Daily Scripture

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle

Scripture:

1 Peter 5:1-4
Matthew 16:13-19

Reflection:

So much of today’s readings reference shepherding.  Psalm 23, with its familiar and comforting words, reassures us of God’s love and protection.  The Chair of St Peter symbolizes Christ’s intention to provide His church with His own earthly successors, shepherds of His flock, a rock so strong in faith that it will withstand “the gates of the netherworld”, that is, Satan and his evilest works.  

“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”.   Christ used the conversant Syrian language including the word “Cephas,” leaving no doubt of His purpose in renaming Simon.   Peter is the rock, and the Church is our faith, which he and his successors defend and protect ~ shepherding Christ’s church from all that Satan mounts against it. Peter’s understanding of Jesus is from Devine revelation, which Christ immediately marks as His Father’s selection of Peter as the next shepherd of our Church.  “What you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven”.  With these words Our Lord provides for the succession of shepherds who will follow Peter through the centuries.  

All vision is parochial and the crosses we bear today are only different from those suffered by those who came before us because of our view of the difficulties.  The pandemic, the sexual abuse scandal, the embezzlement of church funds, the loss of faith of so many this century, all these catastrophes have been weathered by our Church before.  Our faith is in our Shepherd, placing our trust in Our Lord and His promise that nothing evil will prevail over His goodness, mercy and love.  Just for today I will trust in God and lay my concerns in His hands.   

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.

Scripture:

Genesis 11:1-9
Mark 8:34-9:1

Reflection:

Sometimes what seems the best and most promising path to take reaps consequences utterly different than we anticipated. And sometimes the path we initially want nothing to do with is precisely the one that opens to fullness of life. That’s one indisputable conclusion to today’s readings.

The passage from Genesis recounts the familiar story of the building of the Tower of Babel. It begins with a scene flush with harmony, unity, and peace. We’re presented with a people in whom there is no animosity, no conflict, and no disheartening divisions. As the writer of Genesis comments: “The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.” But then everything changes. They decide to replace God’s vision for the flourishing of the world with an ambitious plan of their own. They will “build…a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name” for themselves. Instead of praising and glorifying God, they thirst for glory for themselves. They forget that they are not gods, but creatures who are forever dependent on God. Thus, it is no surprise when their heady project leads not to the security and fame they envisioned, but to chaos and dissolution. The harmony and peace they enjoyed is forever shattered as they are “scattered…from there all over the earth,” no longer able to understand one another.

By contrast, in the gospel story from Mark, Jesus asks us to find life by following a path that goes against the grain of everything we’ve been taught to believe. Jesus invites us to find life not through self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, but by taking up our cross and following him. It’s a life characterized by self-denial, generosity, sacrifice, and a love that endlessly calls us out of ourselves for the sake of others.

Babel and Calvary. They symbolize two very different ways of life. Which one we choose to follow makes all the difference not only for ourselves, but also for the world.

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

Scripture:

Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22
Mark 8:22-26

Reflection:

Both scripture readings today present us with stories about living in a wounded world.  The first, from Genesis, recounts the last half of the story of Noah.  The forty days of rain have stopped and now Noah is waiting for the flood waters to recede so he can free the animals and his family from the protection of the arc.  He hopes that all the residents of the arc can now begin to repopulate the earth and heal the world.  He doesn’t know for sure whether that’s possible but wants to trust that God will be faithful to him and to all of God’s creation.  At the end of today’s reading, God promises to be faithful even in the face of any evil that remains in the human heart.  “As long as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”  Noah’s hope in God’s faithfulness is fulfilled.

The Gospel reading also presents us with a different kind of wounded world, a world of a blind man.  The people of the village of Bethsaida bring the blind man to Jesus and encourage him to touch their blind friend.  They hope that such a simple touch will cure his blindness.  But, this time it’s not quite that simple.  Jesus takes him out of the village and then puts his spittle on his eyes and lays his hands on him.  His sight gets better but is not fully restored until Jesus lays his hands on him a second time.

Most of us live in our own wounded world.  The wounds can affect the whole world as in the time of Noah or they can fester in our own personal worlds.  But those wounds can fill us with fear and hopelessness, with pain and suffering, with discouragement and despair.  Often enough we feel helpless in the face of those wounds we carry.  The readings today remind us that even in the darkest times we can be confident that God will continue to be faithful to us as he was in the time of Noah.   The story of the blind man invites us to allow Christ and His saving presence to touch our lives, to bring us light, to help us see the beauty of our lives in Christ. The touch of Jesus can and does allow us to see the movement of God in our lives, even in and through the wounds we carry.

Perhaps our prayer today can be, “Lord, help us to see you touching our world and bring healing into our wounds and light into our world.”

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

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Today’s first reading from Genesis, the infamous and always unsettling story of Cain murdering his brother Abel, is a case study in the pernicious effects of envy, traditionally listed as one of the seven deadly sins, habits that have perennially been recognized as especially corrupting and destructive not only because of the harm they unleash on their targets, but also because if we let them take over our lives, they keep us from growing into the person God wants us to be.

