Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Very seldom is it that a book pulls a reader in and challenges their perception. This one does. Life of Pi is a novel written with deep philosophy. Pi is the main character. His family owns and operates a zoo in India. Pi grows up with a love of animals because of this. His family eventually leaves India with their animals and sets sail for a new land. Then the ship they were on sinks and Pi is left alone on a life raft with a tiger! The story challenges the imagination as you read on.
Now I choose this novel without endorsing its arguments. In the story, Pi practices several different religions at once, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. This is an appeal to syncretism, the belief that different religions can all be true at once. The author also argues through the story that truth is relative. This is false because different religions make definitive truth claims, and Christianity claims only one God and one savior, Jesus Christ. The temptation here is to think that divisions between people can be removed by claiming there are none. Jesus takes a better approach.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets the Syrophoenician woman. He was conditioned by the culture of the times. He doesn’t pretend that there are no barriers between them. She asks for help, and He acknowledges the divisions between them. Then, Jesus bridges the gap between them by calling her to faith. Faith. Jesus ultimately invited her to faith in Him. Faith in Christ is an authentic bridge over any boundary or division. Divisions among people are not ended by ignoring them or sacrificing truth. They are overcome by building a bridge on true faith. As Catholic Christians, we are so blessed to have no greater bridge than faith in Christ Jesus lived out in our holy Traditions and Sacraments. Amen.
Reflection by Br. Matthew Marie, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections