Mary van Balen

PHOTO OF SR. DOROTHY STANG
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation…They [the Jews] were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?”
Jn 11, 45-48;56


Today’s gospel is filled with tension and confusion. As I read, I can feel the pace speeding up. Many who heard him believed in him; others ran to the religious authorities to report his activities. No on knew what to do and they wondered what Jesus would do next. Surely, some said, he would not show up at the festival; he must know that he was a hunted man. The Pharisees and priests were panicky, and as is often the case when people do not understand something in their midst, they were afraid. They were afraid of Jesus, afraid of his followers, and afraid of what might happen to their power if the Romans came to put down unrest.

Jesus was a holy man who preached a radical message of mercy and forgiveness for all. His very presence caused confusion and polarized the Jews. Some heard his message, found hope, and believed. Others were scandalized. How could God’s favor be for all? Some worried about their position of leadership and power. No one who heard Jesus could remain neutral.

The uproar caused by Truth and God’s Word was not limited to ancient history. The same happens in today’s world.  Read More 

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered, …If I am not doing the works of my Father, and then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Jn 10, 31-33, 37-38

Jesus was telling the Jews to judge him by his works. If they could not accept his words and the language he used to explain his relationship to the Holy One, then he directed them to recognize God’s work in him. The Jews were unable to see what was in front of them in part because they could not suspend judgment that was a reaction to Jesus’ words long enough to consider his life and his actions.

How often do we react negatively when someone’s speech challenges what we have been taught and what we believe without considering the person standing in front of us?  Read More 

PHOTO: ANN RICKSON




Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old,
and have you seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly , I tell you,
before Abraham was, I am.
Jn 8, 58





Many scholars look to the Old Testament prophets for a background for John’s use of “I am” in passages like the one we read today. Deutero- Isaiah uses the same Hebrew form “ego eimi that John uses in this verse, and the form is used to express YHWH’s revelation of the Divine Self to the people.

When Jesus tells those who are questioning him about his claim to have seem Abraham, Jesus uses the same words as Dt-Isa to identify himself as the one who reveals the One who sent him. As Barrett says in “Essays,” Jesus is not instructing the Jews to “…Look at me because I am identical with the Father,” but “Look at me for I am the one by looking at whom you will see the Father, since I make him known” (As quoted in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Johannine Theology 83:4).

Jesus continues to reveal the face of God to us, pointing not to himself, but to the one who sent him and to the work of brining God’s kingdom.

We can live our lives in a way that points not to ourselves, but to God. Read More 

Rublev's Trinity Inviting us to join with the Trinity, the Family who is our God


I know that you are descendants of Abraham;
yet you look for an opportunity to kill me
because there is no place in you for my word.
I declare what I have seen in the Father's presence;
as for you, you should do what you hear from the Father.
Jn 8, 37-38




I have always had difficulty with atonement theories that answered the question, "Why did Jesus have to die?" with the explanation that God's justice demanded the death of God's son in our stead. God sent the Son to die. That does not harmonize with my faith and experience of God as one who loves completely, forgives all, and desires unity with us and creation.

For many Christians, the idea of Jesus' death as his bearing the punishment deserved by us (penal substitution or substitutionary atonement) is the only understanding of the cross that they have heard. It is not the only one. Read More 

They said to him, "Who are you?"
Jesus said to them,
"Why do I speak to you at all?"
Jn 8, 25

As I read the passage from John, these words stopped me dead. I have heard them before. I have muttered them myself. I smiled, not at Jesus' frustration with those who never seemed to "get it" no matter how many ways he tried to say it: I am the one sent by God; When you see me, you see the Father; You have greater than John here..."

I smiled at the common human experience of not being able to make oneself understood. We have all been there. Mutual lack of understanding is built into the parent/child relationship. You many not be a parent, but everyone was a child. We can identify with the exasperation of the Son of God. Divinity not withstanding, he just couldn't make those people understand.

Sometimes I think most of Jesus' disciples were particularly dense. Or, more kindly, I imagine their minds were not open to a reality as radical as the one Jesus was presenting to them. I should choose the kinder interpretation because many times, I am standing right with them.

