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Scripture:

Isaiah 30: 19-21, 23-26
Matthew 9: 35-10:1, 5a, 6-8

Reflection:

The opening sentence in our Gospel reading today reveals much about Jesus. Different bibles use different translations: Jesus went around or about or through or throughout all the cities and villages in the area. I like the New American Standard version that states: Jesus was going through all the cities and villages. The word "go’" is reminiscent of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded." What Jesus will ask of his disciples is what he was doing himself.

The trust to go forth into the world is so characteristic of Jesus and the Great Commission. It is a trust to go into new and perhaps uncomfortable places. It can be easier just to play computer games, watch sports or movies on TV or read a book than to reach out to others in need.  I think about people who go to soup kitchens, volunteer at their parish, go to visit the sick in a hospital or nursing home, go to check on an elderly neighbor, drive the car to help someone without a car go to the grocery store or the bank or post office.

I can imagine it was not always comfortable for Jesus to go into villages and meet people he had never met before, people who didn’t know him and might be suspicious of this street preacher. But Jesus went to these new places and talked with strangers. He taught, preached and healed. We are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. If you don’t think you are smart enough to be a teacher, gifted enough to be a preacher or anointed enough to be a healer, then follow the injunction attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words." Let you actions do the teaching, preaching and healing. Look around you and see the needs of the people, let your heart be moved with compassion as was the heart of Jesus.

As you "wait and watch" during Advent, open your heart to God and allow God to speak to you and move your heart to respond to a particular need. As you think about gifts for your family and friends, take the time to reflect about how God wants you to be a gift to someone in need. Don’t try to imagine some spectacular way of responding. Let you action be a simple, often hidden, way to respond to someone in need this Advent.

 

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., is Provincial Superior of Holy Cross Province and resides in Chicago.

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 29:17-24
Matthew 9:27-31

Reflection:

"Those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding, and those who find fault shall receive instruction."

Then he touched their eyes and said, "Let it be done for you according to your faith."

There is a story I heard once about a revered musician in his eighties, who, when asked why he still practiced 8 hours a day replied, "I’m finally beginning to see some progress!" This reminds me of how often when reading the lives of the saints they characterize themselves as sinners. My first thought is that someone that had been judged a saint by the Church and those around them would have made some progress beyond being a "sinner." And yet, it seems that after traveling the Way for a while, we tend to see more of our own faults instead of less. It’s as if with each passing year we get better at seeing how far we still need to go. And taken with Jesus’ admonition to, "remove the beam from your own eye first," I sometimes find myself almost paralyzed by the need to clean my own house before helping others. Truly, sometimes ignorance (the ability to ignore my own faults) is bliss.

But I can take heart from today’s readings. When I feel overwhelmed by my failings and faults the words from Isaiah remind me that I shall acquire understanding, I shall receive the instruction I need. I just need to remember that it will be according to God’s schedule, not mine. And when I feel I am traveling blindly on this journey we call life, when I feel I’ve lost my way and am stumbling in the dark, Jesus is there, asking what I desire. If I have the courage to ask for my eyes to be opened, it will be granted, according to my faith.

I pray today that when I feel discouraged or weighed down by my own failings I can remember to call upon Jesus to open my eyes, then step forward in faith and confidence that it will be granted, in God’s time.

 

Talib Huff is a volunteer and presenter at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, California.

 

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:1-6
Matthew 7:21, 24-27

 

 

 

Reflection:

Beyond the beauty of Advent and Christmas

It’s early December and the season is increasingly filled with some beautiful, classic Christmas music – it’s Christmas 2014.  The inspirational carols and instrumentals we hear these days help put us in a special holiday mood, stirring up the Christmas spirit in these early days of Advent.  However, a funny thing happens on December 26 (or even late on December 25):  abruptly all the carols and holiday music come to an end!  And like the "used" Christmas tree tossed to the curb, so too does the Christmas spirit come to an end…it’s back to the everyday realities of life.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel selection:  "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."  Perhaps, just perhaps…our singing of Christmas songs is all too like crying out "Lord, Lord", without any ongoing effort to carry out God’s will in our lives.  Jesus comes to proclaim to us that God’s will is that we live together as brothers and sisters in God’s family, with love and concern for each other, with patience and acceptance.  The holiday feelings we have leading up to Christmas Day are good for us, but not good enough:  emotions change, and God wants us to live together as His children all the time — not just when we’re in the mood or "feel" like it.  Every day, we’re invited, encouraged to be unselfish and loving, more like Christ himself.

During this time of Advent we will grow as we reflect on how we treat others.  With the help of these Advent days and the special Scripture selections, we can get serious about putting our faith and love into practice…devoting time and energy to our prayer that God will be present to us and help us live as true children of God.  Perhaps…if we have a change of heart and act upon it…we can have the experience of Christmas every day of the year. 

