Can we ask for whatever we want and it will be granted? Reflections on the Vine and the Branches in John

 Today's Gospel reading is about the vine and the branches in John 15/1-8]-. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. 

As I was listening to the reading I was struck by one verse. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you" [Jn15/7]. Then I waited for the homily of the priest. He said that the verse is so soothing, so consoling. 

The verse attracted me, awakened me, inspired me. "Ok, Now I can ask for whatever I want! Aha! There are certain things I would really ask for". I stopped in the middle of my thoughts and realized,  "I wonder if what I ask for will be granted after all".

Reflecting a bit on the Gospel reading, maybe we can consider the following. 

A long time ago during the time of the prophets the image of the vine was applied to the people of Israel. The vine was "elected" to be fruitful. But, as the prophets themselves said, the people of Israel were a disappointment. So here comes John's Gospel account saying that, this time, it is Jesus who is the vine. 

Something new is revealed. A new people, the branches, will come out of the vine. Our cathecism tells us that we, disciples of Christ, are the branches. There is a bond between the vine and the branches. Sure, we may not always be fruitful, we may turn out to be lousy disciples, but the vine-grower, the Father, does some pruning here and there. The pruning is the work of the Father. The work of the disciples is TO REMAIN in the vine. 

John wrote about branches that really do not bear fruits; they are cut off and burned away. Scary. But there is something historical in that and we make a brief note on it. The synagogue tradition rejected the presence of Christian Jews. Some of these people consequently rejected their following of Christ so that they can continue in the synagogues. That happened in the time of John who took verses from the prophet Ezekiel to describe the fate of those who did not remain in Christ. That's history. 

Focusing on the branches that continue to remain in the vine, the branches receive sap--life from the vine. Hence they want to remain. To remain means to participate in the mission of the vine and to live according to the commandments of the vine. In John's account LOVE is a command. Love one another as Christ has loved. So the branches who remain live according to the command of Love. This love is fruitful. 

"I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit"[verse 5]. 

Here comes the fun part. The branch, the disciple, who remains in Christ knows that prayers will be answered... that whatever is asked for, one gets it. Ok, fine.

Whatever?  Ask for anything? Well, not quite. 

The disciple who remains in Christ knows what to ask for. So the "whatever" part corresponds to the "remaining in the vine". As one remains in the vine, one remains in Christ. So what one will ask for will correspond to the life of remaining in the vine. In other words, the disciple asks for the sap of the vine, the life of the vine. The branches will ask for WHATEVER conforms to the Life in Christ. 

John's Gospel account speaks of "glory". "We saw his glory" [Jn1/14]. This glory manifests in the branches that remain in the vine, THEY PRODUCE FRUITS. They continue the work--the mission--of Christ by participating in the life of Christ and in particular by accepting the commandment of love. Those who follow Jesus see where he stays and they stay with him [see Jn1/37-39]. 

So in one's imagination of asking for "whatever" from God, one can stop and ask, "But what exactly is this 'whatever'"? For example can we ask for death? Can we ask for the ruin of life? Can we ask for things that will eventually ruin us? These do not enter the domain of the "whatever". 

We can ask for what is good for people around us, including those we do not like. We can ask for accompaniment in the heart of our miseries. We can ask for light in darkness. We can ask for experiencing the presence of Christ in our difficulties. We can ask for WHATEVER  is fruitful for people around us, for ourselves, for the Church. We can ask for love--that we really experience love from each other and from God. We can ask that even in the heart of our own pains and struggles we can somehow manifest God's love for the world. As Charles de Foucauld often said, "Cry the Gospel with your life". We can ask that even when we feel so miserable we can cry the Gospel and share some light, no matter how small and weak that light is. So we can ask for "whatever" and we know what we ask for. 

Charles de Foucauld used that word too in his prayer of abandonment to the Father, "Whatever you may do I thank you". May our "whatever" be also the Father's "whatever".   

