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Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Why is God often late?  Consider:

– Calamities took Job’s family and wiped out his possessions before God spoke with him. Late.

– Except for Joshua and Caleb, all the Israelites who left Egypt died before they could enter the Promised Land. Forty years too late for them.

– Martha, sister of Lazarus who died shortly before Jesus arrived, chided Jesus. “Lord, if you had been here…” she said. But now, too late.

– Jairus’ daughter died before Jesus arrived. Too late.

– Zechariah and Elizabeth fervently prayed for a child until they grew old. Thanks for the message from God, Gabriel, but it is several years too late.

The list goes on.  We can sympathize with the skepticism of Israelites who heard God’s message from the prophet Isaiah, “Give comfort to my people. Tell them the end of their exile is near.”  To that message, they responded that God doesn’t understand them — “My way is hidden from the Lord.”  And what kind of just God is it that punishes them with an empire far more evil and monstrous than his people had ever been — “My right is disregarded by my God.”  God was late the day the Babylonian Empire invaded their land and destroyed their temple.  Too late.  They were discouraged and disbelieving of any message of prophetic hope.  They were truly in exile, not only from the homeland, but from God.

No doubt we can add our own experiences of God arriving late in responding to our needs, subjecting us to exile of loneliness, grief, or broken relationships.   Perhaps that is why Advent is important for us.  This is the time of learning to wait and not merely waiting, but waiting in hope.  Hope is that virtue that calls us to trust God, even in our darkest exile of seeming hopelessness.  This is the time when we pray “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel — and us — that mourn in lonely exile here.”

Advent is the time to embrace the message of Isaiah: “They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar and with eagles’ wings.”  The Advent message is unmistakable.  God does hear us, wants to lighten our burden and strengthen us.  Emmanuel will come for the Israelites and for us, if we will wait in hope.  God may not respond to our needs when we think he should and in the way we think best.  But he will respond as God always does, in the fullness of time.  God is late — but always on time.

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

Scripture:

Romans 7:18-25a
Luke 12:54-59

Reflection:

We celebrate the two great deeds of God in our regard: creation and redemption.  In creation He provides us all we need to be happy in this life, and to lead a life in His company, designedly and of set purpose, for ages unending.  Or, at least, that was His intent in creation.

Due to unforeseen (?) circumstances, there was a change into plan B, and a new arrangement came into play called redemption.   God was not to be outplayed in His dealings with us, and so He now has a backup, supporting program to help us where we fall short.

So as we listen to today’s gospel, we hear Jesus appealing to the natural endowments His Father has bestowed on us, urging us to be attentive to them.   He notes our skill at predicting weather changes, based on the experience we have gleaned from doing so, thanks to the skills we have from His creative action in our lives.  But then He pushes His point a bit further: why can’t we interpret the present time, what is going on around us?  Similarly, while we have learned to develop ways and means of addressing arguments among us, why do we have to rely on these procedures since we should be able to judge what is right by dint of our own natural endowments?

So, the upshot of all this is that we have capabilities from our creation to produce a wealth of experience to handle many of life’s conundrums, but still some major hurdles bedevil us, and Jesus brings these to our attention.

Even more to the point, in today’s remarks of St. Paul to the church in Rome, we see him baffled by our penchant for willingness to do the right thing, but, when the chips are down, we fail to do so.  We do the evil we’re dead against and omit the good we want to do.   Even if we know ourselves well because we’ve taken the enneagram, there’s a portion of ourselves that escapes our control.

What we have here is the creative work of God falling short before the inroads of sin in our lives, setting the stage for the redemptive work of God to take over and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  And Jesus is the centerpiece of this redemptive rescue mission, especially by His death on the Cross, which is the heart of God’s redemptive plan.

While the natural law woven into creation is a partial guide along the way (helping us to predict the weather and to KNOW right from wrong), it is the gift of grace flowing from redemption that can help us successfully conclude our passageway through life, so that what begins well, in the endowments we have from creation, ends well, in the gifts we receive from redemption.

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

Feast of Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues

Scripture:

Romans 4:13, 16-18
Luke 12:8-12

Reflection:

“He (Abraham) believed, hoping against hope.”
Romans 4:18

Today, the Church celebrates the feast day of the Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs. There were eight martyrs in all, six priests and two laymen. The first one to die was a layman who had joined the Jesuits in their missionary work in North America. He was martyred in 1642. The last martyr, Fr. Noel Chabanel, died in 1649.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, reflects upon the quality of Abraham’s faith, when God promised him that he would be the Father of a great nation. Abraham and Sarah, his wife, were advanced in age. How could this be possible? Abraham believed that God would be faithful to His Promise and that God, indeed, would make him the Father of a great nation. It was this Faith that St. Paul praises in his letter to the Romans. This is the kind of Faith that all are called to have in the promises of God. We do not earn faith or grace, but we receive Faith and Grace as gift.

