Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Genesis 4:1-15, 25
Mark 8:11-13

Reflection:

Today, we pick up the story in Mark’s Gospel following Jesus’ feeding of the four thousand (8:1-9). These four verses connect to a bigger story of Jesus’ struggle with the Pharisees. Beginning in chapter five, Jesus performs one wonder after another culminating in the second feeding miracle, and the Pharisees demand a sign. A similar story appears in the book of Numbers (14:11), where God questions why the people continue to spurn him and refuse to believe in him despite all the signs performed on their behalf.  

The text tells us that Jesus sighs, “from the depth of his spirit (v.12a),” and my heart bleeds for him. Can you relate to this experience when nothing you do seems to satisfy in the way you had hoped? You pour everything you have, everything you are, and it is not enough. Among the many moments in Scripture where Jesus’ humanity is apparent, this ranks high on that scale. How lonely he must have felt, did he wonder if his message—the reason he came among us—would ever be understood and embraced? He is already experiencing his passion. Almost immediately, the wisdom of his divinity can be observed as he gets into the boat and goes to the other shore (v.13). He walks away. There will be no more signs for “this generation.” 

Unlike the Pharisees in this text, there were many who did believe in his signs. A Syrophoenician woman, a Greek, begged him to heal her daughter (7:24-30). She believed without question and displayed persistent faith. Yet, the Pharisees (and Scribes) show no honorable intention towards Jesus. They feel threatened by his power and presence, wishing to get rid of him. Soon we will discover that their jealousy knows no bounds.  

Our first reading from the book of Genesis foreshadows the effects of jealousy on humanity. This is the reason why Cain kills his brother Abel (1:8). Abel was honoring God with his virtuous sacrifices, and this displeased his brother. Here we see that even in sin God offers mercy, and he places a mark on Cain to protect him from harm (v. 15b). That same mercy is offered to us at every turn. 

Today’s message, I believe, is to persevere in love regardless of the outcomes and to know when it is necessary to walk away. In the letter to the Hebrews (4:15), we are reminded that Jesus suffered during his earthly life; therefore, he understands us completely. What a consoling thought. In those times when we do stray, we take solace in the mercy that awaits us when we turn back to God—every time.  

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:

Genesis 3:1-8
Mark 7:31-37

Reflection:

When I was in grade school, it was a big deal to get one’s hands on a Playboy magazine. The gloss and glitz! The provocative photos and enticing article titles! Groups of us would gather round, hoping to taste the forbidden fruit of adult sexuality so our eyes would be opened to the wondrous carnal knowledge unjustly denied us by our parents. Yes, the cunning serpent was alive and well!

I wish I could say the serpent has since been banished from our world. Instead, its tactics have been widely adopted. Have you noticed how everything from restaurants to politicians and even church services vie for our attention? It’s all about the gloss and glitz, provocative or emotion-laden images, promises of truth, success, insider knowledge, and superiority, and preferably accompanied by a catchy tune or memorable phrase that sticks.

These tactics certainly do attract attention, generate donations and patronage, and gain followers. The problem is they often don’t lead us to God or to real truth. Jesus doesn’t entertain us, demand our attention, or present in attractive images. He never promised us an easy life free of pain and filled with material wealth or worldly success. Jesus works among the suffering wherever they are found, and he works quietly, out of the limelight, off to the side. He invites, waits, invites again, teaches, reaches out, offers healing, and brings what the world can never give.

This healing and unconditional love are offered freely, too, without cost. We don’t have to do anything to “earn” it. We only need to ask with sincere desire and get our own ego and desires out of the way. God can then penetrate our senses and well-honed defenses to open our eyes and ears from within, changing and molding us to the core of our beings. There’s nothing glitzy or glamorous about it. In fact, I find that taking concentrated time for God, asking and allowing God to change me, is one of the most challenging aspects of my life. Yet over time, as God works, it is profound and life-altering.

What attracts your attention? Where are you spending time, energy, and money in ways that do not lead you to God (and perhaps even lead you away)? What do you most wish for God to heal within you? Let’s focus on those things and let go of the serpent’s tempting pathways filled with empty promises that eventually lead nowhere. Let’s instead examine our activities and temptations, and more consciously open ourselves to the truth that will set us free.

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.corgenius.com/.

Scripture:

Genesis 2:18-25
Mark 7:24-30

Reflection:

More Than a Woman’s Intuition

We meet two women in our readings today. We know the first not by name yet, but more in the marrow in our bones. The Syro-Phoenician woman we know just enough to admire.

An unknown commentary on Genesis that says after God created woman, God said to her, “Let’s not awaken Adam yet. Let’s you and I go for a walk in the garden”. The reflection ends when the woman seeing her reflection in some water, asks God, “What is that”? God replies “it is a reflection that will disappear when you leave, so now is the time to wake Adam from his sleep. “You will see in his love for you who you truly are, and Adam will come to know who he is in your love for him”. Powerful to think about what our love can do for another, our part in the ongoing creation of one another.

