joseph and Jesus are in the center of our attention on this Sunday after Christmas.
Why do we speak of the “Holy Family”?
The first question is: are they really a family? Or is Joseph just accompanying Mary and Jesus for a certain time, just to ensure the upbringing of Jesus? Does family have to do with biological parenthood, are we family because we are sons and daughters of someone, or fathers and mothers to someone? Is family really only defined by parenthood? Or is the concept of family much larger, including partnership, the network of my relations… - a concept far beyond marriage and parenthood. In this broader definition, the main point to identify a family would be the quality of the relations – knowing that it is hard to define the quality of our relations I would say that Joseph, Mary and Jesus were a family.
And then: why do we call them “Holy” Family? Are they holy because they had to flee their home country? Are they holy because Joseph stayed with Mary in spite of the unclear origin of Mary’s child? Was Jesus the only son Mary had – so no children with her husband Joseph? Are they holy because Joseph refrained from having intercourse with Mary?
I shall try to explain, why I think that we really can speak of the Holy Family: It has something to do with the quality of their relations. The relation between Joseph and Mary has undergone a deep crisis: unclear origin of the child, flee to a foreign country, material hardship and privation, persecution of the child, unclear future for the couple and their son. And yet, their relation had matured through all the phases of this yearlong crisis. Also their relation to God had become more mature. The relation they had as individuals and their common relation as a couple to God. More and more they listen to what God tells them, Mary from the beginning, Joseph more and more in the running of the years. From a human point of view, they needed time to see who their child was. They needed time to recognize in him the fruit of the Spirit of God, to see in him God’s messenger for the salvation of humankind, God’s messenger to show his solidarity with humankind. To recognize who your partner is, who the child is – this is a question of relations and of time and of trust.
And the quality of the relations in the Holy Family is extraordinary: on the human level it is really marvelous how Joseph and Mary interact, how they stick together as a couple in spite of the extreme burden and pressure they are subject to. And on the religious level they are more and more aware that God is the inner center of reference for their family. This inner center keeps them together and gives them strength to withstand all the exterior and interior crises their couple has to endure.
So here we can ask ourselves: What quality do our relations have? Our relations I our families, with our friends and colleges? What quality do our relations have here in All Saints? It is not mainly the question if we come to the Eucharist, if we pray together, if we can have hospitality together. No, the question is how God links me to the people in my family, to my friends, to my brethren. How God links me to the members of this All Saints community. Is God this inner center of my relations, do I see the others, do I see you as linked to God, as images of God? The cohesion, the solidarity within the Holy Family is challenging. In times of crises, would I be able to remain true to myself and to the people I have been entrusted? Would my relations really grow and mature in times of crises and burden as they did for Mary and Joseph?
This is one of the challenging messages of Christmas: Christmas invites us to reflect about the quality of our relations. It invites us to find out, to identify the power that makes our relations live and that gives them their quality.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Are we like a barn or like an inn?

Christmas Midnight Mass, December 24, 2010, Year A

We just heard the Christmas gospel where it is said: There was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2 1-14) That is why Jesus was born in a barn.
What are we, you and me – are we like an inn or like a barn? The closed and barred inn of Bethlehem continues to exist, it is in every place where God wants to enter our world but is not admitted and allowed to do so. The closed and barred inn of Bethlehem is everywhere. In towns and villages, in government buildings, in universities, in hotels and apartments. As decrepit and run-down and ramshackle this inn may be – it outlives the centuries. As decrepit and run-down and ramshackle this closed inn may be- it might also have my name over its entrance door.
As you know I am working in a high school here in Berlin. This leads me to tell you an often told story: A teacher asks his or her pupils: “Where is God?” – and the pupils debate and try to formulate something intelligent. In fact, they come forward with clever answers – and then the teacher gives a simple answer to the question: “Where is God”? “God it there where you allow him in.”
Back then, the inn was locked for God. For God who wanted to become one of us. But the barn was open. It was in a barn that God gave us his love, that God gave us his light. A light „dawned on humanity“ from a barn. Since this first Christmas, God is very close to us, God lives among us. God is not a program or a system or a dogma, no, God has become one of us, is one of us. God is somehow plugged into our skin, into our human existence. God is vulnerable like a child, like any of us. God came into our world – into our world where there is hunger and misery and coldness.
Into our world where people are rejected. And God chose the open barn, not the more comfortable inn. The inn was locked. The barn was open.
Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth was a small village, so the distance between the locked inn and the open barn was small. But the distance couldn’t have been bigger – to be an open barn or to be a locked inn, these are two worlds apart.
We also can be barn or inn. It depends if we are open for God or not. If we let God into our lives or if we reject God. Indeed, it would be more correct to say that we are as well barn as inn.
Sometimes we are like the locked inn if we do not admit God into our lives, sometimes we are like the open barn when we are open for God, when we open our doors to God and to our fellow human beings, when we hope for God, when we meet God in the people around us. God was born in a barn. So we can pray:
“God make me a barn, make that I remain like an open barn all the days of my life. The Holy Night, your night, encourages us to be like an open barn. Your love appeared in a barn. Your love appeared in order to make the inhuman world more human, Your love appeared so that we be open like a barn for you and for the others. Amen.”

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

John the Baptist - how to be strong

Matthew 11:2-11

3rd Sunday of Advent , December 12, 2010, Year A

I would like to concentrate on the figure of John the Baptist. Jesus talks about him in today’s gospel. In a book published by a German Benedictine monk I found some nice lines about John. The Benedictine monk is Anselm Grün, the book is called “To Love and to Fight” (1). My homily is inspired by the chapter about John.
John is presented like a wild man – in the gospel according to Mark we read: “John wore clothes made of camel's hair. He had a leather strap around his waist and ate grasshoppers and wild honey” (Mark 1,6). John lives in the desert – not only among wild animals but clothed with the skin of a wild animal.
John is a dropout – he left his society with its laws and conventions - and the wilderness, the exterior and interior wilderness gives him strength and energy to proclaim the message of God, to call the men and women he encounters to repent, to change their way of living. His preaching is like his outfit – coarse, showing no undue respect for the feelings of his listeners. The Pharisees were respected among the population. To the Pharisees John says: “You bunch of snakes! Who warned you to run from the coming judgment? Do something to show that you have really given up your sins. And don't start telling yourselves that you belong to Abraham's family” (Mt 3,7f).
John does not want to be everybody’s darling – he does not need to be everybody’s darling. He says what he feels aloud, he appears in public without becoming dependant upon the public. He is free – he knows he is serving God and God’s plan with the world, with humanity. Thus he dares criticise the King, the authorities – and the King fears him. He recognises the holy man in John. He even tries to protect John from his wife - the King’s wife wants to kill John.
In Mark’s gospel we hear: “Herod was afraid of John and protected him. He knew that John was a good and holy man. Even though Herod was confused by what John said, he was glad to listen to him. And he often did” (Mark 6,19f).
The King perceives this inner freedom John has, an inner freedom that does not allow any fear of human beings, an inner freedom that makes John stand upright – also in front of the King, in front of the authorities. No one can rule over this man – John has his strength and energy from someone else, from God.
Probably Herod would like to be like John to a certain extent – but he doesn’t dare to admit it, he doesn’t dare to make a first step towards this inner freedom that would lead to an exterior freedom.
In today’s gospel Jesus speaks about John – John does not act “like grass blown about by the wind”. He is not a turncoat, an opportunist changing ideas with the changing of the authorities. John is clear and without ambiguity. To the exterior he is wild and powerful, but he does not in-sult or hurt people. On the contrary, John makes people stand up. John is as he is.
And Jesus describes his task: John is to prepare the way for Jesus. The scriptures say: "I am sending my messenger ahead of you to get things ready for you" (Mt 11,10). So from this point of view, John may be a model for us as individuals and as a community: John does not need any masks, he does not have to show a false and undue respect for the feelings of authorities, he makes façades collapse – façades that we built in order to appear faultless and irreproachable.
“To Love and to Fight” – this was the title of the book Anselm Grün wrote. “To Love and to fight” – this was what John was doing, what Jesus was doing – and this is what we are invited to do – as individuals, and as a community.

(1) Cf. Anselm Grün, Kämpfen und lieben. Wie Männer zu sich selbst finden.
Vier-Türme-Verlag, Münsterschwarzach 2003.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The opportunity of Advent

Isaiah 2,1-5; Matthew 24, 37-44

1st Sunday of Advent, November 31, 2010, Year A

We have again reached the threshold of a new liturgical year. The new liturgical year begins with the time of Advent, the preparation for Christmas. It's a time of transition – from something old towards something new.
Transitions are always uncertain and demanding times. Times where the old things are no longer valid and where the new things are not yet known. Transitions are giving you a feeling of uncertainty, of ambiguity, of hesitation. But we are not forced to remain passive; we can make use of times of transition so that they help us on our way, so that they bear fruit for our lives and for the lives of others.
Advent is one of these times – it prepares a breakthrough from darkness to light, from emptiness to life. Those coming weeks are marked by liturgies with very beautiful biblical texts. They invite us to believe in God who is the lover of life, they invite us to celebrate God's promise of life for us.
The first reading we just heard from the prophet Isaiah speaks of our longing for life, for “shalom”, for this harmony between the creation and its creator.
How do we prepare ourselves for Christmas?
In former centuries, people knew how to fill these times of preparation with fasting, praying and good deeds. We kind of have lost this link between the big feast and the inner preparation it requires. The outer, the commercial preparation took the place of the inner preparation. And we are in danger of living what the gospel describes (Matthew 24, 37-44).
We are so busy with our own plans, we are trusting in our own efforts, so that we forget our link to God that penetrates our whole life. We are no longer vigilant for God's presence in our world, in our life.
The gospel speaks with strong images – the image of being abandoned, of being left behind, of being dumped - and the image of being accepted, of being invited to take part in something big that God offers us. We long to be accepted, to be taken along. And the gospel says that it is not what we do that makes us accepted and loved, but that it is our inner attitude that makes us accepted and loved by God: an attitude marked by loving attentiveness, looking for God, feeling God in our life and in the lives of others.
Advent is rich with symbols that can help us to find a new direction for our lives:
- the symbolism of light in the darkness of winter. This light brings us comfort and warmth, a cozy atmosphere in which we can think and reflect like in front of an open fireplace;
- Advent is a time of waiting or better: a time of expecting, a time where we can interrupt our routines so as to be open for the new things that may come;
- Advent is a time where we can ask ourselves: what does it mean for my life that God becomes one of us? This may change my life and its structures; this may change my relation to God, to others, to myself.
- Advent has the symbol of the way – we are invited to make ourselves on the way. To make an effort to leave our comfort zones, to leave the well trodden ways, to try new ways, new ways towards God, towards the others, towards ourselves.
Advent is an opportunity – a chance to interrupt, to try something new, to risk something. This is the message of Advent for me: we can break our routine, we can break the circles, the often vicious circles in which we find ourselves, we can find healing of our inner enslavement and dependence – if we open ourselves for what Advent prepares: the fact that God becomes one of us. The ground on which and upon which we live may be hardened and impermeable – Advent might open it, might offer the chance that this infertile ground offers new life again – for us and for those we love.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

God, the Lover of Life
(Wisdom 11:22-1:2)
31st Sunday, Ordinary Time, October 31, 2010, Year C

I would like to concentrate today on the first reading from the book of Wisdom. It is the youngest book of the Old Testament, written in the first century before Christ. The Jewish people, the people of Israel was living in the whole known world, but they already suffered certain kinds of persecution in spite of the guarantees they had received from Rome. Rome was ruling over the world around the Mediterranean and guaranteed religious freedom, but there were always movements that objected to religious freedom and tried to make everybody believe the same things they believed.

Those who believed or celebrated or lived differently were a nuisance and were not well looked upon. Often they were silenced. It is in this context that the author of our book writes down what he believes. He writes down how he sees the world with the eyes of his faith, how he sees the relation of God to his creation, how he sees and evaluates the world around him, and he writes down how he sees himself in this world. A very touching book – because everything the author writes down he brings before God.

…Bring one’s life before God.

I am not sure that our religions and denominations and faith communities see this as a priority in their service. Often it is the formal fulfillment of rules that is the priority.

Let us look again at our text: For me, some of these lines are the most beautiful lines in the Bible: “You love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made” or in a different translation: “You love everything that exists; you do not despise anything that you have made.” The author does not make a distinction between good and bad, between right and wrong. Everything on this world is loved by God, every human being, every animal, the whole of creation and what human beings make of their lives. Everything… No, the author does not judge. He does not say “This is good” - “This is bad”, “This is sin” - “This is not sin”, “This one believes in the right way” - “This one believes in a wrong way”. The author of the book of Wisdom does not judge.

How relevant this is for us today! Because we do judge, we do put people down, we do reduce people’s value by telling them that they are deficient and sinful and unworthy. I am sorry that religion often betrayed people by telling them that they were unworthy. Religion betrayed people by refusing them happiness and freedom and the possibility of living their lives in peace with God, in peace with others, in peace with themselves.

And here our author says: “You love everything that exists; you do not despise anything that you have made.” And he continues: “You spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!” or in another translation: “You have allowed everything to exist, O Lord, because it is yours, and you love every living thing. Your immortal spirit is in every one of them.” God’s spirit is in everything that is – isn’t this enormous and terrific? God’s spirit is in you and in me, in people we like and in people we do not like, in people near to us and in people far away, in people we understand and in people we do not understand or we do not want to understand. In all of them is God’s spirit. God’s spirit is in the whole of creation.

“Think big” is a motto that comes to my mind: the author “thinks big” of God just as God “thinks big” of us. God wants our happiness and does not want us to feel small and inferior and bad. God is the friend of life – and as a friend of life he wants us to live in happiness.