What Jesus reveals when bad things happen to us

 Is God a reason for bad things happening to us today? I just saw a video saying that bad things happening today show that God sends us a message so we will repent. Let us be good, let us prepare for the coming of Christ. Repent, God is making us return to him through these bad things happening to us. It is a sad picture about God. It makes God look bloodthirsty.

This idea that God is source of bad things happening is found already in the New Testament. Remember the story of the blind man in the 4th Gospel? We read that the disciples of Jesus ask about the reason why the man is blind: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” [Jn 9/2]. God sends something bad against the man because the man, or his parents, has been bad. 

We read something similar in the Luke account. There we read about the issue of the massacre of Galileans done by Pilate, "Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices" [Lk 13/1]. The massacre is thus a kind of atonement, like the sacrificing of animals on the altar, to satisfy God who wants repentance from people.

Jesus replies. He does not say that God causes bad things to happen. When bad things happen they simply signal the need to be more vigilant. God is not the source and cause of the catastrophes happening around us--certainly not this covid pandemic. Yet God is not nothing and is not nobody in these situations. God is here somewhere and the Revelation of the Son is a clear example.

Let us think of the many bad things happening. The deaths of vulnerable people due to the covid virus. The rape of a woman in the street. The killing of innocent by a militia. The cheating done against workers in their workplaces, including their salaries. The loss of jobs. The breakdown of an educational system. Then there is the horrible climate change and the destructions occuring.  Etc. 

Here we find bad things happening; we find the destruction of lives, the negation of dignity, the defacement of hope. 

During the time of Jesus there was the Roman Empire dominating over the social lives of the people of Palestine. We know the role of crucifixions. They were done to show everyone else who's is charge, who's the boss around here. 

We know the story. The Jews were so frustrated, and among them were disciples of Jesus. They were all longing for liberation from the yoke of the Romans and the local political/religious authorities. They were longing for a Messiah who will liberate them. 

Jesus did not show himself as a political leader; Jesus did not take up arms, as opposed to zealots, for example. The disciples, during the pre-Easter time, were disappointed when they did not find in him the answer to their hopes for political liberation. 

What was the response of Jesus to the bad things happening? The response he gave was so unique, so unexpected.  In and through the bad things happening what did Jesus show? We can consider some points.

Fist is the "solidarity" of Jesus with all of humanity through the Incarnation. We see the solidarity of Jesus in culture. Jesus participated in a world where bad things happen and he himself experienced bad things happening to him.

Second is his trust and confidence in the Father. He knew that no matter how bad things got he had a Father who will stay by his side and will not abandon his very own Son. Then Jesus said that we too are children of the same Father. Jesus had full confidence in the Father that even in the midst of bad things happening to him he abandoned himself in the hands of his Father. On the third day the Father rose him from death. 

In the Catholic tradition there is no rejection of our being Image and Children of the Father. Never does the Father want bad things happening to us. Never does the Father shower us with bad thinbgs to make us turn to Him. Never. If today we feel we must "repent"and "turn back"to the Father, it is not because the Father will continue sending us bad things. It is rather because we realize the Love of God and we want to continue to hold on to that Love, recognize it as basic to our human reality. In the midst of this pandemic--and all the other bad things happening and will happen--we can be like Jesus maintaining full confidence in the Father who loves us and grieves when bad things happen to us. 

I remember, by memory, a prayer of St Therese of Lisieux: 

"You must navigate the tempestous sea of the world with the love and utter trustfulness of a child who knows that the Father loves him too much to forsake him at the hour of peril". 

 Then there is the prayer of Abandonment by Charles de Foucauld: 

Father, 

I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures -I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.

We can think of people who love us--family members, friends--who make the effort to accompany us in our own grieving and enter into solidarity with us in their own limited ways. They too, like Jesus, come to us, stay with us, walk with us in our darkness.

