Claire Smith

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

In the last few years, I have attended three family weddings, and each time, someone has commented on the couple’s facial expressions during the ceremony. Often, they have used the word “radiant” to describe the couple’s faces as they spoke their vows to each other.

In today’s first reading from Exodus, we hear that Moses’ face became radiant “when he conversed with the Lord.” Moses was face to face with God. Like the newlyweds, he was face to face with Love.

When we are aglow with love, we do things that under other circumstances would be impractical or even impossible, things considered sacrificial. Jesus speaks of this in today’s Gospel. In Jesus’ parables, a person searching for fine pearls finds one, and sells all they have to purchase the pearl. We hear about another person who finds a treasure in a field, “and out of joy goes and sells all they have and buys that field.” Out of joy, Jesus says…. Selling all is not a sacrifice for the people in these parables; it is simply letting go of everything for the sake of the relationship that is valued above all else.

Moses risked his life, endured long periods away from his family, and was often misunderstood by his own people—all for the sake of his relationship with Yahweh God.

Newlyweds do not know what the future holds, and joyfully enter the unknown together;

even though their commitment may be tested by illness, financial misfortune, misunderstandings, and loss.

Today’s readings bring some questions for us to ponder:

1. For what or whom would I joyfully “sell all”?
2. How wholehearted am I in my commitment as a disciple of Jesus?
3. What do I need to let go of, in order to live more joyfully and wholeheartedly?

Patty Gillis is a retired Pastoral Minister. She served on the Board of Directors at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center in Detroit. She is currently a member of the Laudato Si Vision Fulfillment Team and the Passionist Solidarity Network.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Happy Monday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time!

Do you like to cook? 

I really do.  From soups, salads, and vegetables to pasta, sauces, and barbecue — even something as simple as dishing up some cheeses, fruit, nuts, and bread — I truly enjoy my time in the kitchen or at the grill, no matter what it is I’m preparing.  And when I’m sharing something I’ve prepared with other people, well – that’s just a little glimpse of heaven to me.

One thing that has always fascinated me, though, is bread.  Making a good loaf of bread is an art… and for me, the most beautiful is the most simple.  You just need flour, water, sea salt, a few teaspoons of sugar, some olive oil, and a little yeast.

But you know what?  It’s the yeast that really does the trick. 

Sure, you might argue that the rest of the ingredients would make an ok flatbread, but it would be dense.  Bringing yeast into the picture makes the dough expand and rise.  It creates a light, fluffy center and a crisp, tasty crust.  Can’t you just hear the crackle of a fresh baguette when you break it in half?  The yeast takes all the other ingredients and completely transforms them into something different.  Something bigger.  Something better.

And here’s the amazing thing about yeast:  You don’t need very much.  Just a little bit will make an enormous difference.

In the Gospel today (Matthew 13:31-35), Jesus tells this parable:  “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took & mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.”

During the Dismissal Rite at the end of the Mass, the Priest or Deacon will say, “Go, and proclaim the Gospel by your lives.”  We are, at that moment, given the charge to go and be the yeast in the dough.

The greatest thing about it is, just like yeast we really don’t need very much to make a tremendous difference.  It really comes down to us mixing in with our brothers & sisters, the Children of God.  When we do that, we “Leaven the flour” in our part of God’s Kitchen.

It’s about sharing our care and compassion and companioning people on their journey.  It’s all about loving one another just as Jesus has loved us.  And when we share love with other people, we really get the chance to have a little glimpse of what heaven really is.

And for me, friends, well… that’s the very best meal I can ever hope to prepare.

Loving God,
you are the Master Chef,
gathering all the ingredients needed
in order to create incredible. Amen.

Peace and leavened love to you today, and forever.

Paul Puccinelli is the Director of Liturgy & Music at St. Rita Parish in Sierra Madre, California, and a member of the retreat team at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center.

Scripture:

1 Kings 3:5, 7-12
Romans 8:28-30
Matthew 13:44-52

Reflection:

These parables lead me to one obvious conclusion – the abundance and beauty of heaven! He goes and sells all that he has and buys it: isn’t this the ultimate sacrifice to reach the gates of Heaven? To be able to leave everything behind, detach ourselves from the wealth, greed and sorrow of a world that has morphed into something that at times can seem pointless and sad. But we continue to see the good in this world, knowing that the place of abundance for us is that goal of reaching heaven at the end of our journey. How do we achieve it? Repentance, for one.

And this net that is thrown into the sea – does it only catch fish? Of course not! It catches all forms of debris, turtles, and other little crawling things. And what is bad will be thrown out – and the angel will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous… This is the final judgment, so we must prepare for that time by being good stewards, separating ourselves from this world in preparation for heaven. We tend to forget what could happen if we don’t live as Christ would expect us to live.

We read these things so no one can say they were not aware. There are no excuses, just these facts – God wants us to repent, to live righteous lives, to forgive, to live simplistically, and to offer our lives to him completely.

God bless you all!

Patty Masson is the Director of Adult Formation and Evangelization at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church.

Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

Scripture:

1 John 4:7-16
John 11:19-27

Reflection:

   “God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him.”

The first reading for today describes the love that connects God to us and how we are connected to God. Simply, Love. Love is one of the three Cardinal Virtues. Saint Paul writes about love in his first letter to the Corinthians. He states that of the three, faith, hope, and love. The greatest is love. (1Cor 13:13) God loves us so much that he sent his Son so that we might have eternal life. The love that Jesus showed to Martha, Mary, and Lazarus was great. It is in that love we too can have life. To know Christ is to know what love is. To be able to share that love through acts of kindness or service is reflecting that love.