So now the story in our gospel with Jesus and Zacchaeus receives a new aspect in its meaning for us: Jesus sees Zacchaeus in his tree and Jesus offers a new beginning to the life of Zaccaeus. Jesus offers a new chance to Zacchaeus through his presence, through his respect and love. This is the way God deals with our mistakes or – if you prefer the religious jargon – this is the way God deals with our sins. This is the God I would like to believe in, this is the God I would like to talk of and live with and celebrate.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Who am I before God?
Luke 18:9-14
30th Sunday, Ordinary Time, October 24, 2010, Year C

In the gospel we just heard, Jesus presents us two people in front of God, praying. A Pharisee and a tax collector. Both are praying, both are in search of a relation to God.

The Pharisee is self-confident and upright – and thus he addresses God. He is aware of all he does for God. He really tries to lead a life that pleases God. For him, the doctrine and the rules of the religious law are important; they are necessary guide-lines for him. They show him how to lead his life in harmony with his religion, with his people, with his God. His fasting and charity are signs of this holy life he wants to lead, a life that is agreeable to God. When the Pharisee compares himself to others, he thanks God for not being like so many others, for having the chance of being nearer to God, nearer to his commandments. By distinguishing himself from others, he finds his uniqueness before God, his uniqueness in his intimate relation to God.

The tax collector sees himself differently. He knows about his weaknesses and his failings. That is why he is depressed, weighed down by his human misery. His profession has the reputation to be a means for corruption. The tax collector thus remains distant from God – he does not dare to approach him. Bowed down and humble he admits that he is a sinner.

Two different types, the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee – isn’t he a model for us in many regards? We also dare to approach God in an upright way, we can approach God without being like minors, like underage children – just as we are mature when it comes to our relation to others. Then we are also mature and grown up and adult when it comes to our relation to God. God created us in his image; we are human beings with our own responsibility, our own talents and capacities. And we can be proud of this. Everything in our lives that we achieve due to these talents we can bring before God. We can be thankful for these talents.

Thus the Pharisee can be our model. And, the tax collector can also be our model.
In spite of the talents we have, there is so much we do not achieve, so much where we fail, where we are insufficient, inadequate, incapable. It is difficult to admit our failures, to admit them to ourselves, to admit them to others, to admit them to God. But our trust in God’s mercy and love challenges us to have a candid and honest view of ourselves. Our trust in God’s mercy and love enable us to deal with ourselves in a candid and honest way…This is what the tax collector did. He felt that God would not dismiss him because of his mistakes, because of his weaknesses. He felt that God would give him the chance for a new beginning.

The tax collector is a model for us – just as the Pharisee can be a model for us. For me, today’s gospel invites us to look more for the things we have in common than to look for the things that separate us. Sometimes we are the Pharisee, sometimes we are the tax collector.
And what is true for us as individuals is also true for religions, cultures and nations.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The Secret of Redemption Lies in Remembrance
Exodus 17:8-13
29th Sunday, Ordinary Time, October 17, 2010, Year C

I presume that the first reading either shocked you or bored you. It may be boring because of the many Hebrew names, and it is certainly shocking because of the war and the violence and the fights it tells. A shocking, a displeasing story read on a Sunday in church. On a Sunday! Wouldn’t it be good to leave the difficulties and quarrels and conflicts out of the church? Wouldn’t it be good to be left in peace at least on a Sunday?
Well, the opposite is just the message of our first reading: Leave out conflicts from church would be like living in an ivory-tower. No! no realm of our life must be excluded from our service to God, everything needs to be brought before God, before his healing presence. Eve-rything – and certainly our reality as it is needs to be brought before God. Our reality that is marked by crises and wars and violence.

Isn’t it amazing what the Jewish people wrote down in their holy book? They did not keep quiet about anything that happened to them. We heard today about the battle of Amalek – was this just out of an historical interest that it was written down?
No, I think that the people of Israel experienced God’s presence in their misery, God helped them, God was with them. And they kept this experience alive for the future generations by writing it down in their holy book. Only if you recall the past you can help the future genera-tions.
The German people has been trying to live up to this: never forget the Nazi terror, the Shoah so that the future generations are not caught by the same trap in the future.
Richard von Weizsäcker, the president of the Federal Republic said in 1985: „Das Geheimnis der Erlösung heißt Erinnerung“ – “the secret of redemption lies in remembrance” - – by this he quoted Jewish writings. Weizsäcker continued: “This oft quoted Jewish adage surely ex-presses the idea that faith in God is faith in the work of God in history. Remembrance is ex-perience of the work of God in history. It is the source of faith in redemption. This experience creates hope, creates faith in redemption, in reunification of the divided, in reconciliation. Whoever forgets this experience loses his faith.” This is what Weizsäcker said 25 years ago.
So our story wants to help future generations.

But isn’t our story from the book of exodus a glorification of war? No, certainly not. The bat-tle is not decided by the men who fight, but by the presence of Moses on a mountain. This presence of Moses obtains God’s help.
Moses is a holy man – but nevertheless he needs help, he need the solidarity of others to per-severe in his effort. The victory comes from God, from Yahweh. This is what Israel should retain from this story. New attacks, new difficulties, new dangers are to be expected – but yet, behind this reality there is the promise God made, the promise that he would be near and true to his people. The promise that his people will thus survive.

So the story we heard is a story of encouragement: Remembering the misery and distress of the past the people can put their hopes in God. And – what certainly applies to us today – re-membering the misery of the past shows how necessary solidarity is: Be at the sides of the ones whose hands begin to sink, support the ones whose strength vanishes, whose courage decreases. Then our story becomes a story of perseverance by lifting up your heart and hand so as to never lose faith and courage because of the experiences made with God in the history of the people of Israel, in our own history.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

We are the descendants of the ten lepers
(Luke 17:11-19)
28th Sunday, Ordinary Time, October 10, 2010, Year C

I would like to talk about the experience Jesus makes with the ten lepers. Usually the text is presented so that the one leper who comes back to Jesus understands Jesus, thanks Jesus, is the only one really healed. The other nine are unthankful and do not understand anything. I don’t like this way of presenting the story. Why? Because Jesus does not put people down. Jesus never puts people down.

So I would like to point to a different topic: Ten lepers come to Jesus, the ten are healed, but only one remains with Jesus. Nine to one – this relation is still valid – generously calculated. I speak of the part of the population still remaining with the traditional Church and its message. Only ten percent may share the religious nearness to Jesus by continuing to go to church. But all the lepers have been touched, have been healed by Jesus. So, the ten are not so different from each other. They all have been healed, but only one remains with Jesus. It is the difference in reaction to the healing that makes them different.

So many studies show that religiosity does no longer have this close link to the church, to the community of believers. To be far from the Church does not mean to be far from religiosity. The ways to experience God’s nearness do not necessarily lead through the church doors. Those who come to church on Sunday, like you, they live a special form of religiosity, marked by the communion of the Church, marked by the wish to experience God’s nearness in the space of a church building, of a church community. But there are many other forms where people are experiencing the nearness of God. The Church is seen as just one of these places.

What does this mean for the Church?

One way of dealing with the phenomenon is to continue as usual. Tradition, dogmas, doctrine, neither looking to the right nor to the left, not perceiving the world that surrounds the Church – continue as usual. Then the Church, then we as a community may become a ghetto, a ghetto in which people with the same ideas and ideals gather, a ghetto on the edge of society. To find ten percent of the population here in this realm seems already a lot. So, the first way is to continue as usual.

The second way would be to be totally open to everything we see in the modern world, to limit ourselves to the realm of giving good advices of how to succeed in life and in its crises. But here the Christian message would loose its specificity. The Church would not be more than a giver of good advices like so many other gurus.

Thus – on one hand you find church leaders worried about what Rome says, worried abut correct liturgies, worried about the quality and the catholicity of the men and women coming to church – I mean catholicity in the sense of being conform to catholic rules and orders and requests and demands. A church occupied with herself, forgetting what happens around her.

On the other hand you would find committed Christians asking themselves: “How do we go down well, how can we be well received? How to have fuller churches and how to have attractive events? How to produce and trigger good articles about the church in the news?”

This is a real dilemma – a dilemma that keeps the church alive. The tension is a fruitful tension if the two sides approach each other, if ideas and visions are shared. In this process, there is not one side in the possession of the full truth. Not one side has a monopoly for salvation.

The ten lepers make it clear: The story is not about the one single follower of Jesus and the nine renegades. No. They have all been touched and healed. But each one of them has his or her own way of dealing with it. It was the task of Jesus how to handle this, Jesus had to live with this.

It is our task today to handle this same phenomenon – we who are following Jesus, we who are the descendants of the ten lepers.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Faith has nothing to do with performance
(Luke 17 5-10)
27th Sunday, Ordinary Time, October 3, 2010, Year C

Servants don't deserve special thanks for doing what they are supposed to do. And that's how it should be with you. When you've done all you should, then say, "We are merely servants, and we have simply done our duty."

Jesus says this to the apostles, to his closest friends. Does he want to tell them: “You are good for slavish services, you are supposed to sacrifice yourself?” Does he want to say that there is a better afterlife for them if they have a good performance in this life? I know that time and again this text has been used, has been misused to keep people down in the Church, to claim self-sacrifice and slavish services with the promise of a better afterlife.

This is not what Jesus wants to do.
He talks to his friends, to the apostles: they have given up everything – so are they entitled to claim anything from God? This is certainly what the then mainstream of the Jewish religion thought: “We make a deal with God, we perform well and God grants us a good life. I give something to God and God rewards me.”
Faith becomes performance. And Jesus makes it clear: “No, you have no right on which you can insist when dealing with God. You have no claims when it comes to God’s gifts to you. Faith is not a performance for which you can claim anything from God.”
Jesus brings a different image of God: the loving father, the good shepherd – a God of unconditional love. God gives more abundantly than we can imagine – and he gives perhaps more abundantly to those who - in faith - “perform” less than we. This we sometimes do not understand, this is sometimes quite hard to accept for us.

Jesus also shows us a danger in this master-slave-relation. If I perform better than someone else, then I may begin to feel superior to the other person, then I may begin to feel like a master over others. This contradicts the fundamental message of the Bible that all human beings are equal, have the same dignity, the same value. If we make ourselves or others slaves of this performance thinking, then we take away the dignity of others, then we try to squeeze God’s infinite and unconditional love into human norms and rules. God does not want spiritual athleticism – God invites us to collaborate in his creation, invites us to take responsibility, to hand over to others what we received from God. All this, knowing that for our life we depend upon God and his love.

This reminds me of a sentence by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. The content is: “Put all your trust in God without ever forgetting co-operation in his creation. This co-operation is precisely what your trust in God requires. But in your activity be profoundly aware that only God is powerful.”
Or: “When in action, never rely on your own contribution; when trusting, always realize that you are a collaborator co-operating with God."
Or in the original words of Ignatius: “Trust in God, as if the whole course of events depends on you and not on God, but fully implement your plans as if nothing needs to be done by you, but only by God.”

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Lazarus – God helps
Luke 16:19-31
26th Sunday, Ordinary Time, September 26, 2010, Year C

Isn’t today’s gospel frightening? The description of the afterlife is quite comfortable for Lazarus, but it is horrible for the other one, the rich person. We may not be among the very rich, but nevertheless we may fear that we might endure the same fate as the rich person in the gospel.
Fear… - fear never brings freedom. Fear does not really incite us to change our lives. Did Jesus really want to inspire fear by talking about the otherworldly reward or the otherworldly punishment? Was he talking about the afterlife his objective? I do not think so: Jesus has the human being in mind, not a theory about the afterlife.
The first who comes to our mind is Lazarus. He has a name. The name means “God helps”. His everyday life is ruled by illness and need and misery and hunger. He cannot even reach the “the scraps that fell from the rich man's table”.
The rich person has no name. He does not even act in a malicious manner – he just does not notice Lazarus and his needs. The rich man is focused on his comfortable life. He has no eye and no ear to what happens around him. He has no eye and no ear for the human beings in his neighborhood.
And this is the point where Jesus starts his story: Lazarus has a name: “God helps”, and God is concerned with Lazarus. With Lazarus who lies in front of the door, whose body is covered with sores, and who has less value than a dog. God is concerned with exactly this Lazarus, this “underdog”. And this is the message of today’s gospel for me: Do see Lazarus! Do see him in spite of all our activities and business! Do see him in spite of all your prejudices, in spite of all your limitations! Our limitations show us that we cannot help every person who needs our help. But let us see them and not forget them in spite of our festivities and parties – festivities and parties are OK, they are not bad. Let us see the needs of others in spite of our love of life, our lust for life. Let us become attentive – other persons need our attentiveness; maybe we ourselves need their attentiveness for ourselves, and we need to be attentive to our own needs.
As Christians we have the possibility and invitation to be open for changes, we have the possibility to practice a helping community. A helping community believes that our attentiveness gives change a chance. Then we do experience God as the one who sees us with loving attentiveness just like he sees Lazarus.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The economic system of God
Amos 8:4-7
25th Sunday, Ordinary Time, September 19, 2010 Year C

