Mountain in the Gospels

Departing from the past tradition when Jerusalem was the mount where God could be worshipped, Jesus did not attach importance either to Jerusalem or any other mountain as a place of prayer or Divine experience. In fact, while talking to the Samaritan woman he said that neither the temple of the Jews nor the sacred Mountain of the Samaritans mattered for prayer but emphasized the importance of praying in spirit and truth CJn. 4:23-24). In the Gospel according to Matthew quite symbolically he is seen teaching the disciples from a mountain. But he tells them that they should pray in secret to the Father from the privacy of the room with the doors closed,"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you" )Mt.6:6) However mountains do have prominence in the Gospels and great events are related to mountains. Beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, there are a number of instances when the mountain is chosen as an important location for significant events in the Gospels.Jesus was transfigured on a mountain that traditionally is believed to be Mount Tabor.Next we hear of the Mount of Olives as the place where Jesus prayed after the Last Supper," Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the mount of Olives" (Mt.26:30). He had often spent nights on that mountain,"During the day,Jesus was teaching in the temple area, but at night he would leave and stay at the place called the Mount of Olives"(Lk. 21:37). His death took place on Calvary a little mount covered with skulls, made holy by the blood of the Redeemer.The ascension too is believed to have taken place from a mountain in Galilee, according to Matthew, though he does not describe the scene,"The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them" (Mt.28:16). According to Luke the ascension takes from a mountain called Olivet that was near Jerusalem,"Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet,which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away" (Acts: 1:12). Later in the early Christian Church the meaning of Mount Zion changes into a heavenly site, "No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering" (Heb.12:22). John's visions are focused quite vividly on the heavenly Jerusalem, "Then I looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads" (Rev.14:1). He sees it coming down from heaven to earth which means the formation of a holy mountain on the earth,that is the center where the Christians are to experience God, "He took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God"(Rev:21:10). Conclusion: We human beings search for God through signs and symbols that are quite common. God fulfills these aspirations through his marvelous interventions through Christ.In Christ he has made everything new. This too was prophesied many centuries ago, especially through Isaiah."Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind"(Is.65:17). At the center of this new creation, there had to be God's dwelling place on the holy mountain.And too Isaiah had prophesied long ago,"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy,rich food and pure, choice wines" (Is. 25:6). We are all the beneficiaries of the new heavens and the new earth where the mountain of the Lord is our Church, where God dwells. It is really marvelous that every natural symbolism searching for God has been fulfilled in Christ.

QUEEN ESTHER ...a model of prayer

Who was Esther? Her earlier name was Hadas'sah (the feminine form of hadas, myrtle). She was the daughter of Abihail, of a Benjaminite family that did not return to Palistine after the exiles were given freedom. After she had lost her parents she was under the care of Mordechai her uncle (Esther @:7). The name Esther itself, a variant of the name of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, was given to her after having been chosen queen by King Ahasuerus and joining the Harem. The name could be also a Syro-Arabian modification of the Persian word Satarah, which means star. Those Jews who had not returned to Palestine after exile still had to fear much. While they were in the Persian Empire centuries after the others had come back to Palestine, there was a plot hatched by Haman a minister under king Ahasuerus, to exterminite all the Jews from the empire. Haman's conspiracy arose from his anger because an important official named Mordeccai (Esther's uncle)who was in service under the same king did not pay the required daily homeage of a profound bow to him. So this minister convinced the King to pass a decree of extermination of all Jews so that Mordeccai also would be got rid of. As the story goes, Mordeccai asked Queen Esther to plead with the King to spare the Jews, something that was humanly speaking impossible, Finally, the miracle happens, through the intervention of this queen, who humbled herself, fasted, prayed and begged the king to spare them.

The Uniqueness of her Prayer

The section on prayer in the book of Esther is given in the Addition 14 in the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version). The reason is that certain parts of this book are not in the Hebrew but only in the Septuagint version. We Catholics who accept also these parts; so these parts are numbered in a different way. The thematic verse almost at the beginning that sets the tone of the text is, "Queen Esther, seized with deadly anxiety, likewise fled up to the Lord" (C:14:1) In all the forms of emergency prayer found in the Jewish manner of prayer, particularly,in the praying pattern of the woman that sense of flight to the Lord is evident. The take refuge in the Lord with great urgency and speed like a bird flying to the mountain.So David writes," In the LORD I take refuge; how can you see to me, "Flee like a bird to the Mountains!'" (Ps. 11:1). Again another psalm speaks of the escape like that of a bird fleeing from a trap, "We escaped with our lives like a bird from the fowler's snare; the snare was broken and we escaped" Ps.124:7).Similarly Esther flees from the worldly status in the palace at the moment of danger and takes refuge in the Lord. The text of the prayer of Esther is quite long. But the parts of a typical prayer are there: a) Self -abasement in humility and penitence by taking off the royal garments and putting on a penitential garb with even dirt smeared on herself; b) Address to God as the only God of Israel, saying: 'My Lord, our king, you alone are God'; c) Presentation of the gravity of the danger: "for I am taking my life in my hand" (C15); d)Acknowledgement of sin recalling past history and admitting the present state of sin: "But now we have sinned in your sight, and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies" (C17) e) The fear of being deprived of the possibility of giving praise to God and restore the glory of God, the temple and the altar: to close the mouths of those who praise you, and to extinguish the glory of your temple and your altar; and f) The final request with her whole heart: " O God, more powerful than all, hear the voice of those in despair. Save us from the power of the wicked, and deliver me from my fear" (C:30). We know that the prayer worked wonderfully because God changed the anger of the king into kindness: "But God changed the king's anger to goodness" (D: 8). The rest of the story is already known to us: the Jews were spread of that threatened extermination and so they rejoiced by celebrating the feast of Purim. Purim (Hebrew 'lots', related to Akkadian puru) is a festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people living throughout the ancient Persian Empire from a plot by Haman the Agagite to annihilate them. According to the story, Haman cast lots to determine the day upon which to exterminate the Jews (Cf. Wikipedia).