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Saturday, July 06, 2013
 
Saturday, July 06, 2013
 


Das Besondere an diesem Gebet liegt darin, dass es das Gebet Jesu ist und dass er seine Jüngerinnen und Jünger lehrte, dieses Gebet zu ihrem zu machen.
In diesem Gebet ist das grosse Anliegen und die befreiende Praxis Jesu auf einmalige und authentische Weise zusammengefasst. Millionen von Menschen, glaubende und zweifelnde, haben dieses Gebet durch all die Jahrhunderte gebetet und beten es immer noch und immer wieder.

Sie beten es in den verschiedensten Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten, die ein Gebet haben kann: sie murmeln es, singen es, meditieren es, kosten jedes Wort aus; sie verweilen bei diesem Gebet im stillen Kämmerlein, auf einer Bergwanderung, in einer Kirche, auf dem Friedhof oder im Zug. In Gruppen möchten sie die Erfahrungen, die sie mit diesem Gebet machen, austauschen. Viele können das Vaterunser überhaupt nur in Gemeinschaft beten, weil es ein Gebet in Wir-Form ist.

Es bietet sich dieses Gebet an zum Solidarisch-Sein mit allen Geschwistern, die zum gemeinsamen Vater beten: mit den Unterdrückten, die Gerechtigkeit ersehnen; mit den Entfremdeten, die nach dem Willen Gottes suchen; mit den Hungernden, den Opfern unserer ungerechten Wirtschaftsordnung; mit den Verschuldeten, die aus der Misere nicht mehr herauskommen; mit den schuldig gewordenen, die um Vergebung bitten; mit den Gefährdeten, die der Versuchung nur mit Mühe widerstehen können; mit den Gläubigen aller Konfessionen und Religionen; ja selbst mit den Ungläubigen, denen Gott doch auch Vater und Mutter ist.

Es gibt tausend Anlässe und tausend Möglichkeiten, in die eigene Welt dieses Gebetes immer wieder einzutauchen.

Hermann-Josef Venetz


 



Das Besondere an diesem Gebet liegt darin, dass es das Gebet Jesu ist und dass er seine Jüngerinnen und Jünger lehrte, dieses Gebet zu ihrem zu machen.
In diesem Gebet ist das grosse Anliegen und die befreiende Praxis Jesu auf einmalige und authentische Weise zusammengefasst. Millionen von Menschen, glaubende und zweifelnde, haben dieses Gebet durch all die Jahrhunderte gebetet und beten es immer noch und immer wieder.

Sie beten es in den verschiedensten Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten, die ein Gebet haben kann: sie murmeln es, singen es, meditieren es, kosten jedes Wort aus; sie verweilen bei diesem Gebet im stillen Kämmerlein, auf einer Bergwanderung, in einer Kirche, auf dem Friedhof oder im Zug. In Gruppen möchten sie die Erfahrungen, die sie mit diesem Gebet machen, austauschen. Viele können das Vaterunser überhaupt nur in Gemeinschaft beten, weil es ein Gebet in Wir-Form ist.

Es bietet sich dieses Gebet an zum Solidarisch-Sein mit allen Geschwistern, die zum gemeinsamen Vater beten: mit den Unterdrückten, die Gerechtigkeit ersehnen; mit den Entfremdeten, die nach dem Willen Gottes suchen; mit den Hungernden, den Opfern unserer ungerechten Wirtschaftsordnung; mit den Verschuldeten, die aus der Misere nicht mehr herauskommen; mit den schuldig gewordenen, die um Vergebung bitten; mit den Gefährdeten, die der Versuchung nur mit Mühe widerstehen können; mit den Gläubigen aller Konfessionen und Religionen; ja selbst mit den Ungläubigen, denen Gott doch auch Vater und Mutter ist.

Es gibt tausend Anlässe und tausend Möglichkeiten, in die eigene Welt dieses Gebetes immer wieder einzutauchen.

Hermann-Josef Venetz


Monday, June 17, 2013
 

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

Seven Underlying Themes of Richard Rohr's Teachings

Fourth Theme: Everything belongs and no one needs to be scapegoated or excluded. Evil and illusion only need to be named and exposed truthfully, and they die in exposure to the light (Ecumenism).