“Who lives in abundance is likely to forget God”. Don Bosco, the founder of the Salesians said this in the 19th century. So this attitude and its consequences are not new, they are not an invention of our time. Remember the first reading from the prophet Amos: “The rich are getting richer and richer, the poor are getting poorer and poorer. The luxurious lifestyle of the upper class is maintained by exploiting the poor.” (cf. Amos 8,4-7)
To manipulate the quality of goods, to falsify weights was as present in the business life in the times of Amos as it is today. The Sabbath is seen as a missed occasion for profit – just as today Sundays are seen as missed occasions for profit. The helpless are bought, the poor are made dependent by demanding high interest rates from them. The spiral of debts is described by Amos. The text seems so modern, but it is 3 000 years old.
Today’s discussions about a work-free Sunday, corruption and cheating and fraud in politics and economics, globalization at the expense of the poor, the missing debt relief for individuals and for nations – all this seems to show one thing: The economic system of God is not accepted.
The economic system of God… - the main statement is simple: In the eyes of God, a system where corruption and exploitation are normal is a crime. God’s justice is with the poor and weak – as always. The prophet Amos is someone who calls corruption corruption and exploitation exploitation.
Also prophets of today who reveal corruption and exploitation are silenced, often paying with their lives. Amos was one of the first who proclaimed God as the God on the sides of the poor, of the exploited, of the oppressed. God takes sides with the poor.
Jesus is for me the most important messenger of how to lead a thoroughly human life. This Jesus says: “Happy are the poor” and “Woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6,24). Jesus does not condemn rich people, but he wants to make them aware of the danger that might be linked with richness or wealth.
So I invite us all to be attentive to how we use our richness: be it our money, our time, our talents or our compassion. Jesus did not only speak of how to live a really human life, he showed us how to live it – in solidarity with the poor and oppressed.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The universality of salvation: God invites us all
Is 66:18-21; Luke 13:22-30
21st Sunday, Ordinary Time, August 29, 2010, Year C

The great topic of the readings of today is: ”Who will be saved?” For the people of Israel, it had been clear that they will be saved. And they alone. With the prophet Isaiah, this narrow thinking was broken up: all peoples are called to be near to God, not only the people of Israel (Isaiah 66:18-21).
This was revolutionary. God is now presented as a God who does not know, who does not accept borders or frontiers. The message is: God is the God of all races, of all nations, of all men and women on this earth. And God wants to save them all, wants to be near to all of them.
Revolutionary. We can imagine that Isaiah’s message was not welcomed by many of his fellow Israelites. The reading says that many Jews are brought back to Yahweh by pagans, by people not of Jewish origin. This might have been humiliating for a pious Jew of that time; it was a kind of blasphemy. But Isaiah insists: God will choose priests and Levites among those non-Jews.
This is what we call now the universality of our salvation – and this universality had not been well accepted by all Jews at the time of Isaiah. And it had not been accepted by the first Christians in the first centuries. And this universality is still not accepted by many in our church of today.
The universality of salvation: God invites us all. God takes the initiative and sends messengers. He calls priests and Levites from among the non-Jews, from among all nations. Full of enthusiasm Isaiah writes that “all” nations, “all” peoples turn to God.
This is his vision, a vision that might frighten so many that need rules and laws and interdictions to control the access to God, to control who is worthy to approach God and be near to him.
And here we reach today’s Gospel (Luke 13:22-30) with its question: “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” Jesus explains who can trust in God’s salvation. Not those who say: We have an automatic right to be saved because we know you and your message and we never doubted. We are Christians. Not those who say: Abraham is our father, so we have an automatic right to be saved. Not those who say in later centuries: I have a right to be saved because I am baptized and because I did not resign from the Church and because I follow the laws of the Church.
No, these people have no automatic right to trust in God’s salvation. So: who can trust in God’s salvation?
It depends upon our very personal way of answering God’s invitation – with all our weaknesses, with all our failures and errors. Weakness, failure, error are not problems for Jesus or for God. We always have the chance of a new beginning; we always can turn to God anew, every day, every hour.
Jesus does not condemn anyone; God does not condemn anyone who turns to him. Jesus, God loves those who are aware of their weaknesses, who make the best of living with their weaknesses and who hand themselves over to the love and the nearness of God.
Jesus is a friend of those who ask for God’s will, who try to find out what project God might have for them in their lives, who want to discover their talents and try to put them at the service of all. These men and women thus get to know God better, and they get to know themselves better.
So this is the message of today’s readings for me: God is a God for all human beings, he loves all human beings, a God who takes the initiative. And we are invited to react, we are invited to become his partners – not in an error-free way, in a way without sinning, without failure. No, we are invited to react so that we really wish to live not separate from God but associated with God. Then we are among those described by Isaiah. We become persons who approach God and who even take others with them on their common way towards God and towards his infinite love. Maybe this is the most beautiful gift we can offer God: take others with us on the way to God and his love no matter who they are.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Vigilance: “Trust life because God lives it with us”
19th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year C

I would like to follow the three readings we just heard with you again under the topic of “vigilance”.
The first reading from the book of wisdom (Wisdom 18 6-9) says that those who are vigilant, who are attentive, see much more than those who just stick to what they see right in front of them. Those who are attentive, do not only live in the present moment, but they open their horizon, they anticipate things that are unlikely, extraordinary, surprising – and they are open to the fact that God might surprise them. This is our story: because Israel recalls God’s history with His people, Israel finds courage for the future. God’s people counts on God’s fidelity, they build their future on this fidelity in spite of present difficulties. Because Israel is attentive also to their past, they also see God’s presence in their suffering, they know that God will never break His promises. They know that God has chosen them and that God will never cancel or withdraw this choice.
The second reading is from the letter to the Hebrews (Hebr 18 1-2 8-12). Who is vigilant, who is attentive, has the courage to leave things behind, to begin a new adventure. This is the content of the story of Abraham: Abraham listens to God’s call, he is attentive to this call, to the new horizons it opens. Even if these horizons may be risky, even if Abraham does not know the outcome of this endeavor – he is still willing to do the first step and start something new. In Abraham’s story we see that faith means “to be on the way”, to be on the way with a promise, with a vision, with a new horizon. Abraham takes God at his word and God commits Himself to Abraham and his future.
Abraham gives up his security; he sets out for a new country, a country he does not know. Many of us here are Ex-Pats, Expatriates who left their country for some time or for good in order to live and work away from their native town or country. So we somehow know what was at work in Abraham. Abraham trusts in God’s live-giving power – in Abraham’s case this means that he shall not die without children. God offers the gift of life – in a very literal sense in the case of Abraham. This is the definition of faith in the letter to the Hebrews: “to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see” (Hebr 11 1).
Vigilance, attentiveness develops a feeling for God, for the persons around us, for ourselves. This is what today’s gospel (Luke 12 35-40) is about. To be open and attentive to God and to the persons around us creates community - a community that cannot be destroyed. When I am attentive and vigilant, then I see the chances and possibilities my life offers to me. I can see the chances to change my life – I can accept these changes because I have this profound trust in life because God lives it with us.
“Trust life because God lives it with us” – it is Alfred Delp, a fellow Jesuit, who wrote this in a Nazi prison here in Berlin in 1944. Or more precisely: “Let us trust life, since we do not have to live it alone, for God lives it with us.”
This is what I read in the three readings – an invitation to be vigilant, to be attentive in our lives, then we can see new chances, we can see God at work, and then we can “trust life because God lives it with us”.
“Let us trust life, since we do not have to live it alone, for God lives it with us.”

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Calm down and be merry
18th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 12:13-21

We just heard in the gospel how Jesus told a parable: "A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And he said to himself: What should I do? I have not room enough to store all the harvest.” Jesus does not tell us what the people say in this village, he does not tell the rumors about this rich man. No, Jesus listens to this man.
The rich man calculates and decides to build a new barn. Economically, this is the right decision. But then Jesus gives an insight into the man’s innermost feelings, the man says to himself: Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!'
This is touching – isn’t this something we all wish – after hard labor, after many deceptions and failures: Sit down, eat, drink and be merry… In Jesus’ point of view this insight may have come a bit too late for the rich man: the rich man had calculated for too long, he had lived for his numbers and his business and his planning for too long.
That is why Jesus has God say: “You fool! You will die this very night”.
“Take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” - I say that this insight, this wish, this vision has come too late for the rich man. Wouldn’t it be a good idea just to do NOW what the rich man says: “Take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”
We do live with good and bad experiences, we do suffer from failures and losses, we do encounter difficulties in our lives – this is true. But couldn’t we take the time to enjoy our lives – now, during the holidays this should not be too difficult. And during the year we may take some evenings just to enjoy our lives, to relax, to be with others, to leave the problems of our daily lives behind, take a new breath, make a new beginning. Just take time to be human beings.
Thus what is said in the letter to the Philippians (4,7) may become true for us: Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (New American Bible)
or, in a different translation: If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus (New Living Translation).

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Martha and Mary within us
16th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 10:38–42

Martha and Mary – we know this bible passage – and it often causes indignation and resentment because of the apparent injustice Martha has to endure. How can Jesus dare to question her work and effort? Martha means it well with Jesus – just as we mean it well with the persons for whom we care, the persons that are entrusted to us. Martha is so occupied with caring for Jesus that she does not even think of asking Jesus if he needs her care. She does not ask if what she does corresponds to what Jesus needs.
Do we not also take care of others, plan for others, decide for others, act for others without asking them? It is tempting to think you know what others need. This reduces the other to what we assess him or her. In the centre of the action is the one who helps, while the other becomes an object of a “good deed”. The other is degraded to an object.
This should not be the case. Before doing something for someone, I must perceive the other person and his or her needs. I must perceive this beyond all expectations I have and beyond all selfish interests I have. True love of neighbor does not impose good deeds on someone – good deeds that might be unsuitable or inappropriate. So if we depend upon the appreciation of our work – then something is wrong. If we do a good deed and we wait for a positive reaction – then something is wrong. Because then the good deed only reflects my own needs, and I do not act in order to help others for themselves.
Martha is a good example for this: "Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me." For Martha it is absolutely clear: who works a lot is right – and she wants Jesus to confirm this.
But Jesus acts differently: He proves the other sister right, Mary who just sits and listens. He says: “There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it - and I won't take it away from her." So Jesus invites us to look at life from a different perspective.
Martha and Mary – aren’t they two sides within all of us? Both are necessary, none of them is more important than the other. Mary without Martha – this would be pious circling around ourselves without seeing the needs of the world around us. Martha without Mary – this would be actionism: you have to prove yourself by working and by doing and by achieving. Here love of neighbor may easily miss its point of putting the other in the centre.
Maybe in most of us, Martha is better developed – the need to do something you can present is very strong. When we try to be silent, try just to sit, just to listen what God wants to say, what our life wants to say, what others want to say then there is this voice saying: “Wouldn’t it be better to do the most urgent things, to carry out more important things, to take care of this and that? Don’t sit around doing nothing!”
We are in summer, most of us have holidays – wouldn’t this be a good time to act a bit like Mary, to sit down, to listen, to see the world around us, to get in touch with ourselves, in touch with those we love? To be silent. Maybe we shall encounter resistance within us, we shall encounter an emptiness, an inner restlessness… Restlessness and resistances are important. They show that there is so much that comes between us and Jesus. They show that the balance between Martha and Mary within us is not in place. Restlessness and resistances show us that we might change our ways, that we might give our lives a different orientation. And I assure you that you may well enjoy some moments of deep inner calmness and peace.
In these moments you may experience the deep truth of our story: It is enough to be before God and to let him look at us. We do not need to do anything to deserve God’s love – God’s love is just there – because God loved us into life.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

The human being always comes first
15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 10:25-37

We all know this story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus invents this story to tell something very profound to his listeners. What is it about?
The starting point is the question of the expert in religious law: "Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?" The expert gives an answer that we all know: “You must love the Lord your God and you must love your neighbor as yourself.”
To us, this is not surprising, but for the colleagues of this expert in the time of Jesus this was extraordinary. Luke makes the man say that there is a link between love of God and love of neighbor. This was not linked for the pious Jews at that time – love of God and love of neighbor were independent from each other. Luke makes the man say this so as to show the new point of view of Jesus: the human person is in the center, the human person is the place where you meet God because God himself became one of us.
Luke wants us no longer to look into the skies, but to look at our world as it is. Luke says: Jesus wants you to find God not only in the temple, in the cult, but to find God in your neighbor, in other human beings. This is where you find your God!
Luke illustrates this somewhat idealistic idea by the story of the man who fell among the robbers. This story is a kind of program for a Christian life as it should be. And it is a pure provocation for the listeners of Luke’s gospel.
Luke presents three persons – they all show their attitude towards other human beings. They show their attitude towards people in need by their action. Two of them in a way that makes us shiver – they turn away.
The message of Jesus is clear: If you are looking for God honestly, if you want to love God, you can never avoid the human person besides you. For Jesus, the love of neighbor is at least as important as the law-abidance the pious Jews proclaimed. Certainly, we know that Jesus does have clear ideas about the relation to God, what we are supposed to do and to avoid.
But the human being always comes first. This is the point of the story of the Good Samaritan. The relation to God for a Christian can only succeed via the human person. And this has marked the Christian culture. This is the measure for our message. Our credibility as the Church of Jesus depends upon it.
There must not be any prejudices towards the human beings in this world from the side of the Church. There must not be any fear of contact with the human beings of our world. The Church needs to meet people at eye level.
The Church often pretends to know the people of our time thoroughly because the Church pretends to have eternal truths about humanity. This is not enough. Humanity develops, our society develops, our knowledge develops – so the Church needs to be in contact with the world in order to get to know it. The message of Jesus needs to have something to do with the people of our time. The liturgy we celebrate needs to have something to do with the life of the people.
I am happy that here in All Saints we have a structure that allows so much participation, that allows all of us to get together and celebrate together – here in the church, but also in the community hall.
This is what I read in today’s gospel: Jesus puts the human being in the centre of our faith. And: We need to open our eyes to the needs of others; they are the privileged way to God for us.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Jesus meets people differently
13th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year C, Luke 9:51-62

I like it when Jesus meets people. In the second part of our Gospel, Jesus meets three persons – very different persons.

Let us have a look at the text: the first one says. “I will follow you wherever you go.” This person, a man or a woman, is enthusiastic about Jesus. He or she wants to give everything to follow Jesus. The second person says: “Let me go first and bury my father”. Jesus actively asks this person, but this person is clinging to everything he or she experiences as normal, as unquestionable. And he or she is prepared to protect this “comfort zone” where nothing should come and disturb, there is no room for surprises. This is the meaning of the word Jesus says: “Let the dead bury their dead” – there is no life without leaving behind things you are used to, there is no life without risking something. And the third person says: “I will follow you, but first let me say farewell to my family at home”. This is someone who hesitates, who thinks about everything in depth and who wants to keep everything in his or her hand.