How often have I failed to recognize God-With-Me or doubted the Presence of the Holy One working in the world? Overcome with uncertainty, with the current state of humanity, I don't get it. I don't remember that as Julian of Norwich so positively proclaimed: "All will be well," and that it will be well because the One Who Created All Things will not abandon what has been made.

One the other hand, I also know there are those who, like the Psalmist in today's reading, are destitute, suffering beyond anything I have known, and who feel alone:

My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning,
my bones cling to my skin.
I am like an owl of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
Ps 102, 4-7 Read More 

"THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE" Jesus Mafa

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?” Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Jn 8, 3-5; 7-11

My feminine sensibilities require that I share my reaction to the early part of the story: The woman was caught in adultery and the Law instructed that she be stoned. Surely she did not commit adultery by herself, but the patriarchal structure of society is blatantly exposed by the omission of any male culpability. These types of stories make clear that fact that Scripture was written by men and from a male point of view.

Despite that history, the story is rich in meaning, revealing the human tendency to self-righteously pass judgment on others. Jesus would have none of it. Read More 

PHOTO: "HEPATICA" by MARY VAN BALEN


Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Is 43, 18-19



I was driving home and complaining to the One who claims to love me and watch over me, like sparrows, lilies, and hairs on my head. Most of my seventy-some job applications had disappeared without a whisper into the silence of cyberspace, and the few responses that had come back said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Going to graduate school was a desirable alternative to finding a fulltime job, but that, too, was unsure.

“I am sick of not knowing what to expect,” I blurted out.  Read More 

PHOTO:MARY VAN BALEN
Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not arrest him?” The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!” Then the Pharisees replied, “Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law—they are accursed.”
Jn 7, 45-50

Something exists in the Roman Catholic Church called "sensus fidelium,” or “the sense of the faithful.” It is not something we hear much about, but it means that the affirmation of a particular doctrine or teaching being in keeping with the deep understanding of our faith is in keeping with the resides not only in the intellects and knowledge of theologians and church authorities, but also in the hearts of ordinary faithful Christians. Their acceptance of the teaching is evidenced by the incorporation of it into practice. When a doctrine or teaching is not accepted or when it is actively resisted the magisterium should review it: It may not be in keeping with our faith and experience of God, or the doctrine may have been poorly communicated, blurring the truth it attempts to express.

I am reminded of sensus fidelium when I hear the Pharisees question the temple police in this reading. Read More 

PHOTO:MARY VAN BALEN


Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, "Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from."
Jn 7, 25-27




Today's reading skips some of the "good parts," picking and choosing verses. The reader will miss Jesus' brothers chiding him about not going to the festival of Booths in Judea, saying he should go since "no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret...show yourself to the world" (4).

Jesus says he won't go because people there want to kill him, but after his brothers leave, Jesus goes in secret. Read More 

MY MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER




But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Is 49, 14-15






These verses evoke sweet images of a mother nursing her child and caring for the young one she had carried in her womb. Whether or not one is a mother, the metaphor is powerful. Yet, I think that many of us who are mothers may have a deeper appreciation of these words than those who have not experienced the long wait from conception to birth and the miraculous moment of bringing new life into the world.

I speak from experience. As a young adult, I was sure I would never marry in spite of my parents’ deep love for one another and my mother’s fulfillment in her role as mother. When some of her female children and later grandchildren decided to marry late or chose advanced degrees and careers over starting a family, she shook her head and wondered why. For her, no career or degree could match the accomplishment of raising a family; it was the highest calling. Later, she was passionate about her job as a teaching assistant for mentally handicapped children. They became her extended family.

I was not interested in devoting so much of my time and energy to children. I had other things to do. Among my four closest college friends, I was the only one who declared I would never marry or have children. You guessed it: I was the only one who did!

Pregnant with my first, I debated about staying home or going to work after the baby was six months old or so. I worried about bonding with her. I still wanted to write, work for the Church, and go to graduate school. I had been part of an intentional community committed to serving the poor.  Read More