Opinion

Striving to be the rule- Ethics for wedding guests.

The Bible is filled with analogies and parables relating to weddings. Yahweh was the bridegroom to His people Israel, in the Old Testament. Jesus begins His public ministry at the wedding feast of Cana and punctuates His parables with analogies of wedding processions, banquets and bridesmaids.

Looking at the Gospels, one can draw from it an ‘ethics for wedding guests.’ Why do we need such ethics? Simply because we have reached a stage where common courtesy has disappeared, and the focus now needs to shift to that which should have been the obvious.

All exceptions not withstanding, one must admit that a certain culture of disrespect has crept in at wedding celebrations. This culture of disrespect has now become a cycle of acceptable behaviour and one that seems to raise no eye brows. I am irked and so I write with the hope that somewhere this discourtesy will be frowned upon with many thumbs down of disapproval.

Weddings today are an expensive affair, and while I continue to advocate for a debt free marriage (not to be read as don’t have a celebration), I hope that we will cut our coat according to our cloth. Given the fact that an average celebration runs into a couple of hundred thousand rupees, it stands that for most people, a wedding celebration of two and half hours amounts to several years of scrounging and savings.

For those who transcend beyond the social pressures of wedding celebrations, the reception is a special dream, cherished by many a bride and groom. Years of planning, years of saving and hard work and coordination all dissolve in a ‘two and a half hour whirlpool’ of time, that just disappears in a jiffy. Just like that, several thousands of rupees have all been spent in less than 150 minutes.

So that brings me to the ethics of the wedding guest. Do we then not have an obligation to be an integral part of the celebration in every way; from the religious celebrations to burning a hole in the dance floor?

Assume the total guest list has two hundred and fifty people (that’s a low estimate), and the total cost of the wedding is four hundred thousand (also a really low estimate), your host ends up paying 1600 per person, or a whopping 2,666 rupees per minute for a 150 minute celebration. This is the minimum. A family of five could cost your host a cool ten thousand g’s. That’s reason enough to be respectful when we get an invitation.

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WOW- Writing on The Wall- Wednesday, 34th week in ordinary time – Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28

Chapter one to six has six edifying stories about Daniel and his three companions at the pagan Babylonian court.  These are indirect references to the religious persecutions of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the second century BCE (Before Common Era) but set to have taken place in the sixth century BCE.

In chapters 1 – 6 and 13 – 14 the author of the sacred book uses a literary form known as ‘didactic’ (or a fictional form).  Therefore the first six stories are not historical and are not to be read as having actually happened.  The purpose of writing is not to teach history but to preach a message to the readers.

This story in Chapter five is set at the end of the neo Babylonian period.  In this narrative, Nebuchadnez’zar is succeeded by Belshazzar who offended the God of Israel and hence was punished.  In the course of hosting a feast, a mysterious message written on the wall, announces the king’s doom.  Daniel was brought in and he interprets the dream.  Daniel foretells the message; that night Babylon would fall into the hands of the Medes.

Historically this text has a number of inaccuracies. Belshazzar was not the son   Nebuchadnez’zar   as Nebuchadnez’zar was succeeded by Awel-Marduk (the evil Merodach) who was followed by Nergalsharusur, Labashir-Marduk and finally Nabunaid (Nabonudus) in whose seventeenth year Babylon was  conquered  by the Persians.

Belshazzar was never King of Babylon as Nabonidus was the last King of Babylon.  His son Belsharusur (Belshazzar in the story) was the ruler in charge of Babylon during his father’s absence in Taima in Arabia;   but Belshazzar never became King.

Neither was Darius the Mede the conqueror of Babylon (5:31).  In fact no Darius was ever known in history.  Contemporary inscriptions show that Babylon was captured without a blow by Cyrus and that Nabonidus was taken prisoner. 

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Divine retribution – Tuesday, 34th Week in ordinary time – Daniel 2: 31- 45

When Nebuchadnez’zar destroyed Jerusalem he carried to Babylon the sacred vessels and leaders of the Jewish people.  Among them were some young men without physical defect, handsome and intelligent to serve as royal pages and who were to be trained for three years and then presented to the King.

The book of Daniel tells us of four such young men. Daniel, meaning ‘God (El) has judged’, Hannaniah, meaning ‘Yahweh has been gracious’, Mishael, which means ‘who is what God is’ and Azariah means Yahweh has helped.  The chief eunuch in charge of them changed their names to Belteshazzar, Shardrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Yesterday we ready how Daniel and his companions were rewarded by the King for their fidelity. Today’s reading has the previous story in mind. We see how none of the court wise men could compare with Daniel. 

In chapter one the emphasis was on faithfulness to those elements of religion concerning private living; here we find a complementary emphasis on the faithfulness to religion in public duties. In chapter one, the Jews of the second century were encouraged to remain faithful to the law by observance of its prescriptions.  Here they were encouraged to hold fast to national hope of a coming kingdom.

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The book of Daniel – Monday, 34th Week in ordinary time – Daniel 1: 1-6, 8-20

The book of Daniel purports to have been written in the sixth century B.C. during the Babylonian exile by one, Daniel, himself one of the Jewish exiles.  Most scholars however, are agreed that as it now stands, it is the product of the second century B.C and was written probably around the year 165 towards the end of the troublesome reign of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) This is the same king whom we studied in the book of Maccabees.

The book of Daniel is usually classified as belonging to the type of Jewish literature which goes by the name of “apocalyptic”, from the Greek word apokalupsis meaning “an unveiling”.  It is important to recognize that the book of Daniel was not written for some far-off age when God’s kingdom would come but for the age of crisis in which the author was then living.

It is essentially a religious tract for the times, written for the encouragement of people who were being faced increasingly with the pressures of a Hellenistic culture which was in so many ways inimical to their Hebrew tradition and “the laws of the fathers’; written too for people who were having to face severe religious restrictions and even persecution and death by reason of their loyalty to God. 

Its message declared unequivocally that the sovereign Lord God was in control not only of history but also of the end of history; that mighty monarchs and great empires were allowed to hold sway only by His permissive will, that His people Israel would in the end be completely vindicated and that that end was about to break in upon them.

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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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