Claire Smith

Scripture:

Colossians 1:15-20
Psalm 100
Luke 5:33-39

Reflection:

Fasting & Feasting:  Towards A Change of Heart

The “good old” Scribes and Pharisees:  today’s Gospel continues the saga of their confronting Jesus with legalistic formalism…and so little heart!  “Your disciples don’t fast and pray…yours eat and drink.”  Detailed regulations rather than helping a neighbor in distress…or even rejoicing with the Bridegroom.

Jesus met this issue head on and wanted to show that Love is the essence of religion, that regulations are valid only if God’s purposes are served.  Jesus asked more of his disciples:  to follow his example, and love God with one’s whole being, and to love one’s neighbor as He did — a much more demanding life response than a fasting from food and drink!  A new cloak…a new batch of wine…

As contemporary disciples, we are invited to think “outside the box”.  We’ve moved beyond the Baltimore Catechism days; the Second Vatican Council has opened the “windows” of the Church.  Pope Francis is inviting us to see life differently.  The Spirit is alive in our midst!  The Church is a community of believers!  Our liturgical prayer invites and requires our full and active participation!  Our Baptism calls everyone to a life-long discipleship / involvement in the Church, fulfilling their particular vocation!  Our faith life is more than what you do (or don’t) eat or drink.  A new cloak…a new batch of wine…

No doubt we seek to grow day by day; we need God to open our hearts in both our fasting and feasting – to help us change and grow.  As members of the Passionist family, we prayerfully ponder our lives and that of our world.  What are our basic life values?  Today’s quest for power, or money, or material goods, or popularity:  do we go along with the crowds?  How do we “love” with Jesus Crucified?

May God open wide our eyes and our hearts, to see the treasure of our faith, along with the blessings and hard realities of daily life.  Together, in the words of Psalm 100, we give thanks to God, and bless God’s name!  God’s kindness and faithfulness embraces us all!

 

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is the local leader of the Passionist community in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Scripture:

Colossians 1:9-14
Luke 5:1-11

Reflection:

Simon said in reply, ‘Master we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.’ Luke 5:5

Simon was a professional fisherman who knew his trade. For him to be so willing to do as Jesus said shows how much he had come to believe in Jesus. He could have argued and said, “No way, Lord! I know the fish aren’t biting. We’re too tired, and we’d just be wasting our time.” But he didn’t. Rather, he did as the Lord asked, and the boat nearly sank they caught so many fish!

Knowing that they hadn’t caught anything the night before helps us see how Peter humbled himself and did as the Lord asked even though it didn’t make sense to him. He trusted Jesus that much. Not only did he trust, but he respected Him and chose to honor Him by his obedience.

How often do we do what Jesus says even when it doesn’t make sense? How well do we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? How about forgiving 7 x 70 times? Even in the promptings we get from the Holy Spirit, how quickly do we obey? Or do we try to figure everything out so that it makes sense before we act?

One small example comes to mind. I was preparing for a retreat and the Holy Spirit suggested I ask the ladies next door if I could practice my talks on them. I was intimidated by the older woman next door, as she was old and seemed to be rather cranky. I didn’t know if she believed in God, and I couldn’t imagine speaking about the Lord in front of her. I never would have considered asking them, so this confirmed to me that it must be the Lord’s idea! I called and the caregiver said they would love to have me come over.

They both listened intently and gave me some good feedback. Later, the caregiver shared that she had drifted away from God, and my talks invited her to come back. I also pray that the talks planted some seeds in the older woman’s heart as well.  I think it’s good for us to be ready to follow the Lord without always understanding his plan ahead of time. Because, if we need everything to make sense before we obey, we may miss some really “big catches.”

 

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 6. Janice also leads women’s retreats and recently published her second book: God IS with Us. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.janicecarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected].

Scripture:

Colossians 1:1-8
Luke 4:38-44

Reflection:

As I was reflecting on the gospel of today’s readings, I couldn’t help but notice how much Jesus responded within ordinary and daily situations to “…proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God…” He had been preaching in the synagogue, but then leaves for the house of Simon’s mother-in-law. His presence signaled her healing, so much so that “She got up immediately….” At sunset, people were brought to him (they were brought to him, which suggests a dependency on some form of “care giver”), probably still around the house of Simon’s mother-in-law. The sick were healed of their illnesses, and those under the spell of evil, were freed from their demons. The next morning, Jesus seeks solitude, but the crowds, responding to his concern for them, come looking for Jesus, and try to keep him among them.

The response of Jesus is to affirm that his coming has been purposeful, it is to “proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God” to other towns as well.

There is an attribute in the conduct of Jesus which clearly marks his ministry, it is a ministry of proclamation, and it is a ministry which responds to the suffering of ordinary people, the kind of people who might never have come to know of Jesus were it not for those who bring them to Jesus.

