Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Luke 1:26-38

Reflection:

Thoughts on Mary’s Immaculate Conception

Imagine the experience of Mary being greeted by the angel Gabriel. A good translation says that Mary was utterly ‘confused’, terrified might also be appropriate because Gabriel responds with a strong, ‘do not go on fearing’. Mary hears, ‘you will conceive a son, his will be the throne of David and he will rule over the house of Jacob’. Mary, unlike Eve who acts without thinking, stops and asks, ‘how can this be?’ Conceiving a child, a Savior, God’s action, a leader for her people. How fast could she process this incredible information? Could a lifetime of thinking about this encounter make it easier to say, ‘yes’? This is the moment when God’s grace is reaching out. It is the beginning of ‘the irrational season when love bloomed bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason there would have been no room for the child’. (Madeline L’Engle).

St. Bernard stops time between the explanation of Gabriel, that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and the power of the Most High will overshadow her, and Mary’s answer. We peek into the mind of Gabriel. The angel is frightened Mary will say no. How great is this decision placed in the hands of so young a woman? If she says ‘no’, God will have to start the long process of preparing for a savior all over again. In this forever moment of waiting Gabriel, the angels of heaven, Adam and Eve, all creation hold their breath as they await the word of Mary. They pray, ‘Please say yes and save us!’ And Mary says ‘Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you say’.

Conceived immaculately, Mary is different than all the daughters of Eve. Mary didn’t receive from her foremothers what tilts us to put ourselves ahead of God and our brothers and sisters; to think our way or the highway, our will over the one who loves infinitely. Was Mary then in the same place as Eve in the garden? Both of them knowing God as they did. Was the new Eve more like Eve than any other of the daughters of Eve? Someone has offered an interesting meaning to the words, ‘Where are you?’, spoken to Adam and Eve who after eating the apple hid from God. God was not asking about a geographical location, but to Adam and Eve, ‘how do you feel now? Are you where you should be in our relationship? Are you where we should be together?’

Mary makes herself one with the will of God. How does that translate into her life? She brings her son into the world of the poor and will become homeless, a refugee. Mary the mother of the Savior is not just a bearer of life. Her grace is that of other mothers to guide their children and to sometimes launch them! ‘Do whatever he tells you’, she says to the waiters. Unwelcome in his hometown, ridiculed and rejected, Mary must have learned so much about suffering, power and forgiveness. She stands beneath the Cross and will receive her son into her arms. No one could have suffered the Passion so much as Mary because she is one with her Son, one in his suffering, in his love of the Father and all of God’s children, all of God’s creation.

As we celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception God’s gift to her is a gift to us all. We may be afraid of that gift. Mary will say to us, ‘Do whatever he tells you’. To drink of that wine, to do His will, is the yes to love God as God wants to be loved.

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

Second Sunday of Advent

Scripture:

Isaiah 11: 1-10
Romans 15: 4-9
Matthew 3: 1-12

Reflection:

THE DESERT

Repentance brings hope to the dry and seemingly barren areas of our life, the desert. We get discouraged and weak by our sins and short comings. When the Lord enters these places we become strong. In the desert you feel abandoned and alone with no hope. But the Lord will come and feed you with his manna, the bread of angels, and make you strong again. This only comes through humility and prayer. We make straight his paths by saying “You must increase, I must decrease.”

John’s penitential life reveals his sincerity; he practices what he preaches. He detest sin and desire to please God, who is worthy of all our love. He offers up his body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, his spiritual worship. He wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. Knowing and confessing our sins is a grace. “God’s greatest pleasure is to pardon us. The good Lord is more eager to pardon a repentant sinner than a mother to rescue her child from a fire” (Saint John Vianney). Repentance brings hope to the dry and barren areas of our life.

You must always come in the true spirit of repentance not in a public show of self-righteousness as the Pharisees and Sadducees are coming to John’s baptism? John is encouraging them to receive this Sacrament with the right disposition. Our confidence in every sacrament arises from faith in Christ’s power. It is Christ’s power that makes us strong and gives us strength when we are alone in the desert. Even if we fall Jesus does not abandon us: humility and contrition keeps us firm in God’s love.

John’s baptism inspired repentance and merely pointed to Christ’s baptism—the Church’s baptism—which, by the power of the Holy Spirit, forgives sins and fills us with divine life. Jesus frees us from sin, purifying our hearts so we can become like the pure wheat consecrated on the altar. He “bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world” (2Pt 1:4). We must become like a desert and empty ourselves of all our sins so He can come into our lives and make them whole again.

