Daily Scripture

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle

Scripture:

Acts 22:3-16 or Acts 9:1-22
Mark 16:15-18

Reflection:

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle.  And what a conversion we witness in the readings! Night and day. We all know the story of Paul’s conversion from persecutor, “breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord,” to a “chosen instrument” of the Lord.

The Spirit works in mysterious ways that we do not understand, using the most unlikely instruments to carry God’s name before “Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.”  Today, still, we see God making use of the unlikeliest of instruments, both those powerfully positioned, breathing death and destruction and those who the world discounts as poor, weak, unworthy of our attention. 

I am thinking of our current existential predicament in the face of climate change and our turn away from commitment to the common good and the principle of subsidiarity, which Pope Francis tells us “grants freedom to develop the capabilities present at every level of society, while also demanding a greater sense of responsibility for the common good from those who wield greater power” (Laudato Si’ 196). We are all familiar with the many consequences of our common actions: extreme weather events and the resulting devastation and death, loss of the world’s forests, loss of biodiversity, acidification of soil and water, rising ocean levels, drought, fires, crop failures—the list goes on. 

And in the midst of this disaster, the Spirit moves.  Those the more powerful have discounted—the poor, the indigenous, the oppressed—are witnessing to our Catholic principles of subsidiarity and common good.  In recent news, we see the mobilization of Black and Latinx communities against wells and drill sites in LA resulting in a ban on new oil and gas extraction and benefitting us all through decreased warming emissions and cleaner air. We see indigenous Earth and Water keepers holding the EPA accountable to address toxic PFAS in US waters, including the Great Lakes, on behalf of all of us who eat fresh water fish.

And how, you may now ask, do those powerful ones breathing death and destruction fit into this? Heirs to two American families that became fabulously wealthy from oil, have founded non-profit organizations focused on climate justice. Trevor Neilson, one of the founders of the Climate Emergency Fund put it this way in the New York Times: “The smartest place for philanthropists to invest is in this new generation of activists who refuse to accept the excuses of adults whose lazy approach to climate is leading us off a cliff,” adding, “The [California] fires had a way of waking us up.”  A divine Pauline conversion, indeed.

Lissa Romell is the Administrator at St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Isaiah 8:23-9:3
1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17
Matthew 4:12-23

Reflection:

Lord, this is one of the gospels that really puzzles and challenges me. You walked along the shore of Galilee, passing by fishing boats with crews of men working with their nets. “Come follow me”, you said, and they dropped everything and began their journeys as disciples/apostles. I can’t fathom how young men walked away from their families, friends, careers, because you simply asked them to do so.   Were you that charismatic? Did they immediately see something extraordinary in you that was so over-whelming, so commanding, that they changed their lives that very day?

I think of my life and wonder how I can follow you?  Family, work, life challenges such as health all can push to a secondary consideration my desire to see you more clearly, love you more dearly, follow you more nearly day by day.      

I don’t believe you are asking me to “cast away my nets” in order to serve you. My way of serving you is doing everything while walking with you each day. I can embrace every challenge, difficulty, problem, each day as a gift from you to better myself. To find all the joys of children, grandchildren, my wife, my parents in my life as extraordinary of your Love for me. I must begin and end each day knowing I am trying to follow you.  

Ray Alonzo is the father of three children, grandfather of two, and husband to Jan for 45 years. He is a USN Vietnam Veteran, and a 1969 graduate of Mother of Good Counsel Passionist Prep Seminary. Ray currently serves on the Passionist Alumni Council.

Feast of St. Agnes

Scripture:

Hebrews 9:2-3, 11-14
Mark 3:20-21

Reflection:

Have you ever said or heard someone else say: “He or she is out of his or her mind”.  In today’s gospel the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus said that of him.  Yet, when people state something that doesn’t make sense to us we say or at least think:  “He or she is out of his/her mind.”  Today’s gospel on this the feast of St. Agnes affirms those, like St. Agnes, who are willing to stand up for what they believe. The gospel would suggest that we think positively and respond compassionately to those courageous people.

