aadbdstarter

Scripture:

Isaiah 58:1-9a
Matthew 9:14-15

Reflection:

As we begin our Lenten season and are urged to fast, pray and do penance in preparation for the great feast of Easter, we are invited to think about how we go about our fast over these next 40 days.  If we take the Lenten fast seriously, our first impulse might be to cut down on food and drink.  Then we might think about cutting down on entertainment.  Then, if we get really serious, we might begin to think about curbing our temper, our quick judgment of others, or even our sharp criticisms.  All ways of fasting from behaviors that we know are not of God.

All these efforts are admirable but, as our first reading from Isaiah insists so clearly, they only scratch the surface and are just a beginning!!  Isaiah reminds us that the purpose of fasting, indeed all acts of penance, is to open our hearts to the needs of others.

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.

Surely the focus of our prayer during this challenging season is to ask God to transform our hearts, make us attentive and responsive to the people around us so that we will be ready to receive the overwhelming love of God that is offered us over these next few weeks.

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Luke 9:22-25

Reflection:

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Luke 9:24

Moses asked his followers to choose between “Life and Prosperity, Death and Doom.” We would think that this should be an easy choice to make. Who would want to choose Death and Doom?

Yet, today, people all around us are choosing Death and Doom. There is so much hatred in their hearts that they are convinced that the only answer to the world’s problems is by putting to death all of their enemies. They are so convinced of this that some even sacrifice themselves by choosing Death as they take away someone else’s life.

There are no winners when we choose Death. They think that killing off their enemy, cutting themselves off from people who do not like them or disagree with them or displease them will result in the ideal society. Thus, they would create a society that would respect only their values, their vision of the future and their way of life.

Killing another human being degrades the whole human race. It does not purify the human race, it dehumanizes it. To kill another human being, one needs raw power and instruments of death. Some people think that the more they surround themselves with destructive armaments, such as guns, weapons of mass destruction, armies of killers, then they can impose their will on others.

Where does all of this hatred come from? It comes from the heart. We may want to make excuses that we have a right to our anger, a right to our hatred. After all, we have been hated and disrespected for years, maybe even centuries. We may think, it is now our turn to bring Death and Doom to those who have beat us down, enslaved us and even killed our family and friends. We say, it is only right that we have our chance to give others what they have done to us.

Yet history, especially Salvation History, teaches us that choosing Death and Doom will never bring about New Life, Peace and Prosperity.

Lent demands that we examine ourselves as individuals and as people. It invites us to explore what is present in the innermost recesses of our heart. Is it Hatred or Love? Is it Death and Doom or Life and Prosperity? Is it a commitment to choose Life and Prosperity despite of the culture of death that surrounds us? Or do we find that in the innermost depths of our hearts there is a conflict between hate and love, death and life?

Lent teaches us that we cannot live in both worlds, the world that tries to correct human behavior by violent methods of discipline, including killing the other for the sake of justice, or killing the other because our property is being stolen. I do hear the voices in religion class asking the “what if” questions. We cannot get to the trick questions about what is permissible and what is not without making a fundamental option to choose Life, to choose Love.

Moses says, “Choose Life, then by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice and holding fast to him.”

Jesus says, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit him?”

Who are we going to listen to?

During our Lenten Journey, let us choose Life and Prosperity with God’s help!

 

Fr. Clemente Barrón, C.P. is a member of Immaculate Conception Community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Ash Wednesday

Scripture:

Joel 2:12-18
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

 

Reflection:

Come back to me with all your heart.

The words of the first reading set the theme for our reflections today;  “return to me with your whole heart” says the prophet Joel, reminding us of one of the deepest truths and guiding principles of Jesus’ life – that our God is full of mercy and forgiveness and that God wants us to have life above all else.

And what kind of life does God wish for us? Perhaps the gospel text offers us the answer in three words – authenticity, integrity and belonging.

“Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them” says Jesus. The challenge of the Word today seems to be that of orienting us towards a balance and integration of our inner motivation and outward actions.

Jesus highlights how easy it is to perform – for the crowd, for our own ego satisfaction and for faint and shallow praise, when our true needs are much more important and worthwhile. That is, our deepest longings are only satisfied in our relationship with our God where we can be out true selves and can find all that we need. Thus as Augustine noted, yes “we are restless” – we strive and seek to be ‘real’, but we can become so distracted in this search. It is only when “our hearts rest in God” that we can find our true authenticity, integrity and belonging.