We all know the story. Cain succumbs to the grip of envy because he deeply resents that the “Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not.” Envy slivers into our hearts when we not only want what another person has but also don’t want them to have it. It’s not just that Cain desires the honor Abel received from God, which suggests that Cain could be content if he was equally favored by God. No, Cain wants Abel not to be honored at all. People consumed with envy, whether over another’s wealth, talent, reputation, or success, can have no equal. They will never be satisfied unless they surpass everyone in every respect.

But that will never happen, and it explains why when envy remains unchecked, it morphs into bitterness, hostility, burning anger, and eventually a hatred so virulent that we not only look for ways to diminish the people we envy—to reduce them in the eyes of others—but can even want to destroy them. So it is that Cain says, “Let us go out in the field.” There we see the full fury of envy unfurled, for “Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.”

Envy always harms. But perhaps the most tragic consequence of envy is what is lost to the person possessed by it. They spend so much of their life trying to be someone else that they never discover the uniquely splendid and precious and beautiful child of God that they are and have always been. That’s why envy is a game we are always bound to lose.

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 of Holy Cross Province.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 17:5-8
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading for today (Luke 6:17, 20-26), Jesus gives some reassurances and some challenges. The reassurances come in the form of beatitudes. Jesus begins with “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of heaven is yours,” and ends with “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man…Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.”

After the reassurances come the challenges in the form of curses. Jesus begins with “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation;” and ends with “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”

Is Jesus really condemning the rich, or those “who are filled now,” or those “who laugh now?” Does Jesus really want us poor and hungry and miserable? I don’t see it. However, what helps me understand what Jesus is saying is what He says in that first curse: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” When we find consolation only in being wealthy, or well fed, or when times are easy, or when everyone thinks we’re great, what happens when those things are diminished, or even totally gone? Are we not left empty and hopeless?

But when we put our trust in God, in the love God has for us in Jesus Christ, then we can find consolation at any time. However, accepting God’s unconditional love for us is not to lead us into complacency. It’s so easy not to want my comfort disturbed by the suffering of others. And that is where we need to be careful, even with the beatitudes Jesus speaks. Many groups of people throughout history have rationalized their oppression of others, by telling themselves, or even the people they oppress, that their “reward will be great in heaven.” But when we look at many of the parables that we will encounter in Luke’s Gospel during this liturgical year, we see that Jesus is telling us that we cannot turn a blind eye to the poor and the hungry and the oppressed, even if that means we are denounced by others.

May we not only find consolation in God’s love for us, but be willing to be instruments of God’s consolation of others.

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is the local superior of the Passionist Community in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Scripture:

Genesis 3:9-24
Mark 8:1-10

Reflection:

What were Jesus and his disciples to do with a large crowd in a deserted place, and very hungry after spending three days with them?  There just wasn’t enough bread for them.

Jesus was “moved to pity for them…If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way.”  Incidentally, in the early days of the Jesus movement, Christians were simply known as “people of the way, or on the way.”

The word for collapse (“faint” in the RSV) is used elsewhere in the New Testament to mean “losing heart or getting discouraged in the faces of the struggles of the Christian life,” scripture scholar Mary Healy observes in her book, “Gospel of Mark.”  Healy suggests the central question in today’s gospel is this: “How will the disciples respond when God’s people collapse or faint for lack of spiritual nourishment, and they do not have the resources to feed them?”

Something strikingly similar occurred in March 2020 with the pandemic Covid 19, including, of course, in my corner of the world in Sierra Madre, Calif.  All work abruptly stopped, businesses closed, people lost jobs.  The most vulnerable were the hardest hit.  Funds dried up for non-profit organizations serving the poor, homeless, the elderly and homebound.  There just wasn’t enough bread for them, so to speak.  So many of God’s people surely would surely “collapse on the way” for lack of food or spiritual nourishment.  How will today’s disciple respond?  By ignoring them?  Too many people, not enough bread?

Today’s gospel modeled their response.  Jesus challenged his disciples to stretch their faith.  In Eucharistic fashion, Jesus blessed the seven available loaves, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the hungry crowd.  Rather than distributing the loaves himself, Jesus directed his disciples to take up this ministry of service. And “they ate and were satisfied.”

So too did Jesus challenge his disciples through Sierra Madre and the San Gabriel Valley.  Acting as the catalyst, the leadership of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center coordinated its recourses with many groups and individuals.  The retreat kitchen staff used its large kitchen and equipment to cook nourishing meals.  Others generously donated money and volunteered time. Thousands of meals were prepared at the retreat.  Many others delivered them daily to organizations that serve the poor, homebound and homeless, and to many needy individual homes.  These meals nourished, not only bodies, but souls in need of hope of those on the way that looked so dark.

Not too long ago, Pope Francis was asked: “How does prayer work when people are hungry?”  “You pray for the hungry,” the pope responded. “Then you feed them.  That’s how prayer works.”

The pope was echoing the words attributed to St. Augustine: “Pray as though everything depends on God.  And work as though everything depends on you.”

Just so.  In faith, Jesus will bless and break our seemingly meager bread.  And in faith, we are to go out and share this bread of life with all in need.

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