The Road to Emmaus: Scriptures and the Eucharist

 When we read the story of the road to Emmaus we may take note of two important elements: the work of "cathecism" and the breaking of the Bread. We read that the Resurrected Lord gives something like a rapid teaching of the disciples on what was written. But then that was not enough.  The disciples were still at a loss. Later, after that walk Jesus broke bread at table with the disciples. The minds, the eyes of the disciples were opened.

We know the story. The two disciples are walking to Emmaus away from Jerusalem, talking about the event of Jesus crucified. Then Jesus comes along and gives his "lecture" series. The disciples do not recognize him.  Nearing Emmaus the disciples ask Jesus to stay over with them. They beg him to hang around still as Jesus pretends to be on his way. 

Now at the table Jesus breaks the bread and gives his blessing, his benediction. The eyes of the disciples open, they recognize Jesus. Jesus disappears and the disciples admit how their hearts were ALREADY BURNING during the catechesis. Immediately the disciples return to Jerusalem to break the news to the other disciples. "Jesus is truly risen". They talk about the walk with Jesus to Emmaus and the breaking of the bread. 

That walk to Emmaus was a kind of catechism on the faith. The faith of the disciples somehow started to clarify--their hearts were burning, they were more and more interested, enlivened. Although they were disciples of Jesus they did not yet know what was underneath all that Jesus said and did. In theology school this is termed as the "before-Easter" understanding abiut Jesus. Jesus had to give a lecture, a rapid "semestral" course on Scriptures. [No, it was not "on line"]. Jesus showed the plan of salvation as depicted in the Scriptures.

But what really opened up the minds and eyes and hearts of the disciples? It was the breaking of the bread. That gesture, we know, is the "memorial" of the sacrifice of Jesus. It summarizes and gives summit to what the catechism was presenting earlier. So two elements supplemented each other: 

1. the encounter with the RIsen Lord with and through the Scriptures and 

2. the breaking of the bread. 

The story tells us that the faith is now guided, it knows where to lead itself which is the realization of a new life, a new world. 

In our own daily lives we see the same route to Emmaus, and beyond. We know of very painful experiences and we have them in our stories to tell. Like the disciples we can live this "walk" with Christ presenting, discretely, both his Person and his teaching, his "catechesis". He accompanies us in our walk of hope. Are our hearts burning? 

The route to Emmaus was not done in haste. Perhaps there were moments of pause, questions and answers, moments of reflection and even prayer. We need that too in our walk. We need quality time for prayer, meditation. We need quality time to catch breath and re-breathe in our faith. Like the disciples, even if, perhaps we do not recognize the presence of Jesus, our hearts are already burning. Jesus is really with us,

We also need to eat the broken bread. We need that intimacy with the living bread. We need to share the meal with each other. The Eucharistic celebration is that pause, that long pause, that allows us to openly confirm our faith in Christ. 

Charles de Foucauld saw, in his own ministry among the Arabs and Touaregs the place both of Scriptures and the Eucharist. Although he did emphasize the role of "insertion" among the inhabitants, he knew that his Scriptural and Eucharistic practices were equally "effective" in his ministry of living with the people around him.

On Peace

 If we consult Google translate and see the translation in Hebrew from English of "how are you?" we will see the word "shalom", peace. If we consult the youtube on how to say "how are you" in Hebrew we will get something like this, "ma shalom'kha". So there we have the word "shalom"., peace The phrase "how are you" then is roughly translated in Hebrew as "are you in peace".  

If we consult, again, Google translate of "goodbye" in Hebrew, we again see the word "shalom", peace. Goodbye, take care, shalom. Be in peace as you move away.

Are you "complete"? "Integral"? When a house is built and completed, it is in shalom. A completely constructed house allows for a harmonious and intact daily life. There is peace in daily life. Shalom has its roots in shalem, according to Hebrew language specialists. Shalem means whole, complete, intact. It can apply to personal wholeness or also to social-political wholeness. 

It may be interesting to note that shalom is also applied to wishing an "intact" death. "You shall go to your fathers in shalom, you will be buried at a good old age.” (Genesis 15/15). Whatever happens to you in and after death, may you be in shalom.