In the first reading from the Hebrews cites the construction of a tabernacle behind the second veil called the holy of holies. Their tabernacle was moveable so that the Holy One journeyed with them.  In our Catholic churches we have tabernacles but they are stationary.  We bow or genuflect to show reverence. Sr. Joyce Rupp, O.S.M. in a reflection on today’s Hebrews reading writes: “What I did not learn, until later in life, is that each of us is also a tabernacle, a sacred dwelling place…The Holy One moves along with us throughout our lives. The challenge is to remember this wondrous Presence daily.  (Living Faith, Sr. Joyce Rupp, O.S.M. “The Tabernacle of the heart,  Saturday, January 21, 2023, January, February, March 2023.)

Psalm 47:2  instructs us : “All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with cries of gladness…” The psalm is expressing wonder, awe and gratitude for the giftedness of life and its magnificent beauty. The psalm reminds me of  Simon and Garfunkel’s song: “Slow down you move too fast, you got to make the morning last…”.  59^th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy) 1966 Album: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Today, Lord give me the grace to refrain from rash judgment of  others, the grace to experience myself as a sacred dwelling place for the Holy One and  stop to savor the wonders of life.

Carl Middleton is a theologian/ethicist and a member of the Passionist Family.

Scripture:

Hebrews 8: 6-13
Mark 3: 13-19

Reflection:

I will put my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. –Hebrews 8:10

For I will forgive their evildoing
and remember their sins no more. -Hebrews 8:12

Here we are in only the second week of ordinary time and we are already receiving encouraging messages to persevere and remain faithful.  In this part of the Letter to the Hebrews we are reminded that God’s new covenant isn’t written on clay tablets or hidden in the religious traditions that need “special” people to interpret them for us.  No, God’s laws are written in our minds and hearts.  And, of course, those laws are written in our minds and hearts through the profound love leading to total self-gift of Jesus Christ.  As we welcome and experience that total love, we are transformed and called to incarnate it into our world.

This letter was written to the Jewish Christians of the first century in response to the great suffering that Israel was undergoing.  Their country was occupied and oppressed by the Romans, their social system was breaking down, the religious leaders had lost their way and demonized those who followed Jesus, their economy was more and more fragile and the Christians themselves were still struggling to fully understand the meaning of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  And, of course, the Christian Jews were struggling to survive in the hostile Jewish culture.  They are encouraged to trust in the hope that Jesus brought them and persevere in their following of Him. 

Most of us can resonate with the struggle of the early Christians to persevere given all the tensions they were dealing with.  We can resonate because we can recognize some of our own feelings and thoughts when we are battered by the violence and injustice, failures and disappointments that are part of our world.  Many of us have raised the question, “Where is God in all this???” more than a few times.   So, the message in this Letter to the Hebrews, encouraging perseverance and trust in God, is surely an important message for us as well.  Perhaps our prayer today can be, “Lord, help us always to trust in you and keep faith in following Jesus.”

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of retreats at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Hebrews 7:25-8:6
Mark 3:7-12

Reflection:

Whatever happened to all those people?

In today’s Gospel, St. Mark goes out of his way to tell us that there were an awful lot of people who wanted to be with Jesus.  He tells us that “a large number of people” from Galilee came, as did a large number from Judea, as did a large number from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan River, from Tyre and Sidon.  People were traveling from north, south, east and west, streaming to hear Jesus, to be with Jesus to touch Jesus.

In our imagination we can see the constant stream of people gathering from all directions to be with Jesus.  And, Jesus was a bit intimidated by the huge numbers because he asked his friends to have a boat ready to give him an escape route so “they would not crush him.”  And this wasn’t the only time great crowds came to Jesus.  There were the 5000 fed on the hillside, the 7000 fed with 7 loaves and 2 fish, and don’t forget the crowds lining the road into Jerusalem who were singing hosanna and laying palms down in front to Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.  Great popularity and adulation!  But, whatever happened to all those people?

We know they receded back into the countryside when the religious and political leaders began to demonize Jesus.  They were nowhere to be seen when Jesus went through his Passion and Death.  But when everything settled down again and the disciples continued to talk about Jesus and witness to His resurrection did many of these people return to their initial interest and become followers of Jesus once again?  It would not be a surprise to find out that some (many?) of them did.  From Pentecost on the number of followers of Jesus grew rapidly.  No doubt some of the people who were frightened off came back.

