Claire Smith

Scripture:

Sirach 6:5-17
Mark 10:1-12

Reflection:

The gospel reading for today poses a strong challenge for followers of Jesus.  His chronic opponents, the Pharisees, direct a question to Jesus: “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?”  As Mark the evangelist notes, “they were testing him.”  In fact, Jewish tradition, based on Deuteronomy 24:1-3, permitted a man to divorce his wife for certain conditions.  The debate in Jesus’ day was not focused on whether there could be divorce and remarriage but on what were the circumstances justifying this step.

In his reply, Jesus refuses to get embroiled in such a discussion.  Instead he recalls for his opponents the original intent of God who created man and woman out of love and desired that the union of husband and wife would be a permanent bond of love.  Moses’ permission for divorce was a concession to human weakness.  To drive his point home Jesus quotes from the creation account in Genesis and the ideal that a husband and wife would “become one flesh.”  For Jesus, fidelity to God’s will was the driving force of his life and superseded all other considerations.

Jesus’ commitment to this vision of faithful and life-long mutual love of husband and wife was, in fact, part of his view of the human family as a whole.  All of us were called to faithful love for each other; all were called to unlimited forgiveness, even of enemies; all of us were called to seek the good of the other—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, consoling the sorrowful, seeking justice, making peace.  Jesus’ teaching throughout the gospels affirms that an authentic human life is committed to respect and love for the other.  How much more would be expected of a man and woman who vow love for each other in the intense bond of marriage?

Jesus’s beautiful and challenging understanding of the human capacity for love did not lead to a heartless rigor in the face of human frailty.  Jesus’ own chosen disciples were evidence of this—they often failed to understand Jesus’ teaching, were prone to petty jealousies and arrogance, showed indifference to the needs of others, and, ultimately, abandoned Jesus out of fear when the threat of death approached.    Jesus continued to love and forgive his disciples, even when they failed him.

This mix of breathtaking beauty and human frailty runs throughout the New Testament and remains a lesson for the church today.  If anything, our modern social context is less supportive of marriage than the circumstances of traditional societies.  The prevalence of divorce in modern western societies is high, including Christians as well.  Pope Francis has encouraged bishops and pastors to continue to lift up the ideal of faithful and enduring married love while, at the same time, showing compassion, understanding, and respect for those who find themselves in difficult circumstances.  His beautiful instruction on married life, “The Joy of Love,” reflects the enduring teaching of Jesus about marriage and, at the same time, invokes Jesus’ own merciful and compassionate love for us as we struggle to be faithful.

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:

Sirach 5:1-8
Mark 9:41-50

Reflection:

Jesus seems to be adamant about telling us to get rid of everything in our lives that lead us to no good.  Whether it be our hand, foot, eye, as well as unhealthy thoughts and actions.  For most of us, like myself, if we were to take his words literally, we would all be maimed in one way or another!  I don’t think Jesus had in mind that we should cut off a hand, foot or poke an eye out.  But, I do believe he is challenging us to take time to examine our life and actions and set about making right where we are going astray!  What are some ways we can do this?

First, we can take to heart the message found in the responsorial psalm today;

‘Blessed are they who hope in the Lord!’

Second, keep in mind that when we stay connected to the Lord, when we believe and live as people of hope and promise we are more likely to be grounded and faithful.  Hope becomes very elusive when we place it in all the wrong places and things.  When we get caught up in worldly pleasures and find ourselves too busy to pray, to take time to focus on the things of God, we lose sight of what is really important.

Third, Lent is coming in a few short weeks.  What will your Lent look like this year?  Will you:

Connect with an estranged relative or friend?

Spend time volunteering at the parish food pantry or another outreach mission?

May Lent be a time of new beginnings that lead you to always hope in the Lord.

Have a Blessed Lent!