Evil Is Also Corporate Evil

Meditation 9 of 52

Up to now, we have almost entirely emphasized personal sin, with little notion of what John Paul II rightly called “structural sin” or “institutional evil.” There has been little recognition of the deep connection between the structures that people uncritically accept and the personal evil things they also do.
The individual has usually gotten all the blame, while what Paul called the powers, the sovereignties, and the principalities (Romans 8:38, Colossians 2:15, Ephesians 3:10, 6:12) have gotten off scot-free for most of Christian history. These were his words for institutions and social systems. They have a life (and death!) of their own that is usually above normal understanding and thus eludes any honest critique. In fact, we tend to worship them as mighty and strong, and therefore always good. “Too big to fail,” we now say. We tend to demonize the individual prostitute, but not the industry of pornography at many levels. We tend to hate the greedy person, but in fact we idealize and try to be a part of the system that made them rich.
For example, people tend to support and even idealize almost all wars that their country wages. In fact, few things are more romanticized than war, except by those who suffer from them. At the same time, we rail against violence in the streets, the violence of our young people, and the violence on the news every night. We are slowly learning that we cannot have it both ways. If violence is a way to solve international problems, then it is a way to solve problems at home too. We can’t say “it’s bad here but it’s good there.”
We know how to name individual sin and evil, but we do not know how to name corporate sin and evil. We have ended up with a very inconsistent morality, which few take seriously any more or even know how to follow. That is why we need a consistent ethic of life.
 



Monday, September 17, 2012
 

 This may help to understand the papal visit in Niddle East. cm.

Sep. 17, 2012



Wednesday, September 12, 2012
 


The terms “Right” and “Left” came from the Estates General in France. It’s interesting that we now use them as our basic political terms. On the left sat the ordinary people, on the right sat the nobility and the clergy! (What were the clergy doing over there?!) I think you see the pattern, despite Jesus’ clear and consistent identification with the outsiders and the poor.
In most of history you will invariably have these two movements, because we didn’t have the phenomenon of the middle class until very recently. The vast majority of people in all of human history have been poor, as it was in Jesus’ time. Yet the people who wrote books and controlled the institutions have almost always been on the Right. Much of history has been read and interpreted from the side of the “winners,” or the Right, except for the unique revelation called the Bible, which is an alternative history from the side of the enslaved, the dominated, the oppressed, and the poor, leading up to the totally scapegoated Jesus himself. He tries to put inside and outside together, but is killed by those entrapped and privileged on the inside.
Richard Rohr

Help me be compassionate in my action.


Friday, April 06, 2012
 

Friday, April 6, 2012
Good Friday

The supreme irony of the whole crucifixion scene is this: He who was everything had everything taken away from Him. He who was perfect was totally misjudged as "sin" itself (Romans 8:3-4). The crucified Jesus forever tells power and authority, and all of us, how utterly wrong we can be about who is in the right and who is sinful (John 16:8). All human solidarity and sympathy was taken away from Him and He finally had to walk the journey alone, in darkness, in not-knowing, as most humans finally have to do.
Jesus hung in total solidarity with the pain of the world and the far too many lives on this planet that have been "nasty, lonely, brutish, and short.” After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus forever tells us that God is found wherever the pain is, which leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that. There are no games of moral superiority left. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs.
What else could possibly give us a cosmic and final hope? This is exactly how Jesus redeemed the world "by the blood of the cross.” It was not some kind of heavenly transaction, or "paying a price" to God, as much as a cosmic communion with all that humanity has ever loved and ever suffered. If he was paying any price it was for the hard and resistant skin around our souls.

Adapted from The Great Themes of Scripture (no longer available, see
Prayer:
"Faith is a journey into darkness, into not-knowing." ~ Richard Rohr


Saturday, March 31, 2012
 


Be discreet and be silent!


The Gospel writer, Marc, does not put much emphasis on miracles. Jesus sends the healed lepers home telling then not to say anything about what happened. He does the same with the deaf and dumb that he healed, also with the blind to whom he restored the sight! They must not talk about what happened!


When Jesus brought back to life the daughter of Jabirus, Talitha, and the weeping women were utterly stunned by that, Jesus order them strictly to keep quiet. No one must know about it.
In such circumstances is it not unrealistic on Jesus’ part, to impose silence?


Why did Marc insist so much on this call to silence?


Marc's Gospel was written he in the seventy’s (1st Century) and it was addressed to the Christian communities living under the Roman Empire. It must be said that, at the time, the Emperors and the Empire were a most fascinating WHOLE!


So it was that, sometimes after his death, the Emperor was laid in the Pantheon, the Gods’ world. There, statues and temples were erected in his honour.


The Historians vied with zeal and it was who would put the emperor in the best light!


This explains the reason why the people were often tempted to put the “Messiah”, Jesus, on a par with the emperor. For example: the Emperor was « a Son of God », therefore, Jesus too should be a Son of God. The Emperor was seen as a « Saviour and a God », consequently Jesus too was to be seen as a Saviour and God.


According to their biographers, the Emperors had worked miracles during their lives, so it was assumed that Jesus too would have had accomplished miracles!


Jesus: An almighty and authentic Emperor? A radiant Son of God? A successful Wonder worker? It cannot be so: because Power and Success are no criteria fitting God’s Kingdom as announced and lived out by Jesus. He who pretends he is a believer of an Almighty and invincible God is also ready to go and wage war in His name.


No! The characteristics of the God of Jesus are not Power, or Might or Domination, or Wonder worker! On the contrary, the witness of Jesus’ life shows clearly that God is, “He who is identified with the poor and the afflicted.”


Hermann-Josef Venetz

Translation: Claire-Marie


Wednesday, March 21, 2012
 
THE PATH OF DESCENT (Richard Rohr)

The third human temptation is the need for control, importance, and power. The devil tells Jesus to bow down before the power systems of this world: “All of these I will give to you” (Matthew 4:8). Make these into your actual belief and security system. Formal atheism is rare, but this kind of practical daily atheism is almost the norm.

Jesus refuses to bow down before these little kingdoms, the corporations, the idols of militarism and materialism, race and nationality, and all imperialistic thinking. He knows that the price of such love of power is to “fall at Satan’s feet and worship him!” Matthew 4:9).That’s a very heavy judgment on all the security systems of this world.

These will finally and inevitably demandyour full allegiance, loyalty, and attention, but it will all feel like you “are just doing your job.” When Jesus saw through this one and said, “You must worship the Lord your God, and serve God alone,” then the devil left him (Matthew 4:10-11). When you can face these kinds of well-disguised demons, Satan doesn’t have a chance.

From Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 296, day 310

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Saturday, March 17, 2012
 



A very happy Saint Patrick's day to all my irish friends




I bind unto myself today



The virtues of the starlit heaven,



The glorious sun's life-giving ray,



The whiteness of the moon at even,



The flashing of the lightning free,



The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,



The stable earth, the deep salt sea,



Around the old eternal rocks.




I bind unto myself today



The power of God to hold and lead,



His eye to watch, His might to stay,



His ear to hearken to my need.



The wisdom of my God to teach,



His hand to guide, His shield to ward,



The word of God to give me speech,



His heavenly host to be my guard.




From claire-marie


Wednesday, March 14, 2012
 



I like to share with you: Richard Rohr's thought; with much gratitude




Since I am God's making through my parents love, I and all of us are who we are, simply and, as for me, I think my job and Mission in life is to promotes freedom from systems, so that everyone is free to be and to enjoy to be simply herself, himself!




« We fear nothingness. That’s why we fear death, of course, which feels like nothingness. Death is the shocking realization that everything I thought was me, everything I held onto so desperately, was finally nothing (read Kathleen Dowling Singh’s The Grace in Dying).
The nothingness we fear so much is, in fact, the treasure and freedom that we long for, which is revealed in the joy and glory of the Risen Christ. We long for the space where there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect; where I am who I am, in the mind and heart of God, and that is more than enough.
Spirituality teaches us how to get naked ahead of time, so God can make love to us as we really are. »




Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations , p. 333, day 344


Monday, March 12, 2012
 

Letting go


The notion of a spirituality of subtraction comes from Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1327), the medieval Dominican mystic. He said the spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. Yet I think most Christians today are involved in great part in a spirituality of addition.


The capitalist worldview is the only one most of us have ever known. We see reality, experiences, events, other people, and things—in fact, everything—as objects for our personal consumption. Even religion, Scripture, sacraments, worship services, and meritorious deeds become ways to advance ourselves—not necessarily ways to love God or neighbor.


The nature of the capitalist mind is that things (and often people!) are there for me. Finally, even God becomes an object for my consumption. Religion looks good on my résumé, and anything deemed “spiritual” is a check on my private worthiness list. Some call it spiritual consumerism. It is not the Gospel.


