Claire Smith

Scripture:

Number 21:4-9
John 8:21-30

Reflection:

We have reached the Fifth week of Lent and are also well into the Holy Year of Mercy by proclaimed by Pope Francis. In the gospel of John the evangelist now moves to reveal Jesus totally. He goes far beyond the identification of Jesus as the Prophet who is to come. Beyond the title of Jesus as the Christ, the long awaited anointed one who is to bring in the reign of God. Far beyond the Son of David shouted by the crowds as Jesus enters Jerusalem.  We now enter the realm of mystery.  “I do not belong to this world…I belong to what is above.”  We must acknowledge and believe that Jesus is the I AM, the divine presence of God revealed to Moses in the burning bush. But wonder of wonders we come to realize this when he is lifted up on the tree of the cross and dies for us.  But in three days he is lifted up once again by his Father and like Thomas we recognize him as “my Lord and my God.”

In his official prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis prays that we will hear the words Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman: “If only you knew the gift of God!” Yes Lord I pray with all those who celebrate the Year of Mercy: “Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind.”
Fr. Michael Hoolahan, C.P. is on the staff of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:8-14
John 8:1-11

Reflection:

To get a better context for today’s Gospel it is helpful to read the previous chapter to see the plot as it is builds against Jesus. The day before Jesus was teaching in the temple area and some in the crowds were suggesting that he might be a Prophet or even the Messiah. It said there was a division among the crowd because of him and some had wanted to arrest him. Jesus is creating a disturbance in the status quo and it appears that the leadership wanted to get rid of this problem. Our text for today begins “early the next morning” and Jesus is found sitting down teaching again.  This plot to test Jesus is so transparent; in reality the woman is also a victim—where is the man? In Leviticus 20:10 the law states that both the man and the woman shall be put to death.  Jesus begins to write in the sand while the scribes and the Pharisees seem to be blind to his actions; having set him up they are waiting and focused on his answer. It seems they expect him to speak.

Jesus’ response is to invite the one without sin to cast the first stone as he continues writing in the sand. Beginning with the elders they start to leave. Many bible commentaries will suggest this story is more about non-condemnation than forgiveness; Jesus made the Pharisees aware of their own darkness so they left. Something different is happening here.

The first reading from Isaiah touches on the fact that God is doing something new; he snuffed out the enemy in pursuit of the Israelites—like a wick. Isaiah impresses upon them to remember not the past and offers that God will send rivers flowing through the wastelands. We the readers today are invited to hear the echo of this text as we listen to the Gospel. Jesus did not come to condemn the woman but to save her. He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law.  Yet, the leaders fail to see the newness and the difference-perhaps feeling threatened by his message.

Jesus offers compassion and mercy to the woman and invites her to go and sin no more and this is important. Sin is the absence of God and the woman—and you and I—are invited to stay close to God. Like the scribes and the Pharisees, we can become derailed by our pursuits and make decisions that are not always in keeping with our values. It can be so easy to rationalize our actions.  Jesus quenched out sin—like a wick—and now it is up to us to do likewise.  This is St. Paul’s point in our second reading—focusing on Christ and being possessed by him leaving everything else behind.

In reflecting on this Gospel, I loved the visual of Jesus sitting down as he taught the people. He still does that today whenever two or three are gathered—he sits among us.  Come Lord, Jesus, heal us.

Jean Bowler is a retreatant at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, and a member of the Office of Mission Effectiveness Board of Holy Cross Province.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 11:18-20
John 7:40-53

Reflection:

You may have noticed that throughout this week’s Gospel passages from John there has been strong confrontation and criticism from the religious and political leaders towards Jesus’ compassionate acts of healing in public and on the sacred Sabbath. On two occasions, including today, people of prominence and power recognize that “that there has never been anyone who has spoken like him.” (John 7:46) Yes, even to this day, piety, virtue and compassion (all expressed through non-violent engagement with power) are labeled as weak and ineffective.  Yet in Jesus the qualities in a genuinely virtuous person fascinates, invites, attracts and challenges.

Joseph G. Donders comments in With Hearts on Fire, that Jesus “brought all his human powers and capacities to fulfillment as the Spirit prompted him. He was fully alive, an admired and loved human being because he was loving, just, courageous and unpretentious. His spiritual vibrations were immediately felt by all. He changed everyone at the first contact; some loved him intensely, others hated him fiercely.” (p. 80) Our prayer time can simply be placing ourselves into His presence, as did so many whom we read about in the Gospels. We will resonate with him.

An incident comes to mind when Pope John Paul II visited the U.S. and, the then vice-president Walter Mondale commented as the Pope was leaving the country. “You have unleashed the best and most generous sentiments within us and given us courage to go forward.” Without counting the cost, nor looking for results, our daily activities will channel in some way, shape or form the healing power of Jesus within and around us.

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

Scripture:

Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22
John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

Reflection:

…he himself went up, not openly but as it were in secret.

There was a popular tradition in Jesus’ day that the Messiah would simply appear supernaturally or come out of a hidden place suddenly, mysteriously.  For many, Jesus did not pass this test.  After all, they knew him when.

In a culture without surnames, the place of origin was a means of personal identification. “Jesus son of Joseph” or “Jesus of Nazareth,” or “Joseph of Arimathea” were typical identifiers.  Understandably, the crowd examined Jesus on an earthly level. And since they could trace Jesus’ human origins, he was disqualified from messianic status.

Even so, Jesus cried out in the temple in irony, “You both know me and know where I am from; and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.

You think you know me and my origin, Jesus said.  And while there is a sense in which that is true, he came from Nazareth, in a far more importance sense they do not.  They did not recognize the Messiah, the one who came from God and knows him with profound intimacy.