      “. . . you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus and Martha have a conversation where Martha makes several faith statements about her belief “in the resurrection on the last day”. The last statement she makes is that she believes “you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” In the Gospels, when Jesus is healing someone, it is through that person’s faith or the faith of others that the person is healed. Martha, a woman who is portrayed as to busy to pray in the Gospel of Luke, is the one who has faith that Jesus is going to heal her brother or raise him from the dead in the Gospel of John. Jesus responds to her with one of the “I Am” statements:

     “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
       and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

This conversation between Martha and Jesus may be considered a covenant dialog. Martha makes her statements of faith and Jesus replies with the promise of eternal life. Martha’s faith and the faith of the Apostles was not perfect. Jesus is the one God has chosen to free people from their sin and to give eternal life. Taking time to hear God’s response, engaging God in our own covenant dialog could possibly be an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God and grow deeper in the love God has for us.

Linda Schork is a theology teacher at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Exodus 20:1-17
Matthew 13:18-23

Reflection:

Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance.

Today marks my parents 84^th wedding anniversary!  Their life together as man and wife began on July 28, 1939.  With generous hearts they kept the Word and yielded a bountiful harvest which included raising eight children along with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren!  They persevered through good times as well as challenging times.  They lived their faith which included following the commandments as we read in our first reading today.  They taught us to focus our lives not solely on the letter of the law as much as on the heart of the law.  They sowed seeds of love, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness.  Sometimes their attempts fell on deaf ears, stubborn spirits, and closed minds, but they persevered and eventually we all reaped a bountiful harvest of faithfulness, servant leadership and spirit-filled lives.

Perseverance calls all of us to live Gospel-centered lives. We live in a world and a church that challenge us to hang onto to those seeds of faith that were planted in us at baptism.  In order to grow in our faith, we must be willing to walk on rocky ground, put up with the thorns we encounter, persevere in the Gospel message even when we don’t understand it or want to hear it.  We are reminded in the Gospel today that:

            “The seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it,
            who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

May we continue to be the rich soil that bears fruit not only in our lives but in the lives of all those we encounter on our faith journey!

Theresa Secord is a retired Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b
Matthew 13:10-17

Reflection:

When I read this passage from Matthew, I think of what I have always remembered about the way Christ speaks to us. He will speak to us in ways we will understand. And that is what he does as he shares the parables. The people he was speaking to didn’t believe and so any message of spirituality would have been immediately rejected because the people were not ready to listen. But Jesus shares stories that he knows people can relate to and identify with. The message will be received!

God wants us to make good use of the gifts he gives us – the gift of mercy, the gift of understanding, THE GIFT OF GRACE. We all have our moments of missing His message, or of not wanting to hear what He wants us to hear. Jesus appreciates the openness his disciples have to God’s grace, that they accept his teachings and know that he is THE Lord. But it was all planned by God – the one who knows the number of hairs on our heads, the specks of sand on the beach – he knows it all, and he knew that they would follow and dedicate themselves to him.

When we hear that story, take the time to listen and act upon it. Open your heart to receive it. He comes to us as we can understand Him, He appears to us in ways that we can accept Him and know who He is. Have the sensitivity to accept the grace that God shares with you.  Allow yourself to be inspired by what God can do for you and believe.

God bless you all!

Patty Masson is the Director of Adult Formation and Evangelization at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in Spring, Texas.

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Scripture:

Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15
Matthew 13:1-9

Reflection:

The Lord gave them bread from heaven.

This is the psalm refrain in today’s Liturgy of the Word. Besides being a food staple, bread also carries with it profound symbolism. We break bread together in a sign of community. We experience in the Eucharist the Bread of Life. And bread, like dewfall, fed the Israelites in the desert, as told in today’s reading from the Book of Exodus.

The Gospel today is the story of the sowing of seed, some that grows to yield a hundredfold. Again, here is a powerful image of being fed, being sustained by the graciousness of God.

This is also the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, the traditionally named parents of Mary, and I can’t help but think of my own parents, Bill and Kimmy, who did more than feed and house us. They were that “bread from heaven.” They sowed seeds of love, of honesty, of kindness, of strength into each of their nine children. I cherish that no matter when my father might return home from the office, we always sat at the table together to eat dinner. That table, like an altar, was where we were fed with much more than bread. It was where we knew we were a family, where we were loved and taught about living a life of integrity and faith. Did every seed they sowed fall on good ground in us and take root? No, but they never gave up.

What is sometimes lost in these stories is that the seed that grows into fruit or grain contains within it the seeds of life for the next generation. The life given to us is a life we must share with others. We become the “bread from heaven” for those with whom we live and work, for those we encounter at the store or on the sidewalk. What we have received, we freely offer to others. The bread we receive, we break and give away. Bread is not meant for the store shelf or behind a bakery’s window. Bread only becomes bread when it feeds the hungry.

Robert Hotz is a consultant with American City Bureau, Inc. and was the Director of The Passion of Christ: The Love That Compels Campaign for Holy Cross Province.

Feast of Saint James, Apostle

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Matthew 20:20-28

Reflection:

Today’s Gospel for the Feast of St. James could be added to the listing of passages where Jesus gives a new meaning to words and concepts. For example, when someone told him (Matthew 12), “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” Jesus replies, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” A new definition for family.

Remember the time (Luke 10) when a scholar of the law stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus then narrates the parable of the Good Samaritan… knowing, of course, the hateful rift between Jews and Samaritans!

Or the surprise re-definition of “holiness” in Matthew 18, when the disciples question Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

So, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the mother of James and John that “top billing” means SERVICE… another new and different meaning! While the New Testament hardly presents the apostles as steadfast, heroic individuals who courageously stand by the Master through thick and thin — we know that in time they gave their lives witnessing to Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom. That gives me hope and encouragement! Can I be patient as Jesus turns things upside-down and inside-out in my life?

Fr. Jack Conley, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Christ the King, Citrus Heights, California.