Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26
Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8

Reflection:

Throughout Advent the church gives us readings to reflect on from the prophet Isaiah. Many of these texts were spoken to a group of people who had lost their land, their culture, and who believed that God was punishing them for their unfaithfulness. The temple, the place of God’s holy dwelling, had been taken away from them, and destroyed by the Babylonians. As you ponder this reading today, did you hear the pealing of the bells of hope in the midst of trying times?   Even though they are in foreign land, God looks after them.

The voice of the Lord, spoken through the prophet is a voice which offers hope to people in the times of hopelessness.  How does the voice of hope speak to us today when we are absorbed not only by the exterior darkness of the lack of sunlight, but also the darkness of the uncertainty of our tomorrows?  What gives us courage to move forward when the ground under our feet seems to shift every few weeks?  Is there hope when we are tired of hearing about surges and statistics?  Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that the proclamations of imminent distribution of a vaccine have begun ringing now that Advent is here. It is the dangling of a carrot before humanity to give us some kind of hope to reach out towards something beyond us. 

Hope is a very powerful energy in the human spirit. For when forces pull us down hope sits just beyond our reach and asks us to reach forward, move forward, step forward. Recall the Gospel story where Jesus is walking on the water toward the disciples in the boat and Jesus calls to Peter to get out of the boat and walk to him on the water.  As Peter gets out of the boat his eyes are fixed on that before him.  He is looking outwards beyond the next few steps.  He doesn’t begin sinking until he takes his eyes off Jesus and begins looking down. Hope is that same force. It’s the looking out beyond ourselves to something that is right, true and attainable. Yet we must strive to keep taking another step and reaching to grasp something just beyond our reach. Isaiah speaks words of hope to keep those in captivity from sinking into the darkness.  And it is not Isaiah’s words.  He is speaking from the compassion of God who sees the abyss of darkness in the people who generations before were called the chosen ones. The Old Testament has numerous places where God brings hope to people out of divine compassion. 

Moving into the New Testament the incarnation, the birth of Jesus is about the compassion of God coming among us.  How many times have you heard, “A people who walk in darkness have seen a great light”? Today’s gospel moves this a significant step further.  It isn’t about us calling out to God to show compassion, it is about Jesus empowering people to be the compassion of his Father.  For those who have no imagination how to do this, perhaps they can begin taking a lesson from some of the smallest of children.  Have you noticed children have wisdom beyond the common sense of adults? For example, recently I was listening to a video from Valerie Kaur, who was describing coming home after a dark difficult day.  And she says:

I come home and my son says, “dance time mommy?” We turn on the music and I kinda sway a little. And then the music rises and my son says, “Pick me up mommy.” I pick him up and throw him in the air, and my little girl now 11 months old we twirl and throwing her up in the air, and suddenly I’m smiling and laughing, and suddenly joy is rushing through my body. When we breathe we let joy in. And joy reminds us of everything that is good, and beautiful, and worth fighting for.   How are you protecting your joy every day?

In a time where so many people are saying, “All I want for Christmas is for this year to be over with,” my question is, how are you bringing hope, joy and the compassion of God into all this darkness. I believe it starts by knowing God’s joy and giving it away one person at a time. 

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 29:17-24
Matthew 9:27-31

Reflection:

Vision & Vitality

The richness of the Advent season continues to gradually unfold for us and our needy world.  Today’s Gospel selection presents Jesus dealing with the blindness of two men who cried to Him for help.  Jesus asked about their faith in Him and his power to heal — and with their statement of faith, they were cured!  With that miracle, word of Jesus’ activity spread throughout the land.

Humanly, the lack of sight / vision:  a real burden!  To miss seeing people, the beauties of nature, movies, television – even this computer page – is challenging, if not threatening.  We may close our eyes for some moments and try to imagine the experience of totally blind people, but our experience is limited:  we simply open our eyes and see again!  Even trying to see without necessary eyeglasses or contact lenses is frustrating for us.

