Daily Scripture

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.” John 6:44

What makes a missionary a missionary? This question stirred within me as I reflected on our two readings for today’s Mass. My recollections from my seminary studies are that a missionary is someone who is “sent.” Who does the sending and to what purpose? These questions are also important to our understanding of being a missionary. Using these questions, I reflected more profoundly upon the readings for today’s Mass.

Jesus is clearly calling himself a missionary. He is being “sent” by his God to identify those who are drawn to God so that they may eternal life. That is the definition of a missionary we received at school. Jesus is sent by God to bring people eternal life. Jesus knows who he is, who sent him and for what purpose. This was a new insight for me.

We look to Jesus the Missionary to better understand the true nature of being a missionary. This can be our starting point as we reflect upon the second reading for today’s Mass: St. Philip being as a Missionary Disciple.

Pope Francis introduced us to the term, “Missionary Disciple,” in his first Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.” He says: “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples’ and ‘missionaries,’ but rather that we are always ‘missionary disciples.’” (Joy of the Gospel, #120) I believe that this new understanding of who we are as followers of Jesus enables us to re-read the Scriptures using this new lens of “Missionary Disciples.”

What Philip, Peter, James and the rest of the Disciples of Jesus did after the Resurrection was clearly remarkable. The experience of the Resurrected Jesus transformed them into Missionary Disciples. They became fearless as they stood before the religious and political leaders of their day, proclaiming truth, justice, forgiveness, love of neighbor, in short, the Gospel as proclaimed by the Crucified Jesus. Missionary Disciples are empowered to do what the Resurrected Jesus did for his frightened followers: to open their minds to the Scriptures and give them the Living Bread of Eternal Life for the journey. Once the Missionary Disciples of Jesus began on their missionary journey, there was no turning back.

Let us be inspired by the Missionary Jesus and his Missionary Disciples, who were once timid and afraid. Let us be courageous and become Missionary Disciples in today’s world!

Fr. Clemente Barrón, C.P. is a member of Mater Dolorosa Community in Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Acts 8:1b-8
John 6:35-40

Reflection:

“ I am the bread of life…whoever comes to me will never hunger…whoever believes in me will never thirst…”

 In this Easter season, we are invited to ‘unpack’ the mysteries of Triduum.  Who is this Jesus of the Resurrection?  What does the Paschal Mystery call us to?  What are our deepest yearnings, and how can they be satisfied?

In today’s gospel, we hear the familiar, yet challenging, introduction to what is known as the Bread of Life Discourse.  Jesus is the bread of life – he doesn’t just come to multiply the loaves, to satisfy physical hunger – he says, “I am the bread of life… come to me…you will never hunger…believe in me you will never thirst” – He came to fulfill our yearnings – but – only if we believe and come to him! 

Henri Nouwen talks of our ‘yearning’ as the forcefield of desire that draws us to God.  Transformation, the work of Easter, calls us to shed our old ways, especially those that have become burdensome.  Trust our yearnings and our responses to the presence of God.

Passionist, Thomas Berry, talks about moments of grace “…by moments of grace, I mean special sacred moments of transformation.  The transformative experiences are the sacred experiences…there are transformation moments when the future is determined in an irreversible manner…what we do now, or don’t do now, will have enormous consequences for the future…”

Can we trust that we are loved and accepted by God simply because we are ‘who’ we are and we are ‘where’ we are.  Do we trust that God listens –patiently and quietly – while we struggle to find words and feelings to hear what God knows is true?  How much he loves us and how much he wants to fulfill our desires.

Can the wounds of the risen Jesus free us to believe that Jesus is where we can go and with whom we can speak from the source of our soul to the truth of our experience and the depth of our heart, so that he can transform our fear, doubt and pain into hope, peace and new life?

Faith Offman is the Associate Director of Ministry at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center in Detroit, Michigan.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

In his Biblical Meditations for the Easter Season, the late Passionist priest and biblical scholar Carroll Stuhmueller, CP, noted that the death of Stephen, which is recounted in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, strikingly resembles Jesus’ death on the cross. Like Jesus, Stephen is accused of blasphemy and “condemned to death by the Sanhedrin.” Like Jesus, Stephen “sees a vision of someone at the right hand of God” and prays that God will forgive those who kill him.

Stephen could die like Jesus only because he strove to live like Jesus. He could imitate Jesus in his dying precisely because he had given himself completely to Christ every day. And yet, we cannot adequately understand what empowered Stephen to speak so boldly “to the people, the elders, and the scribes” and to be so unshakable in the face of a violent death, unless we appreciate how thoroughly he took to heart Jesus’ proclamation in today’s gospel. When asked by the crowd for a sign “that we may see and believe in you,” Jesus responded with the declaration upon which Christians base their lives and center their hopes: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

All of us look for something to satisfy the deepest longings and most abiding hungers of our lives. We look for something to fill the emptiness, to ease our anxiety, and to make us whole. Sometimes we never find the healing and peace we so desperately need because we seek it in things that can only disappoint us. Instead of wasting our time—and our lives—on “food” that can only leave us morally and spiritually famished, we need only to open ourselves to Jesus, “the bread of life” who offers himself to us every moment of every day, especially in the Eucharist. If we do, we will know the joy and peace that filled Stephen even in his dying.

