Claire Smith

Scripture:

Jonah 4:1-11
Luke 11:1-4

Reflection:

Jonah, Prophet and History Teacher

The Old Testament daily readings this year (an uneven year, 2019) show God’s love enfolding the chosen people as it unfolds in their history. Next year, (an even year, 2020) the prophets are prominent and we will hear the challenge of justice and faithfulness asked of Israel as they live their covenant with God.

We approach the end of Israel’s Biblical history. We have been reading of the return of Israel from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. Cyrus the king of the Persia conquers the Babylonians. To protect his kingdom he will cultivate good relationships with the small countries around him creating a first line of defense. Israel sees God’s hand at work in this, they are free and this is a great moment in their history. But….

But all that glitters is not gold. Not all the Jews in Babylon wanted to return. Those who did were not welcomed, they had to guard the ruins of Jerusalem where they lived for fear of attacks. Their lands were in the hands of new people, foreigners had moved in to fill the vacuum of the exile. Rebuilding a temple and a city would not be quick nor an easy job. The people were discouraged and almost defeated. In the end and with hard work and suffering the temple was rededicated.

In the history of Israel, the return from Babylon marks a new direction for the Jewish community. It will become strict, more rituals and laws appear, it separates itself from outsiders, as in the prohibition of marriage outside the faith. It is the beginning of the period of history that will include the life of Jesus.

The book of Jonah is a rebellious writing from this period. It attacks an approach that closes Israel to the nations. Jonah would say that Israel is the light of the nations, or echo Zechariah whom we read last week, “days will come when ten men of every nationality shall take hold, yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” Jonah is saying, don’t hide, don’t be defensive. Let us go where God boldly sends us.

The prophet Jonah asks Israel to see where they are going. The reverence of the pagans outshines Jonah. They are startled that he does not do what his God asks. In the end Jonah cannot fathom the gift of merciful love that Israel has continually encountered.

Our most familiar prayer is Luke’s gospel today, Our Father. God is our origin, our history. Today we can stand with Old Testament Israel and be challenged by what we may overlook: may the kingdom come as we empty our hands of lesser things to welcome it; give us the bread that our hands may share it; you forgive us, may we forgive; may we know your care and loudly write it into each of our histories.

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

Scripture:

Jonah 3:1-10
Luke 10:38-41

Reflection:

Put your heart into it:

The exceptional presence of the Prophet Jonah moves the wayward people of Nineveh to repentance and penitence- “by their actions they turn from their evil way.” The only thing that they needed to concentrate on was their love for God and love for each other. They chose to put their hearts into it. God in his love for them accepted their repentance and penitence and relented on the punishment he had planned for them.

It is the presence of Jesus that transforms each of our own lives, too, and in different ways. In the Gospel, Mary chose a life of perfect contemplation, the act of looking at something/someone thoughtfully for a long time. Her only thought was her love for Jesus. Mary put her heart into it. Yet Martha, “worried about many things,” needed to realize that all her busyness and activity could also be unified by the one thing necessary—love for Jesus. There is need of only one thing.

Life is good, so you should put your heart into everything you do. Sometimes we tell ourselves that life is not good right now, but it will get better. We may spend our whole lives waiting to live. We risk not fully accepting the reality of our present lives. Meanwhile we don’t put our hearts sufficiently into today, and so we miss graces we should be receiving. Let us live each moment to the fullest. Let us put our hearts into it.

To live today well, we also should remember that God only asks for one thing at a time, never two. We must put our hearts into it, simply and calmly, and not try to solve more than one problem at a time. If something, no matter how ordinary, needs to be done and is part of our lives, it’s worth doing for its own sake, and worth putting our hearts into.

Deacon Peter Smith serves at St. Mary’s/Holy Family Parish in Alabama, a religion teacher at Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School in Birmingham, and a member of our extended Passionist Family.

Scripture:

Jonah 1:1-2:2, 11
Luke 10:25-37

Reflection:

Today’s scriptures ask us: “Who is our neighbor?”, a particularly relevant question I believe for me a 21st century American, whose life is pretty good—many would say privileged. Almost daily, I hear or read of neighbors who face challenges like, another hurricane, or flood, people fleeing unjust treatment by others… I meet people and cultures very much different from my small world where is all I have to do is turn up the heat or air conditioning if I am uncomfortable and maybe pay a little more on my utility bill.

I can and often do, behave like the priest or Levite who really doesn’t have time to deal with this particular person’s bad luck.  I go to the other side of the road by quickly moving on to what I’m reading or more often not opening that new request from Catholic Relief Services. I know where I’m going, and I don’t have time for this distraction of someone in need. I most often figure, there’s really nothing I can do about this persons’ or peoples’ ills. Just sending a few dollars really won’t make any difference anyway, will it? Sometimes, more and more often I stop and think, if I were in that person’s predicament, how would I like them to respond to me. I even once in a while choose to become more informed or even to send a few dollars of aid.

