ベネディクト聖書ブログ ・ Benedictine Bible Blog

The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Psalm 23 King James

My grandmother Seberger eloped with a Socialist schoolteacher, Peter J. Seberger, in about 1890 and moved to a new city.  There they had four children, one of whom died a year before my mother, the last one, was born. Grandma spent most of her life as a semi invalid, the result of an early illness.  In all my memories of her she was a widow, mostly confined to a chair next to the radio,  though she could walk about the house, and even would make her way with assistance to a park three blocks away.

A dear friend of hers, Mrs. Bublitz, taught her the twenty-third Psalm in the beautiful King James translation.  Grandma Seberger prayed it every night before praying herself to sleep with a rosary.  She repeatedly told me that it was the greatest comfort to her in her prayers.  She had glaucoma, and could read only for several minutes each evening at sunset when the soft light was just right.  In her last years she would often read a psalm at that time of day, and even memorized a few more.

I’ve often wondered whether Grandma ever saw a live sheep; they have seldom been raised in Minnesota.  But the text of the psalm itself tells enough about the relationship between the shepherd and his sheep.  He shows the way, feeds, and protects the sheep.   And it is clear that the metaphor richly nourished her love of God.

It is for this that God has given us the psalms, to shape our hearts to pray as God would want us to do.

Forty years ago Cardinal Richard Cushing was telling Cardinal Francis Spellman about an incident at an ecumenical gathering in Boston: “At Mass all of a sudden most of the Protestant delegates were coming up for Communion, and there I was, trying to decide what to do.”

[At that time it was Catholic law that communion must never be given to non-Catholic Christians.  Now Church law permits it in special circumstances, though it would still technically probably not be permitted in this situation.]

“But what did you do?” asked Spellman.

“Well,” said Cushing, “I asked myself, ‘What would Jesus have done?’”

Spellman cried, “O my God, you didn’t!?”

*      *      *

When I first heard this story in America many years ago everyone in the room burst out in laughter.  But when I told it in a homily in Japan a few days ago everyone looked puzzled.  If you don’t see what’s funny about it, check back on this blog in a few days and I’ll try to have an answer for you.

I had just entered the monastery six weeks earlier at the age of 19. It was the nightime office of Readings on the Saturday before the Second Sunday of August, and we had all just settled down for the first reading. It was from the beginning of the book of Qoheleth (or ecclesiastes as we called it then). Our prayers were all in Latin at the time, but we had the text before us in our Latin breviaries, and could read and listen at the same time. I could hardly believe my ears. As soon as I got back to our study hall I checked the passage out in my Douay-Rheims English Bible, and I had indeed understood it correctly. I had entered the monastery with an adolescent world weariness, and here was the revered wise man of Israel giving voice to thoughts and feelings that were already lurking in my heart. It was comforting to find the Bible providing a confirmation of my feelings.

Of course, I realized that this was not typical of the Bible. In fact, I found it so consoling precisely because it was untypical. It gave me confidence that the God who had inspired this biblical book could accept a skeptical, critical, hesitant, confused faith so much like my own. Not only could God accept it, but God could celebrate it by making it one of the best written books of the Bible. That was the kind of God I could believe in.

At big ceremonies at the Vatican they often sing the words from today’s gospel, the promises to Peter. However, if I ever become Pope (!!!) I shall make a decree. I shall order that at big ceremonies they are to sing not from this gospel, but from Isaiah’s prophecy, which is the source on which Jesus modeled his words. This would be a reminder to me that the Pope’s job is a dangerous one, and that if I fail to be a faithful servant to Christ, I will have to answer for it.

There have been popes who failed miserably. The Sixteenth Century saw a massive division of the Western Church between Catholics and the various separate churches, each seeking its reform of the Church. The immensity of this division were directly due to the failure of the Church leadership, and specifically of the popes, to seriously respond to the many many calls for reform. Saints and sinners, kings, priests, and lay people, begged for better education and behavior of the clergy, use of the peoples’ languages in common prayer, giving lay people access to the bible, better (and less) use of money in the Church, improving the way that decisions were made in the Church, and so on. Meanwhile the Popes, bishops, clergy were too afraid to try new ideas, feared losing their income and power (e.g. the chance to appoint their nephews to well paying and influential jobs). Meanwhile a well-meaning reformer like Martin Luther had to raise a rebellion against Rome or risk having his reform crushed by Rome.