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

Scripture:

Sirach 2:1-11
Mark 9:30-37

Reflection:

I had a flashback while reading today’s gospel story: “Taking a child, Jesus placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.’” For those of us of a certain age, we might remember Art Linkletter’s television show that showcased young children answering questions in a segment called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” What America loved about his interactions with kids was how refreshing and unvarnished they were. You may recall when one boy answered Art’s question about what happened to Adam and Eve after they ate the apple: “They went to hell and then were sent to Los Angeles.”

The tender selection for today from the Book of Sirach reflects the simple child-like trust that Jesus tries to teach his disciples. The author invites us to be in the presence of God and to trust, to be at peace and know God’s love.

I’m afraid that many of us get tripped up over the refrain in this reading of “Fear the Lord…” Fear in English does not convey anything more than dread of an impending event. But the Hebrew word conveys something much more. It can mean awe or reverence when in the presence of the holy. And awe begins with first seeing. Until we set aside our blinders and all the filters with which we have learned to see the world, we will never see the majesty of God that is all around us. We won’t be able to stand before God in awe and amazement.

We are all unresistingly excited to young children who engage life with eyes wide open in awe. They see as we long ago knew how to see. Today’s scripture is an invitation to see again with child-like eyes, and there before us and all around us amazingly is the awesome presence of God.

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.

Scripture:

Sirach 1:1-10
Mark 9:14-29

Reflection:

We hold on, we hold on tighter

August Wilson’s play, Fences, captured a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, while the movie version also earned four Oscar nominations. It’s the story of a resentful sanitation worker who never made it to baseball’s major leagues, and his wounded family. At one painful moment, Rose, our protagonist’s wife, now aware of her husband’s infidelity, speaks her truth:

“I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life, too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me? Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams…and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me not eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room…with the darkness falling in on me…I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn’t the finest man in the world. And wherever you was going…I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that’s the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always talking about what you give…and what you don’t have to give. But you take too. You take…and you don’t even know nobody’s giving!”

In a parallel way, Jesus seems so very discouraged in today’s Gospel, as Mark’s narrative offers one of the more haunting questions of Our Lord:

“O faithless generation, how long will I be with you?
How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.”

Last week, you may recall, Mark offered another of Jesus’ statements of frustration when he told the crowds:
“Why does this generation seek a sign?
Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

What seems to upset Jesus more than anything is when the crowds expect religion to be a quick fix. Perhaps that is why the Pharisees always seem to be at odds with Jesus; they want black and white answers, immediate gratification, spontaneous solutions. They also want a punitive God. And Jesus proclaims a God slow to anger, rich in compassion.

Our first reading provides a form of spiritual direction when we feel overwhelmed with sadness, or darkness and discouragement today:

The sand of the seashore, the drops of rain,
the days of eternity: who can number these?
Heaven’s height, earth’s breadth,
the depths of the abyss: who can explore these?

And like Rose, we hold on, we hold on tighter.

Fr. Jack Conley, C.P. is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Scripture:

1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
1Corinthians 15:45-49
Luke 6:27-38

Reflection:

Compassionate Love ~Luke 6:6

In today’s Scripture we have some of the most consoling lines in Luke’s Gospel!

“Be children of the Most High, for He himself is kind “chrēstós” to the ungrateful (acharistos) and the wicked (ponēros).  God is proclaimed kind!  Chrestos is the Greek NT Word for kindhearted. Someone is said to be kind or considerate when they give out of pure generosity to the undeserving some beautiful thing.  I feel one of the most beautiful things we can say about God is that He is kind.  Where would be if we did not have His graciousness to enrich us!  What a wonderful word your Son gave us when He said You are gracious to the ungracious and even to the evil or more literally,  ponēros, people“full of trouble,”

To receive His kindness we must be merciful to others.  “Be merciful ( oiktirmōn) even as your Father is merciful.”  Lk 6:36 The word Jesus used for mercy is oiktirmōn.  It is much more intense word than mercy.   It means the pain of others generates a compassionate sound like oihe!