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, reminded us of this missionary outreach in #15 of his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium: the Latin American bishops stated that we “cannot passively and calmly wait in our church buildings”; we need to move “from a pastoral ministry of mere conservation to a decidedly missionary pastoral ministry”.

Jesus took the comings and goings of the people who lived in those villages around Galilee, and made them into opportunities to proclaim the Good News of Salvation and of the Kingdom of God. He especially made this proclamation to those who were suffering from the weariness of soul and body which we share in daily as we move about our city or town.

Let us try today to remember Jesus as the one who continually reminds us of the “Joy of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium), and the place we are invited to take at the Table of the Lord.

 

Father Arthur Carrillo, C.P., is the director of the Missions for Holy Cross Province.  He lives in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Luke 4:16-30                           

 Reflection:

Do not grieve like those who have no hope. No prophet is accepted in his native place.

There’s this amazing little person that lives in my house.  About 46 inches tall, long hair, a beautiful singing voice, and wow, what a dancer.  She just turned nine last week. It really seems like yesterday that she was still a question – something I wasn’t even sure was real – and today, yes the 31st of August, 2015, she’s walking into a fourth grade classroom for the first time.

My father died just a few days after my daughter was born.

I remember getting The Call.  I was off to pick up my wife and daughter and bring them home from the hospital for the first time that morning.  But then, on the way, I had to go sign for my father’s body, stop by the mortuary and buy a casket. And when I finally got to the maternity ward, I was greeted by the nurses and doctors with such joy…but I sure didn’t feel joyful.  There were flowers and balloons everywhere, but all I could see were my shoes hitting the floor – one after the other – thumping along as though there were someone else’s feet inside them.

Some years later, around her birthday again, my daughter and I were walking toward the sanctuary when the Pastor walked up and said, “Daphne, I just love your shoes!” (They were very pink, and very bright).  And she said “Oh, Monsignor, I don’t love them. They’re only things.  You can’t love things…only people.”  Very graciously he replied, “You know, you’re right. I don’t love them, but I sure do like them very much.  Well, goodbye.”  My little girl again piped up, “No, no! Monsignor, for people with faith there is never a goodbye…only See-You-Laters.”

For people with faith, there are never goodbyes.

I wish I had remembered today’s passage from 1st Thessalonians when my father died.  How obstinate I am!  I wonder how many times God tried to reach me in all these years of sadness before he used a (then) 5 year old to bring to life the Good News.  The signs and messages were always there…I was just too closed to accept them.

The people in today’s Gospel were a lot like me. Here is the Son of God himself, standing right in front of them, talking to them. God comes to heal the sick, bring sight to the blind, shower peace and love to all people, share the message of Eternal Life, and these folk were just too closed to see him at work in their lives.  In fact they were so angry, they were going to cast him away and throw him off a cliff!

God appears to us all the time, in every moment – always waiting to save, always knocking at the door of our hearts, begging to be let in – if only we would make room and let him in.  Look around… A pal or neighbor says a word that “hits home,” or some graffiti on the side of a truck that goes by, perhaps a tiny whispering sound, or someone you’ve only just met who seems to know exactly what you’re going through… Or maybe, just maybe even a 6 year old ballerina with very pink, very bright shoes.

Who has been God to you?
How have you led Him to a cliff to be thrown over headlong?
How has God touched someone through you?

How are we going to open the door right now?

Because it’s true… For people with faith, who are open to the work of God in their life, there is never a goodbye… only a “see you later.”

So, friend, see you later.

Dear God, thank you for the gift of your most amazing and ever available presence. Please grant us the grace to always open the door and let you in. Amen.

 

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

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Reflection:

In today’s gospel Jesus lists the evils that can come out of the human heart: “unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice deceit,” etc.  How does evil get in there in the first place?  By letting in the wrong kind of thoughts.

Way back in the second century Marcus Aurelius Antonius noted, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”  Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and your change your world.”

The British philosopher, James Allen, said, “Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit — and man is his own gardener.”  As our own gardener, we need to take charge of our thoughts.

In our first reading Moses is in effect telling his people to let their thoughts be about the statutes and decrees of God.  Our responsorial psalm reminds us that the one “who thinks the truth in his heart” will live in the presence of the Lord.  St. James tells each of us today to “humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you…”  So reading, reflecting on and studying Sacred Scripture is the first step to care for our thoughts.

The second step is to follow St. Paul’s advice to the Philippians.  “Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

One day a Jamaican grandfather was talking to his grandson about his inner turmoil.  He confided, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart.  One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one.  The other wolf is the loving, forgiving, compassionate one.”  The grandson asked him, “Which wolf will win the fight, Grandpa?”  The grandpa paused for a moment, then said, “The one I feed.”

