Word to the Wise
Monday, January 5, 2009 - St. John Neumann, C.Ss.R., bishop
[1 John 3:22 - 4:6 and Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25]Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh beongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God.
Enormous disasters have a way of changing one's entire world on many levels. There is the sheer alteration of the geographic/physical environment, yes, but that, in turn, can completely alter one's social, psychological and spiritual ecology! Every time I must catch a plane, I am reminded how easy it once was to fly. Now I have to run the gamut of the security check point. I was just in New Orleans and celebrated a baptism at our Dominican parish out in the Lakeview area, which was very hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. I have lived a number of times at that parish and the whole landscape has been altered (of course, no tourists in the French Quarter see that and life appears to be "normal."). One can pick any traumatic disaster of this kind and see the lasting effects. An awareness of this can help us to understand much of the New Testament. In 66 A.D., the Jews revolted against the Roman empire and for several years seemed to be holding on till the Romans came back in force. When they did, they literally leveled Jerusalem which means they completely destroyed THE physical, spiritual and psychological center of Judaism: the TEMPLE! It was the equivalent of the Babylonian Exile, which had occurred 500 years earlier! The inhabitants of the city were scattered and the whole face of Judaism changed. All of this impacted the early Christian community as well! As Judaism struggled to redefine itself, Christians were beginning to appear to be very different in their preaching about a particular Jew named Jesus! In that world, it could be difficult to tell just who was genuine and who was not. Indeed, some of those declared to be false prophets probably believed in their views passionately! Today's first scripture reflects the problems being faced by the early Christian community in what we moderns might call: "staying on message!" Somebody comes into town with a new "message" that appeals but when examined is not what the community truly believes. At the point when this particular passage was written, there is clearly an "us" and a "them" (the "World"). Keeping "us" together was the main task of the time! In a period of chaos, everyone is vulnerable! Testing the "spirit" becomes a practical challenge with very important implications for the community. In our own secular American society, these "spirits" can be very subtle but they can corrode religious faith from the roots up. We tend to depend on religious authorities such as the Magisterium to do that discernment FOR us. But it takes a long time, even with our modern communications resources, for the Magisterium to get a response together. Our own local communities have to be the front line on this. Seeing the concerns of the early community in today's scripture can help us understand and meet our own. AMEN
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