Deacon Peter Smith serves at St. Mary’s/Holy Family Parish in Alabama, a religion teacher at Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School in Birmingham, and a member of our extended Passionist Family.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

On Tuesday of this week, the local AARP chapter which meets at the Lakeview Presbyterian Church where I go to lunch five days a week, hosted a Salvation Army Holiday Musical festival after lunch. Four Salvation Army Officers made up the familiar brass band I’ve and I expect you as well, have often seen on the street corners and malls at this time of the year, playing Christmas music and entertaining holiday shoppers. This day they entertained two dozen seniors in the Presbyterian Church sanctuary. It was beautiful and uplifting.

That experience made me wonder more about the Army, so I looked them up on YouTube where I watched a three-minute video. They were founded by a married couple, Catherine and William Booth in London 1865. This year, according to the video, they will serve 30 million people in the United States alone. Their centers are located in poor and crime infested areas where few of us are willing to serve. They have a worldwide membership of 1.7 million and are assisted in their work by 3.4 million volunteers. Wow!

I’m meeting with some young graduate students (I’m 74) today who have asked me to present a dream I’ve been talking about ever since I retired twelve years ago: affordable housing that welcomes people of all classes, young and old, rich and poor, churched and unchurched… I sometimes ask myself, why I do such crazy things. I can’t solve the homeless problem in my city of Chicago, let alone provide for the homeless people I see at my local McDonald’s. I even sometimes wonder where I am going to get the resources, I need to meet my own needs. That’s probably how the first followers of Jesus felt when he sent them out as we read in today’s gospel selection.

Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,

“Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.|
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse lepers drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” (MT 9 & 10)

I pray today to hear the calls of the needy all around me and to respond with the same faith and trust that those first apostles, Catherine and William Booth, and St. Paul of the Cross did, and their followers continue to do in our world.

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

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

“Let it be done for you according to your faith.” With these words Jesus, in today’s passage from Matthew’s gospel, opened the eyes of two blind men who had nagged him to have pity on them.

Have you ever nagged Jesus with a request? In desperate times such as life threatening illness, trauma, legal troubles and discord at work or at home, people of faith turn to Jesus, nagging him perhaps.

Nag as we might, however, often our pleas seem to go unheard.

Surely God will cure a young father of terminal cancer. And what about my alcoholic brother? Or the family business that’s about to go under? Can our child meet the academic requirements for the college she wants to attend in the fall? Will I deliver a healthy child?

The answer we want is the same answer the blind men received: “Let it be done according to your faith.” We want what we want on our terms.

But, in our deepest prayer, sitting alone with Jesus, we do get what we want according to our faith but maybe not as we originally imagined.

By uniting our wills to God’s, we find lasting peace, accepting what we are given, knowing in the larger vision and plan of God, all will be well.

The writer of the passage from Isaiah today gives us a glimpse of this larger vision and plan: “…out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see,” and “when his children see the work of my hands in his midst, they shall keep my name holy; they shall reverence the Holy One of Jacob and be in awe of the God of Israel. Those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding, and those who find fault shall receive instruction.”

The unplanned pregnancy gives joy beyond measure, the failing grades offer opportunities to tackle deeper issues that had been avoided, the death of a spouse deepens the faith in the resurrection, the drug overdose of the nephew leads the family to crusade for prevention and recovery programs to save hundreds of lives.

Do we pray for disappointments and tragedies? No. But carrying all of life’s joys and sorrows to prayer, totally surrendering ourselves to God’s will, always leads to new life…the resurrection…in ways we might never have anticipated.

“Let it be done for you according to your faith.”

Jim Wayne is a board member of the Passionist Solidarity Network (PSN), and author of The Unfinished Man. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

The local university offers a course on ultimate questions.  As a Pastor, the one big question people ask in my ministry is the assurance of going to heaven. It seems no matter how much is written on topics of salvation, free will, and God’s grace, few will read them. Most people don’t read theological treatise, nor do they trust the variety of opinions from a plethora of websites.   Neither one gives the assurances they are looking for. So, when today’s Gospel is proclaimed in the liturgical cycle, it can be a little disconcerting. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  And if the image of going to the kingdom was much like climbing a ladder to the ultimate destination, I suspect there are those good Christians who wouldn’t think twice about stepping on someone else’s fingers in their great ascent.

Pope Francis perpetually reminds and challenges the understanding that the Kingdom of heaven is not membership into a group of religious elite. He forever reminds us of our need to be in solidarity with the poor through which we find transformation. And he does so by proclaiming the simplicity of the Gospel. Another example happened just this past weekend. Last Sunday, Pope Francis published his Apostolic Letter on the meaning and importance of the nativity scene. Highlighting in simplistic ways the elements of grace which come to us: Retelling details of the Christmas story, building and encouraging family traditions, gazing upon something with wonder and joy, reflecting on God’s plan just to name a few.  Here is a short excerpt from Pope Francis’ latest Apostolic Letter, Admirabile Signum. 