Three very different persons. Do you recognize yourselves in one of these? The reaction of Jesus is different for everyone of the three, the reaction of Jesus is always very personal.

Remember the first one – the enthusiast. Jesus brings this person back to reality. Living and wandering with Jesus, proclaim his good news, is not easy, to follow Jesus is not always only happiness. And Jesus is realist enough to make this clear to those who have a wrong idea of what it means to be on Jesus’ side. Now remember the second one – the one who clings to his “comfort zone”, who tries to avoid surprises and hates risks. Here Jesus encourages to take the chance of the moment, to accept the invitation Jesus offers. And the third one – the one who hesitates. Jesus challenges this person directly. “Don’t look back. Go your way with me, now!”

Jesus would talk to each of us here in a similar way. Did I say “Jesus WOULD” do this? I should say: “Jesus talks to each of us here in a similar way.” This is my conviction – for Jesus we are partners, we are friends, he talks to us, we have a name and Jesus knows all our names – and he invites us to be his friends. Let us keep some silence and ask ourselves: Who am I in the eyes of Jesus, what would he tell me, what does he tell me now? Can I trust him, do I want to trust him? Am I sure that Jesus is my friend?

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Galatians 3:26-29
Year C - June 20, 2010

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité" - Liberty, equality, fraternity: this was the motto of the French Revolution in 1789. These terms depend upon each other. The concept of equality is the fruit of the period of Enlightenment, but it has its roots also in the Bible. In the letter to the Galatians we just heard, Paul speaks about equality: “There are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus“. Something new had come into being: the common faith and the life in one christian community was meant to abolish hierarchical orders. Each and every one in this community is wished and created by God. All have the same dignity before God.

We Christians are convinced that God is a friend of life and that God wants the happiness of all. All are invited to reach the fulfillment of our lives, to become what and who each and everyone is meant to be. We are convinced that all human beings have been drawn nearer to God through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We say we are redeemed: we do not need to seek redemption ourselves, but redemption is offered to us. Paul says: “All of you are one in Christ Jesus.“ This is not something very spiritual, but something very concrete: we form the body of Christ here in our world, and we belong to this body by our baptism. We are linked to Christ, and we are also linked to each other. So within the christian community we are equal.

Does this mean that those who are not within the Church are less equal? What about Jews and the so-called pagans? It is absolutely clear that they also can reach the fulfillment of their lives. And what is true for us Christians is true also for them: they can reach the fulfillment of their lives not out of their own effort, but because God wants it, because God loves all human beings with the same love.

And the measure for us all is to be found in Matthew: “What you did to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” This is what Jesus says – independently if the action or the omission is put in a relation to Jesus.

In history, the Christian teaching on equality abstained for too long from a political claim. It concentrated on individual admonitions for living together in small communities, in families. Equality before the law was achieved only after centuries of political struggle – often against the Churches. American and french constitutional law from the 18th century led to the formulation of the equality of men and women, and to the inadmissibility of discrimination because of one's sex, one's race, one's origin, one's language, one's faith, one's sexual orientation, one's political views etc.

Now these social and political developments influence in their turn the way the Church and the faithful see themselves. The concept of equality is an example how biblical and Christian values migrate into the historical and social evolution. There they grow and mature – and there they are rediscovered one day as originally biblical and Christian. That the official Church is not immediately willing to welcome this concept of equality is a fact, a fact that makes many of us sad. But on the other hand this biblical origin of equality allows the church to address its message not only to Catholics or to Christians, but explicitly to “all men and women of good will“. "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" - liberty, equality, fraternity - let us not forget their biblical meaning and let us implement them wherever we live and work.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Pentecost Sunday – Year C
The spirit of the Lord holds all things together (Wis 1,7)

Today, I would like to start my thoughts with the opening verse of Pentecost Sunday: “The spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together and knows every word said. Alleluia.”
(Wisdom 1,7)
Why do I appreciate this verse so much? The readings of today, from the Acts of the Apostles and from the gospel according to John, speak of the spirit that comes upon the apostles after Easter, they speak about the spirit that enables them to preach and to forgive sins. So the spirit in these readings is a spirit that characterizes and authorizes services and functions in the young Christian community. What I fear a bit is that we see the Spirit of God only linked to the Church and to the Christian community. And indeed, I think the church is often claiming the spirit for herself and for her functions. But isn't there also a spirit at work in our everyday life? Isn't there a guiding spirit at work in our contact with other people, in our contact with the world?
Here, in our everyday life, we do not easily speak about the spirit. We are shy. The idea of the spirit at work seems to vanish and not to be too present. But let us listen again to the entrance verse: “The spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together and knows every word said” (Wisdom 1,7). The Spirit of God holds all things together, so it is not limited to the realm of the Church. The Spirit fills the earth. And the Spirit can be experienced also outside of the Bible.
“All Saints” is in the building of the former US American military chaplaincy. So I thought it might be a good idea to present you a prayer I found on the internet, a prayer of the Sioux-Indians. And this prayer seems to have a long tradition with this native First Nation in the US.

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds
Whose breath gives life to the world, hear me

I come to you as one of your many children
I am small and weak
I need your strength and wisdom

Make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
And my ears sharp to your voice.

Make me wise so that I may know the things
you have taught your children.
The lessons you have written in every leaf and rock

Make me strong
Not to be superior to my brothers and sisters,
but to fight my greatest enemy....myself

I do really like this conviction that human beings cannot get along without the spirit. And this spirit is God for the Sioux-Indians. Human beings need this spirit to overcome their egoism and selfishness. You may remember that the Old Testament also speaks of the spirit as the breath of the creator, a breath the creator breathes in all creatures. “You send out your breath and life begins; you renew the face of the earth. When you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust from which they came” (Psalm 104).
Our entrance verse is from the book of wisdom. Here the Spirit of God is synonymous with the gift of wisdom: “Strongly wisdom reaches from one end of the world to the other and wisdom governs all things well” (Wisdom 8 1).
I like the book of Wisdom because it sees the spirit of God at work in all good things and in all living creatures. And with Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit, I would like to say that all creation has its aim, its sense, its meaning and is developing toward this aim, this sense, this meaning. This direction is guided by the spirit – and for me one of the most important features of this direction is communion and community. Communion and community of parents and children, of groups, of states makes us leave our egoism, makes us work for a bigger purpose than just our own comfort. Everything that divides cannot come from God.
So again: the Spirit of God is not limited to certain denominations and religions. The spirit is like the wind: “The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going“ (Joh 3,8). The wind is not something abstract, the wind, the spirit blows and touches us in our very concrete lives.
For the Sioux Indians, their tribal tradition is the teaching of the great spirit. For the Jews, the spirit of the creator is visible and audible in the law of Moses. The law of Moses represents the wisdom of the world. For us Christians, Jesus is giving us the Spirit of God. From Jesus, we receive the fulness of the Spirit. And here comes the topic of communion and community again: in the spirit of Jesus, we can attain this final communion and community, this final communion and community that encompass everything. The spirit Jesus sends us is the spirit of the creator who wants to renew his world. The creator wants to renew his world, our world. If we keep this in mind, this will also mark our every day life.
As Christians we are living “in the spirit”, we breathe his atmosphere. But this life in the Spirit is not limited to Christians. So I would like to end with the entrance verse: “The spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together and knows every word said. Alleluia” (Wisdom 1,7).

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

See life with the eyes of God
7th Sunday of Easter, Year C – May 16, 2010

Some of the news we have been hearing these last weeks are alarming: the oil disaster in the Golf of Mexico is beginning to have an apocalyptic extension – it threatens not only the environment, but also the livelihood of thousands of men and women living upon fishery. The planned bombing on Times Square in New York would have had devastating consequences. New York is living in fear since September eleventh 2001. Another catastrophe is the state bankruptcy in Greece – all European states, and probably the whole Western hemisphere are touched by this. Another disaster, this time for the Church, is the abuse scandal in church institutions. Probably the bigger catastrophe is the way the responsible people in the hierarchy have been and are still dealing with these cases.

So the question is: are we living “apocalypse now”, is our life a catastrophe, is it a trauma where there is no healing? Let me quote Albert Camus, a French poet. He said: “Life down here cannot be endured. I need to believe in a better world.” Do we also believe in this? Is our life here only preliminary? Is it only an allegory of the “real life” to come?

Honestly, I do not believe this.
I do believe that heaven, hell and purgatory are beginning right here in our everyday life. Just as eternity is beginning right here in our everyday life. And we are called to cope with this world here and today, it is our world, it is our given task to cope with it, to make it more humane. In today's gospel, we hear Jesus praying: “Father, I want these whom you've given me to be with me, so they can see my glory”(John 17 24). And Stephen in today's reading says: “I see the heaven open” (Acts 7 56). hen does not look backwards – behind him are the stones that kill him. He looks towards the present and the future. Or as psalm 27 says: “I am confident that I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living” (Ps 27 13).

“Nothing can separate us from the love of Lord” (Rom 8 39). We should see our life with the eyes of God, we should see it from Easter. “See life from Easter” means to receive this new life God gave Jesus, this new life God gave us. This new life makes us able to endure catastrophes, this new life gives us a peace the world does not know yet. It is a hope that the world does not yet see.

So when we are facing catastrophes and when I think about my response as a Christian, some phrases of Jesus come to my mind: “Don't be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me“ (John 14 1) or „Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But be courageous because I have overcome the world” (Joh 16 33 ) or "I know about your suffering and your poverty -- but you are rich! Don't be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Remain faithful, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev 2 9-10).

One day before his death, Jesus said: “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy” (John 16 22 ).

Maybe this is the attitude why so many Christians of different denominations came together in Munich for the Second Ecumenical Kirchentag, the big church gathering since Thursday May 13th. Its motto is “That you may have hope” (1 Peter 1 21).

Wherever we are gathered in the spirit and in the name of Jesus, his word is fulfilled: “For where two or three gather together because they are mine, I am there among them” (Mat 18 20). This is what we believe in, this is our attitude towards the world of today, this is our hope and our faith – we do not believe in apocalyptic catastrophes, but we believe that God has given us life, His life as a gift and as a task.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

4th Sunday of Easter year C (April 25, 2010) - Revelation 7:9,14b-17

…a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language...

In these weeks after Easter, the lectionary proposes readings from the book of the apocalypse, also called the Revelation of John. Maybe you got used to the very special tone of these readings. They are about prophecies and visions. Of course they are never a description of anything that happened or that will happen. They are a stylistic means to convey insights of faith, to transmit the content of faith in images and pictures. So they are neither fairy-tales nor reports, but they are impressions of things the authors hoped for, they are expressions of their teachings and of the comfort they want to bring to their readers, to their community.
In today's narrative, our author sees the heaven open, he sees the throne of Yahweh in a way common to the imagination of the oriental countries. Does this mean we have to think of God like of an oriental sultan? No, of course not, the author knows that God is everywhere and nowhere.

I found this nice pun some time ago – with the same characters you can write
God is nowhere or God is now here.

The author knows that God is invisible, is transcendental, is beyond our senses. But nevertheless he has to find words and images to say what he wants to say about God. So he speaks of a heavenly throne and he speaks of “a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language”.
So these are the elected ones. Are they only few like some pretend? For some, the number of the elected ones is 144.000. No, here we are told that it is a vast crowd too great to count. All these men and women before the throne are there because they had led a life that was worthy to be lived. They had led a life before God and before the others that was a good, a just, a humane life to its best. And they are not few, but they are too many to be counted.
And if we imagine this crowd, we see men and women from all colors, peoples, traditions, professions, social classes. And we see men and women from all religions and confessions, we see Muslims, we see Hindus and Buddhists – and we see men and women not believing in God but living a life that can be called a just, a good, a humane life.
To be present at God's throne is not limited to an exclusive club of people with the right membership book of a certain denomination or religion. God's salvation is not limited to a club of pious people with exclusive rights. In this sense, God's grace and love are catholic, they are all-embracing, all-encompassing. God calls his holy ones from all peoples, from all cultures, from all religions.

All those who are standing around God's throne in our reading have a common past. They all come “out from a great tribulation”. A great tribulation, trial, ordeal or distress. Yes, this is common to us all. The book of revelation does not only speak of the persecution of the christian faith 2000 years ago, it does not only speak of the tortures, the sufferings for the sake of faith.
No, it speaks about our own sufferings. None of us can live a life without suffering, without crises, without being menaced. None of us can live a life without illnesses, loneliness, abandon, unfaithfulness and disloyalty. Sometimes we suffer from it, sometimes we cause it. Tribulations, trial, ordeals – they help us to cope with these crises of our existence. This struggle in our lives – we all have to fight it, not only Jews and Christians, but heroes of this struggle can be found in all peoples, in all cultures, in all religions. These men and women stand before the throne of God and as a sign of their victory they carry palm branches in their hands – says the image.

Jesus has reconciled all men and women with God when he died on the cross. Not only Christians.
So all men and women are given this promise in today's reading. God will help us cope when life gets difficult, when we struggle, when we risk to be broken by the conditions in which we life. This vision of the book of revelation helps us to focus on a target – and the target is to be aware that God is waiting for us, is waiting for us in a very active manner, he is accompanying us towards his eternal communion – and he does this at any given moment of our lives.

God is nowhere – God is now here.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010 at All Saints:

Astronomers have identified an asteroid as heading toward
earth. Yet astrophysicists are certain that they will be able
either to destroy or to divert that asteroid with a laser beam.
Residents on the International Space Station need constant
up-dates of masses of data from general relativity and quantum
physics. Those masses of data are communicated to the
International Space Station with laser beams.
The Star Wars defense that is supposed to shield the United
States of America from incoming missiles is supposed to be
possible because laser beams can destroy any incoming
missiles.

