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Scripture:

Acts 8:26-40
John 6:44-51

Reflection:

As followers of Christ, we are called to Evangelize.  It serves us well then to remember that the first and greatest evangelizers were the Apostles.  We see this throughout the Acts of the Apostles.  What great models to follow.  In today’s first reading, Phillip greets the Ethiopian eunuch who tells him that although he is reading the scriptures he can’t understand them unless someone interprets them for him.  Phillip then evangelizes by interpreting the scriptures until the Ethiopian asks to be baptized.  In the Acts, we see many examples like this of the Apostles reaching out to spread the Word, to spread the Good News.

Isn’t it a wonder to think of this small group laying the foundation in the early Church so that the Church was able to grow until it now reaches the entire world? How was this group able to evangelize so effectively?  And how can we best follow in their footsteps?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Apostles and us, “I am the Bread of Life.”   As Christians, this is the basis of all that we do, not just at Mass, but in every action of our life. This is the core of who we are, not just in prayer, but in all our daily activities.  We cannot evangelize until we fully absorb this truth.   Any good salesperson will tell you that you have to believe in a product in order to sell it.  But it took the Apostles awhile to accept this.  So throughout the Gospels, you hear Jesus frustration with the Apostles…Don’t you get it?  Do you still not understand?  Then on Pentecost, they were filled with fire and understanding.  And they finally “got it”, then it was, watch out world, here they come!  Things aren’t so different today, when we “get it,” then we too can be great evangelizers.  In the Acts, Jesus says those who believe will have eternal life.  And if you believe, if you “get it” and understand that Jesus is the Bread of Life, how can you not share his message?

What is evangelization?  It is believing so firmly in Jesus that our hearts are on fire, and it is knowing that the Spirit of God is with us and it is being Jesus for others, proclaiming the message of the Gospel through our love for God and for one another.

 

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

Scripture:

Acts 7:51-8:1a
John 6:30-35

Reflection:

In reading the Gospels, and observing the interactions Jesus had with most people whose path he crossed, I always keep in mind that Jesus knows human nature! That is an understatement, I know. Two common, ordinary, elements of human nature that are with us perpetually are hunger (nutrients), and vulnerability (truth). They do not seem to have any connection except for the fact that we do not live well, at all, if we were only to depend upon ourselves to adequately address these to human dilemmas. And to have a healthy and safe life, there appears to be a need for intentionality, as regard what we eat, and the truth we pursue. So spirituality has a lot to do with it: a way of living which includes being conscious, deliberate, knowing, purposeful, and willful.

To make this clearer, perhaps, think of the antonyms to intentionality, which would include: a non-purposive, and a non-deliberate life. Where am I going with this meditation? I am going straight to where Jesus wants us to be with Him. Eating him. When the crowd comes to Jesus because they got all the bread they wanted from him the day before and were looking for more, he makes the same point as that traditional saying: “when you want to help feed people, don’t give them a fish, rather, teach them how to fish.” He tells them that the bread he has been giving them is of no lasting use. He explains to them that the giving and receiving of that bread and fish will not solve their problems, or the problems of the world. He tells them to be interested in something that will help them more definitively (intentionally), and he suggests they take him as their food and drink. He asks them to make him and his way of living their “bread and butter” in daily life.

To eat him is to have the intentionality of accepting his lifestyle and adopting it to this world. This would mean being attentive to one another, using the gifts we are to each other. It really is the reorganization of how we relate to one another under the same roof, in the same school building, or work- place. Our intentionality would be in the reorganization of the situations in which we live, work, play and pray. It is a daily task through the eating of the Bread of Life and paying attention to the Word of Truth found in the Gospels.

 

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

 

Scripture:

Acts 5:34-42
John 6:1-15

Reflection:

“Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.”    John 6:11

The Gospels are very fond of this memory of dining with Jesus.  The incident of the multiplication of the loaves is mentioned six times in the New Testament.  In Biblical tradition eating was considered a very special time of intimacy with family and close friends.  About one third of John’s gospel takes place during a meal!   It was at this wonderful meal on Holy Thursday that some of the most beautiful words that were ever spoken are enshrined.

The Church and tradition has always associated these meals with the Eucharist.   These were wonderful times of closeness to Christ.  Jesus Himself cherished this Eucharistic meal at the Last Supper.  “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  LK 22:15   The words earnestly desired are a weak translation of the much stronger Greek word ep-ee-thoo-mee’-ah  which means to passionately  desire.  It is even doubled in strength by being repeated twice in same sentence.

The Eucharist was no afterthought in the Gospels. It was expressed with a depth of feeling found nowhere else in New Testament.   Pope John Paul II beautifully expressed this in his encyclical ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA.