 

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

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 40:25-31
Matthew 11:28-30

Reflection:

In our culture, we are taught that we must earn or be "worthy" of love, or meet someone else’s standard in order to be lovable. We learn to hide a lot inside because we believe that if people really know who we are they won’t love us. We learn to "fit in", imitate popular people, and conform to what others expect. In other words, we constantly wear masks or put on a show as we attempt to be accepted and, most of all, loved.

We often carry that over to God. We believe God is waiting to pounce on our every misdeed and constantly judges us as falling far short of the divine standard. Yet scripture tells us that the God of all the universe, the One who put the stars in their place, the ultimate, infinite God loves each one of us personally and completely. As insignificant as I am in the scheme of all creation, God knows and understands me and longs to bind up my wounds, give me strength, carry me as on eagle’s wings, and share my yoke.

I admit that it blows me away. And indeed, wherever I go I find that people have an incredibly difficult time trying to grasp that they are so loved by God. It is especially hard to conceive for someone who has never felt honest acceptance and love from human beings. So I teach people in retreats and sessions that they are beloved; that helps. Even more importantly, I am increasingly making it a practice to offer unconditional love and kindness to people I encounter.

I tell a woman she looks really nice today. I compliment parents on how patient and loving they are with their child. I tell a child he has a great smile. I look the store clerk in the eyes and say a sincere "Thank you". When I go through airport security, I smile at all the TSA personnel and tell them I appreciate what they do to keep us safe and I hope they are proud of their work. Inevitably, when I compliment or treat someone with kindness, that person walks away with a smile, their shoulders held just a little higher and their step a little livelier. Even if only for moment, it eases their load.

What if we all started going out of our way to appreciate people and let them know they matter? In doing so, we act as Christ and lighten their burdens. We make our world a kinder, friendlier, more welcoming place. Receiving so much kindness from other people may even help them believe that the infinite God loves them, too. Regardless of the scope of the effect, isn’t that worth it? Who can you be kind to today?

 

Amy Florian is a teacher and consultant working in Chicago.  For many years she has partnered with the Passionists.  Visit Amy’s website: http://www.amyflorian.com/.

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 25:6-10a
Matthew 15:29-37

Reflection:

In all of our readings today, we see that we have a Father who provides for his children. Even when things look bleak, He will provide. When the apostles tell Jesus they have only 5 loaves and 2 fish, he doesn’t complain that they don’t have enough, rather he prays. He knows His Father will open heaven and provide. It’s a classic tale of walking by faith and not by sight. Looking at the loaves and fish, we would say there’s no way to feed everyone, but Jesus looks beyond what is to what is possible with faith and with God.

I want to live my faith with that much confidence! I for one often look at the negative before I can see the positive. I look at what seems to be a lack, rather than looking at what God can do for me when I walk by faith. I’m reading a book called Daring Greatly by Brene Brown and she says that we live in a "culture of never enough." She says we wake up in the morning and say we didn’t get enough sleep, and we go to bed at night saying we didn’t have enough time in the day to get everything done. Living with that frame of mind can cause discouragement as we perceive scarcity rather than blessing.

How much better to wake up and thank God for another day believing that He will provide for all of our needs according to His riches in glory! (Phil 4:19) Living with grateful hearts will help us to live in peace and joy as we focus on our blessings instead of what we don’t have. Brown calls it living "wholeheartedly." I for one want to do a better job of seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. Thank you, Lord, for eyes to see beyond what seems to be.

 

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 wrote her first book: God Speaks to Ordinary People – Like You and Me. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.janicecarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected].

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 11:1-10
Luke 10:21-24

Reflection:

We are re-entering the holy season of Advent during this first week of December. Once again, many devout Christians will make the effort to rescue some of the deep Christian meaning of Advent from the flurries of commercial and consumerist "snow" that the season revels in.

An Advent Wreath, when given a prominent place in the home can help to focus the family’s attention on the coming and the spreading of the Light of the World, Jesus the Savior.

Advent Calendars provide daily revelations of the scriptural imagery and verses that speak to us of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

Christmas Carols abound during this season on radio, streaming music, satellite radio, background music in our stores and streets. Try to remember that many of these popular songs began as liturgical hymns, sung by people gathered in church to celebrate the birth of the Savior many centuries ago.

In the Church’s sanctoral cycle, we will remember both the Immaculate Conception of Mary, on December 8, and the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.  On December 9, we also remember San Juan Diego, the indigenous convert who received the visitation of the Blessed Mother in  America, upon whose cloak the image of Our Lady is still reverenced today.

Finally, we also invite you to come to this website daily to engage with our daily scriptural reflection, which is offered throughout the year by members of the Passionist Community and those who share in our life and work. Special Advent content is also planned for the duration of Advent on this website, https://passionist.org/ .