Brain surgery to remove tumors in 1969 required the surgeon
to invade and to "insult" the brain to the extent that years of
recovery were required before the patient would be able again
to assume social responsibilities. In 1995 brain surgery to remove
tumors requires only a few days of recovery before the patient is
able again to resume such responsibilities.
The wife of a friend of mine had a brain tumor removed on a
Monday morning. Four days later she was again working as a
nurse. The difference is that brain tumors are now removed by laser
beams.

My superficial understanding of laser beams -- harmonious
integration of all light in a beam -- is most probably inadequate.
Nonetheless laser beams have transformed most significant
experiences to the extent that formerly difficult and evil
occurrences are now changed into tolerable and good
occurrences.

We are challenged to trust that the Risen One among us
similarly transforms every experience, even difficult and
evil experiences, to be acceptable and good.

Father Daniel Liderbach SJ

5th Sunday of Lent Year C, March 21, 2010

Jesus condemns the bad deed, not the person (John 8:1-11)

When I prepared this homily, I found a very moving story about an adulteress. It is called “the net” and was told by a German author, Werner Bergengruen. He died in 1964. The story goes like this.

There once was a fishing village where the custom was to kill adulteresses by dumping them into the sea from a cliff. One day, there was an adulteress who the villagers planned to kill in the traditional way. It was customary for the accused woman to meet her husband one last time before being executed, but on this occasion the husband did not appear for this last meeting. So the villagers executed the sentence all the same. The next day, there was this astonishing scene: the husband appeared together with his wife in the village. The two were in good shape – how did this come to be? Well, the man had knotted a net, a kind of “net of love”, beneath the cliff so as to save his wife.

Do you see the similarities with today's gospel? In today's gospel, everything is clear: adultery means death by stoning. This is according to the law of Moses. The women as she is presented in the gospel cannot escape. She lost everything: her life, herself, and finally also God against whose law she sinned. The pharisees are sure to put Jesus in a very uncomfortable situation, they put him in a dilemma: either he says “yes, follow the law of Moses, stone her”, then he is guilty of killing the woman, or he says “let her go free”, then he disobeys the law of Moses. In either case, the pharisees use the woman, they instrumentalize her. She only serves the purpose of the pharisees – they want to accuse and to arrest Jesus.
So how does Jesus react? Jesus does not follow the cruel law – so the pharisees won? They can say: “This Jesus disobeys the law”. But: what comes first for Jesus is the human being, not the law. The adultery of the woman is to be condemned – and Jesus does condemn this bad deed, he says, according to the law of Moses : "All right, stone her.” But he does not condemn the person – Jesus forgives without condition: “But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!”
Now what I would like to say is that God already had knotted the net of love for this woman. All of a sudden the accusers disappear. So that is the end of the story? No.
Jesus does talk to the woman and he says: “Go and sin no more." Jesus does demand a change of attitude, of practical behavior. If we manage this change, the kingdom of God is already present within us. Only to obey the law is not enough, even if it is defined as The law of God, the Law of the Church. It is very dangerous to think that God's grace can be administered and managed and distributed with the help of law, and be it canon law.
The young church in the first century was rigid. And the Christians of that time did probably have the same problems with the mildness and with the mercifulness of Jesus as the pharisees had. Isn't is a surprisingly modern attitude which we find in today's gospel? And wouldn't this attitude do good to our canon law? In the gospel every person has a new chance – we hear the good news of pardon, of an everlasting new beginning, of a new chance for everyone. And I do think that this gospel shows us something more deeply.
Jesus does have very radical expectations concerning our human relations. They are radical, yes, and it is difficult to be up to them. It is clear that we will fail. But the expectations are still valid. So for the present canon law this failure comes first. Failure, or – linked to it - punishment. This is the law the Church follows. But Jesus offers us also the sacraments, they heal, they forgive, they strengthen. He offers us his presence in the words of the Gospel. "Healthy people don't need a doctor -- sick people do” says Jesus (Luke 5,31). And we are often sick when it comes to our relations – they need healing.
I found a quotation of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in France. He died in the beginning of the third century. Irenaeus says: “Wherever you take care of the salvation of human beings, there the service of God takes place.” Jesus has come to heal – and he certainly does not want to heal by excluding, by excommunicating, but by accompanying, by being present especially in times of personal crisis. This is what we need – accompany each other, be present when one of us is in crisis. Or – with other words – what we need are these nets of love which we should knot together among us, nets of love to carry and sustain us mutually. All Saints might be a good place to begin binding this net.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

4th Sunday of Lent Year C, March 14, 2010
Luke 15, 1-3.11-32 /
Father and Son – a vertical or a horizontal relationship?

I would like to reflect with you about the parable we just heard. And I would like to do it in a kind of prolongation of the small retreat we had Saturday a week ago (March 6th 2010). The topic of the retreat had been “community building”. You may not see immediately the link between the parable and “community building” - but I shall try to explain it to you.

The parable had for a very long time, for centuries, the title “the Parable of the Prodigal Son” - the moral was always: “Do not act like this younger son, this is not good”. Then the parable has been called the “Parable of the forgiving and loving father”. We constructed this man as a model for God – God loving us unconditionally. This is still the aspect we usually see in the parable.

But let me ask you a question: Do we not identify with the elder brother? The one who never left his father, the one who never did any wrong, the one who is rightly angry about his younger brother and about his father. Do we not feel that he is right to feel insulted and neglected? And I think we feel rightly so: the father neglects to include his un-prodigal son in the welcome.

The father could have informed his elder son that he planned a party for the younger son who had just returned. He could have included his elder son in his plans, could have treated him like an adult. He did not do so.

The father in our parable has two sons, but he does not manage to make them talk to one another. Two brothers – this is one of the most emotionally charged relationships in the Bible. Think of Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. But the father in our parable is not able to see a grown-up person in the elder son who never went away. He continues to treat him like a child.

These last few weeks the catholic church in Germany has been shaken by abuse scandals. Is it too far-fetched to speak of an abusive relationship here between the father and the elder son? The elder son is treated like a child, but according to the text he must be a grown man. His father kind of “holds him down”, does not give him the space he needs. The father does not really see him, he overlooks him and thus somehow abuses him. It is fascinating to see what the older brother says when he speaks of his younger brother: “This son of yours” - he thus speaks out how he feels treated by his father. He tells his father the truth about their relationship.

Usually we say that the elder brother is wrong to complain in this way, we say that what counts is the love of the father. But today I would like to go into a different direction: I think we should be aware that the context of this story is a parent-centred relational universe. It takes place in a moral system which privileges vertical relationships over horizontal ones. In Christianity, fatherhood has become sacralised. And this sacralisation of the vertical fatherhood-relation has undermined the acceptance of alternative ways of relating in a non-vertical way. This sacralisation of the fatherhood-relation in Christianity has diminished the importance of non-hierarchical links, of non-vertical links. It has diminished the importance of horizontal links.

Like some prominent authors, I see this privileging of the vertical as impoverishing contemporary human experience. This diminution of the horizontal can be seen in almost pathological forms of what should be happy and deep relations: priests being treated like children by their congregations, teachers ignoring the needs of their children, health professionals treating their patients like objects, workers treated by their employers as machines... Thus in Christian institutions like parishes and congregations, family, education, religious orders and communities this hierarchical axis is privileged. And this hierarchical, this vertical axis has made it difficult for autonomous responsible persons to exist in this context.

And also in the secular institutions of states and societies that come from Christian civilisation the same phenomenon can be seen: the autonomous responsible self has been marginalised and has difficulties to be accepted. When the parent takes priority, the adult is eclipsed.

The vertical axis is the dimension of obedience, trust and dependence between parent and child. On the other had, the horizontal axis is the dimension of leadership, love and work among adults: marriage and friendship, aspiration and achievement, art and play, equity and justice, dialogue and peace.

The father in our parable fails to accept his sons as independently relational beings. He longs for them to turn to him with their needs; but their need to be enabled to love each other as brothers, to transcend their rivalry as siblings, escapes his notice. His sons should have learned from him how to communicate with each other, how to interact as adults. So when I say that Christian culture is privileging the vertical axis, I also must say that our culture today is a culture that privileges the horizontal axis – that means we want to interact horizontally, we live in mutual relationships where we try to find a way together.

So this is the link I tried to make between the retreat last week on Community building and today's gospel - here in All Saints, we should privilege the horizontal axis over the vertical, we should privilege brotherhood over fatherhood, we should privilege partnership over dependence. And this, of course, includes the role of the priest.

(cf for the main ideas: http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/
20100312_1.htm :
The Prodigal Father - A Post-modern Homily)

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

First Sunday in Lent, February 21, 2010
"All my fountains are in you, all good things come from you"
(Psalm 87:7) -
The three temptations (Luke 4, 1-13)

When I spent a year in Australia, I also spent a whole month with aboriginal people in the Tanami desert. I recall the red sand, the heat, and the marvelous nights – nothing between me and the stars in the sky. And I recall the importance of water – a well or a small pond where there was cool and refreshing water. The water there is precious, it is the condition for life, it is appreciated to an extent we simply do not know here in Berlin. Here, water is something so normal, it comes from the tubs, it is in the rivers, or – in winter – in snow and ice. But this is a privilege – in so many other parts of the world, water is rare, drinkable water is even rarer.

Sometimes, in a hot summer, we may feel the lack of water after a long excursion, when we look forward to drinking water. The people living in Palestine have very different experiences with water than we have. For the people in Palestine today and in the times of Jesus, water has a much more decisive roll than for us here. Only where there is water, life is possible. The bible often speaks of the life-giving water, speaks of wells and fountains. This is understandable on the background of the drought, the dryness that is everywhere in this region. "All my fountains are in you", "All good things come from you", "The source of my life springs from you”. This verse in Ps 87 is one of the scripture passages speaking of the power of water. This verse could be the title for today's gospel: Jesus had to endure temptations. And this story tells us about the fountains, the sources, the wells that gave life to Jesus.

At the time Luke wrote his gospel, people wanted to know, who this Jesus was. Is he really the son of God? How do we recognize this? And Luke answers by telling the story of the temptations of Jesus. And he does this in three images:

1. People need more than bread for their life

The first image: Jesus had not eaten for 40 days and nights, he was hungry. After 40 days, the time had come to eat – and in this situation, the tempter, the Devil says to him: "So you are the Son of God. It is easy for you to end your suffering – make use of your relation to God and change this stone into a loaf of bread." Wouldn't it be good to have such a “miracle magician wonder God” - the right rituals, the right rites – and poof!, everything is in order... But the God Jesus is proclaiming, is different. This God is not a magician – Jesus does not want to use, to exploit, to instrumentalize God. Jesus wants to listen to the words of his God and he wants to understand his God. Bread is important, but also the nearness to God is important. This is one of the sources of Jesus – the relation to God that marks and enlivens and encourages his life.

2. All glory to God

In the second image, the tempter, the devil, leads Jesus on a high mountain. There he shows him all the kingdoms of the earth – power and wealth and influence are within reach for Jesus. Couldn't he use this power and this influence for good purposes? But they are not for free – this power and this influence, they cost something: “I will give it all to you if you will bow down and worship me." That is the condition. The basic question is: “To whom does my heart belong?” And Jesus doesn't hesitate for a moment: "The Scriptures say, `You must worship the Lord your God; serve only him.' " Again – all glory to God, all fidelity and faithfulness to Him – God is the source of his life.

3. It is about love and not calculation

And Luke presents us a third image: we see Jerusalem – and Jesus is on the highest point of the Temple. The tempter, the devil had lead him there. "If you are the Son of God, jump off! God will not let you fall!” And then, the tempter quotes the bible so as to appear pious and knowing the bible: “For the Scriptures say,`He orders his angels to protect and guard you. And they will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone.' " So God is presented like an insurance company – protecting you if you pay him enough. You give God faith, he gives you protection. But this is contrary to the God Jesus proclaims. God does give us his love, his fidelity – but this is not something like an insurance. You do not have any right to claim something from God – the relation to God is about love and fidelity, not about calculation. Again, this love, this fidelity of God is the source of Jesus' life. There is no need for Jesus to test God. He simply knows that he can trust in God.

Conclusion: For Jesus, God is the source of his life

And this is the message of Luke to the people asking him about Jesus: act like Jesus, trust in God's love and fidelity. "All my fountains are in you", "All good things come from you", "The source of my life springs from you” from Ps 87 could also be a confession for us. God wants us to have life, not just a bit of life, but life in abundance. We can scoop from this source of life and from the love of God. This source will never run dry. May these coming weeks of Lent give us many occasions to experience the nearness and fidelity of God in our own lives and in the lives of the people dear to us.