This is why there is a close relationship between Faith and Hope. Hope is such an important part of our Faith life. We see this as we reflect upon our own faith journey. At the beginning, we want everything to go well. If things go wrong, we begin to doubt that God is with us and we begin to complain to God, asking God to remove these troubles from our life. Some even think that God is displeased with us when we have bad things happen to us. It is difficult to walk by Faith when things are not going well. This is when we need to Hope against hope. Not only do we need to continue to believe that God is there for us, but we also need to Hope that the troubles we have will not delay God’s promise. When we lose Faith and when we lose Hope, we lose our way, we give in to temptations that surround us and we make bad decisions that lead us to hopelessness. Even then, God will be faithful and call us back to where we belong.

Vaclav Haval, the Czech playwright, said: “Hope is faith folding out its hand in the dark.” This is what St. Paul was telling us that Abraham was doing when he believed in the Promise of God. This is what the Jesuit martyrs believed when they dedicated themselves to their mission in North America, evangelizing the Native American population. It was their Hope to bring the Good News to a people who needed Good News. It was their Hope to be a witness to Gospel values and it was their Hope to bring the Love of God by the witness of their lives.

Let us remember all of those brave men and women who have gone before us in Faith, Hope and Love when we begin to lose our way, when we think that life or God is unfair, when everything seems hopeless. This is the time for us to hope against hope!

 

Fr. Clemente Barrón, C.P. is a member of Immaculate Conception Community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

Romans 1:1-7
Luke 11:29-32

Reflection:

Whenever we put forth energy on a project, generally we like to see results. Students participating in the meditation classes taught at the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center in Louisville, Kentucky, commit themselves to a daily practice of meditation. Within a short time, they often become frustrated with the unruly disposition of their untrained minds. Their meditation practice can become a tedious exercise and they begin to question the entire process. The question is asked: how will I know if I’m making progress?

It is a reasonable concern. And the simple answer is taken from the Gospel: you will know you if your meditation practice is bearing fruit whenever you encounter the sign of Jonah in your daily life. After being hurled into the sea, rather than drowning, Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish before being spit upon the shore. His sign is the preeminent pattern of death and resurrection.

The students are instructed not to look for results during the meditation period itself. To judge their development by the success or failure of any particulate meditation session is futile and a pursuit rife with ego concerns. Rather, they should look for results in the way they live their daily lives. Whenever they discover a natural inclination to die to themselves and their ego habit patterns of desire, the new life of Spirit is beginning to rise within them. That is the fruit of a daily practice of meditation.

 

Fr. Joe Mitchell, CP is the director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center in Louisville, KY. See his website: www.earthandspiritcenter.org.  

Scripture:

Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-6, 7b-12
Luke 10:1-12

Reflection:

I do not intend for this meditation to add to one’s anxiety and stress but there is a sense of urgency in the Word of God today. Ezra assembles all the people, even the “children old enough to understand” what was read from the Torah. Jesus sends forth the seventy-two disciples with no provisions lest they be burdened in their strong and rapid announcement that the “reign of God is at hand.” Faith is a relationship of total reliance upon Him. Anxiety or not, our embracing the Scripture can move us to a heightened mode of consciousness and activity today.

Just contemplating Jesus’ exhortation on sending the disciples out in pairs, and in what manner he sends them is enough to, at least, increase curiosity as to what is in store for us today. Are you ready to accept what God intends for you in the building of the kingdom on earth before he returns? It is curious enough that the “seventy-two disciples” represent the seventy-two grandsons of Noah, who left their grandfather’s homestead, spread out all over the world and thus became the origin of all the peoples that live on the earth. And somehow, that which makes up the light and vision that shows us through the day is the ultimate Good News that we, together, form one family, one Father, one Brother and one Spirit. In the Book of Revelation John describes how he sees all the nations coming together to the New City, the New Jerusalem, each one bringing their own gifts to it. It is the movement started around Him by those seventy-two which continues till now.

The Step Three prayer of AA may be an appropriate way with which to conclude our meditation as we willfully go forth with God today. “God I offer myself to You – to build with me and to do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love and Your Way of Life. May I do your Will always.  Amen”

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P. is a member of St. Paul of the Cross Community in Detroit, Michigan.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

In our gospel today, the wise virgins were prepared to meet the bridegroom.  The foolish virgins were not.  So they missed him.

When we first hear this gospel we think of being prepared to meet the Lord at the time of our death, or we think of being prepared for the Second Coming if it occurs during our lifetime.  But if our attention is only focused on our final encounter with the Lord we are likely to miss him in our normal daily living.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament.  Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

Being prepared to meet the Lord means keeping our eyes open to see beautiful sights, our ears open to hear beautiful sounds, and our hearts open to welcome in beautiful people.  If we have trouble doing this, just watch a little child and learn how it’s done.  A child does not see Seven Wonders of the World; it sees seventy times seven wonders.

Endless.

In the book of Wisdom, we read, “For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.” (Wisdom 13:5)  Stop.  Look.  Listen.  The Lord is here – right now.  Go ahead.  Meet him.

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