Richard Rohr Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations , p. 114, day 123


Sunday, March 11, 2012
 



For the lenten season, I woould like to share with you the thoughts of Father Richard Rohr. For today "do-it-yourself"...which is tought for food as I feel it...


LETTING GO


A common saying is, “God helps those who help themselves." I think the phrase can be understood helpfully; but in most practical situations it is not true. Scripture clearly says, in many ways, that God helps those who trust in God, not those who help themselves.
We need to be told that very strongly because of our "do-it-yourself" orientation. As educated people, as Americans, as middle-class people who have practiced climbing, we are accustomed to doing it ourselves. It takes applying the brakes, letting go of our own plans, allowing Another, and experiencing power from a Larger Source to really move to higher awareness. Otherwise, there is no real transformation, but only increased willpower. As if the one with the most willpower wins! Willfulness is quite different than willingness. They are two different energetic styles and normally yield very different fruit.







Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 77, day 84








Sunday, March 04, 2012
 





I send you as lambs amidst wolves





The Good News of Jesus and his praxis constantly faced with resistance from pious a



nd powerful prople. They could not admit that Jesus presented, with him, an unemployed person in the middle of a liturgy in the synagogue. They could not admit that Jesus sat at the table and ate with sinners, thieves, prostitutes. They could not admit that Jesus condemned the stoning of the woman taken in adultery. They could not admit that for Jesus, compassion had priority over sacrifice…


To love is good, they said, but love should not defy law and order, love should not throw overboard our representations of good and evil, of purity and impurity of what is important and what is not important, of what is up and what's down!
Yet what Jesus announced and what he practised in his own life is exavtly what the Kingdom of God is supposed to be and will be. There will be no up or down, there will be no important people and less important people, there will no room for exclusively important people, while the less important would be excluted from the elite circle. In the kingdom of God the last and least of men have their own dignity and the sinners have their chance and their own worth!


So It is no wonder that Jesus, as he sent his disciples on the way said to them: "Go, behold I send you as lambs amongst wolves."


Hermann-Josef Venetz

Translation: claire-marie

Courtesy of the author

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Sunday, January 08, 2012
 

Image from Würzburg Diocese
http://www.kirchenserver.net/bwo/dcms/sites/bistum/verbaende/erwachsenen_verbaende/fdk_familienbund/z-nachrichten/index.html?f_action=show&f_newsitem_id=54389




Luke’s Gospel 2:12

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

The chanceIn the wide free fields the shepherds wandered in the night, when, lo! the sky burst open with dazzling light and throngs of jubilating angels singing: the Saviour and Messiah is born! Dumb struck at the heavenly liturgy, the shepherds gazed: what’s this God given sign? Back to parched winterfields earth, bare-footed poor hastened to the draughty stable, to behold the True Sign in utter simplicity: a baby boy wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger because there had been no room in the Inn. A homeless child, nothing more but surely nothing less than that!
The child is there present for all people with whom he’s about to enter into solidarity: the poor and despised, the man with the withered hand, the bent-down woman whose sole horizon is the earth below, the blind Bartimaeus, the so called adulterous woman whom he saves from stoning ...Today still, the Christmas electric lights, the angels’ liturgical sonorous message, all this “stage performance” satisfies our need of a sign! But we need this to learn what these signs truly mean.
If we have eyes to see, and ears to hear, we will daily meet these signs as did the shepherds in Bethlehem, in utter simplicity: the homeless families, lost asylum seekers, roofless people, the countless little people who of no worth for society .The birth of the Savior is the chance of an emerging new world, a new beginning bringing peace and justice for all at long last!

Hermann-Josef Venetz

trad. claire-marie Jeannotat

with kind permission of the author

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Saturday, December 31, 2011
 



No the world will not crumble in the YEAR 2012 BECAUSE you are there and you are precious. The world will get better because you are there, all of you. I think so!


Most cordial Love and Wishes for the precious 2012

..wird die welt wohl nicht untergehen. und sie ist besser, weil es euch gibt. finde ich.

allerherzlichste grüsse und wünsche zum jahr 2012!

Dorothee



From my friend Dorothée unto you, everyone! claire-marie


Sunday, December 18, 2011
 

Luke 2:7

She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

When we were children at the home or at the school, we had pleasure to stage the narrative of the Christmas story, often enriched by songs, that made it sound like a small children’ opera. In every representation, the most moving part was when the " holy couple " walked from house to house, from door to door, knocking shyly, begging in a trembling voice: " The young woman has to give birth, it is urgent, would there be a small place in your home?" And the scathing retort: " No place for you! Go, look somewhere else!”