In the psalms we read about what a friend is. A friend is "someone of my shalom", someone of my peace. I can place my trust on that person; I can rely on that person. So we read, for example, the verse complaining about a friend who has "unfriended" me, so to speak. "Even the man of my peace, who ate my bread, has raised his heel against me" (Ps41/10). Even the person of my peace has raised the heel against me. The relationship thus is no longer intact, integral and trustworthy. The person who is contributing to the peace of my life is now an obstacle to my peace. The psalmist thus complains.

When there is justice there is shalom. In justice each one is respected in dignity. The dignity is conserved intact. Earth gives sufficient fruits, each one has enough to eat, each one lives in security, each one sleeps well, each one can bloom in life. To live in peace is not just to be free from violence and tensions, it is also to be able to bloom. 

Of course shalom includes the presence of the Lord God in life. Shalom is a spiritual condition of living with the Lord God who assures everyone that the covenant is sustained. It is the covenant that guarantees security, justice, cooperation, harmony within society. Because everyone in society recognizes the presence of the Lord God who has given the gift of Covenant, there is shalom in that society. In union with the Lord God, “no sword will pass through your land” [Lev 26/6]; “God will bless his people with shalom" [Dt.20/10].

For the Christian, Jesus is situated in peace. He is a gift of peace. Hence the angels announce to shepherds that there will be peace thanks to the coming of Jesus. 

"And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” [Lk2/13-14]. 

The coming of Jesus signals peace, completeness, integral life, blooming because all will be reconciled with God and with each other. 

It has become the task of the Apostles--and consequently the Church--to announce the Good News and put this peace in effect. Thinking about this then we can ask ourselves if, in our own personal--and social lives--there is this completeness, this wholeness, this shalom.

I might be getting what I want, but is it what I REALLY AND DEEPLY want. Does it make me whole, integral, intact? Or does it ruin me and ruin my shalom? Are the things that I do in conformity with the covenant that the Lod God has installed in the midst of society? Is it in line with the peace of Jesus? Am I, like the Apostles, on mission to promote peace? 

Do I have peace in me? Deep in me can I say there is peace? And when in deathbed I go to my fathers, do I go in shalom? As I move away, do I go in shalom?

Reflections on Abraham's call to "take, go and offer"

  "Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you" [Gen22/2]. Three verbs here: take-go-offer.

1. Take the son you love, your son. That's Isaac, the son from the sterile Sarah. Isaac is a surprise; never quite expected. Abraham starts to consider Isaac as his son--emphasis on "his". Yes, he is a "promised" child. But he is the Lord God's promise, not Abraham's. So the Lord God tells Abraham to give him up--take him up the mountain. Abraham can refuse this order to "take" Isaac. He does not. His paternity is now placed in faith. 

2. Go to the land of Moriah. Abraham had done his going away from his own homeplace. "Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you" [Gen12/1]. . Now he has another going away, this time from his own son. He is to go away from his son to a future designed for Israel. [Remember that prior to the Abraham story we read about the stories of Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark and the tower of Babel, all descriptions of the conditions of the human being after the Adam and Eve story].  

Abraham is quite silent. He says nothing. He says nothing to Isaac. He says nothing to the servants. He is cloaked in silence. 

Well, he does say something to his servants, but it is no explanation of what is really going on. He also replies to Isaac's question. "The Lord God will provide" [22/8]. The Lord God will provide what is needed for the sacrifice. He does not however say that he will sacrifice his son. Abraham is completely absorbed in faith. 

3. Offer. Offer the son to the Lord God. The future is now outside the hands of Abraham; it does not rely on Abraham and his plans, goals, dreams. Offer the son because the paternity is now that of the Lord God. The future of Israel will have to be abandoned in the hands of the Lord God. 

