20200930 Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels

 

 

 

 

From today's Gospel, I got two keywords that helped me to reflect my life.

"School" and "my profession'".

 

Ivan Illich was ex-priest and one of the talented progressive theologist. When I was in the first year, I read a book about his interviews. That book made me think again about School. Ivan Illich criticised the systemical function of the school.

 

Usually, when we think of school,  we consider it as a welfare system that provides all citizen with a fair chance to study and teach children how to build a sound and good community in the society. But He said the school is minimised society which contains all the undesirable function of the society. Children are forced to competition since they enter the school, they learn irrationalities of the real world there. There are still many children at many places who have no chance to go study there, so he thought The autonomy of children is violated by the school as a system. In school, Teachers has much more power and influence on students than what judges or police or religious leaders has in adult society. What the teacher says to the students in the school has absolute power or influences on the students. 

 

You sisters and I are also teachers in the church. Nathanael we see in today's Gospel is also a teacher in the church. The fig tree is where Rabbies learn from God with their prayer or meditation in that age. That was their school. But today's Gospel I see the amazing movement of Nathanael's school. From fig tree to Jesus. When he saw a live person, the son of god, he said

 

"Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."

 

He realised that now his school is not in under the tree or in the book or what he learned himself but the man he meets in person, just where he is. He learned what kind of teacher he should be and what the school should be. He heard

 

"you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

 

This scene reminds us of Jacobs' dream. He had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens; and God's messengers were going up and down on it. In his dream, God and Jacob made a promise to each other which shows the core relationship and contract between God and mankind. God had promised the land, the descendants, and blessing to all nations. Jacob said,

 

"Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!", "How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!" 

 

and he promised, "the LORD shall be my God. The stone that he had set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode. Of everything God gave him, He would faithfully return a tenth part to God." 

 

So, in my meditation today, I had thought about what kind of school I am working for, and what kind of teacher I am to be, and what kind of promise and profession I am making there. 

 

School is nowhere but here, where I meet Jesus in the brothers, sisters, and neighbours. The teacher is nothing but the ladder, which God's messengers were going up and down on it. The profession of mine is nothing but realising heaven is nowhere but the place I am living with God.

 

 

 

 

 

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