Claire Smith

Feast of Saint James, Apostle

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 4:7-17
Matthew 20:20-28

Reflection:

The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. -Matthew 20:28

When the disciples heard Jesus say this, I imagine they must have wondered what this meant.  It likely stirred lively and concerned conversation. “What does he mean ‘give his life as a ransom for many’?”  At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has now three times foretold his Passion. How the disciples must have wondered and worried over this among themselves.

From our vantage point almost two millennia later, we do not have to wonder.  We know what this meant for Jesus.  And we know what it means for us: an overwhelming self-giving love so that we might have life. All of us.  Not one exception.  A incomprehensible price.  An incomprehensible ransom.

Yet we can still find ourselves back at that place of misunderstanding the essence of the Kingdom to which we are ransomed. We think, like the sons of Zebedee, that security will come if we are in what has long been thought to be a position of power, sitting beside a king who has power over his people, who wields “authority” over subjects.  We human beings strive to maneuver ourselves into positions of power over others and all of of creation. We see this misunderstanding operative in so many ways–from the war in Ukraine to the sexual abuse crisis in the Church to all the ways we as human beings are harming creation and our common home.

These are just some of the blatant examples, yet I suspect from my own thoughts and struggles that this likely operates subtly in all our lives: each time we feel ourselves superior to or judge someone else; each time we retreat inward believing that we will not have enough if we share with someone else; each time we surrender to the pervasive forces today that call us to fear one another.  Jesus does not call us to power over others but rather to power with all of our brothers and sisters, all of creation, not one exception. The power Jesus describes and lives turns upside down how we normally think of power.  He invites us to mutual care of each other, to loving encounter and deep listening, to nourishing and uplifting the unique treasure that each of us holds in an earthen vessel.

This too is powerfully operative in the world today.  Striking examples can be found in both Laudato Si’ and the current synodal process we as the Church are now living. Both call us into an inter-being which is dazzlingly inclusive, and manifests the “life of Jesus” in our body in this present moment–the Body of Christ. As Laudato Si’ 240 says so beautifully, “Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.”

And Synodality presents us a path forward–not an easy one for those of us who like details and want to know every twist and turn of the journey.  It is rather a way which requires surrender together to the movement of the Spirit: “a true season of the Spirit!  For we need the Spirit, the ever new breath of God, who sets us free from every form of self-absorption, revives what is moribund, loosens shackles and spreads joy” (https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211009-apertura-camminosinodale.html).

May it be so.

Lissa Romell is the Administrator at St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13

Reflection:

Awesome Presence and Wonderful Intimacy

In our experience of God, it is important that we try to be conscious of both His majesty and the warmth of His intimacy.  In today’s liturgy Luke relates an essential reading of the Our Father.  In the very first words he sets before us the foundations of prayer, the transcendence and intimacy of God!  “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name!” Lk 11:2   Our prayer will limp badly if we fail to appreciate by grace the Holiness of God and the depth of His love for us.

First of all, Jesus tells us to start our prayer with Father.  The word father is treated 414 times in NT.   The most important father Jesus knew as a child was Joseph.  Father is Jesus’s primary word for God.   It is the most important metaphor of Jesus’s teaching.  It is of great interest that every reported prayer of Jesus in the New Testament starts with the word Father!   What a beautiful compliment to Joseph!  So we begin our prayer with the intimate word father!  St Paul of the Cross would spend two hours on first word of the Our Father!

Luke next relates the words “hallowed be Your name!”    The idea of “holy” in the Scriptures is in Hebrew qadosh.  It is used 115 in OT.  “I am the Lord, your Holy One” Is 43:15. The angels cry out which shakes the heavens.“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,   The whole earth is full of His glory.” Is 6:3     Holy in the Latin phrase is: mysterium tremendum et fascinans.   As mysterium, the numinous is “wholly other”– entirely different from anything we experience in ordinary life.

In NT Greek holy is hagiosand is used 233 times. In Mary’s beautiful prayer she exults: “For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name.” Lk 1:49  When we view the Universe now with the new eyes of science, we indeed can see how great God is!  Our sun with its planets is speeding around our Galaxy, the Milky Way, about 500,000 miles an hour!  Even at this prodigious speed it will take about 250 million years to make the trip once!  Our Milky Way is just one of 100 billon galaxies.   “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” Ps 33:6    This welcoming God is indeed incredibly big!