If we feed our minds with the Word of God and with thoughts of the beauty that surrounds us, we too will live in the Lord.

 

Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.   http://www.alanphillipcp.com/

 

The Passion of
Saint John the Baptist

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:9-11
Mark 6:17-29

Reflection:

“Beheading” is a word we hear too often today in the media.  This cruel act is re-counted for us again in today’s readings from Scripture as we remember the beheading of St. John the Baptist.  The account of this event describes the self-centered motives of King Herod.  He is a person who has set himself as the center of his universe.  Words from the current International Charter for Compassion stand in clear contrast to Herod’s motives.

“Compassion impels us to de-throne ourselves from the center of our world and put another there.”  (International Charter for Compassion)

Herod’s motives also are illustrated in Pope Francis’ new encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’”.

“When human beings place themselves at the center, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative.  Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests.”  (Laudato Si’, Paragraph 122)

John the Baptist preached alone against Herod’s self-centered relativism and it cost him his head.  Today is a good day to take a moment and reflect; where do I place myself in my universe?  Am I at the center?  Or am I making every compassionate effort to place another there?

 

Terry McDevitt, Ph.D. is a member of the Passionist Family in Louisville, Kentucky.

Feast of Saint Augustine

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Matthew 25:1-13

Reflection:

Are you a foolish virgin or a wise virgin?!  Today we hear the well-known scripture from Matthew about the wise and the foolish virgins.  The five wise virgins took time to prepare for the bridegrooms coming by having their oil lamps ready as opposed to the five foolish virgins who were left out in the dark because they had not planned well.  At first glance we could say this would have been a perfect opportunity for the wise virgins to share their oil with those who did not have any!  BUT would that have taught the foolish ones to be any better prepared for the next time!?  Maybe some would have become better planners or maybe not!

It seems to be that so much of our lives have to do with timing along with faith!  Faith helps us to ‘stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.’  In the absence of faith our sense of timing always seems to be off, we are always running out of oil!  We seem to be totally overwhelmed by the fact that things are just not working out right.  We become easily perplexed and frustrated.  When we put our faith and trust in God’s timeline, Gods’ plan for us, and we remember God is in charge of our live and we are not, then things seem to fall into place so much easier.

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of St. Monica and today we celebrate the feast of her son, St Augustine.  We know Monica kept her lamps full and relied on God to hear her lifelong prayers for her son’s conversion.  Again, this conversion all happened in God’s time.  St. Augustine led a licentious life and moved restlessly for a long time until his conversion.  His famous quote, ‘ my heart is restless until it rests in you, my God’ reminds us to place our faith and trust in our God who knows us better than we know ourselves.

May we place our focus on becoming wise virgins whose lamps are always oiled and ready to lead us along the path that God has set before us.

 

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

Feast of Saint Monica

 Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 3:7-13
Matthew 24:42-51

Reflection:

I can’t say I have ever been inspired by images of saints contemplating a skull, but today’s readings do remind us of the benefit to pondering end times, or the coming of the Lord at the end of time.  And over the years, I have far too often presided at the funeral of an adolescent; it is sobering to gaze upon the congregation of many classmates, at once feeling invincible — and now, fragile, even vulnerable.

So what does Jesus really mean when he thunders, “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Matt 24:42)  In his Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul also prays that they be kept “blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.”  (1 Thess 3:13)

The admonition to pay attention or stay awake is not meant to intimidate or threaten, as if God were a vengeful tyrant, waiting to pounce upon us as a bird might when seizing its pray. Rather, it is the persistent care and “in-your-face” love of a parent, who refuses to abandon her child, much like Monica, whose feast we celebrate today.

How can we maintain a hopeful or even cheerful stance when statistics are bleak and weigh us down? Research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate stirs me. In 1975 there were 369,133 marriages celebrated in this country; last year 154,450. The total number of priests has decreased from 58,398 to 38,275; the decline in religious sisters and brothers is even more dramatic. Catholics who attend Mass weekly has tumbled from 42% to 24%. We all know the percentages of “nones” (those who profess no religious identification or denomination);  those who are disengaged from any mainline religion are in our families, they live next door, or share an office with us.

Yet how Christ-like the preaching of Pope Francis! He, too, calls us to wake up the world! Don’t get so bloated with comfort and convenience that you are anesthetized to the mystery of God-presence in the poor. Don’t become so stressed or anxious with overwork that you are numb to God’s love in the grandeur of creation, the beauty of nature. Don’t clutter your calendars and closets that you miss those moments when God is crashing in with favor and compassion.

Maybe skull-gazing isn’t so bad after all.

 

Father Jack Conley, C.P. is the director of the Office of Mission Effectiveness.  He is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.