The Scriptures frequently present personal sinfulness in terms of blindness, and redemption in terms of renewed sight.  At Baptism, our eyes were opened to “see” the Lord Jesus in faith.  For many of us our Baptism event was years ago; today’s Advent Season celebration asks us:  What about our “sight”?  Are our eyes open?  Do we see Jesus present today, offering love and redemption? 

God is present to us everywhere, in the air we breathe, in nature – and especially in people.  God’s joy radiates in the smile of an infant, God’s acceptance in the affection of a young child, God’s vitality in the energy of an adolescent, God’s power in the strength of an athlete, God’s beauty in the loveliness of a human being, God’s concern in the devotion of a parent or the ministry of a medical professional, God’s wisdom in the experience and insight of the elderly.  Advent invites us to pause to look more deeply at life and faith…what “sights”!

Advent 2020 calls us not live hindered by darkness and gloom – even in these Pandemic times.  With the two blind men, we’re invited to profess our faith in Jesus, to acknowledge His loving presence, to serve Jesus and our sisters and brothers with eyes wide open.  Today’s responsorial psalm reassures us: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?…wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted and wait for the Lord.”  Good News for our pandemic-challenged world!

“Come, Lord Jesus.  Help us to see with the eyes of faith!”

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is the Vocation Director for Holy Cross Province. He lives at St. Vincent Strambi Community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:1-6
Matthew 7:21, 24-27

Reflection:
As a young man, I found this Gospel reading challenging. I always questioned, “is Jesus speaking to me? Am I one who says ‘Lord, Lord,’ but does not do the will of the Father?”

But upon reading it a little more deeply and from a perspective a little further along in life, I find comfort in it, as well as challenge.

First off, looking at the Greek word that is translated as “to do,” I found it can also be translated as ‘to make’ or ‘to be the author’ of something. So another translation might be “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Only those who make the will of the Father their own.” Or, “those who hold the will of the Father in their hearts.” For me this seems more obtainable than “doing” the will of the father. One of my frequent prayers is to know the will of the Father. I find my ego can be very clever at laying my will over God’s. But to hold the desire in my heart to do God’s will, that I can do.

The next section of the reading took a little bit more life experience rather than academic research to understand. All and all, I had a pretty easy childhood. I had a stable home life, a loving family, and, although not well off, there was always enough. But, as with any life, as I grew older I was “buffeted by the wind and the rain and the floods.” The deaths of loved ones, loss of jobs, serious illness, have all swept through my life at one time or another. And yet I can say that my house of faith still stands. Holding the words of Jesus in my heart allowed me to move through these trials. And it’s interesting to note that in this reading the floods, rains, and winds come to both those who hold the words of God and those who don’t. None of us are safe from the storms that life brings. But by making God’s will our own, by making Jesus’s words our own, we can weather the storms that come stronger than before.

Talib Huff is a volunteer and presenter at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, California.

Scripture:

Isaiah 25:6-10a
Matthew 15:29-37

Reflection:

One of the themes of the Advent Season might well be that of ‘journey.’

Today we literally see Jesus on a journey himself – walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, but more so we see people also on ‘journey’ in order to be in the presence of Jesus.

Every moment of our lives can be part of our journey towards Jesus, and this Season might well be described as one to resource us for the journey.

In our Church Calendar, the year ‘ends’ earlier than the Gregorian calendar which is used in wider society; thus, we have now begun a new Liturgical Year – introduced by the Season of Advent. Perhaps in the context of this strange and unpredictable year of 2020, this is a welcome development, for certainly most of us will be happy to see a new start to life. As we move towards Christmas and the celebration of his coming into our world, we will be able to look forward into all that is new and beacons us, and also to look back over the year that has been 2020.

The tone of our prayers, the colours of our celebrations, and the Word of God each week will certainly orient us into a spirit of expectation so that we might prepare our hearts to welcome Our Lord once more into our world.

