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Scripture:

Numbers 13:1-2, 25-14:1, 26-29a, 34-35
Matthew 15:21-28

Reflection:

To the Merest Child
is Revealed the Father’s Love

Jesus is the fullness of wisdom; the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the Son of the Father whom we meet as gentle and humble of heart. He refreshes us and gives us rest when we are burdened and weary. Like the Son of the Father, so our sons and daughters awaken in us values and truth.

We owe all little ones awesome respect for what they offer us. Sadly precious treasures are overlooked. The tragic number of infants who die in domestic violence, children caught in the crossfire of gang fights, the violation of the safety of schools, trafficking – the world of Charles Dickens or the coal mines of Pennsylvania of a century ago, bad though they were for children seem in second place to our present moment. And the above are overshadowed at least by volume when we see mothers in war torn countries or refuge camps with their malnourished children. Like Hagar who placed her son, Ishmael, under a tree and sat the distance of a bow shot away so she could not see him die of thirst, we sit and watch, we pray for a change, that God hears the cry of suffering and comes to our aid.

We hear the expression, ‘the tyranny of two’, implying that a third element is needed to get beyond impasses in life or to open new delights in love. (Some disagree saying the tricycle preceded the bicycle!). But with marriage as an example the love of two increases with a third, a baby. There is a gift given to parents, a gift they share together. The child is an object of their love, and also increases their love as mother and father which they share with one another. The burden and weary part of life, the yoke spoken of in the gospel are not unfamiliar to any couple who love one another, nor will their sons and daughters always lessen the weight of the burden they carry. We ask the grace to change what we can, accept what we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A friend of mine who enjoys a dinner out, a party and a little dancing has been laid up with a back problem. After two weeks of rehab he was able to join the celebration of a wedding and, while still hobbling along with a cane, attend the reception. A sad thing happen. As the dancing began he found himself alone at his table when everyone else took to the dance floor. As he sat there it seems all the limitations he had been suffering for several weeks, the inability to do his ministry, the pain itself, all of this came crashing down upon him. He wasn’t very good at hiding his feelings either nor was he aware that he was under the scrutiny of a five year old. The little boy had a new small truck that he was playing with, his latest acquisition and new favorite toy. The child went to his mother and ask if he cold give the truck to Father, because ‘he looked so sad’.

We may have the joy of being around children or only enjoy them in passing or from afar. We may be moved with sorrow and just indignation where we see a child suffering or denied the right to grow up as a happy individual. May we care for children and support parents and all who work and care for children. We need what they offer us. We see in them a way of knowing Jesus, God’s love. He shows us the Father who looks upon us and loves us, seeing in us what he sees and loves in his Son.

Fr. William Murphy, CP is the pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Jamaica, New York.

Scripture:

Numbers 11:4b-15
Matthew 14:13-21

Reflection:

But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said…”
Matthew 14:17-18

I don’t know what it’s like to go to bed hungry. As a child more often than not I had to be told to finish my spinach or liver, whatever it was that I didn’t particularly like because there were children starving all over the world. As an adult, I’ve been blessed with nearby grocery stores with tens of thousands of items for my choosing as well as the ability to purchase them.

Despite what I read in the newspapers and hear on the evening news, as a 21st Century American It’s hard for me to believe that anyone anywhere is really hungry for food or for that matter the Good News of Jesus. I am led to believe that if I can feed myself and hear the gospel preached to me regularly, so can and does everyone else.

Maybe like the Israelites Moses led across the desert, I need to experience hunger or maybe like the apostles in today’s gospel selection I just need to trust God and do as He tells His apostles, i.e. send no one home hungry, but gather the bits of loaves and fishes I’ve been blessed with and share them with all those who hunger and thirst.

Dan O’Donnell is a Passionist Partner and a longtime friend of the Passionists.  He lives in Chicago. 

Transfiguration of the Lord

Scripture:

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
2 Peter 1:16-19
Matthew 17:1-9

Reflection:

Today, since it is August 6, we celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus instead of the 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time. On this feast we recall the account of Jesus taking Peter, James and John up a high mountain where He reveals Himself as not solely human but also divine. The three apostles get a glimpse of the glorified Jesus which they will see more fully at the Resurrection. They not only see Jesus, but they see both Moses and Elijah, and when a cloud comes over them, they hear a voice say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” When they hear the voice, they fall down and are very much afraid. Then Jesus touches them, and says, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”

“Rise, and do not be afraid” is what I hear Jesus saying to us. While we do get glimpses of resurrection and life, we may still find the world a fearful place. But if we let the love of Jesus touch us, we can still get up and keep on going! In our second reading from 2 Peter, the author tells his fellow disciples that the “prophetic message is altogether reliable. You do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” No matter how dark the place may be where we are, we can look to Jesus, and let the “morning star” rise in our hearts!

