Sunday, the Third of Lent: Scrutiny I

     Why is a Rite of the Church termed scrutiny? This week’s reflection focuses on the characteristic Lenten liturgies for the Elect.

     I recently asked a group of undergraduate students what struck them when they heard the word scrutiny. They did not have good things to say. Common among many of their responses was the image of being ‘put under the magnifying glass.’ All of one’s actions are looked at intensely and it did not stop there. Many commented that scrutiny suggests examining motives and reasons for a particular thought, word or deed. One student commented, “I don’t know why I say or do many of the things I do and I certainly don’t want someone looking over my shoulder giving me reasons for my thoughts or actions.”

    Linguists suggest that two Latin words ground the English meaning of the word scrutiny: scrutari and scruta. Some ‘searching’ in musty lexicons of antiquity suggest that scrutari consists of ‘investigating’ or ‘examining.’ Scruta, as it appears in that same yellow-paged volume, can mean ‘broken items’ or ‘stuff to be trashed.’ Together, scrutari and scruta offer us insight into what the Liturgical Rite termed Scrutiny is all about. One might look at the Church’s Scrutinies as ‘investigating or examining the stuff of our lives that needs to be trashed.’

Sunday, the Second of Lent

“Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother,  and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured (μετεμορφώθη, metemorphothe) before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. (Matthew 17: 1-3).”

TRANSFIGURATION MOUNT, Northern Israel

     The Greek verb μεταμορφόω (metamorphoo) not only means “to change,” but a change that involves a clear altering of form perceptible to the senses. Such makes sense in this episode atop the mountain. As far as the disciples are concerned, Jesus’ form appeared to change. To the disciples, He looked different. However, it is worth pausing here to ask a question: who changed, Jesus or the disciples?

     Fr Jean Corbon OP penned: “The transfiguration of the Word gives a glimpse of the fullness of what the Word inaugurated in His Incarnation and manifested after His baptism by His miracles: namely, the truth that the body of the Lord Jesus is the sacrament that gives the life of God to men. When our humanity consents without reserve to be united to the humanity of Jesus, it will share the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4); it will be divinized. Since the whole meaning of the economy of salvation is concentrated here, it is understandable that the liturgy should be the fulfillment of the economy. The divinization of men will come through sharing in the body of Christ (Jean Corbon OP, The Wellspring of Worship, pages 94-95).” In this vein, the disciples - through grace - changed (or were transfigured) as they were able, at that moment, to glimpse the reality of Who Jesus is.
     The Catechism of the Catholic Church continues this insight: “On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed “the mystery of the first regeneration,” namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration “is the sacrament of the second regeneration:” our own Resurrection. From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” But it also recalls that “it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God (paragraph 556).”
     While the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated each year on 6 August, the episode is most appropriate in a season of intense preparation and purification for Baptism. Jesus’ Transfiguration shines Who He is upon all humanity calling humanity to transformation (transfiguration) in this life now by living a morality of renewed mind and heart resulting in a perceptible experience of who we are in Christ.

Sunday, the First of Lent

“At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert (ἔρημον, eremon) to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1).”

     Israel knew the importance of the ἔρημος (eremos). Entrance into the Promised Land necessitated a journey through a most hostile terrain that tested their resolve with every step onto and into the burning hot sand. Memories of tyranny and of oppression seemed distant and miniscule compared with the challenge posed by the present struggle to live in the hostile desert environment. There were even points along the way when the people wanted to return to Egypt. Fondly, they remembered a culinary delight of fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (see Numbers 11:5). One could hardly blame them for wanting a little spice, variety and even garlic for their new, seemingly bland diet of manna and quail. Yet their initial experience in the desert did something that they never thought possible: slavery in Egypt actually looked good compared to the present testing. What happened to cause such a perception shift?

    Rabbi Abraham Heschel has remarked often that Israel’s great sin in the desert was not idolatry but rather ‘forgetting the great and mighty deeds of God.’ This forgetfulness is not a matter of misplacing the keys or of drawing a blank on a test. Biblical forgetfulness is a ‘disconnect’ an ‘un-membering of oneself from the source of life.’ This is why the biblical and liturgical action of memory/remembrance is important. Zakar (Hebrew) and anamnesis (Greek) are about memory, but an experience of memory that goes beyond mere intellectual recall. Biblical memory is about ‘being re-membered to the source of life,’ it is about being ‘re-joined to the body that provides the essentials for living.’

     This is why Jesus’ actions in the ἔρημος are important for us at the beginning of a season that is first and foremost about the Elect’s intense preparation for Baptism. Among the many dimensions of the Initiation Experience, humanity is ‘joined to,’ ‘re-membered in a wholly new and creative manner to the One Who is the source of all life.’ At no time in the desert does Jesus glamorize or romanticize His pre-desert life. In the midst of testings that equipped Him to proclaim the Father’s Kingdom in all of its richness and power, Jesus is the One Who continuously remembered His source of life. He experienced - and calls us to experience as well - that authentic living is found not in what we consider essential, important or necessary. Genuine living is lived in relationship with the One we call upon as “Our Father.”

Sunday the Ninth

“Take these words of mine into your heart and soul. Bind (Hebrew, קשר [qashar]) them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be a pendant on your forehead (Deuteronomy 11:18).”

     As the Liturgical calendar unfolds, we have been treated this year to an entire proclaiming and listening to Jesus’ teaching on Kingdom living known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” After weeks of comfort (“Blessed are ...”) and weeks of challenge (“But I say to you ...”), what is the believer left to do? We are instructed at the end of the Sermon “to listen” and “to act,” actions that in-flesh Moses’ command “קשר [qashar, ‘to bind’] Deuteronomy 11:18.”

     The Hebrew verb קשר presents vivid images of “tying down” as well as “girding tightly.” This is the biblical basis for the Jewish practice of tefillin which Jesus addresses in His Public Ministry (Matthew 23:5. Phylactery (Greek) is the translation of the Hebrew tefillin). The tefillin consists of a small, leather-type box or envelope that is “tied” or “bound” on the wrist and forehead. Contained in this leather-type box or envelope is the Word of God, meant to be a reminder of God’s presence to oneself (on the wrist) and a reminder to others (on the forehead).

This constant reminder of God’s presence that one is bound to is intended to help one live the spiritual life of the covenant.

     It has become popular in American society to refer to oneself as ‘spiritual, but not religious.’ No doubt scandals in and among ‘religious’ institutions have fueled the attempt to keep the spiritual and distance oneself from actions that work against the Spirit in the name of religion. However, authentic spirituality necessarily involves a ‘binding to’ and authentic religion involves living spiritually. Kingdom living, as pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon, is not a matter of spirituality against religion, but a spirituality that is religious, and a religion that is spiritual.