Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Isaiah 55:10-11
Matthew 6:7-15

Reflection:

Hidden in Plain Sight

The Lord’s Prayer, as we know, contains seven petitions:

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil.

But, the Lord’s Prayer has a word hidden in plain sight, or word with a concealed meaning. This word appears only twice in the entire bible, in Matthew’s prayer here, and in Luke’s version of the Our Father, Lk 11:3.

That strange word is a Greek word, epiousion, and unfortunately it is mistranslated as “bread” — give us this day our “daily bread.”

If this word is strange and curious, it is because the gospel writers needed to create a new word to describe something new — the communion bread of the Last Supper, the Eucharist.

Epi, means over, above. And ousios, means essential or substantial. Thus, a more accurate translation and meaning would be “super substantial bread.” In his Vulgate (Latin) translation of the Bible, St. Jerome translates epiousion as panem supersubstantianem.

This is no ordinary bread to which the Our Father refers. No.

Give us today our super substantial bread clearly echoes the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the confected bread looks like ordinary “daily bread.” But as we Catholics know — with the certainty of faith — that underlying the substance has been changed. And the reality hidden in plain sight by the accidental veil of plain bread is the real presence, body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

This mysterious coined word, sits right in the middle of the seven petitions. The first three petitions are heavenly, transcendent petitions. The last three petitions are earthbound. And the word, epiousion binds the heavenly and the earthly, just as the Eucharist is the super substantial

bread of the Messianic banquet, which we celebrate, that unites us, the mystical body of Christ, with God, the angels and saints.

Whether we call it a word hidden in plain sight, or a word with a concealed meaning is of little matter. The epiousion, the Eucharist remains for us our super substantial bread that nourishes us daily.

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

Scripture:

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Matthew 25:31-46

Reflection:

Justice, mercy, honesty, and self-sacrificing service – these are the themes of Christian discipleship throughout Scripture, and very pointedly today. The reading from Leviticus gives an entire list of “shall nots” – we are not to lie, cheat, steal, show partiality, or harbor hate, and we are not to “stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake.”  The section ends with a “shall”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”

Jesus reiterated this command to love your neighbor, calling it the Second Greatest Commandment (after loving God with everything you’ve got.) To describe the neighbor whom we are to love and whose life we are to defend, Jesus used the Good Samaritan parable, illustrating that everyone, even a person of different ethnicity and social class, is our neighbor, and we are not to “stand idly by” watching their suffering. In today’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes that theme again in the Last Judgment narrative. Whatever we do to others (positive or negative), and especially what we do to the least and most marginalized, we do to Jesus himself. As Pope Francis recently taught, our responsibility to love others doesn’t end at our own doorway or family circle; it is universal.

It is starkly clear: We have a God-given mandate to feed hungry and thirsty people, care for the oppressed and outcast, welcome strangers in our land, clothe those without clothing, serve those without support (scriptural examples are widows and orphans but there are many others in our time) and care for even criminals in prison. None of these commands ever say it’s OK to judge whether recipients are “worthy” of our aid or can do anything for us in return. No, we are to give freely and generously, recognizing that we are all neighbors to each other. To put it bluntly, we are to live as Jesus did. Wow! Those are tall orders!

It’s especially challenging to live out these non-negotiable mandates of discipleship, as many people worldwide revert to padding their own interests and pocketbooks at the expense of others. Those whom Jesus commanded us to love are largely going unloved, underserved, and suffering, and their plight is only getting worse. As people of faith, we can’t “stand idly by”.

Of course, if anything is going to change in my world, I have to change myself first.  So in what ways am I looking after my own interests, failing to work for better treatment for those who have no voice, or even perpetuating the injustices? How often am I standing idly by while others are suffering and in need? And what can I do about it this Lent?  Can I give more to organizations that serve the hungry, immigrant, oppressed, war victims, and imprisoned? Can I write Congressional representatives to insist they pass laws reflecting Gospel justice? Can I become more involved in activities here in my own community that advocate for and serve these marginalized people? How can I join with others to make our voices heard?

I wish I had the answers as I search for effective ways to act. I don’t. But I won’t give up. I’m determined to stand up for Gospel values, the mercy of God, the service that Jesus lived for, and the values that he died for. Jesus stands in front of each of us right now, dividing us into sheep and goats. To which side will he send me? To which side will he send you?

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/.

First Sunday of Lent

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13

Reflection:

Our Desert Journey Begins

Our first Sunday of Lent always brings us to the desert where Jesus is tempted. On Ash Wednesday our foreheads were marked, ‘Remember man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return’, sobering words spoken to Adam by God as he exits the garden. But no more can we wash the meaning of the ashes from our forehead than can we forget that the dirt to which we shall return is so beautifully molded by God, delightfully fashioned into our individuality and uniqueness. We are God’s treasure. The artist of Chartres cathedral who fashioned the image of Adam sleeping in God’s arms tells us this without using words. He reminds us of the promise of God’s love for each of us, a love rich in fidelity and abounding in kindness. His carving says that it is after the fall when God leaves the garden to check on his children; God picks up Adam, God picks up Eve, and He hugs them and loves them as they sleep.