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. preaches Parish Missions and is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

Scripture:

Song of Songs 3:1-4b or 2 Corinthians 5:14-17
John 20:1-2, 11-18

Reflection:

There it is. The simple, one word lesson that encompasses all that Christ has tried to teach us.  The one word which conveys all the love Christ proclaimed with His suffering death. He whispers “Mary” in the dim light before new day.  She, undoubtedly beaten down by the emotions and images of the prior day, may well have not slept.  She returned before dawn to the tomb, compelled to complete the burial rituals they had been unable to complete the day before because of the impending Sabbath.

Even in the darkness, she saw that the immense stone blocking the tomb had been rolled away.  Surely her first thoughts were those of panic and even anger because she had witnessed the vicious, evil and unfair treatment Jesus had suffered the day before by those who tormented and put Him finally, to death. They might have stolen his body as another way of inflicting injury on Him.   

She saw a man standing at the head of the burial bench, and in the darkness, blinded by her tears, she failed to recognize Jesus until He spoke that one simple word which encompassed all of Christ’s love: “Mary”.     

No other words were necessary to impart His love for not only Mary, but for all of us, His people.    Upon hearing her name, Mary’s choked reply was simply, “Rabbi”, addressing Him not as the Man she knew, but in the redemptive role His life had always been. Do I know you when You call me, Lord, or am I blinded by the pain and anger of this world?   

Ray Alonzo is the father of three children, grandfather of two, and husband to Jan for 45 years. He is a USN Vietnam Veteran, and a 1969 graduate of Mother of Good Counsel Passionist Prep Seminary. Ray currently serves on the Passionist Alumni Council.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Matthew 13:10-17

Reflection:

Many of us remember Paul Simon’s song “The Boxer,” “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,” (The Boxer lyrics © Mca Music Ltd., Paul Simon Music, Sony/atv Songs Llc, Warner/chappell Music Ltd) 

Both readings today have a common theme: people hear but don’t really listen or we selectively hear what we want to hear. In the first reading, people are not listening to the prophet Jeremiah. He is reminding them of how great God has been to them in leading them out of Egypt and into the promised land. But soon they forgot God’s goodness and got busy going their own way including idolatry to Baal. Jeremiah states the priests don’t even try and seek the Lord. Israel has forsaken the Lord and refuses to listen to Jeremiah. In today’s gospel reading Jesus urges us to open our eyes and really see, open our ears, and not just hear but listen and understand with our hearts. We all know how easy it is to get super busy, easily distracted and be overwhelmed work demands, family responsibilities and variety of other challenges.

Am I one of those persons who are so busy that I  look without seeing, or hear without understanding? (https://www.sacredspace.ie/scripture/matthew-1310-17)  Take some time this day to be still and listen to what God might be saying to you, wanting you to see and understand.  O Lord help me to slow down and listen to your speaking and to see your presence and understand how much you love me.

Carl Middleton is a theologian/ethicist and a member of the Passionist Family.

Scripture:

Genesis 18:1-10
Colossians 1:24-28
Luke 10:38-42

Reflection:

Here’s a gospel story for which we love to take sides! Mary or Martha? Those of us who feel we are always doing way more than our fair share, whether in our families, communities, or on our jobs, rally around a miffed Martha when she complains to Jesus that her dreamy sister needs to get up and lend a hand. (The gospel hints that maybe this wasn’t the first time Martha was peeved with the leisurely ways of her sister.) But those of us who think that the way too industrious Marthas of this world need to chill a little before they drive everybody crazy, loyally align ourselves with Mary.

And yet, rather than seeing Mary and Martha as irreconcilable opposites, perhaps they represent two essential dimensions of the Christian life that must be kept in balance. When Jesus tells Martha, “Mary has chosen the better part,” he reminds us that God must be the abiding center of our lives. No matter how much good we may do, if we are so busy that we seldom have time for the prayer, solitude, and contemplative listening that is necessary to nurture our relationship with God, we will lose our way. That is why we need to be Mary “who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and listened to his words.” But we also need to be Martha not only because other people depend on us and we have responsibilities to them, but also because God can work through all the good things we do to love and bless others.

Still, we shouldn’t be so focused on the distinctive character traits of these two sisters that we overlook the one thing on which they both obviously agree: welcoming Jesus into their home and into their lives. Martha and Mary had opened their door to Jesus often enough that he had changed from being a stranger to becoming a friend. Let us pray that Jesus feels as at home with us as he did with Martha and Mary. Let us pray that, like them, we spend enough time with Jesus so that he is no longer stranger, but friend.  

Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family.