It seems to me that in our Catholic Church the “original sin” of recent centuries has been the refusal to make decisions collaboratively. Religious superiors, priests, bishops, popes, if they were going to make consultation at all, have tried to appoint counsellors who would agree with them. But in the beginning of the Church the most serious problems were solved collaboratively. For instance, when the first gentiles wanted to follow Christ, twice the Jerusalem Church was called together to decide if they could do so without becoming Jews first. Now, this became the norm for the first thousand years, but had been mostly lost by the 1500’s. We are really only beginning to learn it again since Vatican II. At that council the bishops refused to accept the agenda and documents that had been prepared by the Church bureaucrats to help the bishops’ discussions. And Pope John XXIII and Paul VI let the bishops decide which issues to discuss and let them write up their conclusions.

Like Eliakim, we will all be judged by our faithfulness to our Master. This is true whether we be leader of the whole Church, a religious community, or a local church; or whether we are a member of a church, a bishops’ conference or a synod. It is our responsibility to help to make the Church a more vibrant witness to the message and work of Jesus Christ.

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In the Catholic Church we celebrate this week the feast that commemorates the death of Mary, the Mother of the Lord Jesus. This is the time when Mary shared in the Resurrection of Christ by being “taken up into Heaven,” as we say.

The Bible contains nothing about Mary’s death, and very little even about Mary herself. But the Bible reports and even celebrates realities in the Old Testament that remind us of what took place in the story of Mary. At the center of this is the central belief of Christians concerning Mary, that it was in and through Mary that God became a human being, that God came to live in our midst. And so in the feasts of Mary we pray especially Psalms about the presence of God among us. For it was through Mary that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Of the seven psalms chosen specifically for the feast, five are on the theme of Zion (i.e. Jerusalem), where God dwells in his Temple. Ps. 24 rejoices in the entrance of the Lord into his Temple. In Ps. 46, we sing a refrain, “The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold,” and declare that God is in the midst of Zion, and saves his people from their enemies. Psalm 87 sees Jerusalem as center of worship for the gentiles and mother of the nations. Psalm 147:12-20 is a hymn that calls on Yhwh’s beloved Jerusalem to praise God for protecting them, giving them rich harvests, and manifestating of his Word to them. Psalm 122 is a joyful hymn of pilgrimage to God’s dwelling in Zion.

When we sing these hymns we use them as a kind of metaphor, as an image of what he has done for us in our Lord Jesus Christ through his mother Mary. We believe that we are fulfilling Mary’s prophecy: “All generations shall call me blessed, for He who is mighty has done great things for me.” (Luke 1:48-49)

In our Benedictine monastery here in Fujimi, Nagano ken, Japan, we celebrate Mass each day at noon, and gather at five other times for other prayer services, the “Liturgy of the Hours”. These services can be from twelve to thirty minutes in length. Most religious and priests pray more or less these same prayers together or privately each day. By far most of the words that we speak or hear in these services are direct quotations from the Bible.

However, since all of the Bible was written approximately two to three thousand years ago, how on earth can we make it the basis of our prayer life in a vastly different world?

One way that the structure of the liturgy itself helps us to do this, is the choice that the “Prayer of the Church” has made of biblical passages suitable for certain times. For instance, every night at compline we sing or say the Song of Simeon (see above). In Luke’s gospel it is the prayer of an old man who has taken the infant Jesus in his arms and gives thanks for having lived to see the newborn messiah. Like many of the texts for this time of day it is an expression of confidence that in God’s hands all things are safe, and a gentle reminder (and even an acceptance of the possibility) of death. In his Rule for Monasteries Saint Benedict lists “To keep death daily before one’s eyes” as one of the “instruments of good works.”

Many sayings that we call “messianic prophecies” were spoken or written six or even ten centuries before Christ. But were they at that time really meant to predict eventｓ that were not going to take place till the time of Jesus? I find it hard to think so when I study them carefully. For I find that each of these makes good sense at the time when it was composed. They all respond to events or situations of that time.