Thank you, God, for the many gifts you’ve given me and help me to be a Good Samaritan today, by listening and responding like I would like others to listen to me if I were in their situation. Help me be a gentleman and be generous wherever I am able.

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

Scripture:

Hebrews 1:2-3; 2:2-4
2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
Luke 17:5-10

Reflection:

Today we learned that a glacier as big as Los Angles has broken from the Northern ice cap. For the last month, much of our area of the United States has suffered drought and record heat. Massive wildfires over the last year have destroyed homes, businesses, and lives in parts of the West. Massive storms and record heat let us know something is not normal.

Add to the environmental emergency the slaughter of innocent people in entertainment centers, department stores, schools, houses of worship, and in neighborhoods. Add lives destroyed by opioids and other drugs, homelessness, and overcrowded prisons.

Aware of all this daily news, are you left feeling like the Prophet Habakkuk?

“How long, O Lord? I cry for help, but you do not listen! I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and clamorous discord.”

Feeling angry, sad, afraid about the conditions in our world sets the foundation for prayer. Taking these reactions to God, laying them at his feet is an act of faith…the faith that Paul tells Timothy is our norm.

Faith, as nurtured in regular, silent prayer, stills our souls. It is not a stillness that keeps us passive and uninvolved. Rather it is a stillness that recognizes, accepts, that we are to do “what we were obliged to do.” The Spirit guides each of us to heal our broken world in the uniqueness and limits of our own lives. The task is different for everyone. And the task is beyond human efforts. We must rely on God’s love and grace to carry us.

God, working through us, over time, transforms all things into goodness, love and life. This is the faith like the mustard seed. In God we are stronger and capable of much more than we can every imagine.

Jim Wayne is a board member of the Passionist Solidarity Network (PSN), and author of The Unfinished Man. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Baruch 4:5-12, 27-29
Luke 10:17-24

Reflection:

The Church gifts us this day with an ancient reading from Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary, who gives voice to Jerusalem as she bewails and consoles her captive children during the exile.   It is an interesting concept that a city gives voice to the people who live there.  I ponder what New York City would have said to her people after September 11th.  Or even what joyful message could be delivered to its residents from any small town in America on the Fourth of July?   The personification of a town or city may be scientifically absurd, while still being poetically beautiful. For how deeply a town would desire to look after and tend to those who dwell there. I can’t help but picture a tenderness, care, and wisdom a town or city would exhume for its residents.

Jerusalem, Baruch says, do you realize how fortunate you are? Moreover, you need to be attentive to what God is about to do for you. This is very much the spirit of the Gospel. After sending out the seventy-two, they now come back, filled with excitement and enthusiasm. And Jesus asks them, do you realize how blessed you are? You’ve participated in things which societies’ elite couldn’t fathom. And I find great delight in sharing that with you. But your real joy isn’t what you can do because I asked you and gave you the authority. Your real joy excels because you have chosen to know and listen to me.

Fr. David Colhour, C.P. is the pastor of St. Agnes Parish in Louisville, Kentucky.

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Scripture:

Baruch 1:15-22
Luke 10:13-16

Reflection:

Francis of Assisi:  Prophet and Poet

Jesus confronted the reality of evil and selfishness with his message of life and love.  Some have received his message with an open heart; others have turned away in a spirit of denial.  Today’s Gospel selection from Luke 10 shares Jesus’ cries of “woe” and challenge to those who remained hard-hearted and closed to his message of Love and Life.  Contrasting is the message of today’s first reading from the prophet Baruch as he prays in hope and humility that God will look kindly upon the people who have turned away in their sinfulness.  Baruch proclaims the goodness and compassion of God, as was later personally witnessed in the life of Jesus.

Today we celebrate the life of a 12^th Century saint who was called to help bring about a renewal in the Church through the personal witness of his life, his “spirit”.  Francis of Assisi heard the personal call of Jesus and gave himself wholeheartedly to Jesus in an exemplary life of praise, sacrifice and service.