In our wider society, the Season of Advent can be ‘swallowed’ up by the end of calendar year and our planning for and anticipation of Christmas Day, preparation for travel and perhaps especially this year – a desire to see the end of 2020! So the challenge for us may well be to ‘stay in the moment’ and savour the four weeks we have been given to orient our thinking, our prayers and ultimately our hearts, towards Jesus and the gift of his life in our world.

We come to Jesus as we are – in all degrees of need, but we know that his response to those by the seaside in today’s readings is the same response promised to us at an moment of our lives. His heart holds only pity and concern for us.  

Our response to Jesus coming into our midst might well be summarised in his challenge to the disciples. What can we offer to those in need around us? Even from our own meagre resources we can assist and enable his mission to grow and come to fruition in our world.

Let us be about this task – with the Lord to provide for us we will truly have more resources available to us than we can ever imagine needing.

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is a member of Holy Spirit Province, Australia. 

Scripture:

Isaiah 11:1-10
Luke 10:21-24

Reflection:

The first reading in this first Tuesday of Advent is from chapter 11 of the prophet Isaiah.  It is one of the most beautiful passages in the Old Testament.  The prophet describes a future era of peace, the messianic kingdom brought about by God’s anointed one.  For us as Christians we believe that Jesus is the one whom the prophet foretold: “On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse and from his roots a bud shall blossom.  The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.”

Jesse was the father of King David and so the messiah to come will be of the lineage of David but this future figure will be more than David and will usher in a reign of unending peace and justice: “But he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted…justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt on his hips.”

One of the most startling features of this prophetic vision is that the era of peace and justice God will bring about extends even to nature itself.  This is one of the best-known parts of this biblical text, worth quoting in full:

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.

In his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis has reminded us that we share a “common home” with all of creation and as Christians made in God’s own image, we are to be responsible for the world around us—our fellow human beings, of course, but also all of God’s exquisite creation.

Isaiah’s prophetic vision, written more than 2,500 years ago, remarkably captures that same inclusive spirit.  God’s peace that we long for in this Advent season extends to all of God’s wondrous creation.  In the early 19^th century, the American artist and Quaker preacher, Edward Hicks, painted a scene directly inspired by this passage from Isaiah 11. He called it, “God’s Peaceable Kingdom.”  It depicts a scene of great harmony—in the forefront there is a gathering of wild animals and little children freely mingling (as Isaiah depicts) and in the background the first European pilgrims meet peacefully with Native Americans on the sea shore.

We know that history has proven how difficult reconciliation and peace are to achieve.  The current political and social strife of our own country makes that abundantly clear.  But during the season of Advent the church invites us to dream God’s own dreams of peace and justice, and to plead with God to help us to build, in the words of Pope Francis, a “civilization of love”—a “peaceable kingdom.”

Fr. Donald Senior, C.P. is President Emeritus and Professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union.  He lives at the Passionist residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Scripture:

Romans 10:9-18
Matthew 4:18-22

Reflection:

Did you know that there are 26 bones in the human foot?  Amazing things, our feet.  They enable us to stand and not fall over.  They make it possible for us to dance, play football, or kick the can. 

Besides, there are footmen, foot soldiers, and footnotes.  Some people stand in the footlights, get a foothold, or are just footloose.  Sometimes we put our best foot forward, put our foot in your mouth, foot the bill, or live in the foothills. 

Amazing things, our feet. The most amazing thing about our feet, be they small or big, dainty or calloused, is that they can be…the feet of Christ.

It was Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) who said that.  She said:

Christ has no body but yours…
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

In our first reading today Paul quotes the prophet, Isaiah, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings.” (Isaiah 52:7)  (One glance at my feet proves that Paul was not speaking of physical beauty!)  Paul is proclaiming how beautiful are the feet of those who decide follow the Lord.  In today’s gospel Peter and Andrew decided to follow Jesus.  Their feet took to them into Jesus’ company where they walked with him, talked with him and watched him preach the Gospel.  Isaiah’s statement would certainly identify Jesus’ feet as beautiful.  Eventually Peter and Andrew would be sent out to preach the gospel.  And, behold, their feet became beautiful, too.