Are we willing to listen to Jesus, as the voice from heaven told the three apostles to do? Are we willing to rise and let go of fear? Although it is so important to pray and spend time with God, we cannot, as Peter proposed to Jesus, stay on the mountain. Filled with the hope of resurrection, we are called to go out to the world, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. We’re called to share the love of God in Jesus Christ, even with the lowest of the low; even with those who seem to be against us. The peace which flows from justice is what we work for in this world in which we live.

If we wonder how in the world we can possibly do what Jesus asks of us, we need to remember that God can transfigure us! God can heal us of fear and prejudice and resentment and self-serving; of all those things that hinder us from our call. Dare we hope to be transfigured? I’ll go one better. Dare we hope that we can contribute to the transfiguration of the world? We may differ in what that looks like. We may even be in conflict about what should be done. But there is an option for the poor, and there is an element of caring for the earth, as Pope Francis may say. The Transfiguration reminds us that Jesus can lead us to resurrection. He is calling us: “Rise, and do not be afraid.”

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is the local superior at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan. 

Feast of St. John Vianney

Scripture:

Leviticus 23:1,4-11,15-16,27,34-37
Matthew 13:54-58

 

Reflection:

Remembering, Celebrating, and Proclaiming…

Today’s Scripture readings and the feast of St. John Vianney challenge us to remember the “roots” of our faith, to celebrate God’s unconditional love for us, and then to use our talents – and even our limitations – to spread the Good News of God’s love…in the person of Jesus.  Definitely, God loves us!

The reading from Leviticus summarizes the liturgical year for the Israelites, helping them remember the great events of their history whereby God saved them and established them as his own people.  Sacred assemblies, consuming unleavened bread, refraining from work, making sacrifices and acts of mortification:  these various dimensions of their religious life were to be celebrated to help keep vital their relationship with God who loves and saves them…and ourselves, centuries later!

The selection from Matthew’s Gospel recalls Jesus’ rejection by the people of his home town.  A wise and powerful Man, a convincing Speaker…but where did He get these gifts?  Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary?  His message is one of repentance which challenges the hearts of his listeners of times past and present.  Deep faith is required to accept Him, faith rooted in God’s working throughout all of history – even from the earliest of times.

And today we celebrate the life of a 19^th century disciple of Jesus, St. John Vianney.  A simple man with a humble background and a simple theology, his zeal to spread God’s love helped build up the Church in his day.  He is especially known for his generous ministry of proclaiming God’s love through the Sacrament of Reconciliation at his parish in Ars, France — regularly spending hours sharing the Sacrament of Reconciliation with the thousands of penitents who traveled great distances for a few graced moments with him.  His loving priestly ministry flowed from his intense spiritual life based on both prayer and mortification, leading him to being named “patron of priests” by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

Let’s remember God’s love for us and celebrate our relationship with God and with one another as members of the Church – thus proclaiming God’s love in our vocations as married, single, or priestly/religious persons.  Moses, Jesus, and St. John Vianney challenge us to be zealous in living and sharing our faith.  Do we make the effort for special times of faith renewal and celebration (e.g., a retreat)?  Do we seek and offer forgiveness for the sinfulness we experience in ourselves or others?  Moses, Jesus, and St. John Vianney encourage 21^st Century disciples to sincerely pray the words of today’s response-Psalm 81:  “Sing with joy to God our help!”  May our lives say “Amen!”

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is a member of the Passionist community in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38
Matthew 13:47-53

Reflection:

“My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God… Happy they who dwell in your house!” Psalm 84: 3, 5

We all have a hunger that only God can fill. We try to fill it with new houses and new cars, promotions and food, vacations and so many things! But even when we get those things, if we are really honest with ourselves, we are never completely satisfied. We can’t be this side of heaven.

When we get home from our dream vacation, we start thinking about where we can go next. After a lovely meal, we get hungry a few hours later. When we get the dream job we worked so hard to get, we find out it has its own problems. New houses don’t stay new forever, new cars get dings. It’s surprising how quickly things aren’t new anymore and how even all of the lovely and beautiful things on earth are only a dim reflection of what we will see and experience in heaven.

