Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 26, 2019

May 26, 2019

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May 26, 2019

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Hilda

Hilda

Ortiz Mena

Ortiz Mena

The second Reading talks about “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.  It gleamed with the splendor of God.”  This city has three main characteristics:

1.    it is a city with no temple

2.    has no need of sun nor moon because the glory of God gives its light and the Lamb is its lamp

3.    it is an open door city

In other words, we can match this image of a city with the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached – a Kingdom that is God’s dwelling and place of encounter of God with the human beings. In other words, a place of encounter and life in Love.

This is the Good News announced by Jesus, the Kingdom of God here and now, where God Himself is present.  

Jabier Pikaza, in his book Apocalipsis,tells us that we have constructed a history of closed doors and fears, a place where cities and kings fight without ceasing, in concealment, endless lies. When suddenly, Pikaza continues, in the [Book of Revelation] John dares to tell us to open the doors and to start a life of reconciliation and encounter.

Let us see around today, there is a huge thirst for love and justice. The problems overwhelm us: there are migrants, corrupt governments, rejection of anyone who is different, the systematic annihilation of the environment. We cannot solve all of these. But we can dare to open the door and start a life of reconciliation and encounter everywhere we are. We can live the Kingdom of God here and now with the conviction that God is present, not just up in heaven, not just in the temple, but here between us, with us, in His Creation.

We cannot live isolated. We necessarily live with others whether we like it or not. Moreover our self-awareness is only possible through the recognition of another self, so then we can start by having the doors open. I would like to illustrate with the life experience of a Dutch-Jewish girl who lived the Second World War and died in Auschwitz. Her name is Etty Hillesum.

Etty, as the majority of human beings, lived many internal conflicts. However what I want to emphasize is how she resolved them. She started an internalization process that we can call meditation.  In her deep travel inside herself she encountered another Self (with capital S) where she found the Fountain of Love that flooded and overflowed her and drove her to go out of herself to meet the other. And in this other she discovered the presence of the Absolute.  She realized that God cannot change the circumstances because they belong to this life and because of that realization, she resolved to help God – no longer asking but helping.

This relationship with God that Etty had I can synthesize as follows: in the internalization you discover Alterity that drives you to go out of yourself to meet the other in a loving dance that has a trinitarian reverberation. In other words, as the encounter of love that occurs constantly in between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is the way I understand the city that has no need of a temple because God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple.  God living inside each one of us and we finding God in us and in the other, with open doors and illuminated with Jesus of Nazareth’s lamp.  This is the Kingdom of God unfolding in history.

Let us make the commitment to change: instead of asking, to give; instead of indifference, compassion; and in every person we meet today we may find that little of God inside each one of them, as Etty, quenching our thirst in the Love that is today and always in His Creation.

La segunda lectura nos habla de la “Ciudad Santa de Jerusalén, que bajaba del cielo, de junto a Dios, y tenía la gloria de Dios”. Esta tiene tres características importantes:

1º Es una ciudad sin Santuario porque “Dios Todopoderoso, y el Cordero, es su Santuario”.  

2º No necesita ni sol ni luna ya que está iluminada por la gloria de Dios y el Cordero es su lámpara.  

3º Es una ciudad de puertas abiertas.

En otras palabras podemos equiparar esta imagen de ciudad con el Reino de Dios que predica Jesús, un Reino que es morada de Dios y lugar de encuentro de Dios con los humanos, es decir, como espacio de encuentro y vida en amor.  

Esto es la Buena Nueva anunciada por Jesús, el Reino de Dios aquí y ahora, donde Dios mismo está presente.  Jabier Pikaza en su libro Apocalipsis nos dice que “hemos construido una historia de puertas cerradas y miedos, lugar donde ciudades y reyes combaten sin cesar en ocultamiento, mentira interminable” cuando de pronto, continúa Pikaza, en el Apocalipsis Juan se atreve a decir que abramos las puertas y empecemos una vida de reconciliación y encuentro.

Miremos hoy a nuestro entorno, hay una enorme sed de amor, de justicia… los problemas nos abruman, que si son los migrantes, los gobiernos corruptos, el rechazo al diferente, la aniquilación sistemática del medio ambiente.  

No podemos solucionar todo esto pero sí podemos atrevernos a abrir las puertas y empezar una vida de reconciliación y encuentro en el lugar donde estemos.  Podemos vivir el Reino de Dios aquí y ahora con la convicción de que Dios está presente, no solo arriba en el cielo, no solo en el Templo sino aquí entre nosotros, con nosotros, en Su Creación.

Por otro lado, no podemos vivir aislados, forzosamente vivimos con otros lo queramos o no, incluso más, la propia conciencia de sí solo es posible cuando es reconocida mediante otro sí, así pues podemos empezar por tener las puertas abiertas.  Me gustaría ejemplificarlo con la experiencia vivida por una judía holandesa que vivió la Segunda Guerra Mundial y murió en Auschwitz, su nombre es Etty Hillesum.  

Etty, como la mayor parte de los seres humanos, vivió muchos conflictos internos, sin embargo lo interesante es como los resolvió. Empezó un proceso de interiorización, podríamos llamarle meditación, que a tanto de entrar en sí se encontró con otro Sí (con mayúsculas) donde encontró la Fuente de Amor que la inundaba y desbordaba impulsándola a salir de sí para ir al encuentro del otro y donde en este otro ella descubre la presencia del Absoluto.  Se da cuenta que Dios no puede cambiar las circunstancias porque pertenecen a esta vida y por ello está dispuesta a ayudar a Dios, no más pedir sino ayudar.

Esta relación amorosa de Etty con Dios me parece que la puedo sintetizar como que en la interioridad te encuentras con la Alteridad que te impulsa a salir de ti para encontrar al otro en un baile amoroso que tiene resonancias trinitarias, es decir, como ese encuentro de amor que se da constantemente entre el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo.  

Es así como entiendo la ciudad que no necesita Santuario porque Dios Todopoderoso y el Cordero son el Santuario.  Dios viviendo en cada uno de nosotros y nosotros encontrando a Dios en nosotros y en el otro, con puertas abiertas e iluminados con la lámpara de Jesús de Nazaret.  Esto es el Reino de Dios desarrollándose en la historia.

Hagamos el compromiso de cambiar el pedir por el dar, la indiferencia por la compasión y que en todas las personas con las que nos encontremos hoy encontremos ese poco de Dios en cada una de ellas, abrevando como Etty en el Amor que está hoy y siempre en Su Creación.

First Reading

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29

PSALM

Ps 67:2-3,5,6,8

Second Reading

Rev 21:10-14, 22-23

GOSPEL

Jn 14:23-29
Read texts at usccb.org

Hilda Ortiz Mena

Hilda Ortiz Mena

Hilda Ortiz Mena studied Art Restoration, obtaining a B.A. degree.  It was later in life, when her three boys were already grown up, that she started Master’s Program in Theology and Contemporary World at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) in Mexico City.  

She is currently in the final stages or earning her degree. At the university she is an active member of two research groups from the Theological Sciences department: one in theological ethics and the other one in art and the theological pro-vocations.

She has presented research papers at two different conferences organized by Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church in Bogotá (2016) and Sarajevo (2018). She has also presented in Aburquerque, NM at a conference organized by Achtus and in Mexico City, organized by the UIA.The paper presented in Bogotá, “RELACIÓN HOMBRE-MUJER ¿CUÁL ES NUESTRA PARTICIPACIÓN?,” was selected to be published with many others as a testimony of the voices heard in that congress in an e-book titled HACIA UNA ÉTICA DE PARTICIPACIÓN Y ESPERANZA. Congreso Lationoamericano de Ética Teológica, Editorial PUJ.

Her research is directed at developing ethical responses to inequality, such as gender inequality, and how it is made manifest through migration and ecology. Hilda’s current work considers feeding the hungry and considers how to give in ways that maintain the dignity of people and how to follow models given by Jesus of Nazareth.

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