Years ago walking along the ocean I saw a mother of a little 4 year old girl talking to some of her friends near the water’s edge.  It was high tide on open ocean which was quite wild.  The mother lost attention of her daughter for a brief few minutes.  She looked down for her little girl and she was gone!  For a brief horrible moment she thought her baby walked into the ocean.  She cried out in horrible cry her daughter’s name: Marion, Marion!  That was 50 years ago but I remember that horrible scream like it was today.

That day I learned a great deal about the intensity of a mother’s love.  That horrifying scream is a good definition of the biblical word oiktirmōn.   We can’t forget that horrible scream of Jesus on the cross at His death.  This scream was for all of His children!  We can’t even begin to understand the depth of God’s love and concern for us, “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Eph 3:19

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

Scripture:

Genesis 9:1-13
Mark 8:27-33

Reflection:

Our readings today address the topic of: when is enough enough?  It rises to the fore in the saga of Noah.  It is also present in the incident presenting itself to Jesus and His apostles as the question of Jesus’ identity continues to engage the followers of Jesus, especially the twelve.

So far as Noah is concerned, he emerges to the fore as a kind of response to God’s growing exasperation with the way the descendants of Adam and Eve went about living their lives, in an ever descending spiral  exasperating God Who “ regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.  (Gen. 6.6)  But “Noah found favor with the Lord.” (6.7)

So, under God’s guidance, Noah built the ark to house those members of his family, who managed to remain faithful to the Lord, including pairs of all the animals and fowl that graced the surface of the earth at that time.  (In Kentucky there is a replica of the ark, built according to the specifications provided Noah, as we read them in Gn. 6. 14-22.  It is about 50 miles south of Cincinnati, and is larger than most visitors anticipate).

After everyone of Noah’s people was suitably provided for, it started raining, for forty days and forty nights, as a result of which the entire earth was engulfed in water, and all forms of life were drowned except those in the ark, and in the sea itself (since fish could survive on their own).  And it seems that  the fowl of the air found safe passage on the ark itself.  The rain eventually subsided, but the waters continued to rise for 150 days (Gen.7.24).  And then God provided the rainbow as a beautiful remembrance “of the covenant” God established between Himself and every living creature.  And it seems that God regretted having (practically) exterminated the human race from the face of the earth.  (Gn. 21)

So Noah became a kind of second Adam, as he and his descendants repopulated the earth.  Through him God gave us all a second chance.  And this time God provided an improved version of starting over again, not in terms of Noah himself, but in view of Jesus Himself, Who was yet to come as Redeemer of the world, beginning a totally new dispensation or arrangement for our benefit.

We hear of this in the day’s gospel as Jesus pursues an issue of extreme interest to Him: “Who do people say that I am?”  (Mk. 8.27)

How pleased He must have been at hearing Peter answer: “You are the Messiah”.  Not even Noah anticipated this momentous response of Peter.  But Peter himself failed to appreciate the magnitude of what he said, since a few minutes later, he flubbed his chance to show he fully understood Jesus when Jesus began to describe the death He was to undergo at the hands of “the elders, the chief priests and the scribes” (Mk. 8.31, ff.) precisely because He claimed the title of Messiah for Himself.  Peter could not handle this challenge of the Messiah revealing His coming sufferings and death.  So Jesus had to put him in his place.

Noah and Peter make an unlikely team in conveying God’s message to us, each in his own way.  And for this we are grateful.

Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5
Mark 8:14-21

Reflection:

“ . . .and his heart was grieved.” Genesis 6:6; “Are your hearts harden?” Mark 8:17

Today’s readings invite us to take a good, long look into God’s heart, into the hearts of the disciples and into our own hearts. We may not be pleased with what we see!

When the Book of Genesis was being put together, the authors were dealing with two very paradoxical realities: the experience of goodness and the experience of evil, the experience of a loving God and the experience of a God who allowed wickedness. They tried to make some sense of those two very contradictory experiences. They decided that this was not an “either/or” reality, but a “both/and” existence.