Truth be told, Jesus has never been easy to recognize.  At his birth in a stable, few recognized him.  Throughout his public ministry, on the cross, at his resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, few recognized him.

How then are we to recognize the Messiah?  Today’s Psalm 34 gives us a clue.  “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.”  And our best example of this spirit of brokenness is Jesus himself.  “On the night he was betrayed, he took bread…broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is broken for you.’” (1Cor11:23)

During this Lenten season the Church has urged us to make our journey in that same spirit of brokenness in order to prepare for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.  Are we prepared to recognize the Messiah who comes to us “not openly, but as it were secretly” – such as in a piece of broken bread or in a cup of wine?

 

Deacon Manuel Valencia is on the staff at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture: 

Ezekiel 47:1-9,12
John 5:1-16

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the ill man to take up his mat and walk.  In reading this Gospel, our thoughts turn to the Pharisees’ condemning of Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. But there is much more here.  For Jesus, this is a teaching moment, and as usual, He is teaching us more than one lesson.  Jesus does not just heal on the Sabbath, he also tells the man to pick up his mat and walk on the Sabbath giving the Pharisees reason to condemn the man and Jesus for his instruction to the man.  But wait, go back a bit in the Gospel.  What else does it say?  This man had been ill for 38 years and he had been waiting to be helped into the pool for healing.  But he was always pushed out of the way and “had no one to put him into the pool.”  The words then are as much a reprimand to the community for not caring for their brother as they are a reprimand to the Pharisees for their following the letter of the law to the exclusion of the spirit of the law.  Because we no longer observe the Sabbath in the ways it was observed in the days of the New Testament, or for that matter even as it was observed in the last century, it is obvious to us that the Pharisees and the neighbors and community of the ill man were blatantly in the wrong.  Taking care of the sick should have been their priority not following the strict letter of this law.  By curing the ill man on the Sabbath, Jesus was making sure that attention would be given to what He was doing.  This should give us pause.  We easily see that performing a miracle, curing the sick is more important than the rule of keeping the Sabbath, but do we also see how Jesus is speaking to us and to our world?

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus tells us to love one another, to follow the works of mercy and the beatitudes as well as obey the Commandments.  How many of us take the time and energy to live this message, how many of us live as Disciples of Christ, keeping the spirit of the law, even when it means we don’t follow the letter of the law?  How many of us let our bigotry, our fear, our discrimination become more important than caring for and loving our neighbor?

In this year of mercy, may we continue to be merciful to one another and to ourselves.

 

Mary Lou Butler is a long-time friend and partner in ministry to the Passionists in California.

Scripture:

Isaiah 65:17-21
John 4:43-54

Reflection:

He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years,
and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.
They shall live in the houses they build,
and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant. Isaiah 65:20

Those are strange words as I go about my days burying many of my friends and family in their 50’s 60’s and 70’s. Ok, a few have reached their 80’s and 90’s, but those are the exceptions, not the rule that Isaiah talks about in today’s first reading. What am I doing wrong or is Isaiah just making wild claims to stretch my imagination?

At the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the “special” school where I taught and worked in some capacity or another for 40 plus years, I was signing my name at the reception after all the talks and formal ceremonies for the occasion when one young man in his 40’s said: “I know that signature. It’s on all the reading awards you gave me when I was a student here. My mother has saved every one of them. Mr. O’Donnell, you taught me to read!” Maybe Isaiah wasn’t just dreaming. Maybe I can bring a little hope into this marvelous ever expanding world I find myself in. Thank you, Isaiah. I’m going to keep trying and doing my little bit to bring about that New Jerusalem you envisioned.

 

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

Scripture:

Joshua 5:9a, 10-12
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Reflection:

Have we been merciful as the Father is merciful?

During the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has asked us to do a number of things, but two stick out to me: go to confession and to be compassionate.

Through the sacrament of reconciliation we are given the opportunity to bring our sins to God, lay them at his feet and be washed in his forgiveness. Yet, how often do we find ourselves right back where we started not a few days later? And how often are we willing to forgive others the way we have been forgiven? We are called to have contrition for our sins, to express what we have done. To attempt to fix what is broken in our lives through compensation and penance. And finally, to correct our lives for the future and sin no more. Through this sacrament, we become a new creation (2 Cor 5:17); a creation made in the image and likeness of its creator.

The Gospel reading calls us to be compassionate and merciful like the Father. We can relate to each of the characters, the prodigal son, the older son and the father. The prodigal son is us when we have sinned, those times in which we have fallen away from God and are struggling to come back. The beautiful scene where he is embraced by his father, reminds us of the unending love we are given by God the Father. The older son is us when we do not want to forgive those who seek or need our forgiveness. We want to hold a grudge or even find them “unworthy”. “I have been faithful and they haven’t, why should they be celebrated?”. The father reminds the older son in the Gospel to not dwell on this, that everything he has is his, and to rejoice in the fact that his brother has come back to the fold.

While we may identify with the sons from time to time, the real focus here is the role of the father. “ I am the son of a compassionate father. I am an heir”. Henry Nouwen The Return of the Prodigal Son.  As the heirs of our heavenly Father, we are called to carry on the compassion that we are so freely given. We are to strive to live in His image and be like him through forgiveness of others. We are called to be like the father, to open up our arms and just love. He did not question, or reprimand, but opened up his heart and home to the son who had squandered his inheritance.

During this Lenten season, let us ask God to help us let go of the competitive and petty nature of this world. Let us love as He has loved, and forgive as we have been forgiven.

Kim Valdez is the Pastoral Associate at Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center in Houston, Texas.