The Scriptures came alive for Francis of Assisi.  His carefree youth was radically changed by the call of Jesus; he renounced his personal possessions and redirected his life to evangelical poverty and preaching.  Francis’ life witness was charismatic, compassionate, and loving of all God’s creation.  God used Francis to call others to lives of radical discipleship – and so many responded that Francis compiled a “rule of life” and founded numerous religious communities of women and men.  He lived but 44 short years, sharing the joy of those early disciples of Jesus, sparking a spiritual renewal that continues to inspire men and women today – especially our own Pope Francis!  “Rebuild my church…”

Today Jesus and Francis of Assisi challenge us to generously promote God’s Kingdom.  Our world is dramatically challenged by violence, selfishness, poverty and hunger, hopelessness, injustice, etc.  We are challenged to be faith-filled disciples…to respect God’s presence in all people, in nature and all created things, in the daily events of life.  Simplicity and humility are held up to us as virtues of 21^st Century disciples, witnessing the mercy and compassion which are the heart of God.

The Collect Prayer of today’s feast day Eucharist prays “…Saint Francis was conformed to Christ in poverty and humility; grant that, by walking in Francis’ footsteps, we may follow your Son, and, through joyful charity come to be united with you….”  Like Francis, may we be channels of God’s peace!

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is the Vocation Director for Holy Cross Province. He lives at St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels

Scripture:

Nehemiah 2:1-8
Matthew 18:1-5, 10

Reflection:

At its heart, today’s feast of the Holy Angels is not so much about their existence, rather it is a powerful reminder of how important we are to God.

Our first reading states this so clearly. God promises angelic guidance so that we are guarded and surely led to a place of safety. The angelic guides will speak for God, indeed in the ‘name’ of God, and they will be entrusted to go before us to show us the right path.

In the gospel Jesus reveals that those Angels entrusted to guide ‘the little ones’ (the poor, powerless and dismissed people who Jesus reached out to) stand in the place of closest relationship with God. Their status in God’s eyes is symbolized by the status their angels enjoy in heaven!

We see all of this, too, in the life of Jesus. Angels appear in the gospel accounts of his life at those times of special need – times where Jesus himself is in need or others like Mary need to hear God’s word. At the time of temptation and in his agony, the angels appear to comfort Jesus. At the other times they appear in order to announce the significance of the moment to others – i.e. at the Annunciation, the Angel reveals God’s plan to Mary, and at the tomb the Angel reveals the new life of Jesus on this, the first day of resurrection.

In times past Catholic devotion and prayer focused more particularly on angels. Today that is not so prominent. However, this feast-day does speak to us of God’s longing for us, of God’s desire to protect us and of God’s intention to be with us.

All of this is to remind us today that we too enjoy such love and care on the part of God.

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is a member of Holy Spirit Province, Australia. 

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Scripture:

Zechariah 8:20-23
Luke 9:51-56

Reflection:

Today is the feast of the remarkable saint whose short adult life was spent in a cloistered Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France, but whose spirit captured the world.  She died of tuberculosis in 1897 at the age of 24.  Yet within a very few years her reputation for holiness had captivated the world.  She was canonized in 1925 by Pius XI only 28 years after her death; declared patroness of foreign missions in 1927, and named a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

The heart of Thérèse’s spirituality was what she called the “little way.”  As she wrote to a friend, Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God’s arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.

Therese herself preferred to be faithful in “little things” –every day opportunities for patience, humility, and kindness.  In this way she could count on Christ’s love for her to enable her to achieve holiness.  At the same time, Thérèse had a great soul and was conscious of the world outside her convent.  She felt a deep call to support the missionary activity of the church with her daily prayer and life of quiet fidelity.

Pope Francis cited the “little way” of St. Thérèse in his powerful encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home).  The pope noted that the enormous challenges posed by the environmental crisis can lead us to moral paralysis—what can anyone of us do faced with such complex and serious problems?  How can we offset the corruption and violence that so afflicts our society?  The pope noted that some people are in a position to effect significant change—government and corporation leaders, scientists, etc.—but most of us are not.  But, he said, there are ways we too can exercise our responsibility for our world.  Here he appeals to St Thérèse:

Saint Thérèseof Lisieux invites us to practice the little way of love,
not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship.
An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures
which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness…
Love overflowing with small gestures of mutual care,
is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.”  (Laudato Si’ #230)

The accumulation of such “small gestures of love,” Pope Francis notes, contribute to the church’s mission of “building a civilization of love.”

The gospel reading for today, although occurring on this day as part of the ordinary sequence of the daily readings and not special for this feast, picks up the quality of Thérèse’s spirituality cited by the Pope. In Luke’s account, as Jesus and his disciples are traveling to Jerusalem, they pass through Samaria, a region traditionally hostile to Judeans.  When some of Jesus’ disciples enter a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival, they are not welcomed.  Angry, the disciples ask Jesus if they should pray for revenge— “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”   But Jesus himself rejects such a hostile response and continues with his mission.

Refusing acts of violence and revenge and, instead, offering gestures of reconciliation and love was the way of Jesus in the Gospels and was the path to holiness for a young French woman whose life touched the world.

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.