BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 19)

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B – April 6, 2003

 

“A Grain of Wheat”

 

BIBLE READINGS

Jer 31:31-34 // Heb 5:7-9 // John 12:20-33


I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS

 

            News reports and footages of the war in Iraq distress me, but I make them the object of my intense prayer. One tool that helps me in praying for world peace is the life of a modern day peacemaker who has radically followed the life of Jesus Christ. Her life as witness for peace is recorded in the book, PEACE PILGRIM: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (Hemet: Friends of Peace Pilgrim, 1991). Not revealing details of her life that she considered unimportant, such as her original name, age and birthplace, she wanted to be known simply as “Peace Pilgrim”. After a rigorous spiritual preparation that led her to experience a deep inner peace, she vowed to be “a wanderer until mankind has learned the ways of peace”. Alone, penniless, and with no organizational backing, she walked more than 25,000 miles, carrying in her blue tunic her only possessions: a comb, a folding toothbrush, a ballpoint pen, copies of her message and her current correspondence. She crossed America for nearly three decades, from January 1, 1953 until her death on July 7, 1981, bearing the simplest of messages: “This is the way of peace – overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”

 

            Like Jesus, the little “grain of wheat” that falls to the ground and dies to produce abundant fruit, she lived out the message of peace to the full. One day, a hefty teenage boy with a violent streak and emotional illness beat her. Even while he was hitting her, she could only feel the deepest compassion toward someone who was so psychologically sick that he was able to hit a defenseless old woman. She bathed his hatred with love even while he hit her. As a result, the hitting stopped and he wept: “You didn’t hit back! Mother always hit me back!” Peace Pilgrim remarked about the incident: “What are a few bruises on my body in comparison with the transformation of a human life? To make a long story short, he was never violent again. He is a useful person in the world today.” Indeed, Peace Pilgrim is a modern response to the Christian challenge: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be” (Jn 12: 25-26).

 

            Living today in this time of crisis in human history and confronted with the brutal truth that war is not the way to peace, we need to steep ourselves in the purifying water of the living Word, Jesus Christ, who exhorts us to enter into the paschal process of liberation from a purely selfish existence towards a life of loving service for others. Today’s Gospel reading (Jn 12: 20-33) speaks of the “hour” in which Jesus would be “glorified”, which means, God would reveal his radical power in the saving event of his Son Jesus. The “hour” of glorification would entail a death and birthing process similar to that of a germinating seed. Jesus affirmed: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” In today’s Gospel passage, the paschal image of a germinating and fruitful seed is reinforced and clarified by a reference to the suffering that Jesus would endure on the cross: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

 

            According to Neal M. Flanagan: “What Jesus is insisting upon in this episode is that life will be offered to the world through his death. If he is buried like the seed, if he is lifted onto the cross, then much fruit will come; then he will draw all to himself. The crowd and the Greeks are simply the initial harvest. And in a remarkable way, this being buried, this being raised on a cross, is also Jesus’ glorification, the manifestation in him of his Father’s presence, nowhere more evident than in Jesus’ act of self-sacrificing love. As Jesus mentions his own self-giving, he joins to it that of his disciples. They are called to identical roles.”

 

            Indeed, the destiny of the Master is also the destiny of the disciples. Today’s Gospel is an invitation to walk with him the path to glory and victory by carrying the life-giving burden of the sacrificial love of Christ. Readiness to suffer for the Gospel values is part of the challenge of Christian discipleship. One urgent responsibility that we need to carry out in the world today is to live the way of peace and to be active peace builders.

 

In relation to this Christian imperative of building a more peaceful world, the prophetic words of Peace Pilgrim resounds with power and meaning: “We live at a crisis period in human affairs, and those of us who are living today face a very momentous decision: a choice between a nuclear war of annihilation and a golden age of peace. All who are living today will help to make this choice, for the tide of world affairs now drifts in this direction of war and destruction. So all who do nothing in this crisis situation are choosing to let it drift. Those who wish to choose peace must act meaningfully for peace. The time to work for peace is now.”

 

 

II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART

A. As Christian disciples, are we willing to share in the “hour” of Jesus’ passion and glorification and make it a personal experience of healing and redemption?

B. Like the life giving “grain of wheat”, Jesus Master, are we willing “to die” in order to grow and be fruitful? Are we willing to use our abilities, our talents, our lives for the service of others and risk the sacrifices that this entails?

C. Are we willing to follow the way of peace and non-violence of the “grain of wheat”? Do we opt to follow the violent path of annihilation, or rather, the benevolent way of peace?

 

III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD

(Adapted from the Prayer of St. Francis)

 

Assembly: “If a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it produces much fruit.”

Leader: Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love. Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord. And where there is doubt, true faith in you. Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is despair in life, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, only light, and where there sadness, ever joy.

 

Assembly: “If a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it produces much fruit.”

Leader: O Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved, as to love with all my soul.

 

Assembly: “If a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it produces much fruit.”

Leader: Make me a channel of your peace. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving of ourselves that we receive, and in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 

 

IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD

 

            The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.

 

            “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24)

           

 

V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION

 

A. ACTION PLAN: When confronted with a violent situation, respond to it with non-violence in a spirit of Christian love.

 

B. ACTION PLAN: Continue to pray for the victims of the war in Iraq and for peace in the world.

 

C. ACTION PLAN: Through word, example and deed, contribute to the Christian imperative of building a more peaceful world.

Prepared by: Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang, PDDM


SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 or (718) 761-2323
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