We know the story, an angel comes and stops Abraham from killing Isaac. There are interesting commentaries on this and let us leave them to the expertise of Biblical scholars. There is just one point we can discern. Offer all hopes and dreams based on one's own expectations and lay them all in the hands of the Lord God.  The human, in the figure of Abraham, is called to overtake continuously what prohibits the human from what the Lord God has given. This includes overtaking dreams, plans, goals, desires that prohibit the human from living with the dignity that the Lord God has provided. This is our dignity as "image of God", our dignity as children of the Father, our dignity as brothers and sisters to each other. It is our dignity that has to be realized in the course of history--as represented by the history of Israel in the Bible. In a way Abraham is reminded that his faith in the Lord God is marked by a recognition of what it is to be truly human as the Lord God has designed the human.

It is tough and at times incomprehensible to be told to "take, go and offer". There are moments in life when this feels cruel. Life has its "comfort zones"that are shaken by the three verbs, "take, go, offer".  But as Charles de Foucauld prayed, "Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord.". Good luck to all of us. 

Reflections on "Forgiveness"

Forgiveness. What is this? Those who pray the Our Father pray, "forgive us our trespasses". In that prayer to forgive is to forgive like the Father. The way the human forgives is aligned to the way the Father forgives. Something happens in the heart of the person who forgives and it is what the Father wishes to happen. 

If we look at what have transpired in our lives, the times when we forgave others, we might note two things. One is that the moment of forgiveness was an event. It happened at a precise moment. Also, it happened as if the forgiveness was like a "gift" to the person(s) who hurt us. 

1. Forgiveness then happens in an event with a date on it. It is something like this.

Time moves on with a hurt we cary in our hearts hoping maybe that the hurt will go away on its own. But then we also know that during all that time there is an ember that can be triggered to become a huge flame. A memory might arise and we realize that the ember is there inside. The hurt, the grudge, the pain still linger within. The flow of time has not thus guaranteed a new order of feelings and behaviour. The flow of time has not easily allowed the inauguration of a new happy life order.

Come to think of it, the event of forgiveness is like a "conversion" or a "surgical operation" that cuts out the grudges deep within. It is like a decision made, giving up the hope for a better past.

This is easier said than done, of course. The act of forgivness does not present a new situation as if nothing happened before, as if no hurt was ever done. It is more like constructing a new life. 

2. It is also like a gift. Oh, we might feel that the person who hurt us does not deserve the gift. That person who hurt us does not seem to have the right to be forgiven. 

For the person in pain, hurt and holding grudges, forgiveness may be unjustified.  Unless the injury remains unpaid and unrepaired there will be no forgiving of the other. Reparation and restitution belong to the system of justice. Of course we want justice. We need justice. 

But maybe there is something paradoxical with forgiveness because we give it as a gift even if we feel that the person who hurt us does not merit the gift. Imagine saying, "Oh I forgive you even if you do not deserve it". 

Are we capable of forgiving those who have really--and I mean REALLY--hurt us? Are we capable of looking for something beyond justice? What about ourselves, our relationships with our very own selves. Some of us might have done actions that make us hate ourselves and make us unforgiving towards our very own selves. Self forgiving can also be very difficult. 

So, the question remains: Are we really capable of forgiving? I do not know. What I do know is that there are perons who have been so hurt and have, nonetheless, been forgiving. To reply to the question I would like to look at the Our Father prayer given at the Sermon on the Mount. 

The prayer gives us a reference point. If we are to forgive we do it just like the Father. Forgiveness does not arise exclusively from our own decisions, it also "consults" what the Father will do in the same situation. So as the Father forgives, we do the same. We decide to forgive based on how the Father forgives. 

How does the Father forgive? Continuing with the Sermon on the Mount we can get a clue from the description Jesus made regarding the "perfection" of the Father. This is not a geometrical perfection. Rather, it is a perfection of the way the Father treats us all. The Father "makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust" [Matthew 5/45].

Something in each person remains untouched; it is conserved and must even be protected. A person may be "bad or good", "just or unjust". but that person remains to be a child of the Father and has the human dignity of being a child of the Father. The creation story will say that the person is "image of God". 