But until we are totally and finally encapsulated in God’s love, we strive to find our way. Jesus does not draw up a map for us, but he does give us a powerful guide, an inner compass if you like. In the vision of Jesus, in order to find our way to our true self (and thus our own intimate relatedness to God) we need to strive to make our outer actions mirror what God’s own Spirit is already prompting within us.

Thus we give alms not to win praise or acclaim, but so that we can imitate the life of Jesus and mirror his option for the poor.

We pray not to be seen as holy, but so that we might be in communion with the God who created us and loves us always.

We fast, not to attract the attention of others, but so that we might bring higher values to bear on more basic or self-centered desires.

To me these seem to be the thoughts that underpin all that Jesus teaches and comments on in this gospel today – a gospel text which introduces us to the season of Lent and more so to the opportunity to put into place some practice or discipline that stands as an outward sign of our inner desire to grow and to become more of the person that God sees.

Let us enter this season of renewal wholeheartedly and with a deep appreciation of the opportunity it affords us to grow both practically and spiritually in our Christian life.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is a member of Holy Spirit Province, Australia.  He currently serves on the General Council and is stationed in Rome.

Scripture: 

Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10
Psalm 29
Mark 8:14-21

Reflection: 

Our readings today put up a yellow caution light. In the pre-history account from the book of Genesis the human family is depicted as a failed project. God regrets the crowning of his creation that occurred on the sixth day: Adam and Eve. Judgment is given: “I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created.”  However, God gives the human family a second chance with Noah, the only just man on the earth.

We are a part of the second chance. How difficult it is for us to live up to our calling to give glory and praise to God, to shout with every fiber of our being “Glory” (Ps. 29).

The gospel is another yellow caution light. Already earlier in the gospel Mark made it very evident that Jesus’ own people did not accept him and that their spiritual leaders, the Pharisees, were plotting to kill him. Now it is the disciples turn not to understand him. “Are your hearts hardened?” he asks in frustration. “Do you still not understand?”

These readings are a challenge to admit our own weaknesses in giving God his due. Often our hearts are hardened and closed, rather than receptive and open. In a thousand little ways we hold back and betray the gifts of grace that God extends to us. In my freshman year at Loyola Academy in Chicago

I was introduced to the motto of the Jesuits: “ad majoram Dei gloriam.” I have tried to make it the motive and direction of my life.

 

Fr. Michael Hoolahan, C.P. is on the staff of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Genesis 4:1-15, 25
Mark 8:11-13

Reflection:

“Show me the money,” the line in the movie goes. It’s a comedy, so we laugh. But how many other times in life do we act out of a sense that nothing means anything until the bottom line gets met, the payoff happens, the results are in, we get the proof we feel entitled to?

Can’t you just feel the weariness when Jesus, in today’s brief Gospel, “sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation seek a sign?'”

The truth is, at some point in our life most of us want something. We want love, we want health; we want money, we want control; we want assurances, we want affirmation. We want God to smile upon us, and, if it’s not too much trouble, we want the side dish of a sign so that we know we are loved and valued. We test God often.

St. Paul of the Cross, Passionist founder, and Mother Teresa, are two visionaries who lived lives of astonishing goodness and heartbreaking questioning. They were given signs of their paths early on, and then groped in spiritual darkness for decades. Somehow they clung to their faith and remained true to the work God had called them to. They “knew their place” before God, and foregoing all human demands and expectations, surrendered themselves to His will and to His love.

In these tough times as we feel clueless, frightened or forgotten, that’s the real deal.

 

Nancy Nickel is director of marketing and communications at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading for Sunday (Mark 1:40-45) we have a brief but poignant encounter between Jesus and a leper. Our first reading from Leviticus (13:1-2, 44-46) tells us what happened to people who were declared lepers by the priests. They were cast out. They had to cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” lest those who touch them would be unclean themselves. And so this leper, this outcast, comes to Jesus and says, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” And Jesus, moved by the plight of this man, says, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

I was thinking of all the ways people can feel like outcasts in their lives. There are those who lost their jobs, and are still finding it difficult to find another. There are those who have had a relationship that ended. There are others who feel devalued because of their age or economic status. These things can be painful, because they often involve a sense of rejection, and a feeling of worthlessness. Sometimes people engage in behaviors they know are self-destructive and even sinful, and they realize they have cast themselves out, as it were, from their true selves.

If you add to this the conflicts we see around the world, which are often based on one group seeking to “cast out” another because they are of the “wrong” race, or “wrong” faith, or “wrong” tribe, or “wrong” culture, or “wrong” gender, or “wrong” orientation. This “casting out” is too often taken to the point of attempted genocide or extermination.