But I admit that the New Testament writers probably did think of these as prophecies about Christ. However, many of these sayings had never before been considered messianic by the Jews. Examples would be sayings from Psalm 22 or the Servant of Yhwh in Isaiah 42-53.

Such “newly discovered” messianic passages helped to expand the imagination of early Christians. In ancient times righteous prophets, teachers, kings had suffered opposition, persecution and death. Evil people had prospered for a time but were destined for destruction in the end.

Perhaps the Risen Christ <<復活されたキリスト…>> or the Evangelists could recognize that such sayings were not originally meant for the distant future. But that was too difficult to explain. (Look how hard it is for me to do it!) And that was not the poinｔ anyway.

They felt compelled because they knew from experience that Christ was not a failure, that Christ was God’s truth and the hope of humankind. That was their message. Their problem was how to get it across. So they used something like the “pesher” form, interpreting passages of the Hebrew Scriptures as predictions of events in their own time. (See my post, “Catholics on Messianic Prophecies?” April 9 2008.) After all<<いずれにも…>>, this is appropriate. For the God whose compassion and justice are reported in the Hebrew Scriptures is the same God who revealed himself definitively in Jesus of Nazareth.

Catholic Biblical scholars at least since the time of Pope Leo XIII over 100 years ago have been searching the historical and literary background of the ancient world in order to understand the Bible. So I will ask here a question about the situation. For Jesus and the early biblical writers , what was the greatest crisis facing the disciples after the death of Jesus?

Surely it was discouragement and despair over that death. For if Jesus was God’s Chosen One, how can we explain his death? Was God unable to prevent his death? It had seemed that Jesus was going to bring about the liberation of Israel, but now he can never do that, no?

Jesus answers this by saying that his death was not an accident nor was it a failure. It was part of God’s plan to save Israel and even to save the whole world. By dying he will become free to extend his work throughout the world by his Spirit and through his disciples.

But if Jesus is to convince the disciples he must use methods of argument that they can understand. One such method is searching the Old Testaments for passages that seem to predict current events of their own time (see the reference to Dead Sea scrolls in my article of April 9, “Catholics on Messianic Prophecies?”)

I maintain that Jesus’s purpose was to convince his hearers of certain things that they desperately needed to know about Jesus and their own relation to God and to Jesus. It was not Jesus’s purpose to teach them or us that six or seven hundred years earlier God had been making predictions about events of his time. But I will write more about this next time

Even a key text like Isaiah 7:14 fits well into its historical context as a message to King Ahaz of Judah. Two Kings are bringing their armies against Ahaz to replace him with a king who is not a descendant of David. But Isaiah assures Ahaz that in a few short years those kings will be no more. And as a sign to prove it he informs Ahaz that a certain “young woman” has conceived a child. Nevertheless, against the admonition of Isaiah, Ahaz sent to the King of Assyria, who rescued him indeed–but then made Assyria a harsh master over Judah for 100 years.
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Originally this oracle was remembered as a lesson that disaster followed the failure to heed the prophet. But later, like other prophecies that failed to work out perfectly, people began to think it was really a promise for some future time when God would very soon intervene and establish a kingdom of peace and prosperity under a king descended from David. We might claim that God purposely arranged for Isaiah to make ambiguous promises to anticipate what he would do when Jesus came 800 years later. But on what grounds?

As Catholics carefully studied the background of passages that were thought to be messianic prophecies, they found that these seemed to refer to people and events when the passages were written or the immediate future.

For instance, in 11:1-3 Hosea is obviously summarizing the miserable religious history of Israel from the Exodus to his own days in the 700’s B.C. “I called my son out of Egypt, ” refers to the Exodus. But in Matthew 2:15 after reading the escape of the infant Jesus to Egypt and his return to the Holy Land we are told, “This took place to fulfill what the prophet said,” and then the writer cites the quote from Hosea.

It is hard to imagine that anyone at Hosea’s time recognized this as a prediction of some future event. And indeed the evangelist surely uses the quote to indicate that Jesus was actually to fulfill the purpose of that “call,” which Hosea’s Israel had failed to do. But that’s not to say that what was fulfilled was a prophecy.