Faith

THE LAST JUDGEMENT: Getting into the ‘skin’ of Michelangelo!

As thousands of people trek to the Sistine Chapel, they are greeted by a yawning archway of a complex commotion of figures. Unlike the ceiling that unravels the salvation story of over a thousand years, the Last Judgement captures a moment. It is the moment of swirling drama, of clouds caught in the act of storm. It is a fresco teeming with an awe inspiring ‘terribilita’.

Terribilita! That’s would well describe Michelangelo’s personality! A Romantic hero brooded by guilt, grumpy, insecure, smelly, fretful, fearful and raging; above all, an eccentric! He lived a poor man, eating sparingly, drinking nothing and sleeping little. Michelangelo devoted himself to the beautiful ideas that sprung from the Divine Spirit.

When Pope Paul III commissioned the painting in 1534, the Church was in a crisis. The Reformation had sparked abuses; the Sack of Rome (1527) was a recent memory; war clouds were gathering over Italy and the mood of Europe had changed. Confidence had been replaced by anxiety and hope by fear.

The painting is a powerful execution of 391 figures, no two alike in an appalling drama in a variety of dynamic poses. At the centre of the composition is the demanding figure of Christ set against a golden aureole. His raised hand, as a gesture of command, sets the events into motion. The Virgin nestles by His side, her hands crossed, indicating prayer and intercession.

Right below Christ are the angels of judgement, 8 in number, blowing their trumpets with all their might to convoke the dead from the four quarters of the earth. On their right is the gaping mouth of a cavern, an entrance to purgatory. The dead with shaking shrouds and drooping eyelids realise it is time to rise. Some rise effortlessly, others are pulled by an invisible force; still others uplifted by an army of angels. Interestingly a pair of souls clings on to a rosary (prayer). Another soul is caught is a tug of war, pulled at one end by two angels and at the other by a nasty demon.

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Faith

 JAM with God

Prayer is nothing but surrender. It’s the placing of our will, desires and thoughts into the hands of God Almighty and then resting them in Him. The problem lies in the ‘resting in Him part’ for the waiting period is toughest.  I was brought up in a home where prayer formed an integral part of our day. My parents are people of deep faith and prayer. My mum, like most expressive mothers, reminds me that she prays for me and I believe that she does. She along with many other people often reminds me how much they pray for priests.  Yesterday I experienced the collective power of prayer once again.

I am no gadget geek and technology terrifies me. Like many, I hate any one tampering with the settings on my gadgets.  Most of my technologically challenged life is reduced to three uncomplicated steps that help me operate one of these modern marvels that never seem to stop getting more marvellous, often by the second.

Yesterday technological terror visited me again; my computer screen froze. I tried the little tricks I have been taught and mechanically I went about attempting to fix a frozen screen.  Step One, press and hold the “Ctrl,” “Alt” and “Del” keys in that order and select the Task Manager when the screen changes. Step two, on the “Applications” tab, see if any programs are listed as “Not Responding.” Step three, select the frozen program and click “End Task.” Nothing happened!

I threw my hands up in despair. It was time to give up and send a message by whatsap to the recipients of my blog; their daily dose of spiritual insight was not coming through today. The devil it seemed had taken over my laptop.  Out went my first whatsap message, “computer crashed, no blog today”. Within seconds my phone began beeping like a car backing up at rapid speed. Messages that ranged from sad emoticons to words of support and yes even promises to pray.

My phone must have hit two hundred odd messages in five minutes flat when ‘just like that’ the computer screen lit up. It was as if by some miracle a heart monitor beeped to life minutes after the doctors declared the time of death.  My computer lives again, Alleluia.

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Faith

Can you enforce uniformity in pluralistic diversity? Thursday, 33rd week in ordinary time – 1 Maccabees 2:15-29

In order to deal with threats to his vast empire from within, Antiochus IV decided to ‘unite’ his subjects under a uniform civil code and culture called Hellenism. It was his hope that the imposition of Greek culture and language would eventually ‘unify’ his kingdom thus making it easier to administer and govern. King Antiochus like many cruel tyrants of today, did so first by inducement and then finally by brute force.