Thus we shall be able to confess: "All my fountains are in you", "All good things come from you", "The source of my life springs from you”.
Amen

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ



6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 14, 2010
Trust in God and trust in human beings

I would like to concentrate on the 1st reading from the prophet Jeremiah. Let me put a question to you: “How can you destroy any relation with someone? A friendship, a couple, a relation to your colleagues – how can you destroy it?”
It is very simple: just say that you lost trust, that you don't believe any more what the other one says or does.“I don't trust you any more” is the best way of creating an abyss between you and the other person. So why would Jeremiah who lived twenty-six centuries ago say the opposite? He says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh... (Jer 17,5)”
Jeremiah predicted terrible things for Israel, his people. And the reason was that the people had turned away from God, they had believed in their own force, their own power, their own capacities. The terrible thing that came was the exile of the people in Babylon.
The prophet Jeremiah is certain: When the people of Israel is in danger and is persecuted, then only their trust in their God carries them. Their God will finally save and rescue them. This is his message. It is this opposition between trust in human beings and trust in God that Jeremiah presents. And this opposition is disturbing.
Trust in human beings or trust in God – is this really an alternative?
Maybe it is helpful to see that for Israel the normal way to encounter God was in the cult, in the temple, in the sacrifices in the temple. This preferential way of meeting God has been widened for us Christians – we can meet God also outside the holy temple district. We do need sacred places, but we do not depend upon them.
Let us recall that God created the human being to his likeness, as his image. Does this not mean that whenever we meet a human being we meet God? This is totally visible in Jesus – when ever Jesus meets someone, God is present, God is acting. This is hopefully also our own experience – we can meet God in our fellow human beings.
If I had to talk to Jeremiah, I would say: “Jeremiah, I understand that you are disappointed with your people, I understand that you feel them so far from God, I understand that you do not trust them any longer. But, Jeremiah, do you really want to make a division between God and human beings? Wouldn't it be preferable to seek human beings that show God's love for us, that are witnesses of his loving presence among us? Wouldn't it be more human to seek persons in your people whom you can trust instead of condemning them all. Yes, maybe it would be better to keep your distance from those who do not convey this love, this presence, Jeremiah. Thus you do not lose your trust in humankind.” This I would like to tell Jeremiah.
This is one side – Jeremiah is too negative, we say that we are not at ease when someone says: “Don't trust in human beings, only trust in God”. When he says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, blessed the one who trusts in the Lord” we think Jeremiah might exaggerate. But isn't it true that we all too often trust in human beings, in our own power, in human science and human capacities? So Jeremiah is also a good observer for our time: We often do forget our relation to God, we often do trust more in our own capacities and neglect God.
I would say that these are two dead end roads if we only see as possible one of the two ways.
* One way would be to say that humankind does not need God, humankind is an end in itself and there is no need for God, there is no need to acknowledge that we are created and kept alive by God. Thus we risk to see human beings as things, as objects, we do not respect them, we are prone to exploit them, to humiliate them, to abuse them. If priests abuse children and young people, I would like to know where they see God's image in their victims. How can one abuse a human being and still proclaim the good news of God's love for his creation? How can one abuse and not see God's image in the one you abuse? This is not a phenomenon for priests, but abuse is going on in all parts of our society – it is just the more shocking if it is done by a priest. By a priest who proclaims that we are created, that we are God's image. So not to take into account God's love for us, to forget that all of us are God's image is one dead end road.
* The other dead end road is to flee the world, to live only for the divine cult, to seek God far away from human beings. This is a reproach contemplative orders often hear : “you are not living in the world but you flee it”. But in this way of life, God always throws you back to your fellow human beings, God always shows us that our fellow human beings are his image. Encountering our fellow human beings is the condition to encounter God. But there is this bad way of trying to approach God: avoiding the real world, live like in permanent incense, watch others as from the outside because “you feel so much closer to God if you are not disturbed by others”. This is the second dead end road.
Maybe this distinction between the two dead end roads helps us to understand the opposition in the gospel: “Blessed are you...” on one hand, “woe to you...” on the other, “God blesses you... “on one hand, “What sorrow awaits you...” on the other...
Look at the people in the last part of today's gospel: Jesus did celebrate with rich people, he was surrounded by prosperous and well-fed people. So he did not avoid them in order to be nearer to his God. What was important for Jesus was the question: do they know that they are God's image, do they live according to this and do they beam with the joy of being God's image?
Do we know that we are God's image, do we live according to this and do we beam with the joy of being God's image?

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 14, 2010

Trust in God and trust in human beings

I would like to concentrate on the 1st reading from the prophet Jeremiah. Let me put a question to you: “How can you destroy any relation with someone? A friendship, a couple, a relation to your colleagues – how can you destroy it?”
It is very simple: just say that you lost trust, that you don't believe any more what the other one says or does.“I don't trust you any more” is the best way of creating an abyss between you and the other person. So why would Jeremiah who lived twenty-six centuries ago say the opposite? He says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh... (Jer 17,5)”
Jeremiah predicted terrible things for Israel, his people. And the reason was that the people had turned away from God, they had believed in their own force, their own power, their own capacities. The terrible thing that came was the exile of the people in Babylon.
The prophet Jeremiah is certain: When the people of Israel is in danger and is persecuted, then only their trust in their God carries them. Their God will finally save and rescue them. This is his message. It is this opposition between trust in human beings and trust in God that Jeremiah presents. And this opposition is disturbing.
Trust in human beings or trust in God – is this really an alternative?
Maybe it is helpful to see that for Israel the normal way to encounter God was in the cult, in the temple, in the sacrifices in the temple. This preferential way of meeting God has been widened for us Christians – we can meet God also outside the holy temple district. We do need sacred places, but we do not depend upon them.
Let us recall that God created the human being to his likeness, as his image. Does this not mean that whenever we meet a human being we meet God? This is totally visible in Jesus – when ever Jesus meets someone, God is present, God is acting. This is hopefully also our own experience – we can meet God in our fellow human beings.
If I had to talk to Jeremiah, I would say: “Jeremiah, I understand that you are disappointed with your people, I understand that you feel them so far from God, I understand that you do not trust them any longer. But, Jeremiah, do you really want to make a division between God and human beings? Wouldn't it be preferable to seek human beings that show God's love for us, that are witnesses of his loving presence among us? Wouldn't it be more human to seek persons in your people whom you can trust instead of condemning them all. Yes, maybe it would be better to keep your distance from those who do not convey this love, this presence, Jeremiah. Thus you do not lose your trust in humankind.” This I would like to tell Jeremiah.
This is one side – Jeremiah is too negative, we say that we are not at ease when someone says: “Don't trust in human beings, only trust in God”. When he says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, blessed the one who trusts in the Lord” we think Jeremiah might exaggerate. But isn't it true that we all too often trust in human beings, in our own power, in human science and human capacities? So Jeremiah is also a good observer for our time: We often do forget our relation to God, we often do trust more in our own capacities and neglect God.
I would say that these are two dead end roads if we only see as possible one of the two ways.
* One way would be to say that humankind does not need God, humankind is an end in itself and there is no need for God, there is no need to acknowledge that we are created and kept alive by God. Thus we risk to see human beings as things, as objects, we do not respect them, we are prone to exploit them, to humiliate them, to abuse them. If priests abuse children and young people, I would like to know where they see God's image in their victims. How can one abuse a human being and still proclaim the good news of God's love for his creation? How can one abuse and not see God's image in the one you abuse? This is not a phenomenon for priests, but abuse is going on in all parts of our society – it is just the more shocking if it is done by a priest. By a priest who proclaims that we are created, that we are God's image. So not to take into account God's love for us, to forget that all of us are God's image is one dead end road.
* The other dead end road is to flee the world, to live only for the divine cult, to seek God far away from human beings. This is a reproach contemplative orders often hear : “you are not living in the world but you flee it”. But in this way of life, God always throws you back to your fellow human beings, God always shows us that our fellow human beings are his image. Encountering our fellow human beings is the condition to encounter God. But there is this bad way of trying to approach God: avoiding the real world, live like in permanent incense, watch others as from the outside because “you feel so much closer to God if you are not disturbed by others”. This is the second dead end road.
Maybe this distinction between the two dead end roads helps us to understand the opposition in the gospel: “Blessed are you...” on one hand, “woe to you...” on the other, “God blesses you... “on one hand, “What sorrow awaits you...” on the other...
Look at the people in the last part of today's gospel: Jesus did celebrate with rich people, he was surrounded by prosperous and well-fed people. So he did not avoid them in order to be nearer to his God. What was important for Jesus was the question: do they know that they are God's image, do they live according to this and do they beam with the joy of being God's image?
Do we know that we are God's image, do we live according to this and do we beam with the joy of being God's image?

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

everything is possible

even in worst circumstances
there could still be hope
a new beginning, new light
for everything is possible

even in the midst of sickness
so incurable, so dreadful
there is always reason
to hope for healing

everything is possible

even in the face of crises
when everything seems to fall
no way out of this terrible fiasco
don’t surrender your faith

even if relationship has ended
trust has been betrayed
you have nowhere to run to
know that God is always there for you

everything is possible

yes, even in the most difficult
situations in your life
in those darkest nights
and lowest points…

the light will shine again
hope will spring in your heart
know that everything is possible
in God

Fr. Adonis Llamas Narcelles jr., svd

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C), January 24, 2010

Unity in diversity

* The big topic of today's texts is „unity“. The first reading, the book of Nehemia (Neh 8,2-4a. 5-6. 8-10), shows us the unity of the people when they celebrate. After the exile, the people of Israel returns to their country. For the first time back in their country, the people listen to the word of God in the Torah. They celebrate God's word for them – God's word spoken in their concrete lives. It is God's word that had been known for generations in a new context. The text says “Rejoicing in the Lord is your strength”. So: a common Liturgy, common prayer and celebrating creates unity.

* The second reading from the letter to the community in Corinth (1 Cor 12,12-31a) also has as its main topic „unity“. Saint Paul draws the picture of the young Church. He compares the Church to a body, to a living organism. There had already been different functions, different tasks – and all contributed to the unity of the Church by putting their different talents and charisms at the service of all. What each one pos¬sesses, what each one receives is a gift, a gift for the others, a gift for the community as a whole.

Jews and Greeks, slaves and free citizens, prophetical enthusiasts and silent practitioners, scholarly theologians and matter-of-fact believers – they all form one body by the spirit of Jesus who is present in all of them. I would like to call it “unity in reconciled diversity”. It is a plurality that aims at the crucial points of a community and thus cannot lead into chaos. This fear of chaos so often paralyzes the acceptance of diversity.

Maybe you remember the big head line in the German “Bild Zeitung” when Cardinal Ratzinger became pope Benedict XVI. It said “We are pope”. When reading this line, we probably all understood what it meant. Would it be the same with the line “We are Christ”? And this is exactly what Paul says to the community in Corinth: “We are Christ” - and this has its consequences for the daily life of all.

* In the gospel (Luke 1,1-4. 4,14-21) we find the evangelist Luke at work. Luke is looking for the origins of this unity. In today's passage, Luke speaks about the first sermon of Jesus in a synagogue. It is a kind of “manifesto”. Jesus shows the link, the unity between the story of Israel as described in the First Testament and his own story with God.

“Today this word of the scripture has become true” he says.

We know that Jesus' message was often misunderstood. Different parties read very different things in his message – and this often lead and leads to conflict, even wars and killings between different Christian denominations. Quarrels, petty jealousy, envy, struggle for power – all this is present in the history of mankind as it is present in the history of the Church. It may seem that Jesus' words had not enough power.

But does this mean that we shall never attain unity? I do think that we all have this longing for peace and unity – also in the Churches. For 90 years we have been celebrating the octave of prayer for Christian unity. At least once a year, many Christians become aware of the great diversity of possible ways of adoring God, of the common core of Christian denominations. Hearts are touched, and people realize that their neighbors' ways are not so strange. This year's theme of the octave is “You Are Witnesses of These Things (Luke 24:48). This longing for unity is present in all Christian churches.

I would like to end with a prayer from the “book of common prayer”. It dates from the 1662 and is still in use in the Church of England:
O GOD the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace:
Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions.
Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord:
that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all,
so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 17, 2010

“To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of others” (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, year C)

Since the writing of the New Testament, there are two images, two representations of the Church. And these representations are wrestling with each other, they are mixing with each other in different ways. I would like to call them the Church from above, or a top-down Church, and the Church from below, or a bottom-up Church.
Top-down – bottom-up... - this does not mean the Church seen from God as opposed to the Church seen from humanity. This would be wrong – Church only exists because of God, because of Jesus Christ, because of the Spirit of God. No, this top-down and bottom-up view concerns the question, how we Christians live together in the Church.
The Church from above, the top-down approach begins thinking from the Pope, from his infallibility, from his final legislative power. After the Pope come the bishops and the priests – they are supposed to transmit and teach infallible dogmas to the people and exercise legislative power over the people. In this top-down approach, the “down”, the lower part are the lay people. They have to listen, they have to obey. This representation of the Church can refer to verses in the New Testament like: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16,18) or when Jesus says to Peter: “take care of my sheep” (Joh 21,16).
The other representation of the Church is what I would call “the Church from below” with its bottom-up approach. Here, the Church is not primarily the pope, the bishops, the teaching and the law, but the Church is the assembly of men and women believing in Jesus Christ. The Church is built by the faithful ones, and they are not primarily objects of pastoral care from above. The Church builds itself up from the local communities, to the diocese, to the worldwide Church. The Pope does have an important function in this view of the Church: he guarantees the unity of the Church.
And this representation of the Church can also refer to verses in the New Testament. For example today's reading from the 1st letter to the community in Corinth. The good news of today's text is that no believer, no man, no woman, is without the Spirit, is devoid of the gifts of the Spirit. No one! The text says “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of others.” “The Holy Spirit distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”
“He alone decides”! It is not the hierarchy that distributes the gifts of the Spirit, it is not the hierarchy that permits or forbids the gifts of the Spirit. This direct relation between the Spirit and the human being cannot be taken away. It constitutes the dignity and grandeur of everyone believing in Jesus Christ.
So if this is true for all of us, it is also true for me personally: “I received a special gift from God, a very special personal gift for me. My task is to find out what this gift is – by listening to myself, by listening into myself”. When I find out what my gift is, then I am responsible for it, I am responsible for cultivating and nourishing it. I need to put it at the service of all. If we do this, then living together in a community like ours becomes exciting. If I trust what the Spirit says to me, then I should also trust what the Spirit says to the others.
This is the basis of our belief, the basis for all the talks in our community: different groups with different gifts, different people with different talents come together to form a community. The Spirit I received, the gift I received, should benefit the others. I did not receive the gift for my own personal holiness, but for the benefit of all, so that others can have more life because of my gift.
The Spirit unites and gathers us together. It is the ONE Spirit that gave the different gifts. So if we trust in the one Spirit, there is no place to fear for the unity of the community, to fear for the unity of the Church.
For me as one of the pastors of this “All Saints” community, this is consoling: things are not valid and true because I say they are valid and true. Things are valid and true if they are the result of the Spirit. So my task as a pastor here is to encourage you, every single one of you, to listen to the Spirit, to discover the gift, the talent every one of you received. I certainly wish the same from the Pope and the bishops, or as the book of revelation puts it: "Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (Rev 2,7). Thus the liveliness of the community and of the Church can unfold “from the bottom” - worldwide. Just imagine the richness, the diversity, the liveliness of the Church if every single one proposes his or her gift to the community, to the local Church and to the worldwide Church.
I admit that I like to be pastor in a Church like this. I admit that I like to be a co-believer in a Church like this.