Paul J. Wadell is Professor of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the extended Passionist family.

Scripture:

Acts 6:8-15
John 6:22-29

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading, when the crowd has spent some time looking for Jesus after He multiplied the loaves and the fish and fed thousands, one of the things that they ask Him is, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus replies, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

For me, that is an answer that raises even more questions. Does Jesus mean that all we need do is believe, and that’s it? Isn’t there something else that we need to do? As I have been searching for an answer, I’ve been led to reflect on what it means to believe in Jesus.

To believe in Jesus leads to belief in many things: That God has a plan of salvation; That God loves us more than we can imagine; That the Son of God sacrificed Himself for the forgiveness of our sins, and that He rose from the dead to give us the promise of everlasting life. To believe in Jesus means much more than simple belief in a Supreme Being. To believe in Jesus is to believe in love for us!

And if we can truly accept that love, we are compelled to respond. And the way we respond is to love each other and love the world. And so, like the apostles whose efforts about which we are hearing all through this Easter season, like Stephen, about whom we hear today, like all the saints, known and unknown who have gone before us, we are called to go out into the world, filled with the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, and proclaim the Good News in all that we say and do.

God gives us what we need to do the works we are called to do. May we believe in the One He sent, and give in return the gift of love given to us.

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

Scripture:

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
1 John 2:1-5a
Luke 24:35-48

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading from Luke, we hear the account of an appearance of the Risen Jesus to His disciples. In the Gospel, this happens after Jesus has appeared to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and after He had been made known to them “in the breaking of bread,” they have returned to Jerusalem, to tell the others.

Similar to the account we heard last week between Jesus and Thomas, Jesus shows the disciples that it is really He by showing them His hands and feet, in other words, by showing them His wounds. He further demonstrates that he is not a ghost or something else by asking them for some food to eat, and then eating it. Again, it is interesting to me that Jesus demonstrates His glory, in a way, by demonstrating His humanity, his wounds and his human needs (hunger).

After Jesus has done for the disciples there what He did for Cleopas and his companion, and opened their minds and hearts to understand the Scriptures in relation to what has happened, Jesus says to them: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

In our first reading from Acts, we hear Peter speak to the people in similar words: “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of his prophets, that his Christ would suffer. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”

The Jesus who has been raised is the same Jesus who is the Son of God become one of us, and so I see repentance as not only sorrow for our sins, but a willingness to turn back to God, a willingness to turn to God in all things, knowing that Jesus understands our human condition, and trusting in His love for us. And so repentance may not need be a melancholy exercise, it can be an exercise in hope in the future and trust in the mercy of God.

The disciples were witnesses of God’s love and mercy. They saw Jesus heal and feed and calm the storm. They saw Him raise Lazarus from the dead. They were witnesses of the power of God’s love. Jesus was not risen in order to avenge His death. He rose in vindication of His sacrifice. He rose to offer the promise of everlasting life to all. Yes, He demonstrated power, but not power as the world so often understands it. He revealed the power of God’s love, a love revealed in mercy and forgiveness and sacrifice. I must confess that I have problems with depictions of Jesus as some kind of warrior king, because I see those depictions as attempts to make God’s power conform to the our notions of worldly power, and so those kinds of images don’t ring true for me.

Do we trust in God’s power? Do we trust in God’s love? It is not always easy to do so, when we see evil or are overcome by anxiety, but celebrating Easter helps us remember the reality of the power of God’s love. May we let go of any attempts to have power over others in trying to control their lives, or getting ahead by holding others back. May we live and speak and act in the power of God’s love in Jesus Christ, trusting in the reality of Resurrection.

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

Scripture:

Acts 6:1-7
John 6:16-21

Reflection:

In the Niccoline Chapel, located in the Vatican palace, there is a famous fresco that was painted by the great artist, Fra Angelico.  This fresco portrays the consecrating of the first “seven deacons” chosen by the Apostles: St. Stephen (first martyr); St. Philip, (Evangelist); Prochorus; Nicanor; Timon; Parmenas; and Nicholas.  The consecration was occasioned by the fact that the Church and followers of Jesus was growing rapidly.  The Hellenists, Greek-speaking Jews, were complaining because their widows were not sharing equally in the “daily distribution”, i.e., the sharing of food and other material needs overseen by the Twelve.  Since the Apostles realized they needed help in order to continue to dedicate themselves to the proclamation of the Gospel — the task of evangelization we speak of so frequently today — it was decided that others should be enlisted to help so that the Apostles could continue to put the proclamation of the Gospel above all else.  Our first reading today tells us, “Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Thus, we celebrate the beginning of the ministry of deacons in the Church, an ordained ministry and sharing in the priesthood that thankfully continues so vigorously in many parts of the Church today.  I am sure that many of us are familiar with deacons in our home parish and are very grateful for their service of preaching and assistance at the altar during the celebration of the holy Eucharist.  After this momentous event in the early Church the scriptures continue and tell us that “the word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly…”  This is one of the reasons why we can continue to rejoice so heartily during this Easter season.  Thank God for our good, wise, and reputable deacons!