On one hand, we have the God of creation, the God who looked upon the fruits of creation and declared them very good. This same God is the one who made us male and female and in the image of God. When Adam saw the first woman, he said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.” (Genesis 2:23) Both are of equal dignity.

On the other hand, along with the gift of life, God also gave us the gift of free will. The book of Genesis illustrates this with instances of bad choices made by Adam and Eve and Cain and Able. Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, forbidden by God and Cain killed his brother Able in a fit of jealously. Thus, wickedness grieved the heart of God.

In the Genesis accounts, there are always glimpses of hope. For example, God has a long conversation with Adam and Eve after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit. God does abandon them but walks with them and then makes a covenant with them. God does not strike Cain down in anger but lets him live with his sin. And no matter how wicked the world was, there was always someone who clearly a good person. “But Noah found favor with the LORD. Noah was a righteous man and blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:8 – 9) Goodness overcomes wickedness. It turns out that God’s Heart is a Compassionate Heart, no matter how many times it’s been broken!

When Jesus tried to teach his disciples about the deceitfulness and the dishonesty of the political and religious leaders of his day using the metaphor of leaven, the disciples missed the meaning of his words completely. Jesus was reminding them that they were to see the reality of their day with the heart: the heart of love, the heart of pity, the heart of compassion, the heart of justice! Instead, they had hardened their hearts to the reality of wrongdoing.

It took a while before the disciples began to understand the difference between true goodness and false goodness, between grace and sin, between justice and injustice.

So, what’s in our hearts? Do we want to see with the Heart of God, with the Heart of Jesus or do we want to overlook the evil of this world and pretend that it has nothing to do with us? Do we have the courage to stand with the God of Life and Love? With the grace of God, we will choose Life and Love!

Fr. Clemente Barrón, C.P. is a member of Mater Dolorosa Community in Sierra Madre, California. 

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Frequently in the gospels stories are repeated.   The reason for this is that it is important to recite for sacramental reasons, and sometimes when the congregation is mostly Gentiles and the evangelist wants them to know what happened on behalf of Jews in Galilee.

In Mark’s Gospel the crowds are with Jesus for three days.  When Jesus reflected on this he realized the crowds had been without food for those three days.  Mark says Jesus’s heart is filled with pity/ compassion.  The Disciples see this same event and they suggest that Jesu tell the crowd to go and find food for them-selves.  When Jesus says: They have been with me for three days.  Jesus also saw if he sent the people to go and search for food they were so weak already that they would collapse.   Jesus asks the disciples what resources they had and they tell him they had five loaves of bread and a couple of fish.  Jesus also saw that the people were hungry not just for their bodies, but food for their spirits.  Jesus says they are like sheep without a shepherd.  Jesus and the crowd understood this to mean something even more profound.  Jesus says their spiritual leaders, i.e. Their teachers, but also the Pharisees, scribes, and the rabbis.  They killed the spirit of Moses and left the people with rigidity and letter of the law teachings.

Jesus asks the crowds to recline and enjoy the food readied for them.  When the disciples collected the left overs, they had twelve baskets filled with food.

Mark suggests the faith of the Disciples was not as strong as was hoped for by Jesus.  Like the disciples we need to know the gifts we have received should be shared as gifts from God.  In Mark gifts are given to be shared.   Our most important experience in life are crises where there is very little we can so for one another, but be there. There are extraordinary moments  in life which we can’t always wait for.

The Gospel tells us we have to constantly allow ourselves to be available to our family, friends, neighbors, etc.  Like Jesus’s compassion it is a virtue which never forgets the details of life, e.g. three days, the collapsing for the search for food in this deserted place.  He saw what the Disciples missed in the crowd. For Jesus the crowds were lost souls in tired bodies.  We are called to serve them.

Fr. Ken O’Malley, C.P., is the local superior at Holy Name Passionist Community in Houston, Texas.