Wolfgang Felber SJ

Christmas, Midnight Mass, December 24th, 2009

Is Christmas a feast for the rich and wealthy - or for the poor?
When you walk through our shopping malls, Unter den Linden and on Kurfürsten-damm, you get the impression that a real Christmas celebration presupposes a certain amount of money.
But do rich people understand more of the significance of Christmas than poor people?
Poor people are those living in darkness, living in guilt, living without a home, those nobody wants to deal with.
Jesus whose birthday we celebrate might be one of them:
born on the way, in the street, not in a house, because there was no place for his parents, nobody wants to deal with people like them.
In the gospel according to John we read:
“He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (John 1,11).

Indeed, Jesus suffered our human condition until his death on the cross.
In the beginning of his life: a manger, at the end of his life: the gallows, the cross.
Where do we live – in the light or in the darkness?
The fact that we gather here in All Saints shows that we desire to live in the light.
We came here to look for the light, to find human warmth.
I like Berthold Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Mac the Knife says :
Und die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht,
Und man siehet die im Lichte,
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht...

... some are in the darkness
And others in the light
But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see...

So who are those in the darkness?
Only those in far away countries in Asia, Africa, South America?
Or are there people in darkness here in our city, here in our community? Aren't there perhaps dark spots even within ourselves?
Those in the darkness can only be seen if you are attentive enough.
- the poor are the lonely ones, the so called “involuntary singles” without a partner. They didn't find a partner, they lost the partner, they are divorced... During the week they may have a job where they are surrounded by others.
But their loneliness appears on the weekends and on feasts like Christmas.
- the poor are the obviously rich, those who succeed – they achieved everything in their job and in their private life. Money doesn't matter.
But all of a sudden the question appears: What is all this good for? Where is the meaning of all this? These people become poor because they suffer from an existential vacuum, they suffer from an existential frustration
-the poor among us are the sick, those living with pain, with uncertainty about their future, living without a perspective because of an illness.
And all too often their illness is not recognized, is stigmatized - “I better die than continue to live like this”

-the poor are those caught up in guilt – they do not see a way out and want to end it all
- the poor are those who have lost faith.
God is just a word, an empty notion of their youth which has lost all its meaning.
They lost the faith they had as a child and did not find the faith they need as an adult.

So if Christmas is more a feast of the poor,
if Christmas is a feast for the poor, then we all can celebrate,
because these shadows of darkness, these shadows of poverty are present in all our lives.

Jesus Christ becomes poor to make us rich.
Jesus Christ comes into the darkness of our existence to bring light.
Jesus Christ is light, he is God from God, light from light.
For him, Christmas means to become poor, like the lonely ones, like the abandoned ones, like the outcasts, like the sick ones, like those in guilt, like those who are dieing.
There is no human abyss Jesus would not know, no human abyss he would not endure with us in all solidarity.
God is no spectator. Jesus is a defenseless child in the beginning of his life and he is executed on a cross at the end of his life.
Jesus Christ entered our human poverty by becoming one of us.
He did not keep out of our affairs.
By acting like this he changed our human condition fundamentally:
what Jesus gave up, he gave us .
Jesus Christ takes our poverty upon him and we receive his richness in abundance.
That is why he addresses all the sick and handicapped ones, all the lonely and abandoned ones, all those with guilt:
you are all loved by God.
"Healthy people don't need a doctor-- sick people do. I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough" says Jesus (Mk 2, 17)
Our lives are not success stories and thus, because of his love for us, God's life cannot be a success story.

Jesus says: “You will all have a new future.
There where you lost your way, where your life is stuck, where you are in a dead end street, where you are off the track,
there a new way begins.”
This is true for individuals, for every one of us, but this is also true for institutions, organizations, nations, or the Church.

“There where you lost your way, where your life is stuck, where you are in a dead end street, where you are off the track, there a new way begins.”

And Jesus says to us and to our community and to our churches:
The only thing I expect from you is to accept my invitation: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. (Mt 11,28)

We are not supposed to put any burdens on people, this is the message Jesus tells us.

Finally the message of Christmas is
that what makes us rich
is God himself, God who gives himself to us.
This is a reason to thank him on today's night,
the night he sent his son into our world.
Amen

Wolfgang Felber SJ

3rd Advent Sunday, December 13th 2009

What must we do? Three times this question is addressed to John the Baptist in today’s gospel (Luke 3,10-18).
What must we do? The people ask this, then the tax collectors, and finally the soldiers.
Their question is not superficial. They do NOT ask: “What must we do in order to get rich, to make career, to become powerful, to remain healthy, and to get headlines in the newspapers?” These would be details, but their question “What must we do?” aims at the final objective of their lives, of our lives.
They are not interested in second to the last objectives, but they want to know about the last objective of a human life. We do not need to ask the final questions dealing with our final objectives. We can stick to the already quoted questions like: “How do I get rich, successful, attractive, respected? How can I remain healthy, efficient and performing? How can I enjoy my life?”
To rise above these questions is part of the adventure of being a human being. And to put them to someone else shows courage.
The answers John the Baptist gives is simple: take care of your neighbors, help those in need and practice justice and humanness. This answer might seem astonishing: our eternal salvation is linked to this earth in which we are living. To honor God means to honor our fellow human beings. The real service of God is the service of humankind. The love of God and the love of neighbor cannot be separated.
The God John the Baptist announces is not a hidden God, but a God who identifies himself with us, a God who is on our side, who is our advocate. Everything that concerns human beings concerns God, everything that concerns God concerns also humankind. John’s answer is concrete; he addresses the context of the people asking him: the poor people should share with those who are even poorer, the tax collectors should not enrich themselves, and the soldiers should not misuse or abuse their power. The poor, the tax collectors, the soldiers – John answers them all according to their context.
John proposes these three attitudes: helpfulness, justice and humanness. Our task is to find out what helpfulness, justice and humanness mean for us, for our lives, for our context. We need to analyze the world with open eyes. How difficult this is we see when we look at Copenhagen – the same phenomenon is analyzed in so many ways, even contradictory ways. This is certainly one of our tasks as Christians – to enable us to see the real challenges of our world, maybe even to analyze them and, hopefully, contribute to change them for the better.
I would like to finish this homily with a quotation: You may be astonished to hear the quotation I offer you now. It is a text written by John Paul the Second in his encyclical “Centesimus annus” – he wrote it in 1991, in the hundredth year after the first so called “social encyclical” “Rerum Novarum”. I invite you reflect some moments about how you can promote helpfulness, justice and humanness in the contexts in which you are living.

Father Wolfgang Felber SJ

Centesimus Annus No. 58.

Love for others, and in the first place love for the poor,
in whom the Church sees Christ himself,
is made concrete in the promotion of justice.

It is not merely a matter of "giving from one's surplus",
but of helping entire peoples
which are presently excluded or marginalized
to enter into the sphere of economic and human development.

For this to happen, it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods
which in fact our world abundantly produces;

it requires above all a change
- of life-styles,
- of models of production and consumption, and
- of the established structures of power
which today govern societies.

Pope John Paul the Second, Centesimus Annus in 1991

1st Sunday of Advent Year C, November 29th 2009

We are celebrating Advent – the preparation for Christmas. When we listen to today's gospel, we might have the impression that we are back into the apocalyptic movement – the end is near, the last judgment is near. Jesus threatens us. We may mock people who calculate the end of the world – but there are two thoughts in this apocalyptic movement we should not discard too quickly.

The first point is the simple truth that we all shall die.
The moment of my death is unforeseeable. And at this moment, I shall take stock of my life – or better: stock will be taken of my life. There will be a balance sheet, a final statement about my life.
One will be drawn by all those who had known me and my life. They will somehow judge me – even if the speeches at my tomb will hopefully be quite positive.

Secondly - I myself will probably take stock of my life – there is an instance, an authority within myself that judges me. Getting older, we know this feeling of being satisfied or unsatisfied with ourselves. Thankfulness, pride or disappointment about the achievements in our lives appear in our reflections.

So the stock of our lives will be taken by others, by ourselves – and for the believers we probably are, stock of our lives will be taken by God, by our creator. And here, we are often led to have fear of the judgment of God. My question is: why do we fear God more than the authority within ourselves or the authority others are for us? Why can we not believe in a loving, forgiving God – we count on the forgiveness of others, we count on our own indulgence, but God we see as judging, as strict and as condemning us.

The fact that there are three instances judging over us, that is the others, ourselves and God is not a threat, is is more an invitation to live our lives attentively. We should taste every moment of our lives as Saint Ignatius of Loyola said. Then the final judgment becomes more a final consideration, a positive assessment of which we need not be afraid of. On the contrary – it will be an encounter with friends and with the best friend of all, with God in his Son Jesus who is expecting us.
This was the first point : let us look forward to our own end as a meeting with friends and with God.

The second point I find helpful in this apocalyptic vision of the world is the following one.
The catastrophes which the apocalyptic movement predicts exist, they happen, but they do not mean the end of the world: destruction and poisoning of our environment, earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis, wars, genocides, terror, dispossession and displacement – they all take place. Are they signs for the end of the world?
I would like to say that they are occasions to meet God, to meet the suffering Christ in our world. They are occasions to become God's hands and feet and mouth and ears and eyes: we are the only hands and feet and mouth and ears and eyes God has.
So Advent is not only the time when we wait for the coming feast of Christmas. No, Advent is the time when we are invited to meet God in the middle of our everyday life – and maybe especially when everything seems to go haywire. In this sense, Advent might become a time of true encounters with our world and its challenges. It will be in this world that we meet the loving and suffering God who shows his solidarity with us. It will be in this world that we experience his love for us, for all mankind, for all creation.
These are the two thoughts I see in the apocalyptic movement present in our readings: the end of our world, the end of our lives is an encounter with friends and with God who is our friend. And Advent may become a time where we open ourselves to experience God in our world, especially in the people around us we meet daily. In this sense I wish us all a good time of Advent.

Wolfgang Felber SJ

Christ the King, November 22nd 2009

The Royal Dignity of Us All

Revelation 1,5-8; John 18,33-37

At the end of the liturgical year, we routinely confess on Sunday our faith in Jesus Christ and celebrate Jesus Christ as the foundation of our life. We celebrate God’s closeness to each of us in Jesus Christ during Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and on every Sunday Mass.

The Biblical texts we hear throughout the liturgical year speak about the experience of men and women. These experiences are an interpretation of their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, an answer to he questions regarding their lives through their faith. For example, today’s Second Reading speaks about their distress and their fear of what is to come. The author says: Do not be afraid. Stick to your faith in Jesus Christ and you will be saved from your distress. And today's Gospel speaks of the passion of Christ. Pilate and his political power can result in death, yet Jesus, without any political power, can bring life. On any Sunday reading of the Bible, the question is: What does my faith in Jesus Christ got to do with my life? How does my belief affect my life?

The Reading and the Gospel speak about how humans deal with other human beings. Like in other periods of history, humans continue to cause suffering to others. Two thousand years later, Christians are still being persecuted, tortured and murdered because of their faith. The misuse of power to oppress others is the starting point of the Second Reading.

Our faith says: Jesus is the king of kings, He is the real ruler. In the end, the powerful have no power over others. The powerlessness of Jesus on the cross broke the power of the oppressors.

If we truly believe in this, then distress, oppression and slavery of any kind cannot break us. Our future is the deliverance of all this. This is the meaning of today’s Feast of Christ the King. Christ rules over of our suffering because He suffered but was not broken; He died, but came back to life. Christ has promised us life after death.

Today's feast is the occasion to honestly ask yourself: What am I suffering from? What am I dependant on? To whom or to what do I feel opressed? What is the obstacle in my life that prevents me from realizing all my capacities? What am I afraid of? What fears dominate my life?

We ask these questions because we believe that Jesus dominates everything that dominates us. In every celebration, we celebrate life. Life is given to us as a gift, life is given to us as a mission, not as a task. As followers of Jesus, we have the mission to make life possible by dominating our bad tendencies – firstly within ourselves, by protecting and developing life, by healing, by reconciling, by being patient and non-violent – as Jesus was. As followers of Jesus, we can invite others to experience God’s closeness, we can help others to overcome their difficulties and fears – just as we hopefully do –because of our faith.

This is an invitation to tell others that we are worthy in the eyes of God despite our imperfections, our weaknesses and our sins. Thus we Christians can become messengers of the Good News of God’s love for us. Our task is to proclaim and to work for the dignity of all human beings, like Jesus did. And to show others that they are also worthy in God's eyes. This is what we do when we take the Eucharists – we celebrate the life God has given to us, and give thanks for Jesus, who showed us our worthiness to God.
Amen

Wolfgang Felber SJ

33rd Sunday, Nov 15th 2009

Someone is expecting us at the end of time (Mark 13, 24-32)

“2012” is latest doomsday film to hit the cinemas (November 2009).
Director Roland Emmerich seems to have the fablesse for doomsday films. He is the director of The day after tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence day and now 2012.
Is the message found in the movies the same as the message found in Mark's gospel?
In Emmerich's films, humanity is helpless against natural catastrophes and is handed over to its destiny. However, this is not the message of today's gospel.
Mark wrote his gospel for Christians of Greek background who did not fully understand who Jesus was – and who were influenced by what we call the "apocalyptic movement." It states: “the end is near, Jesus second coming is near, the last judgement is near.”
Mark contradicts this apocalyptic vision of the world. He says: “No one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” It is true, that when we look at our world and we listen to the intimidating and shocking news about the state of our planet, we become frightened. Some of the scenarios and computer simulations in the movie look a bit like what we have just heard in the gospel.