A uniform civil code in a pluralistic, multi ethnic, religious and linguistic society is bound to fail if that code is made by a single man with a single agenda (or even worse by a parliament where many have criminal records themselves). An attempt, if any, to write such a civil code should rest with the best minds of the nation, representing religion, culture, language, gender etc., or else it will be a pseudo- democratic process with autocratic intentions of staying in power forever ( welcome to the world of the likes of Vladimir Putin)

While many of the Jews in the Maccabean period succumbed to the vile threats of this cruel tyrant, King Antiochus, the scriptures of today tell us of the bravery of the family of Mattathias. In all probability Mattathias had moved from Jerusalem to the city of Modein to avoid the sacrifice that was mandated by King Antiochus. This monthly sacrifice coincided with the celebration of the king’s birthday.

Having left Jerusalem to avoid such an abomination, it was not likely that Mattathias would bow to the king’s wishes in what might have been his home town. The scriptures tell us that Mattathias was offered inducements to be part of the ‘king’s friends’. This was the lowest of the four ranks in the order of ‘friends of the king’ (friends, honoured friends, first friends, preferred friends).

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Opinion

It’s time to bell the cat – revisiting human traditions

My dear friend, the late Fr Larry Pereira always said that religion is like a river; at its source it is pure, and then as it comes down into the plains, people throw their rubbish in it.  I get it when people rightly express their frustrations at human religious traditions, especially those linked to sacramental celebrations; traditions not advocated in any form by the Catholic faith.

What ails the Christian community, or for that matter any other religious community, is not the faith as expressed in the scriptures, but the ‘rubbish of human traditions’ that are thrown in the name of God and faith. One such tradition is the distribution of ‘snack boxes’ distributed after funeral, month’s mind and anniversary masses.

Growing up, I was routinely hauled to ‘seventh day’, ‘month’s mind’ and ‘first death anniversary’ masses. Mercifully, the seventh day mass has been ‘laid to rest’. Let’s look at the evidence in the ‘General Introduction to the Roman Missal’ 336/37 which states, ‘The funeral Mass has first place among the Masses for the dead. On the occasions of news of a death, final burial, or the first anniversary, Mass for the dead may be celebrated.’ So how did the seventh day mass and month’s mind mass come about?

I have a hunch. Back in the day, and I really need you to stretch your mind to a period beyond even your birth, funerals were a race against time. Hot tropical climates, like India, cause the corpse to rapidly deteriorate. Funeral masses and burials were conducted within the day. In a world that lacked even the telephone, the tolling of the Church bell became the sole means of communication. Perched at the highest point of the village, the bell became to a village what satellite communication is to us. It was the ‘Whatsapp’ of the day.

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Faith

 

Leading by example- Tuesday, 33rd Week in ordinary time – 2 Maccabees 6:18-31

In 167 BC, King Antiochus IV Epiphanies issued an edict which cancelled the concessions made by his father to the Jews. He prohibited the religious customs of the Jews and imposed Greek religious customs.

The Jews were compelled to violate the law and its ordinances for Antiochus had forbidden the Jewish practices and imposed the sacrifices of unclean animals. He cancelled the observances of the Sabbath and the traditional feast, banned circumcision, compelled the Jews to eat pork and finally decreed that the copies of the Law were to be destroyed and their possession outlawed.

Antiochus built pagan altars, temples and shrines throughout the land and forced the Jew to sacrifice to idols. They had to participate in the feast of Dionysius (Bacchus) and in the monthly sacrifice in honour of the king’s birthday. To crown it all, in December 167, the cult to Olympian Zeus was instituted in the temple of Jerusalem. An altar to Zeus was erected and swine’s flesh was offered on it. This is the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11. Disobedience in any of the above carried a death penalty.

In the text preceding today’s first reading, the author gives us a view on why the Jews were visited with such great calamities. He makes a distinction between the way the Lord treats the nations and the way he treats his chosen people. In the case of the other nations, the Lord does not punish immediately but waits patiently to punish them until they have reached the full measure of their sins.

In the case of the Jews, the Lord punishes them immediately, that He may not take vengeance on them afterward when their sins have reached their height. This is a sign of great kindness (vs. 13). The Lord punishes His disciples not to destroy (vs. 12). He disciplines but does not forsake (vs. 16).

In the storm of persecution, the author of Maccabees also gives us examples of great courage. The first of them is Eleazar. Eleazar was a scribe who held a high position. He was advanced in age, (vs. 24) and we are told that he was 90 years and had a noble appearance.

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