The commentary does not tell us what God said to the woman. It is left then to our imagination. For sure it was part of the creation process, this moment when the woman is most in the image of God. No woman would ever be more God-like, God in the feminine, and is making her in this divine image. She is made, filled with this image of God!  All of her daughters will share that, at least bits and pieces, but perhaps none can share what she shared so fully at that moment of her creation.

In the territory of the gentiles, Jesus looks for privacy. His reputation preceded him. “Right away upon hearing about him”, (as one translation puts it), a desperate woman falls at Jesus’ feet requesting a cure. Her daughter has a demon. She begs. Some say she is a woman of means; her daughter has a bed! Where is her husband? He may be working and she just chances to be where Jesus is. Does her freedom to invade Jesus’ privacy comes from her privilege or her personality or what else? Faith is not mentioned, but love is clear. The more so if she is a woman used to getting her own way and unused to being told “no.” What a humiliation.

Jesus knew the book of Genesis pondering the loving act of God bringing us to be. Jesus, one with the Father, knows the fullness of love given to the woman at the moment of her creation. Could Jesus have seen this gift of love passed on by the woman to her daughters in the Syro-Phoenician woman making a beeline for his feet? He knew she was a woman of love. Jesus could see and feel her words before they came to her lips.

Did Jesus know many gentiles? Perhaps not? His culture kept them at a distance, there was prejudice and disdain. Did the Syro-Phoenician woman play a part in the ongoing creation of the heart of Jesus, helping him to know and love those who did not know the Father? Jesus who brought food to the children of Israel will soon break bread for the gentiles on a hillside near the lake. Wouldn’t it have been something if the woman was in the crowd? Maybe her husband and daughter accompanying her? Jesus knew what God at creation saw in the first woman, that divine image created to love. And Jesus saw that beautiful image hidden behind prejudice, human limitations, and heart hardness. She helped Jesus show all of us how we are to love.

She reminds us that while not given the opportunity of the first woman, no daughter of that woman lacks the gift of the privilege of her unique sharing of God in whose image she is created. None of us heard the conversation between God and the first woman. But I bet every woman has an insight into what was shared that no man can know.

Fr. William Murphy, CP is a member of Immaculate Conception Community in Jamaica, New York.

Scripture:

Genesis 1:20-2:4a
Mark 7:1-13

Reflection:

And so it happened.
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.
Evening came, and morning followed–the sixth day. -Genesis 1:31

“I think LeRoy is trying to tell Dan something,” said Sister Margaret. I pondered Sister’s idea and thought to myself: “Well, I’ve heard everything I wish to hear from LeRoy—I don’t want to hear any more.”

It was the early ‘70’s; the Viet Nam War was raging and for the first time in history, the battlefield erupted in our living rooms via the rather new technology of television. This evening, we were gathered in a circle at our local parish hall discussing our “thoughts” on all this. Our thoughts were clear. I was against the war and evidently LeRoy was for it—we’ll never agree. Then someone pipe up with their take to Sister’s idea above: “Yes, I think LeRoy is trying to tell Dan that he cares about Dan.” “What? are you kidding”, I thought to myself.

We were engaged with a new program called “Sensitivity Training” which challenged us to deal with our feelings. Looking back on that today, it all seems rather mundane. Why of course we must deal with and recognize how our feelings affect us. In the 70’s that was a rather new idea brought to us by the likes of the popular psychologists Carl Rogers (1902-1987) and a whole host of earlier philosophers.

After more discussion, LeRoy admitted that he was concerned about what would happen to Dan and his future if he continued to resist the draft (I was of draft age as well as number 36 in the Draft Lottery). All along, I thought we were discussing the ethical issues surrounding the war, and Sister picked up that LeRoy really was more concerned about me than this issue, at least at this moment in time. I didn’t know how to respond. Back, in the ‘70’s men didn’t show any affection or care for other men—it just wasn’t part of our culture or milieu. We were both Irishmen—big tough Irishmen—who although full of feelings aroused by this daily assault witnessed on “The News” didn’t show feelings, we just did what we thought we were expected to do.

LeRoy’s gone now, but I still remember that moment and share it, realizing so many of the “issues” I argue over are more a result of my feelings of concern, either for another person(s) or our dear Mother Earth. My problem is I just express what I think, and don’t take the time to feel or even, God forbid, express my feelings around what is happening in “my” (really our) world.

God, thank you for another day today. Help me see that all you give me, give us, is gift! I don’t deserve it, I am gifted with another day and as I read in today’s scripture selection from Genesis, it is all good.

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

Scripture:

Genesis 1: 1-19
Mark 6:53-56

Reflection:

Recent research on the neurological effects of trauma and its healing reveals something psychotherapists have struggled with for decades. The restoring of wholeness to victims of trauma…whether major traumas suffered by soldiers, slaves or battered family members, or multiple micro-traumas like repeated bullying, ostracizing, discrimination or other forms of devaluation…occurs in relationship with a caring person who connects emotionally with the victim. The affective experience of being understood, valued and loved can begin to heal the neurological and emotional damage done by the trauma.