This is good news really, because God made us for Himself, and we will only be completely happy and fulfilled when we meet Him face to face. It’s good to long for something more, and to have something to look forward to. But at some point, we need to shift our longing from things here on earth to God alone and to the day when we will stand in His Presence and experience His love for us completely as we never have before.

Our gospel today also mentions that the angels will separate the wicked from the righteous at the end of the age. This is our call to share the good news! Not by judging, but by loving those in our paths so that they may also fall in love with God. Once we have experienced the personal love of God, how can we not share it with others?

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Bainbridge Island, Washington,  and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 6. Janice also leads women’s retreats and recently published her second book: God IS with Us. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.janicecarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected].

Scripture:

Exodus 34:29-35
Matthew 13:44-46

Reflection:

The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds…Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant…When he finds a pearl of great price…

There is something idyllic in the parable Jesus tells about a person who just happens to find a treasure in a field, and out of a calculated “folly,” sells everything that he/she owns, in order to purchase the field, and thus take ownership of the treasure.

At the time of Jesus, and for the people of his time and place, the idea of gathering up one’s possessions and selling them might not have been very difficult because for most of the people who followed Jesus, their possessions might not add up to much when compared to our scale of possessions. Nothing “idyllic” about that.

Perhaps the “idyllic” is really in our contemporary hearing and interpreting the story because for many religious communities, this parable has served as a motivational story about the vocation to the religious life. We would have to give up not only possessions, but our claim to our will and our natural desire to find a marriageable mate.

Life eventually overtakes the idyllic dreams that may have brought us to religious life, and the cost of the sacrifice required to fulfill the calling to religious life becomes all too real. Over a period time, one either repeatedly commits to the invitation to “sell all” in order to follow Christ–the real treasure of the parable, or one chooses another way of life.

This summer, but throughout the year, there are other men and women, families and extended families, who find that they have given up all that they possess, but not of their own wills, and not in order to acquire the treasure in the field, or the pearl of great price. These are the families, couples, and individuals who lose “all they possess” after a tornado, a flood, a forest fire, or any of the other cataclysmic events that we read about daily in the newspapers. If you live in Chicago or other major cities, it can be the instant loss of a death caused by gunfire.

What does the parable say to us in this context. It says to me that Jesus gave up everything too. In finding himself crucified on the cross, he had put aside everything that a person can claim in this world. Naked and desolate on the cross, Jesus gave up everything so that we would know that we are not alone in enduring any loss, and that we might keep our eyes glued to the horizon of the resurrection.

Fr. Arthur Carrillo begin, C.P.  is the director of the Missions for Holy Cross Province.  He lives in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

Exodus 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28
Matthew 13:36-43

Reflection:

Many moons ago I was studying for my doctoral degree in Scripture at the University of Louvain in Belgium.  Occasionally, some of us would take the ferry to England to buy books.  Mind you, this antedates the Common Market—yes, that long ago–and prices for books were much cheaper in England than in Belgium.  I remember sorting through a stand of used books in front of Blackwell’s Book Store in Oxford, a treasure house of books on theology.  To my delight I discovered a leather-bound edition of J. C. Hawkins, Horae Synopticae.  Before you are tempted to order this on Amazon, realize that it is a turgid study of the literary relationships among the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  Only a doctoral student who had basically lost touch with the outside world would be excited by a book like this!

On the way home, I took out my treasure and noted that the original owner had written a Greek phrase on the inside cover: “Ho de agros estin ho kosmos” (“The field is the world”).   I thought it was vaguely familiar and wondered if it were a quote from an ancient Greek poet.  Only much later, to my great embarrassment, did I realize it was a saying of Jesus found in Matthew’s Gospel (13:38)—in fact the same gospel passage for today’s Mass! And I had been spending the waking hours of each day studying this Gospel for my doctoral dissertation!

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the weeds among the wheat. After a farmer had planted wheat, an enemy scattered weeds among the wheat and when the harvest came, there the weeds were, crowding the wheat.  The servants propose to their master that they pull up the weeds, but he counsels them to let them go until the harvest, lest in pulling up the weeds they also harm the wheat.  Perplexed, the disciples ask Jesus the meaning of his parable. And it is at this point that he explains: “the field is the world.”  I’ve pondered that saying often.  Jesus doesn’t say that the field where God’s word is sown is the church, or the Christian community, but “the world.”  And, the parable implies, we live in an imperfect world of “wheat and weeds” and it is there that the “children of the kingdom” must labor “until the end of the age.”