We are in the desert with Jesus. Like the ashes it also has a beautiful symbol full of hidden hope and love. Deuteronomy shows both sides of the desert: Abraham is a wandering man in a foreign land, an alien, but God surprises him with descendants like the sand of the seashore and the stars of the sky. He becomes a nation! Egypt  became a place of suffering, a desert for Israel, but God led them out and they passed over from death to new life! Miriam with her tambourine led Israel in a dance, ‘Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory’. And in the long Exodus journey to the promised land, a desert journey, there awaits a land flowing with milk and honey.

The desert is fertile.

None of us could see the ashes that were placed upon our foreheads, could we? We could see our neighbors, our family, the strangers we passed on Wednesday. Paul says today there is no distinction between Jew or Greek, indeed, no distinction between any  of us at all, ‘man, woman you are dust and to dust you shall return’. God’s creative and saving love is for all, our ashes are not only for ourselves, we share them together.

We have gone into the desert to begin our journey and to passover with Our Lord from death to the life of the Risen One, the one who will be the First Born from among the dead. The desert will become a place transformed, the closed gate to the Beautiful Garden will be opened, a place perhaps to pause and stare as our journey led by the Good Shepherd continues on to its end at the banquet table in our Father’s house?

Be attentive on the Lenten journey that Our God is a God of consolation. Love does not disappear, hope is always with us, the desert brings forth life. The tempter of our human nature who even uses truth to bad purpose as we hear in the gospel, deals in desolation, making hope and love seem out of reach. Speak to Jesus on the journey through our desert these days. Humbly ask the one tempted in the desert for protection from desolation in our deserts. Let us break out the tambourine on occasion, let us laugh with Sarah and the holy ones who have gone before us and those who surround us. Let us help each other to know God’s consolation in our midst, even in the desert.

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 58:1-9a
Matthew 9:14-15

Reflection:

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. -Matthew 10:37-39

Me, me, me! Who is the “me” in the passage from our Gospel reading today, and what is this cross that he challenges me with today? The easy answer is Jesus and his cross on Calvary. The not-so-easy answer is what Jesus is trying to tell me today, March 7, 2025.

I was a 24-year-old student-teacher in an inner city Chicago Public School. The year was 1968. Martin Luther King was assassinated in April, and this was the following September. This was not the world where I grew up. This school did not resemble any school I had attended in all my 18 years of attending school. This was a school where I never met the principal. He never came out of his office. A school where, as a student teacher, I could not go into the cafeteria because of all the plates being thrown in fights among the students. This was a school where I hardly remember a class that didn’t involve leaving the classroom with thirty students, usually going down three or four flights of stairs because someone had pulled the fire alarm and then returning after an all-clear with less than half the class I started with. A school where many of the students in my assigned classes couldn’t read or understand English—a school where my car, albeit a real junker, was stolen twice.

This experience led me to leave teaching and search for a different career. I did find one that sidetracked me for the next year and a half, but I eventually ended up back facing that strange world of the inner-city school of the ’70s. I also found the me that was afraid of people who experienced life differently.

I believe this Jesus is a person who is comfortable with people who come from very different backgrounds. He doesn’t run from the stranger or the strange world from which they come. He embraces them and this embrace is the cross that leads to resurrection. It is the cross of openness to the other, and the willingness to travel together this road of new life. God, help me take up my cross that you gift me with today and hope in the new life you promise.

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

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Luke 9:22-25

Reflection:

As 2025 began, fires in Southern California devastated thousands of communities. Homes, schools, community centers, businesses small and large, museums, and historic buildings were burnt to a crisp in minutes. The Passionist Retreat Center near Los Angeles suffered heavy damage. Regardless of how the fires were sparked, the bone-dry conditions met demonic wind gusts to spread the devastation so fast that people rushed to save their lives in minutes. Many were unable to escape and succumbed to the unleashed forces of nature.

Weeks later, in my home state of Kentucky, extreme weather took the lives of 23. Two of the victims were unhoused and froze to death on the street. In the Eastern Kentucky mountains, corporate interests have battered the land for decades by mountaintop removal coal mining and clear-cutting to harvest every tree. The stage was set for rainwater to rush from hillsides into valleys in seconds, wiping out homes and businesses. First responders and ordinary citizens scrambled to rescue the vulnerable from their little homes. Witness young men walking in waist-deep water carrying a feeble, traumatized woman to safety.

As the year continues, we can anticipate more climatic disasters. Droughts, excessive heat, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, food shortages, and more flooding.

For years scientists and Pope Francis have foretold these apocalyptic events. Government policy makers, corporate leaders, and the majority of ordinary citizens ignored them. Nations have done and are doing too little to curb global warming, as the Pope reiterated in another recent warning. The future looks bleak for Mother Earth.

Capitalism without proper guardrails kills people and destroys the delicate balance in our environment. Profits are too often more important than the common good. Individual liberties are not balanced with the welfare of human communities.

Moses, like the pope, set forth two options for his people: “. . . life and prosperity, death and doom. If you . . .turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. . . I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life. . .”