A special word of reflection on today’s Gospel, from the Gospel of Luke. In a sense, it is an expression of praise that Jesus utters under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is a moment in the course of his sharing with his Apostles that reveals to us how closely Jesus lived in concert with the Holy Spirit and the recognition of His Father. Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike…" (Luke 10:21).

With a little extra effort, with the assistance of so many of these Christmas traditions, we can also ask for God’s Holy Spirit to burst forth from us as we hum along with or sing "Away in the Manger," "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", "Joy to the World," "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "O Holy Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night," "The First Noel," or "What Child is this". These songs of the season have a religious, a Christian lyric. Let us use the resources we have, especially let us invoke the Spirit of God, to keep alive in our hearts during this Advent season the same awareness of God that moved Jesus to praise God, the Father under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

 

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 8:5-11

Reflection:

Just a few days ago I returned home from Jerusalem.  I was there with a group of 34 friends of Catholic Theological Union.  We had intended to go at the end of the summer but the conflict in Gaza forced us to re-schedule.  As always, Jerusalem was beautiful, as is the rest of the Holy Land that we visited. But also, "as always," that sacred city was experiencing some violence and tension as part of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  Our visit was not disrupted in any way, thanks be to God, but you could not be unaware of the elusive quest for peace in that part of the world.

Jerusalem and the longing for peace is a strong feature of the readings in the Lectionary for this first day of December.  The first reading from Isaiah 2:1-5 speaks of "all nations" coming in procession to Mt. Zion, "the Lord’s mountain" which stands in the center of Jerusalem and is the site of the temple, "the house of the God of Jacob."  It is here, through the presence of God’s love, that the nations would turn from violence to peacemaking.  This is one of most well-known passages of the Old Testament, one emblazoned on the plaza in the front of the United Nations headquarters in New York: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again."  That transformation, the text makes clear, can come about only by "walking in the light of the Lord".

The Psalm response also speaks of the longing for peace.  It is one of the psalms (Ps 122), recited by the Jewish pilgrims who came from all over Israel to worship at the Jerusalem temple.  Their prayer is one for peace: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem…may peace be within your walls, prosperity in your buildings.  Because of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you!’ Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will pray for your good."  This is a prayer one could surely recite today for contemporary Jerusalem, but used here in the liturgy the city of Jerusalem takes on a universal symbolism-Jerusalem is every human gathering that longs for peace and an end to violence.

And finally for the gospel reading today we have Matthew’s account of the healing of the servant of the Centurion in Capernaum (Mt 8:5-11).  This soldier has a profound respect for Jesus and, while pleading that Jesus heal his servant, he does not expect Jesus to enter his Gentile home.  His humble words are now incorporated in the Eucharist: "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed."  Jesus is so struck by the faith of this Gentile that he, too, evokes the dream of Isaiah found in our first reading today-"I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven."  The nations will come together in peace, sharing a rich banquet with God’s people Israel.

We live in a world that knows a lot of violence and division, including within our own borders.  As I write this, there is strife in Ferguson, Missouri, and shootings in my beloved city of Chicago have become routine.  Advent is a time of deep longing and hope.  We are asked to lift up our hearts, to renew our faith, and to summon up our highest ideals.  Peace may seem impossible for us to achieve but with God all things are possible.  Let us pray for peace this Advent but also renew our commitment to work for peace in every circumstance our lives permit.

 

Father 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.

 

First Sunday of Advent

Scripture:
Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:33-37

Reflection:
In our first reading today we have these words from the Prophet Isaiah, "Lord, we are the clay and you are the potter.  We are all the work of your hands."  

Maybe instead of clay, let’s use the image of a pumpkin.  Because we are like pumpkins, God lifts us up, takes us in, and washes all the dirt off of us.  Then he opens us up, touches us deep inside, and scoops out all of the yucky stuff – including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, and violence.  Then He carves a beautiful smiling face on us and puts His light inside of each of us to shine for all the world to see. But first we have to say, "Yes."

What would the world look like if everyone said, "Yes" to the Divine Potter and let him shape and form us?  To be formed and shaped by the Divine Potter is to be formed and shaped into the image and likeness of Christ.

So we come here to Mass to reflect on Christ’s words and actions.  It is his Word that forms us, and his Body and Blood that nourishes us to be more and more like him.

This Advent season we take our cue from Mary.  When asked to be the mother of the Savior, she said that powerful word, "Yes."  At Mass we sing our "Yes" at the great "Amen" at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer.  We proclaim our "Yes" when we say "Amen" and receive Holy Communion.  We give ourselves to God and ask him to receive us, mold us, shape us, form us, and come to dwell within us.  

Then each person we come in contact with will feel the Lord’s presence in their life.  Every day can be Christmas.

 

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