This orientation of the Christian mission to the world is all important.  We Catholics, for example, are not asked to focus solely on the church, whether we think of our parish, our diocese, our religious community, or even the Church universal.  These are precious to us as our spiritual home.  But the mission entrusted to us by Christ is not to be turned in on the church but outward to the world.  Pope Francis has emphasized this mission perspective from the first day of his role as Pope.  In the days of preparation leading up to the conclave in which he was elected, Pope Francis shared with his fellow Cardinals his reflection on a famous passage from the Book of Revelation— “behold I stand at the door and knock.”  Many, the future Pope said, interpret this to mean that Jesus is knocking on the door of the church in order to get in—but I think of it as Jesus knocking on the door in order to get out!  Out into the world to bring his message of love and reconciliation.!  That is why the Pope has insisted we should think of ourselves not simply as “disciples” of Jesus, but as “missionary disciples”—sent by the Risen Christ to a world in need.

We need the support and example of our fellow Christians among our families and friends.  We need the nourishment of the Eucharist and the sacraments celebrated in our parish church.  We Passionists need the support of our fellow religious.  But the ultimate goal for all of us is to bring the good news of God’s forgiving love to the world, to build, in Pope Francis’ beautiful words, a “civilization of love.”

Fr. Donald Senior, C.P. is President Emeritus and Professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union.  He lives at the Passionist residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Scripture:

Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34
Matthew 13:31-35

Reflection:

The Kingdom of heaven is like….

Today’s passage is from the great part of Matthew’s Gospel during which Jesus opens his “mouth in parabes.” He explains what his Father’s Kingdom is like, putting it in terms more people could understand. In fact, it’s part of the same narrative that we’ve been hearing from these last three Sundays of Ordinary Time.

It kind of reminds me of the little sayings, “Life is like…” I think many of us can immediately recall what is probably the most famous, made so by the 1994 movie “Forest Gump.”  Forrest says, “Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get.” I like these two, both of them told to me by an aging jazz musician, living and playing on the streets of Hollywood when I knew her.  She would say, “Paul, life is like a phonograph record.  You’ve just got to get in the groove” and “Life is like an onion – you have to peel off one layer at a time, and sometimes, you weep.”

Of them all, though, this one of Jesus’ is favorite of explanations.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed… the smallest of seeds, and yet it grows into the largest of plants, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in it’s branches.

There is just so much depth here. At first glance, this may seem to be about God spreading his arms in order to save and give shelter to us, the little sparrows on which he has his eye always. And have you ever seen a mustard seed? They are nearly microscopic (well, to my crazy eyes they’re pretty hard to see).

But add the next verse, and I think you’ll see what hits me like a ton of bricks. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman mixed with wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”

The whole batch.

Yesterday’s Gospel, from the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is part of this wonderful section of Matthew’s Gospel, and includes a verse which, I feel, drives the point home. It reads,

“The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets.” (Matthew 13:47-48)

Every kind of fish has a chance. Even the bad ones get caught in the net with the good. All the flour is mixed until the whole batch is leavened. That gives me such hope, both for me and you, but also for our society and world today. It doesn’t matter if we’re good or bad, broken, repaired, towing baggage of the past… we’re all fertile ground.

So planting the seeds, gathering the wheat, leavening the bread… Growing the kingdom. It’s all about making the most of the God who lives in us, and bringing that gift to our area of the vineyard.

Sure, it’s just a small seed… but that’s only the start.  Yeast, yes – but alone it can do nothing. It takes more than one thing to build the kingdom. We need rich soil, water, sunlight, weeding, tending, nurturing, caring. Little by little, the branches will grow. From those humble, miniscule beginnings, an enormous life will emerge.  From tiny seed to the mighty Sequoia. It’s got to start

somewhere, and it needs help to flourish. And we’re all, each one of us, called to tend and care for the seedlings in our hearts, and the hearts of each person we meet… and especially the hearts of those people we don’t want to care for. The homeless, the outcast, the sick, the family member who hurt us, the spouse who betrayed us, those who are “different” (whatever that means).

So, today, how about we all let God plant that seed of his Kingdom in our hearts right now?
How about we become the fertile ground and the yeast, the gardener and the caretaker?
How about we do that for others too?

This way, we can watch the Kingdom grow.

Does it matter if we’re perfect? The scripture says No. And have no fear, for as it is written in our first reading today, “My angel will go before you.”

Dear God of all, thank you for the gift of the seed. Grant us the grace to tend the garden of our hearts, and especially the hearts of all the faces of Christ we meet day to day. Amen.

Paul Puccinelli is Director of Liturgy & Music at St. Rita Parish in Sierra Madre, CA, and a member of the Retreat-Team at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center.