When we feel like outcasts, alienated from ourselves or others, we, like the leper in the Gospel, can go to Jesus. And He can heal us. Not only can He heal us, but He is seeking to heal us. Jesus sought out the tax collectors and the prostitutes, those that society cast out as unworthy of God’s attention or care. He touched the leper, not caring if He was considered unclean or not. His sole desire was to heal this person, not of just some skin condition, but of the pain of being cut off and cast out. God does not seek to cast out us or anyone! This is what we need to remember as we look at ourselves and others. There is no worthlessness in life!

Are there times when relationships may have to end, because of one’s safety or sanity? Yes. Are there times when we are called to work against injustice and speak out against evil? Yes. But I just don’t believe that we are in any position to try to “cast out” people from God’s love. People may reject God, but we cannot presume to speak for God in rejecting them. That is what the Pharisees did, but we cannot do.

Are there people (including ourselves) we consider unclean; those we would wish to cast out as worthless or unworthy? We need to look at Jesus in our Gospel reading, and try to see them as He does.

May we let go of trying to determine who should be cast out, and instead take on Jesus’ healing ministry.

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P. is on staff at St. Paul of the Cross Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan.  

Feast of Saint Valentine

Scripture:

Genesis 3:9-24
Mark 8:1-10

Reflection:

We have all heard the story of the loaves and fish so many times we might take it for granted as just another miracle story.  What struck me reading Mark’s version this time was how much the Lord truly cares for those following Him.  “His heart was moved”, if they don’t eat, “they will collapse on the way”, “they have a long distance” to travel.  Rather than just a miracle story, it also reads like a love story.  And so it is with us.  The Lord loves us, His followers of today.

As He did in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus desires to enter into our lives, where ever we may be, physically or spiritually and help with our needs.  He knows we have a long journey ahead, He knows that at times we are weak, and ready to collapse. And in these situations, He doesn’t abandon us, He provides for us.  The Lord does not just wait for us at the finish line of life, evaluating how we are doing, he is right with us on our journey, moved by our struggles and ready to enter into them.

As in any true love story, it takes two.  As much as we need to love The Lord, what is more important and often harder, is for us to accept His love.  The Lord continues to pour out that love in the most beautiful way imaginable…the giving of Himself in the Eucharist.

On this Valentine’s Day when we think of those we love on earth, let us not forget to love the One who made us, but more importantly, to accept the love and care He so abundantly provides in our lives.

Steve Walsh is a retreatant at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center in Sierra Madre ,and a good friend of the Passionist Community

Scripture:

Genesis 2:18-25
Mark 7:24-30

Reflection:

Let us consider, today, the power of the “hidden God” within us.  That is the daily phenomenon of God working in, through, with and, sometimes, despite of us!  There are indications throughout the four Gospels that God’s’ “hidden presence” within is real, powerful and salvific.  Actually we can say that the “hidden God” embraces us totally throughout our lives. I have caught onto this reality just in reflecting upon daily experiences, many of which contain hard-to-resolve issues. These issues surface in dealing with the daily human condition of our weaknesses showing through sin. These hard-to-resolve issues include our inhumane treatment of one another. By reflecting, that is, just taking a deliberate time of silence each day to allow “the hiddenness of God” to surface, we get glimpses of that hiddenness within.  Adam was in a deep sleep, when his female counterpart was created. The hiddenness of our Creator God. “It not good for the man to be alone,” God says.

The impetus of our hidden God is unity with all. “That they all may be one, Father, as I in you are One.”

The very opposite of that unity were the foreign cities of Tyre and Sidon. And the hiddenness of this Spirit within Jesus and in the Syro-Phoenician mother with her possessed daughter, brings about an encounter which ultimately brings healing.

I am not saying that encounters with the stranger (i.e., people who do not look or speak like me) will guarantee automatic “bonding.” Far from it.  It is a process with the hidden God as mediator. For Jesus himself it was a difficult encounter having his own priorities challenged. Was the woman a distraction for him, or, the center of attention as another child of God? The difficulty of that encounter may be revealed in Jesus’ reaction to the woman’s response to his insensitive comment. Her answer may have been too much for Jesus to deal with. He heals the daughter but he also says to the woman, “For such a reply, be off now!” As one commentator points out, Jesus needed more time before he could deal with the old, traditional separation and the new bond of union.

Can we find this habit of intentional silence whereby we can better discern how we  are being led, and how people are being led to us, for the sake of furthering the unity which our “hidden God” desires?

 

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P. is president of Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School, Birmingham, Alabama.