Being a Catholic follower of Jesus can be a difficult thing even today.  Sometimes we’re very fervent but there are other times when our hearts can grow distant.  The disapproval of our neighbors or our society, the scandals that happen in our Church, the experiences of personal disappointment, disillusionment, hurt or anger can all cause us to pull back from our faith, to recede back into the countryside.  The beautiful truth about Jesus is that though crowds of people came and went, Jesus stayed faithful to all of them.  Jesus stays faithful to us as well.  Perhaps our prayer today can be to ask the Holy Spirit to grace us with the desire to stay close to Jesus, even in difficult times.

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of retreats at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Hebrews 6:10-20
Mark 2:23-28

Reflection:

Today’s reading from Hebrews exhorts us “to hold fast to the hope that lies before us.” Christianity is unabashedly a religion of hope, and Christians are called to be shining and resilient witnesses of hope, because Christians believe that the God who first blessed us with life wants us to share fully in the joy and love and beauty and goodness that is God. Our life is an unfolding journey to God—an itinerary to beatitude that culminates in joyous communion with God and the saints—and hope keeps us on the right path. But the very nature of hope reminds us that we are pilgrims on a journey toward a fulfillment that we can anticipate (and, in some way, already experience), but cannot yet completely enjoy. Hope orients our lives to a future good that utterly transcends anything we could ever give ourselves, but which, precisely because we do not yet possess it fully, can begin to doubt.

The passage from Hebrews warns us not to become “sluggish” regarding the object of our hope, but instead to keep our attention firmly fixed on it. It is a perceptive and timely reminder that affirms not only how easy it is to turn away from the good that God has in store for us, but also to begin to doubt its very possibility. Or, perhaps more likely, we fill our lives with so many distractions and attach our hearts to so many lesser goods that we gradually forget there is something greater, something far lovelier, and something infinitely more hopeful to which God calls us.

In order to avoid these woeful possibilities, there are two things we can do. First, as Hebrews reminds us, we must remember that we are heirs to the love, goodness, and mercy of God. God wants to bless every one of us in unimaginable ways by sharing with us everything that God is and God, as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus testify, is faithful to his promises. Second, hope will anchor and steady us, keeping us on the right path, if instead of imitating the gloomy legalists in our gospel today who live to find fault with others, we seek, like Jesus, to do good in whatever way we can whenever we can.

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34

Reflection:

Is it really true?  We’re already in ordinary time!  What happened to Christmas and all those special feasts that helped us celebrate the wondrous mystery of the Incarnation, the birth of Christ?  Yet, here we are, firmly planted in these many Sundays known as “ordinary time.”  Still, as I have heard so many times, there is nothing ordinary at all about “ordinary time.”

In our readings for this Sunday, we hear the words spoken by the Lord to Isaiah: “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”  A ‘light to the nations,’ what amazing words, words that are spoken not only to Isaiah but to all of us who are people of faith, as well.  These words remind us of the star shining in the heavens, calling the Three Kings to the birthplace of the Messiah, wise men guided by the light, touched by the light, and, even driven to change their lives, by God’s holy light.  And many years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah is told that, he too, would become a light, a “light to the nations” as he fulfills the mission given him by God, to restore faith and hope in Israel.

On this ordinary Sunday we, too, receive this message from the Lord.  We are called to be a light to the nations.  And how do we do this?  By witnessing our faith and sharing with all whom we meet the good news that Jesus is Lord.  We are invited to remind everyone that, when we walk in the light of Christ, it can make a real difference in day-by-day life.  Isn’t this what St. Paul means when he tells us in his letter to the Corinthians, that we have all been sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, even as we call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ?

And lastly, our beautiful passage from the Gospel of John, narrating that special moment when John the Baptist first saw Jesus walking toward him by the Jordan river.  We do not know if Jesus ever really knew his cousin as they were growing up before this extraordinary baptismal event, but we can only imagine how moved the Baptist was to finally see the one who was “filled with the Spirit,” the one who is truly “the Son of God!”  Here is Jesus, in plain sight!  Surely John’s heart would have been filled with the words spoken by his own father, Zechariah, when he cried out his song about his beloved child, John: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, to give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”  An extraordinary moment we are invited to think about on this ordinary Sunday!  We can all fall to our knees and cry out with John the Baptist:  “Behold, the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.”

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