When we make a decision our feet are usually involved.  We decide to get out of bed in the morning.  So our feet hit the floor.  We decide to go to school or go to work.  Our feet have to take us there.  But there is more.

When we choose to walk the way of truth, justice and peace, our feet are beautiful.  When we decide to walk with refugees, the poor, hungry or abandoned, our feet are beautiful.  When we decide to walk beside a person who just needs a listening ear, our feet are beautiful.  

Each day the Lord calls us to follow him more closely.  Let us say, “Yes,” and put our best foot forward.  We can’t go wrong.

Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California. http://www.alanphillipcp.com/

First Sunday of Advent

Scripture:

Isaiah 63:16b –17, 19b; 64:2–7
1Corinthians 1:3–9
Mark 13:33-37

Reflection:

Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you are the potter: we are all the work of your hands. –Isaiah 64:7

Clay is an interesting substance that can be molded into any form. Clay comes in four types, earthenware, stoneware, ball, and porcelain. These types of clay can be fired in a kiln at various high temperatures and times. If the potter has worked the clay correctly to remove the air bubbles then it will retain its shape through the firing. In other words it doesn’t explode. A glaze then is painted onto the vessel to create a unique design and it is placed back in the kiln to be fired again so the glaze can melt and take on its own characteristics. Expert potters can recreate the same shape over and over so that they seem to be all the same. The potter might know the small flaws but you or I would not see these.

God, as the potter, created us as unique masterpieces. We are the work of his hands throughout our lives. Through God’s gentle hands he molds and shapes us into the person that we are supposed to become. As we begin a new liturgical year today, with the coming of the First Sunday of Advent, we await with hope and expectation the coming of the Lord within us in a new way. The experiences of the past year have molded and shaped us into the person we are today. We are not the same as we were last year at this time. Many have lost loved ones and jobs. Some have experienced more stress than usual whether it be at work or at home. So much of how we live and work has changed over the past ten months due to the pandemic. We are ready for something to be different. We wait in hope and expectation that there is a vaccine soon. We wait in hope and expectation that the numbers will be lower so that we can do some of the things we enjoy. We wait in hope and expectation that . . .

As we begin, a new liturgical year, we can continue to be clay. To be molded by God into the person that we were created to be with expectation that God will fill us with faith, hope, and love as we move forward towards the coming of Jesus Christ in our hearts once more.

May you and your families have a blessed Advent Season!

Linda Schork is a theology teacher at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Revelation 22:1-7
Luke 21:34-36

Reflection:

Today we celebrate the last day of the Church year 2020, Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time.  I’m sure we can all agree that this church year and calendar year has been anything but ‘ordinary’!  We have endured a continuing pandemic wherein countless numbers of people have died as the death toll continues to rise daily around the country.  In this country we have weathered political battles and divisiveness that continues to make headlines.  My book club is reading White Rage, an account of the terrible brutality that our black sisters and brothers have endured for much of our nation’s history and continues today!  It is a hard read, but a necessary one if we are ever going to move towards a just world for all peoples! On top of all this, we have hurricanes, flooding, fires, riots and demonstrations across our country and world to deal with on a regular basis.

Today, as I prepare this reflection, I am also aware that this day, November 22, is the 57^th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a dark time for our entire world!  The world prayed, cried, stayed glued to the TV as they joined together to mourn as one and to question where there were no answers!

Today as we collectively share our fears, frustrations, impatience, inconveniences, and so many other emotions and constraints, we are reminded of Jesus’ words in scripture,

Be vigilant at all times!

Yes, we are in dark times, but our faith tells us to have hope, be vigilant, be strong!  The season of Advent begins tomorrow.  In our parish the theme we have chosen for Advent, Behold the Promise, calls us to look forward to the promise that the newborn babe brought to a world troubled in the past, and still troubled in the present. A promise that inspires trust and belief in faith that our God continues to walk with us every step of the way!

Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!

Theresa Secord recently retired as a Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.