The enchanting image of the Christmas crèche, so dear to the Christian people, never ceases to arouse amazement and wonder. The depiction of Jesus’ birth is itself a simple and joyful proclamation of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. The nativity scene is like a living Gospel rising up from the pages of sacred Scripture. As we contemplate the Christmas story, we are invited to set out on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman. We come to realize that so great is his love for us that he became one of us, so that we in turn might become one with him.

He concludes with thoughts of the crèche bringing elements of unity.

Beginning in childhood, and at every stage of our lives, it teaches us to contemplate Jesus, to experience God’s love for us, to feel and believe that God is with us and that we are with him, his children, brothers and sisters all, thanks to that Child who is the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary. And to realize that in that knowledge we find true happiness.

Returning again to Matthew’s Gospel, what is asked of us is to listen to the words of Jesus and act on them.  This is both the contemplative and active stances of our faith. This house which then is built on rock stands through the storms. Pope Francis’ invitation for people of all ages to make time this Advent for the nativity scene in our families’ life is formational and evangelistic and just so simple.

Fr. David Colhour, C.P. is the pastor of St. Agnes Parish in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks by the Sea of Galilee and encounters “great crowds” of needy folks:  the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute.  And their friends placed them at Jesus’ feet, and He cured them!  Noting their hunger, Jesus then lovingly fed them with the seven loaves of bread and the few fish that his disciples had brought along.  With lots of leftovers…  Wow…

I can’t help but think of the crowds of recent days…shoppers, travelers – “needy” folks, on the move, like long ago.  Some in search of a bargain or a get-together; some troubled in mind or body.  Jesus today wants to meet their needs, to cure their aches and pains and feed their spirits…with a great “feast” that God provides, as in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah.

For most people of times past and present, bread is a fundamental source of nourishment, and therefore a symbol of what’s needed to sustain life.  And these holidays, who of us can resist the inviting aroma of fresh-baked bread and the warm feelings that bread inspires?  No wonder Jesus’ healing love included bread — ultimately His very Life in the Eucharist.

This Advent we journey as people of hope – needy, hungry people seeking Jesus who is “Bread for the Life of the world” – Life that is wholesome and lasts!  We look to the great event of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem (“House of Bread”), to Jesus’ presence in our midst in the Eucharist and the Scriptures and one another, as well as the great coming of Jesus at the end of all time.  These days we’re invited to open our hearts to God who meets our human needs, nourishes us, and loves us unconditionally.  Advent celebrates the transformation and fulfillment of all creation in Jesus!

And so, as Church, we humbly pray:  Come, Lord Jesus!

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is the Vocation Director for Holy Cross Province. He lives at St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

Isaiah 4:2-6
Matthew 8:5-11

Reflection:

It is somewhat ironical that a ‘pagan’ – a Roman centurion – has given us one of the more intimate and humble acclamations of our faith. His words to Jesus, slightly amended, and made personal for our individual voices in the midst of a shared prayer, are used each day in our Eucharistic celebrations. For every time we celebrate the Eucharist we are invited to acclaim “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and I shall be healed.”

We use the prayer as part of our preparations for communion. At its core, this prayer reminds us of our basic stance before God – humility.  Indeed humility is a most important aspect of our being, it brings us into contact with our very creation at God’s hands. For we are made from the ‘humus’ – the soil of the earth – and this Latin term is the foundation and root of the English word ‘humility’. When we engage with others from our capacity to be humble we are really being true to our very nature! When we are humble we return to and connect with, our creation at God’s hands and our dependence on God. The virtue of humility reminds us not only that God gently and lovingly took the soil of the red earth and ‘shaped’ the first humans, but that God stands ready to continually breathe life and grace into us. We only have to ask. Thus the centurion stands in place of every one of us.

The same prayer then allows us to open ourselves, at the deepest level, to intimate union and communion with Jesus himself. We invite him to ‘enter under our roof’. This image of inviting Jesus to come into our ‘home’ can serve to draw us ever closer to him.  Each time we celebrate the Eucharist and enter into the receiving of the body and blood of the Lord at our common table, we build or deepen our relationship with Jesus our Saviour.  There is a saying amongst the members of the European Union – they seek to create an ‘ever-closer union’ of nations committed to being and acting together and perhaps this image might help us. For at each Eucharist we too seek an ‘ever closer union’ with Christ and every time we receive Christ in the Eucharist we can deepen and renew our commitment to that union. We welcome him into our life, our body, our being – that is, we welcome him ‘under our roof’.

Finally, we might note that the centurion witnesses to the power of Jesus Christ to change our reality “only say the word and my servant will be healed.” He is confident and trusting Jesus will be able to bring his servant to health again. It is a wonderful witness to us about the power of prayer but more so, the power of faith in God! We who know Jesus even more closely, and believe in him as God’s messenger and our Saviour, can confidently adopt the very same attitude.

In this way, we hope to one day to recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is a member of Holy Spirit Province, Australia.