But we can rejoice for another reason.  Who can forget the scene portrayed in today’s Gospel from John, chapter 6?  The disciples found themselves in rough and threatening waters.  Suddenly Jesus appears, speaking unforgettable words: “It is I.  Do not be afraid.”  How frequently I need to take these words into my heart and allow them to dispel my own fears and anxiety.  We all do!  When we see the political chaos around us and the uncertainty of peace in our world — “It is I.  Do not be afraid.”  When we grieve the tragedy of young deaths in our growing opioid crisis — “It is I.  Do not be afraid.”  When we continue to see gun violence in schools and streets — “It is I.  Do not be afraid.”  We can change these things, we really can.  All we have to do is to recognize the Lord, shed ourselves of fear, and respond with resurrection courage and joy.

Fr. Pat Brennan, C.P. is the director of Saint Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Today we hear the story of Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes; a story which is found in all four Gospels. In this story there are subtle differences; Jesus takes the initiative to provide food and not the disciples and this action does not come at the end of a long teaching day. Jesus is the one to distribute the bread to the large crowd. The “feeding” is situated around Passover with its echoes of manna from heaven sent to the Israelites as they journeyed through the desert—complaining and testing God. We have the first reference to Passover in chapter two with the Cleansing of the Temple and the third time we will hear mention of Passover will be around Jesus death and resurrection.

Later in this chapter, Jesus will speak about his own body as the Bread of Life—broken and offered for all. In typical Johannine fashion, Jesus is portrayed as knowing what he was about to do as he tests Philip with what seems like an impossible request. There is a parallel reference to a story in 2 Kings where the prophet Elisha feeds a hundred men with twenty barley loaves and they all ate and were satisfied. This story with its eucharistic undertones points to Jesus’ sign of feeding us and satisfying us. The manna which once fell from heaven is now being revealed in Jesus who was sent from heaven.

“…but what good are these for so many?” (v.9). How often might we make that kind of deficit statement to ourselves and/or others when the impossible is placed before us? Surely, we are to see this text with eyes of faith and know that we simply cannot do anything by ourselves. Jesus is always the starting point, we are called to bring what is there—however, impossible—to the attention of Jesus.  And, we can never tell what he is going to do, although we are often guilty of trying to anticipate the outcomes—or am I the only one who is tempted to have pre-conceived notions and expectations of the movements of God? When Jesus is given the freedom to act, when we truly release our “impossibles” to him, his answer is always a surprise.

Consider the story in Acts from our first reading. We have the Apostles rejoicing in their flogging; completely disregarding the Sanhedrin’s warning to stop preaching. We’re told that “all day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.” (v.4)

Can this be the same men who denied and abandoned Jesus; even hiding in the upper room in fear? They certainly have conquered their fear. Impossible becomes possible; they are not the same men, post-resurrection. God’s faithful abundance.

We need to learn from this, take courage and believe in ourselves-in-Christ. We give our situations to Jesus and however impossible our life’s challenges, we need to absorb the fact that we are always found worthy in our limitations. Our weakness is made perfect in Christ. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jean Bowler is a retreatant at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, California, and a member of the Office of Mission Effectiveness Board of Holy Cross Province.

Scripture:

Acts 5:27-33
John 3:31-36

Reflection:

This meditation is based on today’s Word. “The One who comes from above (heaven) is above all….He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure.” (Jn. 3: 31, 33)

This is a meditation on the “world beyond our cell phones.” Yes, there is a world beyond our cell phones which is the greatest reality we have, which gives “the Spirit without measure,” and, which carries us into eternity. (You can stop right here, if that is enough to think about today!)

The other day I received a call from a friend who was in Machu Pichu, Peru. That was pretty amazing! It seems I’ve got the world in my phone. But, that is not quite true. The world that was confirmed within us at the Easter Rising of the Son of God is the world with which 1. we are accompanied, in which 2. we find the source of all wisdom and energy, and, 3. is through us and around us, whereby we find our meaning and direction, and our eternal destiny. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” (Jn. 3,36) We can call this meditation the daily “WIT” prayer, if you like. That all we do today is With Him, In Him and Through Him.

That prayer form is compliments of Fr. David Knight, a preacher and a teacher. I put no superlative adjectives in front of his roles, he would not approve.

Why is this prayer form so important? Things have not changed much from those days when the original missionary disciples were harassed by the temple police. Yes people get upset when the “true truth” of the Son of God is proclaimed. Did anyone hear anything of the reality of non-violence in Christ’s Passion and Death during Holy Week? And how we are to imitate Him in His Passion and Death?

Pope Francis is about to publish a new letter to the Catholic world addressing the “truths of Christ” around which we are to imitate Him in our words and deeds, to unite us and not divide us.

Let us see where the “WIT” prayer will take us today.

Remember the opening anthem of our Liturgy today, “O God, when you went forth before your people, marching with them and living among them, the earth trembled, heavens poured down rain.” May we find each other in that march today.

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P., is the administrator at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Birmingham, Alabama.