“The Eucharist, as Christ’s saving presence in the community of the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most precious possession which the Church can have in her journey through history.”  #9 “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living bread. Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”.^{2 “}Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.”

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. gives parish missions and retreats.  He lives in the Passionist community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Genesis 17:3-9
John 8:51-59

Reflection:

Promises play a prominent part in our lives.   A promise is inherently relational.  One can’t make a promise to oneself, though sometimes we hear someone say: I made a promise to myself that I would stop smoking.   The Latin source of the English word means “sending forth”.   It’s a reaching out from one person to another.  A promise lies at the heart of a family, starting with the promise between husband and wife.  Promise also constitutes nation-building, beginning with the pledge of allegiance that is most prominent at the time of incorporating new citizens into a nation.  Promise stands behind a five dollar bill, a guarantee of its worth for a certain amount of food, or clothing, or medicine.  And promise also features importantly in relating God and ourselves.   Though most of us make promises to God, He has taken the initiative in making promises to us.  So we hear today.

We find God promising Abraham to make him the father of a host of nations, and of their kings.  God also promised him the whole land of Canaan as a permanent possession.  But we note that He laid down the command that His covenant must be kept throughout the ages.   This doesn’t seem to be the condition for these promises to be met, however.  Broken promises, as Jewish history shows, were certainly punished, but they seemed to carry on, though refined over time.  God’s promise is as good as gold.

This refinement process seems to be at the heart of the gospel account today, as Jesus makes His claim about no one seeing death who keeps His word.  This startles and aggravates the Jews who appeal to Abraham as having died, and all the prophets, and leads into the provocative remark of Jesus that He antedated Abraham.  And here is where the Abraham saga melts into the Jesus event as the fulfillment of the promise originally made Abraham, now comes in a refined form.  God’s promises never fail, but they do undergo processing, which actually improves them.  We and the Jews are both recipients of God’s promise, but at different phases of the promise-development.

So there is a challenge latent in the promise God makes us.  It keeps unfolding and assuming various forms, and we have to be alert to these variations, lest we lose track of it.  And that’s where Lent comes in.  Lent is an occasion for refining our sensitivity to and awareness of God’s promise working itself out in our lives.  That’s what the Jews failed to do in the gospel account today.  They didn’t recognize the Abrahamic  promise latent in the Jesus figure before them.  In fact, they tried to destroy it by picking up stones to throw at Him.

We’re all liable to this mishap.  We can fail to identify Jesus in the ways He comes to us throughout our lives: in the sacraments, in the scriptures, in one another, in the poor.   Thankfully we have the Lenten season to purify and cleanse the lens of our eyes so that we can see.  Spring has just gotten underway.   We need some serious spring house-cleaning to relocate God’s promise(s) to us, at times hidden amid the debris of our lives.

 

Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. 

Scripture:

Isaiah 49:8-15
John 5:17-30

Reflection:

 

John’s Gospels – Our Final Guide to the Passover of Jesus

In our fourth week of Lent until Easter the lectionary turns to the reading of John’s gospel. It is a glimpse of an ancient lectionary going back to the time when Lent was a three week period. With John we will accompany Jesus to his Passover from death to life, and we will take our place with the beloved disciple who rests upon Jesus heart just as Jesus rests upon the heart of the Father. Jesus is the one who is the way to the Father, and invites us to be one with him on the journey to the Father.

Today’s gospel is the second of three gospel readings this week that make up chapter five. We can approach John in two ways. A commentary can help because our readings are not easily followed, there is little story to hold our attention. A second way is to prayerfully allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to practical connections between John’s words and familiar situations of daily life. The first readings, prayers and prefaces of Lent all help to see invitation.

When chapter five began yesterday we saw the division between Jesus and the Pharisees over the Sabbath. The leaders said they are the custodians of the Sabbath but Jesus says he is one with the Father who is the Lord of the Sabbath. Today Jesus tells us why he can say this: he has authority from the father and brings life. Tomorrow this chapter ends as Jesus invokes three witnesses to support him: John the Baptist, the Father and Scripture. The leaders however will condemn Jesus for making himself one with the Father.

A practical application of John’s words could show us how yesterday Jesus loves the poor. The healed man of Bethesda never says, ‘thank you’. He places his trust with those in power more than with Jesus. He does not have the courage of the man healed at Siloam nor the faith of the official who believes Jesus will heal his dying son. In short this man is poor! Thirty-eight years of sitting in the back row has not developed the best in him. Jesus takes all the initiative with him and loves him no less. Jesus invites our selfless love upon those who do not say, ‘thank you’. But more, we can see Jesus loving us in our poorness?