It was not a question of the child Jesus or the Son of God, if the proprietor had suspected that, he would have thought twice and re-examined the question! No, it was a question of rejecting “foreigners, potentially criminal who, it is known, are only parasites coming to undermine our laboriously constructed system.

So it was so in that time and so it is today.

The prophets knowing well the Law of the Old Testament were aware of this terrible reality. Almost no other group of people, i.e. the foreigners, the widows, the orphans - was so expressly entrusted in the care of the citizens, as this particular group. And the prophets constantly repeated this urgent duty: to give shelter to foreigners, widows and orphans.

Furthermore, the same group of homeless people was particularly close to the heart of the man of Nazareth, to the great displeasure of “well respected people”. These people were shocked to see Jesus share a meal with them. But Jesus went still farther, even to explicitly identify himself with them. " I was foreign and you did not welcome me " and "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me!”

Yet neither the prophets, nor the teachings of the Old Testament, nor Jesus himself, nor our representations of his nativity when we were children at the home, at school, seems to have had a lasting impact! It seems to be a cry in the wilderness of our modern society! Just note the Swiss popular Initiatives for the expulsion of foreigners, the opposition of our municipalities to grant homeless people a place to stay. We know the song! A sad Christmas song indeed!

Hermann-Josef Venetz

Translation: Claire-Marie Jeannotat

with kind permission of the author




 
Luke 2:7

She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

When we were children at the home or at the school, we had pleasure to stage the narrative of the Christmas story, often enriched by songs, that made it sound like a small children’ opera. In every representation, the most moving part was when the " holy couple " walked from house to house, from door to door, knocking shyly, begging in a trembling voice: " The young woman has to give birth, it is urgent, would there be a small place in your home?" And the scathing retort: " No place for you! Go, look somewhere else!”

It was not a question of the child Jesus or the Son of God, if the proprietor had suspected that, he would have thought twice and re-examined the question! No, it was a question of rejecting “foreigners, potentially criminal who, it is known, are only parasites coming to undermine our laboriously constructed system.

So it was so in that time and so it is today.

The prophets knowing well the Law of the Old Testament were aware of this terrible reality. Almost no other group of people, i.e. the foreigners, the widows, the orphans - was so expressly entrusted in the care of the citizens, as this particular group. And the prophets constantly repeated this urgent duty: to give shelter to foreigners, widows and orphans.

Furthermore, the same group of homeless people was particularly close to the heart of the man of Nazareth, to the great displeasure of “well respected people”. These people were shocked to see Jesus share a meal with them. But Jesus went still farther, even to explicitly identify himself with them. " I was foreign and you did not welcome me " and "Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me!”

Yet neither the prophets, nor the teachings of the Old Testament, nor Jesus himself, nor our representations of his nativity when we were children at the home, at school, seems to have had a lasting impact! It seems to be a cry in the wilderness of our modern society! Just note the Swiss popular Initiatives for the expulsion of foreigners, the opposition of our municipalities to grant homeless people a place to stay. We know the song! A sad Christmas song indeed!


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Saturday, December 03, 2011
 

My well-beloved had a vineyard

The so-called Old Testament - so it is said - would speak about an avenging God who would punish people. While, on the other hand, the New Testament would proclaim, a loving God. In the Old Testament, so - it is said - people would have lived under the talion law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In the New Testament, it would have been said: you have to love your neighbour as you love yourself.

For the record: God's commandment: you must love your neighbour as you love yourself is the exact copy found in the Old Testament. At the time when Jesus lived, the pharisees and doctors of the law summarized all the commandments and the interdictions in a single command: Love of God and love and love of neighbours.

The fact that God himself is Love is no invention of the New Testament. The Canticle of Isaiah to his Well-Beloved compares the Love of God for His people with that of the vine-grower full of tenderness for his vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And Isiah describes the pain of the vine grower when he saw his Love betrayed: just bad grapes grew there!

So the Old Testament was Jesus of Nazareth's Bible. Not only did he read the Bible, not only did he pray, but he lived with the Bible, and more still, he could proclaim with passion and conviction His God as a most beloved Father and most tender Mother.

Hermann-Josef Venetz

(my translation with kind permission from the author)