These words are difficult to hear. The temptation is to minimize what we see, what we experience. Won’t it all solve itself? Isn’t this just an aberration, an out-of-the-norm event?

We want to remain indifferent, to find comfort in our portfolios, retirement accounts, and positive self-talk. It is easy to escape by pleasure travel, sports, socializing with like-minded people, and hiding out in our personal home entertainment centers in safe neighborhoods.

A critical self-examination of consciousness, done in quiet prayer and perhaps with a wise spiritual director, might awaken us to how God is drawing us to respond to this moment in human history.

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are among the most challenging in the New Testament: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”

Jesus desires that we be indifferent to our fears. He wants us to put absolute trust in Him by choosing life each day. This may mean questioning why we are hoarding so much money in a world where poverty is killing our sisters and brothers. It may mean stepping into the places where Christ is being crucified today . . . nursing homes, hospitals, poor neighborhoods, children’s homes, shelters for the unhoused, and soup lines. It may mean traveling less and turning down the thermostat in the winter to cut down on our fossil fuel consumption, switching to renewable energies, planting home gardens and trees, and advocating for government policies that protect the Earth instead of corporate interests.

This is the spirituality of our time as the pope outlined in the encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015. If you haven’t read it, now, during Lent, might be a good time to get a copy and make the words your own.

Thus we can respond to Moses, “We choose life.”

Jim Wayne is a member of St Agnes Catholic Community in Louisville, Kentucky, a Passionist parish. He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives for 28 years, is the author of the award winning novel, The Unfinished Man, and is a clinical social worker.

Scripture:

Joel 2:12-18
2 Corinthians 5:20 – 6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Reflection:

You are merciful to all, O Lord, and despise nothing that you have made. You overlook people’s sins, to bring them to repentance, and you spare them, for you are the Lord our God. -Wisdom 11:24, 25, 27

And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.…and your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you. -Matthew 6:6,18

Today we begin our Lenten journey. The words quoted above from the Book of Wisdom are taken from the introductory rites for Ash Wednesday. In a sense, they encapsulate all of Lent. We are called to return to the Lord. He is ready and willing to take us back into His care. We only need to repent, to turn our thinking back to what is right and real. If God truly despises nothing He has made, aren’t we called to do the same? There is a story told of Jesus walking along the streets of Jerusalem with His disciples. They turn a corner and there, lying on the side of the road is a dead, decaying dog. The disciples recoil in horror and disgust. One thing to remember is that in Jesus‘s time dogs were, in general, considered unclean and to be avoided, not looked upon fondly as pets, as we do today. So we have the disciples trying to avoid what they perceive as something that will contaminate them, both physically and spiritually. But Jesus leans in, looking carefully. His followers implore him, “Come away, Lord.” But Jesus just looks all the more closely and says, “Look how beautifully white the teeth are.”

And so it is with God our Father. We tend to look at the world and see only its sorrows, it’s troubles, and difficulties. But God sees what is good amid all these tribulations and calls us to see with Him. He truly sees what is hidden and secret. During Lent we are called to look with the eyes of God. Can we see beyond the surface? Can we look for and find what has been called, “collateral beauty,“ in our lives and the world around us?

My prayer today and for all of Lent is that we look with the eyes of God at our lives and allow ourselves to be called back to His side.

Talib Huff is a retired teacher and a member of the retreat team at Christ the King Passionist Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, California. You may contact him at [email protected].

Scripture:

Sirach 35:1-12
Mark 10:28-31

Reflection:

Following Jesus…Really!

Today’s Gospel selection flows from yesterday’s Gospel wherein the evangelist Mark relates the touching saga of a rich young man who runs after Jesus, kneels before Him and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus looked at him with love and reminded him of the Commandments and the need to be free from all attachments, even worldly goods, and then follow Him.  The young man went away sad for he had many possessions. 

Jesus then challenged his disciples by commenting how hard it is for those with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.  He also encouraged them:  “All things are possible for God”…even camels moving through the eye of a needle…

Then Peter questions Jesus and takes the idea a step further, speaking for so many of us:  what about us, we’ve left everything??  Jesus states that we’ll receive “a hundredfold” of good things – and some persecution, and eternal life in the age to come.  Great!!  But…huh?…really??

Following Jesus as 21^st Century disciples means following His very Life.  As countless spiritual authors have reflected, that means letting Jesus’ life become our way of life, which includes a litany of transformative virtues:  sensitivity, celebration, compassion, openness, willingness, determination, generosity, prayerfulness, selflessness, sacrifice…yes, unconditional love.

The great season of renewal called “Lent 2025” starts tomorrow, and today’s Gospel helps prime the pump for a possible approach to our Lenten “metanoia” or change of heart.  Jesus invites us to ponder His life, to follow Him, to help our sisters and brothers worldwide experience God’s love for them in their every blessing and need. 

May Jesus look at each of us with love and share with us His encouragement to “do the impossible”:  to freely and lovingly join Him in lives of selfless love and service.  May we be blessed these days…and every day, both on earth and –with God’s loving help – in heaven!

Fr. John Schork, C.P. serves as the Province Vocation Director and also as Local Superior of the Passionist Community of Holy Name in Houston, Texas.