Opinion

Simple Truth – Sunday Mass; a rhyme or a reason?

The simple truth is that the attendance at Sunday mass in the city of Mumbai is greatly diminishing and I dare say that thirty per cent and more do not attend Sunday mass. Look around you during a Sunday mass and you will notice that a large majority of the youth and young adults are simply not in Church.  Sixty five per cent of India is below the age of 35 and most of them are missing in our Church.

But I write not merely to state what has now become the unaccepted obvious but to throw a spanner in the works of those who do attend Sunday mass. I question (with love) the motivation of the ‘attending faithful’. Do they, I ask myself, attend mass for a rhyme or for a reason?

If our motivation for attending mass is a particular homilist, a particular Church setting or a wonderful choir or cantor then it’s a rhyme that draws us to Church on Sunday. The consequences of such a ‘rhyme’ is manifested in the criticism we hear so often; bad homily, terrible singing, dusty Church. Unfortunately this has become the swan song of the growing number of lapsed Catholics and of the Sunday faithful.

Make no mistake, I have never defended an unprepared homilist but to expect every priest to be JFK or a Winston Churchill is asking a bit too much. It is the content that needs to touch our hearts and not the diction or delivery.  You can’t get a lesson unless you are ready to listen and my guess is that most congregants tune off as soon as they see the celebrant.

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Faith

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord; A second Annunciation Lk 2:22-40

The feast of the Presentation stresses the Holy Family’s obedience to Torah. The Bible tells us that Joseph and Mary presented Jesus for circumcision and naming eight days after the Nativity. According to the Old Testament, after a woman gave birth she was ritually unclean (cf. Lev. 12:1-5). In order to be purified, a sacrifice was required (Lev. 12:6-8).  Hence Mary and Joseph now fulfil their next religious obligation, namely the ceremonial presentation of first born son (Exodus 13:11-16) at the Temple in Jerusalem.

By telling us that they went up to Jerusalem, Luke is actually depicting Mary and Joseph as Torah observant Jews. The Holy Family, therefore, is presented as the model of obedience to God’s Law. This also makes us wonder if Mary needed to be purified since she was the sinless one. Ritual impurity did not necessarily involve “sin”, though sin was a kind of impurity  

A woman was not a “sinner” because she had given birth. In fact, the first divine command in the Torah is “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Without giving a long explanation, we can simply say here that the purity laws were essentially “symbolic”. While Mary is Immaculate and remains miraculously a virgin even after the birth of Christ, she nevertheless presents herself for purification to fulfil the Law and avoid scandal.

So what does the presentation mean?

The word translated, “to present”, is paristēmi. As Pope Benedict observes in volume 3 of his work, Jesus of Nazareth, the term is specifically used for “presenting” a “sacrifice”. See, for example, Romans 12:1: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present [paristēmi] your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” It seems that for Luke Jesus is in the temple as the sacrifice.

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Opinion

 

Simple Truths -Familiar bondage, unfamiliar freedom

The scourge of pornography is real and it spares few, especially since it is now available at the click of a button on your ‘personal device’. And since one has access to it on a ‘personal device’ there seems to be both a sense of ‘availability on demand’ and a feeling of security from supervisory eyes.

This is your device and no one can figure out what you’re viewing because you have the password and the possession of the device. In a flash you become a voyeur into the world of people acting out what ought to be so intimate between two people. You can now throw open the window of a bedroom and watch a sexual act as if you were sent an invitation to view; and there is no dearth of windows to choose from.

Unfortunately, what seems like a time of pleasure is really a bondage which has now become too familiar. Now that you have walked into the parlour of the spider you find yourself entangled; getting out seems difficult. This familiar bondage is bitter sweet, for there are some who seeks it as recourse from their stresses only to find that the world it invites you into stresses you out more, if not messes up your mind. This is not reality but sadly even many married people have come to believe it to be true. Ironically they are left unfulfilled in what should have been the most fulfilling intimate act between two people.  

Pornography is a mask the devil wears to offer us comfort. God on the other hand confronts us. Ironically we have grown comfortable with the comforting voice of Satan and are unsettled by the confronting voice of God.

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Faith

Getting into new skin – Monday, 2nd week in ordinary time – Mk 2:18-22

Chapter one of Mark’s Gospel had every one go la la about Jesus. From 2:1-3:6 it’s a constant shift of gears with the foot on the hate accelerator. Everyone seems to turn against Jesus. It begins with the scribes, then the scribes of the Pharisees, then the people which may also include John the Baptists’ disciples, then the Pharisees and finally the Pharisees and the Herodians

There are five ‘controversy stories’ in this section (2:1-3:6) and we are at the third one. If you look carefully at how St Mark has structured all five you will notice that the first and the last deal with the healing of a person, the second and fourth have to do with the issue of food and eating and the story in the centre (today’s Gospel) has to do with fasting but most importantly with a concept familiar to the Jews, namely the bridegroom.

The only fast stipulated in the Old Testament was the Day of Atonement. However the Pharisees fasted on several other days which began to be practiced by others in imitation of these ‘pious ones’. Hence there was nothing in the law that required Jesus or his disciples to fast. These were nothing more than man made traditions which did not add value to faith as the hearts of Jesus accusers were far from God.

The Pharisees had searched the scriptures but not their hearts. It is for this reason that when Jesus the law maker and Messiah walked among them they were neither able to recognize him nor understand what the scriptures said about the Messiah to come.

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Art/ Heritage

CHEERS! : ‘The Wedding at Canna’ by Paulo Veronese (1562 – 1563)

 ‘He is the treasurer of art and of colours. This is not painting, it is magic that casts a spell on people who see it.’ – Marco Boschini

Paulo Caliari, popularly called Paulo Veronese, is one of the most celebrated Italian Renaissance artist of all times. He was born in 1528 to a stone-cutter in Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland. The wonderful lights and the boisterous sounds of the Mediterranean lagoon city collides with the chromatic splendour of his palette, the brilliance of his brushwork and the fanciful aura of his figures. The magnificence of his spectacle is no better represented then in today’s painting titled ‘The Wedding at Canna.’

The scene is set within a two-tiered Greco-Roman courtyard flanked by aristocratic architecture. Elegant fluted columns topped by Corinthian capitals frame the upper plaza while pink pillars with Doric capitals fringe the lower dining scene. The soft Venetian air pervades the majestic marble casting a smooth shadow upon its silken surface. The bell tower and the classical sculptures arise and attest to the adventures of time. Veronese clearly blends the biblical with the contemporary.

The banquet is indeed a feast to the eye. As a bulging band of balustrades divides the scene into two parts, we are invited to join the no less than 130 figures sporting charming coiffures and agile adornments. It is an astonishing array of royalty, noblemen, clerks, princes, orients in turbans and the populace. Among the who’s who are included Emperor Charles V, Eleanor of Austria, Francis I of France, Mary I of England, Suleiman the Magnificent and Cardinal Pole. In service, they are accompanied by servants, jesters, dwarfs and frolicking pets such as cats, dogs and even a parakeet.

The sumptuous display enhances the affluent aura. Notice the luxurious tableware, the elegantly carved furniture, silver vessels, crystal goblets, gold jars, porcelain vases etc. Before each guest is arranged a set of napkin, fork, knife and a dish. Veronese’ eye escapes no detail.

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