Sunday’s readings speak of troubled times; “unsurpassed in distress” and “tribulation.” Jesus speaks his message on these concerns from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is an outpost of the Roman Empire with soldiers who cause troubled times, distress, and tribulation. Jesus is a peacemaker who causes courage, calm, and comfort. He is encouraging other peacemakers to be that same courageous witnesses for peace in their own times of tribulation.
The historian Eusebius (?-339AD) writes of the courage of early peacemakers who were following Jesus’ Way; they “were beaten and finally burned in a fierce fire, surrounded by all the populace.” It is difficult to imagine anyone being courageous given the infliction of such horror. Yet peacemakers were. They still are. Peacemakers in North Korea, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere are joining with their peaceful neighbors who suffer through many such fiery tribulations wrought by modern empires and their soldiers. Some are doing so with the intent to stop a particularly horrendous fiery tribulation, nuclear weaponry. Many are taking action in order to transform this U.S. empire of fiery warmaking into a community of powerful peacemaking. For example, seven Catholic Workers acted to transform this empire’s warmaking at Kings Bay, Georgia, by being a community of peacemakers. They are charged with trespassing onto the Trident nuclear submarine base in a nonviolent disarming action. These disciples are participants in the peaceful Plowshares Movement; “They shall beat their swords into plowshares.” (Is 2:4) The seven Catholic Workers courageously encircled areas with crime scene tape, spilled vials of blood, and posted an “indictment” charging the military with crimes against humanity and peace. The seven testified last week (Nov. 7) as to the tribulation and more caused by the planning and production of nuclear weaponry and nuclear war. Further opportunity for testimony will happen this coming week (Nov 19). (https://www.kingsbayplowshares7.org) These peacemakers are encouraged during such tribulation by prayer. Peacemakers are transformed and transform others through both action and prayer. There is no false dichotomy between actively transforming the kingdom of rulers and prayerfully doing so. Witnesses of healing power amidst the kingdom of rulers know prayer is action and as vital as oxygen. Witnesses to prayerful power, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done,” know action is as vital as oxygen. Prayer and action are an interrelated whole for peacemakers. Father Thomas Keating OCSO, who died this past month at the age of 95, was a leader in the Centering Prayer movement. he spent much of his religious life praying within the walls of his monastery. Then at about the age of 40, in response to Vatican II, he began to expand his prayer life. In a desire to further witness the unity of prayer and action, Keating started sharing contemplative prayer with youth yearning for another Way. He founded Contemplative Outreach, “a network of communities and individuals seeking the inspiration and guidance of the Spirit” “through the practice of Centering Prayer.” Participants center themselves in Real Presence, alive within them, in every member of the human family, and in every moment – whether radical or routine. One of the Catholic Workers participating in the Kings Bay Plowshares peace action, Carmen Trotta, affirmed this truth, ““All of our meetings, and we met for months and months, were surrounded by the Mass and the daily readings, by daily reflections with each other. So, the roots of this in the Catholic faith are very, very strong.”
Living an interrelated whole of prayerful action in communion with active prayer is our call as peaceful. We help transform those who cause troubled times, distress, and tribulations when we give wholistic witness ro prayer and action.
Prayer: Spirit, fill us with peace
Question: How are my prayer and action an integrated revolutionary whole?
November 18, 2018 Gospel Mark 13:24-32 Thirty third Sunday in Ordinary Time