Or today Jesus defends himself and at the same time reveals gifts to us, ‘As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.’ ‘Whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life.’

‘I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.’ We also give our best to explain or be of service and are not always received. Sometimes children, friends or students and those we serve turn a deaf ear to our gifts. We may feel a dying when our best is rejected. Like Jesus let us trust the Father whom we serve and who loves us as he loves the Son. That cross or that particular dying will be raised up and become life giving in the mystery of God’s saving plan.

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

 

Second Sunday of Lent

Scripture:

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 9:28b-36

Reflection:

Righteousness of Faith

 “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Gen 15:6 this year we are urged by the Pope and bishops to re-discover our faith.  Faith is that beautiful gift of God to us that makes Jesus visible to us as He was transformed before the apostles.   A few years ago I visited Mammoth cave and saw piles of cane sticks that people used for torches 4000 years ago.  In the utter blackness of a cave of some 600 miles there is no way of finding one’s way without these lights.   Faith is the torch by which we see a transfigured Christ in the world today.

Without faith we can never embrace the living Christ.   In the gospels countless people touched Jesus to be healed.   But we can never approach Him without the gift of faith.  Faith is our eyes and hands by which we encounter Christ.   Without this living and precious gift the wisest and most talented people of the world missed the most amazing personality who walked the face of the earth.   Without faith, the news media has not a clue of the amazing presence of Christ.  Without this light  massive numbers of our American society are going down the drain in drugs, broken marriages, financial swindles, and mass killings.

Abraham’s faith made him righteous.  The erosion of faith has left unimaginable moral damage to our modern world.  As an active missionary for 42 years I hear case after case of tragedies that happen to family members who have abandoned their Catholic faith.   To me the biggest lie of our secular age is that we can achieve happiness and fulfillment without Christ.  If faith made Abraham righteous, it is no wonder that its forfeiture causes a trail of heartbreaks and disasters to so many people that we and God love!

 

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

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

Reflection:

In our first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses gives to the people the terms of God’s covenant with them: “Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice.” Perhaps one way to look at our baptismal commitment is to see it as a covenant between God and us in Jesus Christ.

We can easily see God’s commitment to us, but it is not always easy to “hearken” to Jesus’ voice. Today’s Gospel is a case in point. Jesus says to the crowds, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”

Would we be so willing to enter into a covenant if part of the contract was to love our enemies? In our country and in so many parts of the world, treating others as enemies seems to be the norm rather than the exception. And yet Jesus calls us to go beyond what is considered acceptable, and if necessary, go against the prevailing winds of society.

We need to remember that God has gone beyond what is considered acceptable with us. As Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “… he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” God does not give up on His own! He is not satisfied with relegating them to categories like “worthless,” or “enemy.” God is faithful in loving His children, whether they turn their backs on Him or not. We are called to love as God loves, as He has given His love and grace to us in Jesus Christ, and continues to guide us through the Holy Spirit.

May we go beyond worldly wisdom and convention. May we take the risk to enter into a covenant with God in Jesus Christ that commands us to love always.

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is the local superior at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan. 

Scripture:

Ezekiel 18:21-28
Matthew 5:20-26

Reflection:

The season of Lent takes us on a journey. This unique period of travel ends in Holy Week with the great Triduum celebration and the solemnity of Easter. Beyond the liturgical calendar and counting off the 40 days, the spiritual destination of our journey is a greater love of God and of our brothers and sisters. The prayer, fasting and alms-giving we do, or whatever Lenten practices we have chosen, are to support us in conforming our lives to the great law of love (Lk.  10:27).

In the Gospel reading today, inserted into the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins several “antitheses.” He first states what the people have heard from the law (do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not take false oaths, love your friends, etc.). Then Jesus says, “But I say to you…” Jesus motivates the people to go beyond a legalistic approach to religion (obedience) to a heartfelt commitment (love). We can be religiously correct by being obedient. Jesus says this is not enough for those who would follow him. His disciples need to be spiritually correct by being disciples of compassion. We aren’t out to kill anyone, but do we harbor anger in our heart? We know adultery is wrong, but do we hold on to lustful thoughts? We try to love our friends, but do we love our enemies? Do we tell the truth at all times? Jesus stretches us beyond obedience into God’s way of love.

The first week of Lent is coming to an end. Today is a good time for me to review the Lenten practices I have chosen. Are they drawing me closer to God and to one another? All the “antitheses” are not heard in today’s reading. It might be helpful to read the entire passage (Matthew 5:20-48) and ask myself if I need to change some practices to become the loving disciple that Jesus portrays in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., resides in Chicago.