No matter what any person does or has done, the sun will rise on that person, the rain will fall on that person. There is no discrimination here. To forgive is to keep this in mind. No matter how I have been hurt--by others or by myself--I must remain constant about the fact of human dignity and the fact that each person is image of God. Justice and mercy need to have their focus on this dignity. If I find it so difficult to accept others and to forgive those who trespass against me, I need to however continue functioning based on the respect of human dignity, the respect of the image of God. Never must I violate the dignity of anyone and always, when the occassion is given, must I promote the dignity of others even if consider them as "intolerable", so to speak. This, if I am not mistaken, is the "bottom line", the "non-negotiable" level. 

I might have difficulties with my dislike of certain persons and I might even fall in the cultural trap of relating with others in terms of liking or disliking them. Much of social life, in fact, seems to me so unforgiving towards particular, disliked, persons. However, the Christian faith in the dignity that God has bestowed on each and every single human person must serve as a solid foundation.  The "minimum" we can do in forgiving others-- and ourselves-- is to keep the recognition and respect for human dignity.

Some Christmas Thoughts (with the help of Blessed Charles de Foucauld)

1. Adam and Eve ate from the prohibited tree. A command was given, "You may eat from any and all trees EXCEPT from the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil". There is nothing wrong with knowing what is good. There is nothing wrong with knowing what is evil. The problem lies in the word "and"; hence "good AND evil". 
2. With the help of a Biblical concordance, when this phrase with the word AND emerges in a Biblical text it indicates a problem, a risk. Good AND evil implies the risk of transforming evil into good and transforming good into evil. For example I like to kill my fellow. It is evil but I want to make it a good thing to do. Nobody will tell me it is bad because I consider it good. A confusion is thus described in the phrase "good AND evil"; it is the confusion of mixing up good with evil and losing proper discernment. 
3. Hence the command of the Lord God in the garden is a description of the human condition as created by the Lord God. The human condition involves freedom. You may do anything you want; BUT know the limit. Feel free to do anything you want, BUT recognize the limit. If the human rejects the limit "you will die". It is deadly to live with mixing up evil with good and not knowing which is really good and which is really evil. It is no longer a happy and vibrant life to live according to the intolerable; that is, to live with evil as if evil is good.
4. When the Lord God gave the command, the Lord God immediately supplemented it by saying, "it is not good for the human to be alone". Hence you may do anything you want to do, but know the limits by living with the other. It is in living with the other, or as the book of Genesis would say, with a "helper" that you will know how to manage limits. The "helper" will guide you with the limits. Both Adam and Eve, then, were to be helpers to each other. Life becomes an adventure in which the partners in the garden will explore the whole garden, discover what is in there and do anything they want within the given limit of not eating from the prohibited tree. The adventure dies if they eat from that tree. If they eat from that tree they will start saying that they have no more limits--hence there is nothing more to discover, to learn, to see, to enjoy; there is no need to adventure.
5. Hence the Garden of Eden story, as written by human authors, is a description of human life meanto to be adventurous; and we might add as "socially adventurous". We know the story, Adam and Eve, each ate a fruit from the prohibited tree. They accepted the story line of the serpent and lost the fun and joy of adventuring in life.    
6. I would like to appreciate the story in the perspective of philosophy. The human has limits starting with the limits of human incarnation. I have a body and at the same time I am my body. Hence this body is not just a thing, not just a material object for scientific scrutiny. This body is also me. 
