Michael Dubruiel Meditation (7)

    From Michael Dubruiel, 2003:

What are we willing to die for?

 

A movie that came out in 1981 told the story of a young sculptor who had the misfortune of being involved in a tragic accident. The wreck left him hospitalized, paralyzed from the neck down and incapable of ever being able to practice his art again. The man requested that he be allowed to die. His doctor ignored the man’s wish, and set out to do everything that could be done to keep the man alive.

 The movie, “Whose Life is it Anyway?” raised the question of who ultimately has authority over life. Sadly, like a bad multiple choice test where none of the choices given are correct, the answer focused on both the doctor and the patient both of whom are accused of playing the answer--God.

The wicked tenants in today’s gospel suffer a similar identity crisis. They act as though they are the owners of the vineyard rather than its tenants. Jesus tells the parable in response to the chief priests and elders question as to what gave him the authority to do the works that he did (especially in light of his temple cleansing incident the day before).

Jesus uses an image from Isaiah (today’s first reading) that would have been familiar to them, namely that of an owner who plants a vineyard.  The owner then goes on a journey after handing over the operation of the vineyard to tenants who are free to enjoy its fruits as long as they return a percentage of the produce to the owner. This is where the problem begins.     

            Since the owner is far away, the tenants don’t see any reason to bother with the payment. Instead they abuse all of the collection agents that the owner sends. Finally the owner sends his son thinking that the tenants will obviously fear him. But they reason rather foolishly that if they kill the son the vineyard will be theirs.

            Jesus then asks the question, “What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?”

            The audience the very people who are plotting the death of Jesus quickly give the answer. The evil tenants will be evicted and put to death for the murder of the son. Unfortunately they do not learn its lesson. Are we able to make the next logical step that the chief priests and elders were not? Are we able to examine ourselves and connect our behavior with that of the tenants?

            “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done,” Jesus tells his hearers. The stone may have appeared too heavy to lift by the builders who rejected it, but soon they realized that its size was needed to function as the chief building block to the foundation. So too the events of our life present us with many choices that left to our own estimation we may reject because they seem too burdensome, but in the end we may realize the absolute necessity of embracing them.

            What is our attitude about what God has given us?

Michael Dubruiel Meditation (6)

    From Michael Dubruiel, 2003:

What are we willing to die for?

 

The next day it was necessary that a group of us go into Istanbul for supplies. Riding through the streets of the city it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t thought twice about doing what I was ordered to do but when given the choice to go to mass I had passed. It suddenly dawned on me that I was willing to die for my country (by the mere fact of being in the Armed Forces) but that I wasn’t ready to die for my faith.

Jesus is faced with a trick question in today’s Gospel posed by those who hope to discredit him. He is asked if it is lawful to pay taxes. If he says yes he would be supporting the Roman occupation, if he says no he will be showing himself to be a terrorist. Jesus says neither, but rather asks to see a coin.

He examines it and asks his questioners whose image it contains. “Caesar” they reply.

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.”

“We are God's money,” Saint Augustine says. The image of God is imprinted upon our souls. We belong to God.

Michael Dubruiel Meditation (5)

    From Michael Dubruiel, 2003:

What are we willing to die for?

 In the late 1970’s while serving in the United States Army I was stationed in an outpost in Turkey for one year. The base was a small camp of a hundred servicemen. On Sundays I would go with several others on an hour trip into Istanbul where we would attend Mass at the Italian Consulate.  Everything though strange was pleasant those first five months that I was there.

Then one morning while waiting for an inspection, we were notified that the inspection had been called off. At first it was difficult to find out exactly why, after all we had been preparing for this inspection for almost a month. Then the news came, a terrorist group had attacked  a group of our guys waiting  for a bus near Istanbul.

Only one died, another who was a close friend of mine had been hit in the leg, the rest were okay. That Friday morning we were told that intelligence had learned that  several terrorist groups  in the area were making plans to attack other groups of American servicemen and that we shouldn’t travel off base until things had a chance to cool down.

The Chaplain on the base notified me on Saturday that the Sunday trip to the Italian Consulate was still on and would leave at the normal time on Sunday morning. I remember standing from a distance to see if anyone would actually venture out on the trip to go to Mass when things were so dangerous. I watched as the Colonel and another officer got into the military vehicle and then after waiting awhile (presumably for me) they left for Mass.

October 22 - Pope John Paul II by Michael Dubruiel

       You can get John Paul II's Biblical Way of the Cross by Michael Dubruiel and Amy Welborn here.  

In 1991, Pope John Paul II introduced a new Bible-based interpretation of the Stations of the Cross. This devotional guide invites readers to prayerfully walk in solidarity with Jesus on his agonizing way of the cross—from his last torturous moments in the Garden of Gethsemane to his death and burial.

Now with full-color station images from previously unpublished paintings by Michael O'Brien, this booklet creates an ideal resource for individual or group devotional use, particularly during the Lenten season.

Books by Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel Meditation (4)

   From Michael Dubruiel, 2003:

What are we willing to die for?

 

I remember attending a scripture class once taught by Father John Gillespie in Florida on the book of Revelation. The class, made up of mostly an older crowd included one man in particular who struck me as not long for this world. His complexion already very insipid,  grew even paler when Father John explained that according to the book of Revelation, Heaven would be an endless celebration of Mass.

I'm sure many of us might struggle with the concept of a celebration of Mass being an apt metaphor for Heaven. But when we really feel close to God can anything be more heavenly?

At the end of her pilgrimage Lash claims that she experienced incredible darkness and in the midst of that she wonders if the source might not be her intellectual pride.

It seems that this is often the source of our difficulties at being truly present at Mass. In writing this I found myself present at a Mass where there was a Rite from the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, a speaker inviting everyone to participate in small faith groups and the blessing of Catechists. It is amazing how the crowding of all these did not effect me in the usual negative way because throughout I remained focus on what I was at Mass for—my incredible need of God’s love and mercy.

Now admittedly I know that I would have usually found a hundred things to criticize about this particular liturgy, like why didn’t they spread the wealth and do the OCIA rite at another Mass? But I can see what a horrible temptation that is since it is a rejection of the reality of the situation.

Lack of focus leads to us becoming a spectator when we have desperate need of being a participant. Our very life depends on this gift of God and only the participants receive that gift.

God is a good shepherd and as Saint Paul says, "There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength." And that includes converting me from a spectator to a participant in His rich and abundant mercy.