I have two thoughts I would like to share with you.
The first is the fact that everything we do and have now will come to an end. Our possessions will stay behind when we leave this world. Everything will come to an end – not only the good things such as our “successes” and the things we are proud of, but also the bad things such as suffering, illness, failure. Everything has its end.
If we view our life in this light, then many of the quarrels caused by vanity, pride and power would never take place, because there would be no place for them in our world in this bigger context.
I always loved the Latin saying: Quidquid agis prudenter agas et respice finem. - Whatever you do, do cautiously, and take into account the end!
“Take into account the end”.... for us Christians there is someone waiting for us at the end of our mortal life.
During the Eucharist we confess: “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.” Thus, a loving someone is waiting for us at the end of our journey, not an Armageddon or an apocalyptic catastrophe.

The Second thought relates to the fig tree in the gospel. Jesus says that when we look at it, we can better understand what happens. This image is an invitation to be attentive to what happens around us and in our daily lives. The pastoral constitution of Vatican II, called “The church in the world of today”, was written some 45 years ago. The Latin text begins with the words “gaudium et spes”, joys and hopes. It says:
The joys and the hopes, the grieves and the anxieties of the human beings of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the grieves and anxieties of the followers of Christ. That is why this community (of Churches) realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.
For me, today's gospel and this text of Vatican II are an invitation for me to open my eyes and ears in order to do what is necessary to help mankind grow and to bring the world closer to God's plan.
Christ is the one who waits for us at the end of time and therefore we need to be open and attentive to each other now, in this world, in order to prepare ourselves to meet our creator in the loving way he offers us.
Our end is not a catastrophe, but fulfilment in the nearness to God.
Jesus Says in today's gospel: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Wolfgang Felber SJ

28th Sunday, Oct 11th 2009

Today's first reading is taken from the book of wisdom (Wisdom 7 1-11).
This book is the last one in the O.T.
It was written in the century before Christ.
It is not like other biblical books. It does neither speak about historical events, about the life and the behaviour of the Jewish people, nor about the reaction of their God Yahweh.
NO, in this book the topic is the question how God and human kind can get together in a very intimate relationship.
And the author wants to show a way how to lead human beings into the nearness of God.
The first verse shows us this way which the author proposes.

I prayed and prudence was given me,
I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

To pray, to plead – in the Hebrew original, these words are only used for pray and pleading to God, not to other human beings.
This means that - for the author - prudence and wisdom come from God.
And thus we are invited to participate in God's wisdom and prudence.
To participate in God's wisdom and prudence.... - participate in his total independence, his absoluteness.
We do no longer depend upon sceptres and thrones, do no longer need prestige and wealth and influence.
Wisdom as described in our text sets us free to seek other riches.
Our author does not condemn power and riches and prestige.
You can use them in a good way if you remain free interiorly.
Wisdom can help us to approach God and thus approach his creation.
Probably we already have left things and positions and comfort zones in order to grow, in order to help others, in order to be nearer to the project of God with his Creation, a world less unjust, a world more human and humane.
If we recall these situations, we might find strength to say good-bye to many things we just don't need.
Things that are obstacles to our inner growth.

I would like to finish with a story I read many years ago. It is from a book of the wisdom of the Jewish people.
A Jewish man went to see the rabbi and asked him:
Rabbi, why are people so selfish, why do they only see themselves and their own needs? Poor people are often friendly, they help where they can. But rich people often don't even look at you. What is this thing about the money and wealth?”
The rabbi said:
“Go to the window, look out, what do you see?”
The man said:
“Well, I see people in the street, some are hurrying towards the market place, some seem to be happy, others sad.”
Then the Rabbi said:
„Go to the mirror, what do you see?“
The man said:
„I only see myself, Rabbi“.
And the Rabbi concluded:
„You see, the window is made of glass and the mirror is made of glass.
Just a bit of silver behind the glass – and you start seeing only yourself“.
End of the story.
Let us help each other to scratch the silver layer of our lives from time to time. Amen.

Wolfgang Felber SJ

Sunday, Sept 27th 2009

Mark 9:38-43: John said to Jesus, "Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him."
But Jesus said, "You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.“

What does not fit into “the scheme”, must not be. What does not fit into my scheme, must not be.

The reading as well as the gospel are giving us examples of this claim for absoluteness. It is according to our human scale that we measure others. And we have difficulties with God's greatness – his love and his Spirit are incalculable, are infinite, are boundless there where we draw boundaries.
Whenever people act outside of our norms, we have problems seeing God at work, we have problems recognizing his presence. What we love most is to have everything under control, to get a grip on everything. We love to keep track of everything – if we don't we might lose the place, the comfort, the secureness we are used to.

If we look at Joshua in the book of numbers (Numbers 11:25-29), this pious man, this leader of Israel was somewhat blind. He just was unable to recognize the prophetic charisma of two of his men. These two did not come to the tent where he waited for them. But the bible says: The spirit came down on them. But as they do not do what Joshua expects them to do, so he says: “Moses, stop them!" Don't we also say, or at least think quite often: „O God, stop them“

Let us look at today's gospel (Mark 9:38-43).
Again someone very pious does not understand the way God is present among us.
I speak of John, John the very intimate friend of Jesus. John did not understand how someone dares to expel demons in the name of Jesus without belonging to the group of the twelve. It seems that the disciples of Jesus wanted to confine or even prevent God from acting. In the narrowness of their hearts they could not accept that there be someone doing good without belonging to their group. Someone not belonging to their group should not be allowed to do good things.

Well, I think you all agree that those who follow Jesus do not need any claim for a spiritual or religious monopoly. On the contrary, those who follow Jesus, those who want to be authentically Christian, they know that God's spirit is a gift, a gift we do not deserve, a gift we cannot dispose of. God acts when where and how he (or she) wants. And Gods acts also in those people who have left our group, our circle, our Church.
Maybe even more so. We are always prone to define “who is near Jesus”, we find criteria to say someone is belonging to Jesus: “who belongs to a certain political, social, religious or denominational group belongs to Jesus.”
Under pretext of orthodoxy, we often tend to identify belonging to Jesus with some elitist option. But this is not what Jesus told us – no-one and nothing can pocket the spirit of God.
No-one can appropriate the spirit of the Risen One to any confessional, social, or even political position. Luckily, the Catholic bishops in Germany understood this some years ago and they do not longer give advice whom to elect on election Sunday.

Yes, we are asked to prevent the evil spirit from gaining power over us, but we are not asked to prevent God's spirit to act in our world. The spirit blows where it will. And the spirit is not confined to any human, social or religious movement.
The gospel stands in judgment against all ecclesiastical provincialism, all claims to monopolize the power of the Spirit which is its source. God's spirit is not limited to certain places, certain spiritual experiences, and God's spirit is not even limited by the fact that someone accepts or rejects the spirit.
On the contrary: wherever we witness movement, change, communication, there we see signs of life, signs of the spirit of God.
Wherever we witness stiffness, rigidity, immobility, withdrawal, loneliness and death, there we see signs of the evil spirit.
And this is also true for the Church. The temptation to exclude is no more legitimate within the Church than outside it. Exclusiveness is not legitimate in any realm of our life.

In the gospel, Jesus lets the unknown miracle man continue to act in his name. Jesus does not take this man in, Jesus does not monopolize good deeds. If Jesus is our model, then we also should show this openness, this tolerance, this greatness of mind. If Jesus is our model, we should try more to seek what is common, what unites us than to stress what separates us, what divides us.
To encounter others with interest and respect is the first step towards them. In order for God's spirit to unfold, we need to create a climate without fear, a climate where we trust each other, a climate where we have true sympathy for each other. Then God's spirit can unfold in unexpected ways. Remember what the psalm says: “By my God, I can leap over a wall. “ (Ps 18,30)

We are living in a privileged city, in Berlin, where people leapt over a wall. We are celebrating here at All Saints, a community where this encounter of different groups in respect is possible. Let us pray that the spirit of God continues to be present in our city, in our community, in our lives.

Wolfgang Felber SJ

Sunday, Sept 13th 2009

Gospel: Mk 8, 27-35
When Jesus says to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God's way but man's," Peter might have asked himself:
“Do I really have to put up with this? He calls me Satan. He says I am his enemy, his opponent. Do I deserve this? And then all those things he forbids us - Jesus says: “Do not tell anyone, be discrete” – I don't understand him. I want to speak about him, I want people to know who he is, who he is for me... I want to tell them that he is the Messiah.”
These might have been the thoughts Peter had – he wanted to tell about his Messiah, about a Messiah with power, like a king, like a politician – liberating the people of Israel from the yoke of the oppressor - and Jesus rebukes him.
The image Peter had of his Messiah was shaped by his wishes, by his expectations. But Jesus does not want Peter to proclaim him as a general, as a politician.
Jesus never calls himself Messiah, but “son of man”. Not as a general, but as a servant he wants to go his way. And Peter seems to be furious when Jesus does not comply with his expectations. Peter reproaches Jesus all this. He is desperate, he does not understand his friend.
Well, Jesus is very often not the way we would like him to be. He is not cute and nice and cuddly, nor is he a fighting hero, or a charismatic guru. Jesus does not allow himself to be taken in by our interests. We all try time and again to build us a Jesus according to our wishes. Jesus is harsh when he says : “Away with you, Satan”. Or more correct: “Get behind me, Satan”. “Get behind me, do not oppose me, remain near me.” Isn't this a wonderful invitation to follow Jesus - get behind me?
To follow Jesus is not following a doctrine, or a message, or a way of living. “I follow the ten commandments” “ I keep the doctrines and rules of the Church” “I go to church every Sunday”, even “I believe in God” can be superficial.
If you obey a doctrine, you don't need the person behind the doctrine any more. No, to follow Jesus is more than obeying – our Christian faith in not a faith in something, but a faith in someone. It is a relation with a person.
Our faith is not like an escalator – someone puts us on the escalator by baptizing us, then first communion and confirmation – and there we are on the next floor of our faith, automatically, without any need from our side to decide. No, our faith is a permanent seeking of the presence, of the friendship, of the intimacy with Jesus.
Where do we find him? Certainly in the Eucharist to which he invites us, but certainly also in the body of the poor and those who struggle for justice. ”Just as you did to one of the least of these, you did it to me” Jesus says (Matthew 25).
So, today's gospel invites us to ask ourselves, who is Jesus for me? Am I in a relation with him? Where do I meet him in my every day life? Where do I let him play a role in my life?

Wolfgang Felber SJ

Sunday, Aug 23rd 2009

Who is Jesus for me?

Gospel : Joh 6,60-69
The person of Jesus still seems to fascinate and irritate people: “Who was he, was he married, did he have children, did he really heal others, what is this thing about his resurrection? His person is controversial, and his life is still good for stories, novels, films, and speculations. What did he look like? Like some Palestinian of today? Or like the face on the shroud of Turin?”
Not only his followers were interested in his person, also his adversaries wanted to know : “Who is this Jesus? He pretends to be the son of God, he says he would rise from the dead, he heals and cures and forgives sins?”
For us who seek a proximity to this Jesus, the gospel texts can help to understand his personality better. And today's gospel according to John contains some helpful images. Images that are put in Jesus' mouth so that he himself explains who he is.
I say Images – we have no exact descriptions of what Jesus said and how he was. John in his gospel wants to give a description of the character, of the attitudes of Jesus that constitute him. And when we look at the images Jesus uses, we see that he picks up the fundamental needs of human beings: the longing for being loved and secure, for leading one's life in good health, the desire to live without hunger and thirst.
You may remember Jesus' words: I am the bread of life, I am the door, I am the good Shepard, I am the way, the truth and the life, I am the light... It is interesting to see that Jesus never says that he is a ruler, a master. “Do not call me master”, he says.
What we see is that Jesus acknowledges the central needs of human beings. These needs belong to our being, and Jesus not only accepts them, but he shows us how to deal with them. Jesus not only talks, but he also acts. His acts show his inner attitude: he touches the lepers and gets them back into the social life in this world, he feeds the hungry as soon as he sees their needs, he institutes the Eucharist when he sees the need of his friends to preserve his presence and persevere in his friendship.
And this is what our Christian faith is supposed to do: discover God in this humanity, proclaim God as the one who takes care of the needs of human beings, who is not at all indifferent to our needs, who is kind of declares his solidarity with us.
Christians always were threatened by the risk to see faith as something ethereal, as something disconnected from the world in which we live. Some of them even saw the world as something bad. And we continue to be threatened by this wrong perception of our faith.
This is the opposite of what Jesus showed us: within our world Jesus shows us signs, traces of God.
The founder of my order, Saint Ignatius, said: “Find God in all things” - in all things and not only so to say in heaven.

So who is this Jesus? Philosophers, theologians, maybe even archaeologists will have their answers, and these answers will differ. But if I may say so – their answers are not really essential to me. My question is: who is Jesus for me?
As someone who tries to be in a relation to Jesus, who tries to see more than a role model in him, the question is: who is he for me? Just some interesting historical figure, someone who worked miracles, someone who criticized the society of his time, someone who fascinates still today?
Or is he more to me? Someone who loves me as I am, someone who gave his life so that I can live as a human being?
During my time in Australia, the Jesuit who accompanied my group had one phrase that still impresses me: “Keep it relational” - this means that as long as I am in a relation of friendship, even of intimacy with Jesus, everything finds its measure in this friendship. This is like in a friendship between human beings. Another way to put it is: “Love and do what you will” (dilige et quod vis fac). This is a sentence by St Augustine. Jesus spoke in images about himself, never in an abstract way. So I invite you to think for some moments about your image of Jesus. Who is Jesus for me? And what does this change in my life?

Wolfgang Felber SJ