7. Beginning with the human incarnation the world is then delineated into space, time and society. Clearly the delineations indicate human limits. For example in terms of space the human can reach certain places and the human cannot reach certain places. I can reach the pen next to me but not the top of, say, Mount Apo. I can see the computer screen but not the wall behind me. I terms of time I can pace in my own way but I must recognize the pacing of the world around me. I might want to rush planting papaya seeds in my garden but I also must recognize that the best time to do this is during the next rainy season. I may want to drink my cup of coffee but I must wait for the coffee to somehow cool a bit so I will not burn my tongue. In terms of society I may have my own thoughts and feelings and express them to others, but other people also have their own thoughts and feelings. I must recognize that fact and not violate their own access to their own thoughts and feelings. I might want a child to master at once algebra in school but I must also recognize the pacing and capacities of the child for learning algebra. With others I need to keep in mind that they have their thoughts, feelings, joys, pains, plans and goals. Others are my sabbath too.
8. What can I do? This is the human condition with all its limits. I can adventure and adventure with others, in the family, in the neighborhood, in society. Forgetting the limits can create a hellish life. 
9. Just think of the violation we have been doing to the carrying capacity of nature. We demand so much from nature and if nature cannot give in to our demands we intensify our demands and production to the point that we do not care about the plastics we throw into the sea and the carbon we spit into the air. 
10. Just think of conditions of many workers. From many workers are demanded profitable work but with salaries that cannot sustain a decent family life.   
11. Returning to Biblical reflections I am reminded, this time, of the first creation story--the seven-day story. The Lord God is such a marvelous and powerful creator but on the seventh day the Lord God takes a distance from being the marvelous and powerful one. The Lord God takes a distance--a "sabbath distance"--from God's own mastery over the world and allow the created order to take its own stand. Some biblists would poetically say that as soon as the Lord God takes this sabbath distance the created world sings joyfully and thank the Lorde God.
12. Among the creatures is the human being created in the image AND LIKENESS of the Lord God. This word "likeness" specifies that the human being is TO BE LIKE GOD by ALSO taking a Sabbath distance. The human is master of the world, ok, fine, great. But the human is commanded to take a distance from that mastery. The human is created male/female BUT must also be man/woman. You may be male/female BUT BE MAN/WOMAN. You may be master BUT know how to take a distance from that mastery. Note the same structure found in the garden of Eden story: "you may, but". In the case of Adam and Eve, the other person is a "sabbath". The human can be master but the other person must be recognized in his/her sabbath status. Know when to distance from your mastery in order to allow the other person to be himself/herself. (This is one reason why, in the first creation story, the human is told to be vegetarian--eating without competition with the animals. It is only in the Noah's ark story where the Lord God agrees that the human can also eat the meat of animals--BUT not the blood. The same structure is insisted on: "you may, but...")
13. So comes a Christmas meditation. The Word became flesh. If in the creation story the Lord God takes a sabbath distance--a distance from being Lord and Master and Powerful, the same logic is found in the New Testament. In the New Testament the Word became flesh or, as St. Paul would say, "Although he was God, he did not count equality with being God, HE EMPTIED HIMSELF AND BECAME HUMAN". The logic of the sabbath distance is now reiterated in the Incarnation of the Son. The command that the human take a distance from power and mastery, the command to be free with all desires but with recognition of limits is now, in the New Testament, made so evident. The solidarity of the Word of God with us is in our very own incarnation--starting with conception and with the birth in Bethlehem. This solidarity of God with the human is expressed in the confirmation of our creation. We were created "like God" and we were created to have a full, adventurous life. In and through the Incarnation of the Word God has confirmed and affirmed that our very own incarnation is of so much value and dignity.
14. Let me end with some thoughts taken from Blessed Charles de Foucauld. He was so enamored by the Eucharist. In the Eucharist he saw both Christmas and Holy Week. Let me just mention the Christmas side. Each time there is a mass the bread becomes Body of Jesus Christ. It is a Christmas. Jesus was born in the First Century Palestine, and during each mass he is again born in Pacita San Pedro Laguna, in Cotabato City, in New Delhi, in Lima Peru, in Yaounde Cameroon, in Fribourg, Switzerland etc. For Blessed Charles de Foucauld there is always this Christmas going on each day, somewhere, in which the Incarnation occurs. The solidarity of the Incarnation, this time in the Eucharist, assures us that really God is with us.