Further, current research focuses on how the body carries the hurt of trauma, resulting in physical as well as emotional illnesses.

The God-given authentic self, seen in fully alive people, becomes buried when people are damaged by shocking events and people hurting other people.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus comes ashore in the land of Gennesaret, a territory of Gentiles. There he connects with the suffering, the outcasts, the physically and emotionally sick. He cuts across class lines, religious lines, geographic lines and cultural lines to heal his fellow brothers and sisters.

But these healings upset the social order of Jesus’ time. He is drawing crowds to himself, no doubt because he carries with him the profound love and emotional connection he has experienced with his Father. It is a deep, penetrating love. The kind of love one experiences when understood, respected, nurtured and listened to in the core of the soul.

By his out-of-the-norm acts he also delivered a strong message to the Jewish establishment of his time. The keepers of the Jewish norms are the trend setters for their community, the ones who control the lives of the Jews by their interpretation of the Law, the ones who see themselves as chosen by God to interpret God’s will for the people.

Jesus is not obliged to their power games or their hypocrisy. He IS obligated to the will of his Father, which is to destroy the boundaries between people and heal the brokenness of everyone, including Jews and Gentiles.

He invites us to follow him in being radical in our love for everyone in our circle and outside our circle…the filthy rich, dirt poor, straight and non-straight, men, women, gender discerning, powerful, homeless, doubters, seekers, flexible, inflexible, self-assured, timid, angry, kind, bullies and saints. And especially those who suffer the deep internal bruises and bleedings caused by trauma of any kind.

He calls us to imitate him by paying close attention to one another. When someone wants to talk, whether a family member, co-worker, clerk, friend, enemy, outcast or ally, we put down our phones, turn from our computers and TVs, stop our rush to finish our task and look the other in the eyes, quiet ourselves and listen to what is being said. This seems to be a lost art in our noisy, distracting world of technology, but it is absolutely essential if we are to support the healing of one another from whatever hurt each of us carries.

Jesus assures us we will do greater things than he did, by God’s grace. We are healers too. It is up to us to choose to go out into the world and imitate the Great Healer.

Are you ready?

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 58:7-10
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Matthew 5:13-16

Reflection:

Today’s gospel immediately follows that classic, all-familiar, sermon on the mount from Matthew’s Gospel which we heard last weekend.  After looking over the crowds and calling them blessed, in today’s gospel he looks at the exact same people and says do you know who you are?  You are light for the world. You are the salt of the earth.   First, who was Jesus talking to?  Notice it’s not the religious leaders. 

 If you back up to the end of the fourth chapter, Matthew tells us who’s gathered there on the hillside that day.  Matthew describes the scene as all those who are afflicted with various diseases and were racked with pain: the possessed, the lunatics, the paralyzed. Matthew adds he cured them all.  This is quite an image.  The group would even include all those who brought and carried their loved ones out there. These are not the group of people society would hold up as the model citizens you want your children to be as they grow up.  These are probably people who have heard from the cruelness of society look who you are.  You don’t contribute to society, what good are you?  You don’t even count. 

And to these people, Jesus says you are the light of the world, and you are the salt of the earth.   I highly suspect for many hearing these words out of Jesus’s mouth after listening to the rumblings of their villages may have found Jesus’s words hard to believe. How can I be light or salt?  I’m a nobody.    Jesus is actually asking them to think differently about who they are. Do you know who you are?  You are a person who was created in the image in the likeness of God.  Therefore, you have the inherent goodness of God. 

Isaiah the prophet, who wrote more than 500 years before Jesus was born, illustrates some of the challenges of his society.  People turned their heads away from those who are hungry. The oppressed and the homeless were mistreated. Even fellow countrymen were ignored.  This is why Jesus’s ministry was so profound.   He was the light who had come to people in darkness.  And then he said to those on the hillside, “Now you,  go be light!”

Every year the week before the Super Bowl, the NFL has a most prestigious gathering by which they name one particular NFL player as the Walter Payton Man of the Year.  Because the NFL highly encourages its players to be involved in the local communities, each team is allowed to nominate one player for their excellence off the field.  Of the 32 nominees, there’s always a couple of stories that grab at my heartstrings.  While each story is unique and different some of the most profound and memorable stories are from players who grew up in such utter poverty and heard those negative voices every day.  Now that they found success and affirmation, they haven’t forgotten the difficulties of their childhood, and they know a small investment of their time can change a young person forever—especially when that young person has been programmed with negative voices.   Some of these stories are textbook on the contemporary passion and the power of redemption.  It is obvious when the motivation comes from the depth of the heart.  For then the kindness and goodness of the person shine, and they are truly a light for the world. 

Fr. David Colhour, C.P. is the local superior of St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois.