Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Wisdom 6:12-16
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Luke 11:15-26

Reflection:

Will you be ready before the door is closed?

A lot is packed into Matthew’s short parable, in which a wedding feast is compared to the kingdom of heaven. The wise ones cannot share their oil with the foolish ones if they wanted to. What is required to enter the feast must be what you have experienced or what you have done yourself. You cannot share your relationship with Jesus with someone else, as the unprepared virgins wanted the others to do. You have to experience the love of Christ personally to have a relationship with Him. The oil is our love and relationship with Christ. The unprepared virgins are foolish to think that they could purchase this at the last minute. If only they would have stayed and asked the lord for mercy and forgiveness, they could have entered the wedding feast or Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, with a word of command, can wake us up and take us to be with himself if only we have faith. If we bless him while we live and call upon his name, it will not be in vain.

Jesus’ future coming transforms the present by motivating us to love Him and live for Him to the full. The ones who wisely plan ahead, are rewarded; the unprepared are rejected. A few weeks ago, the rejected guests were those without a wedding garment, now it’s the ones without working lamps. At baptism we were clothed in Christ and were given a lighted candle. Only those who put on Christ and light the way are welcomed to the kingdom. We must live out our baptism and let our God-given wisdom give us the urgency we need each and every day. The door is open, keep your candle lit with the oil from a strong relationship with Jesus. Amen

Deacon Peter Smith serves at St. Mary’s/Holy Family Parish in Alabama, a religion teacher at Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School in Birmingham, and a member of our extended Passionist Family.

Scripture:

Philippians 4:10-19
Luke 16:9-15

Reflection:

Jesus Christ became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich. -2 Corinthians 8:9

The one thing I’ve never really wanted to be in my 70 plus years of life is poor. As a child, I remember wanting to be a fireman like Mr. Stretcher who lived across the street from us. We lived not far from a route used by the local fire department and often heard their sirens on the way to a fire. Seeing them flying by, not paying any attention to the stop lights, looked adventuresome.

When I got a little older, sometime around the seventh grade, I thought I’d really like being a priest like Fr. Casper C.P., our assistant pastor. He was pretty “neat.” Instead of asking us questions like, “Why did God make you?” He’d tell us stories of hiking in the hills of California which to my limited traveling experience really sounded exotic. So eventually I headed off to the seminary where I read stories of saints like Thomas Moore who was locked away in the London Tower for refusing to go against his conscience or Ignatius Loyola who left home even though his parents didn’t want him to. I really wanted to be like these saints, who if they were poor or even wanted to be poor, I never remember reading that. I wanted to follow them because they were courageous and willing to be themselves.

For much of my actual working life, I wanted to make money. I chose teaching in the public schools over the Catholic schools because they paid much better. When I wasn’t teaching, I sold things. What I like most about selling was the promise of making as much money as I wanted to—it just depended on how hard and smart I was willing to work. Being poor? No, I never heeded that challenge to follow Jesus in choosing to be poor.

Today, I’ve decided I want to be like Jesus and choose to be poor. Wouldn’t you know it though, I don’t know how to do that responsibly. I’ve been blessed, or maybe cursed with being a privileged white man, meaning I’ve been able to financially meet my needs. I relate well to what Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians “I am very well supplied because of what I received from you…” (4:18)

Jesus, please help me understand what you are challenging me (us) to do today and give me the courage to truly follow you.

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

Scripture:

Philippians 3:3-8a
Luke 15:1-10

Reflection:

What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?   -Luke 15:4

Not too long ago, I couldn’t turn on the news or visit the web without hearing about “The 1%.” In the context of economic justice, the 1% were seen as those who hoarded resources at the expense of the 99%. They were perceived as privileged, above the law, disdainful of those they felt were beneath them. There were protests and even disruptions of our economic lives to bring attention to this imbalance.

In the gospel today Jesus speaks of a different 1%. Although social and economic justice were frequent themes in His teachings, this time Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head.

Even if we don’t want to admit it, it is easy to think that people with greater resources and easier lives are more favored by God. This was certainly true in the time of Jesus. Those people that held high social status and were well off, were seen as blessed by the Lord. The 1% of that time were God’s favorites, or so it seemed. Jesus shows us a different view of God’s kingdom. According to Jesus, the 1%, the elite, the favored, the ones most deserving of the Father’s attention, were those who had strayed. And in this parable, God (the shepherd), doesn’t wait for the lost lamb to return, but leaves the 99 “good” lambs to search for the 1%.

We all stray from time to time. I know I certainly do. St. Paul himself said he was the greatest sinner (c.,f. 1Timothy 1:15). But God considers all sinners to be the 1%, those who have a special place in His kingdom. In His eyes we are all deserving of His full and undivided attention, at all times! Why is it so hard for us to accept this?

I dimly remember from some devotional book in my childhood an illustration of this gospel passage. In a simple line drawing it showed a shepherd risking His own life, reaching out on the edge of a cliff, trying to rescue a lost lamb. My prayer for today is that I lean forward into the grasp of my Shepherd.

In addition to being an independent teacher (now online!), Talib Huff is on the retreat team at Christ the King Passionist Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, California. You can contact him at [email protected]

Scripture:

Philippians 2:12-18
Luke 14:25-33

Reflection:

The Challenge, The Opportunity!

Jesus has some strong words in today’s Gospel:  discipleship includes hating your family, hating your own life, renouncing all your possessions.  Soooo…What about His earlier statement to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves?  Conflicting messages!  Jesus also includes His earlier statement: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” 

Jesus’ powerful words today underscore the total dedication that is involved in following Him.  That’s the vocation of every Christian:  the total gift of self in one’s particular style of life.  Married people, single people, priests, consecrated religious women and men.  The two “mini-parables” at the end of today’s Gospel expand upon the self-knowledge involved in discipleship:  we’re reminded to inventory the materials on hand before starting a building project – and number your troops before you head off to war. 

Discipleship is demanding!  Daunting!  Upon further reflection, even perhaps depressing…  How can anyone say “yes”?

The whole of Scripture testifies that God’s Love works miracles.  Each person’s talents and shortcomings are transformed by God’s infinite Love; we can “take up our cross” and “leave behind father and mother” and “renounce our possessions”.  Jesus loves us so much that nothing can stand in the way…if we open our hearts and say “yes”, as has been said by the “Saints” whose lives we celebrated on November 1. 

The challenge and the opportunity are ours today.  Jesus calls us to discipleship in a world beset with pandemics, politics, prejudice, poverty, pessimism…  Our witness and involvement as Jesus’ disciples are so needed in both the nitty gritty of life, and in the broader, global reach of leadership and visioning. 

How will you and I respond…today?  Psalm 27 provides faith-filled encouragement:  “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?  The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid? … Wait for the Lord with courage…”   Yes!  Amen!!

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

Scripture:

Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 14:15-24

Reflection:

“It’s too good to be true.” That is what we think when we are informed that we have received a free gift from a telephone call, a letter in the mail or an invitation on the internet. “Nothing is free in this life,” we tell ourselves. This is normally a smart and safe reaction. The Gospel reading today, though, reminds us that there can be an offer that is too good to be true and is also trustworthy.

Jesus asks us to see our gracious God as the banquet host. God has fixed a great banquet and invited many to the party. After sending out invitations and getting all the arrangements made, the host then sends a second invitation to remind all those who have been invited.

What a gracious God we have. God constantly calls us to come be with him, having prepared everything for us to enjoy. God gives us an invitation “too good to be true.”

Jesus describes people who refused the invitation to the banquet because they were too busy with possessions, profession or people. The excuses we hear are rather dim-witted. Would any one buy land or animals without first inspecting what he desired to purchase? The third man blames his future wife for setting the date of their marriage. All had plenty advanced notice of the banquet, but none wanted to attend and thought up dismal excuses.

Each of us is invited to a banquet, to spend time with God. Sometimes possessions keep us from attending the banquet. We have something in the house to fix, the new car to clean or the lawn to mow. It seems there’s always something else that demands our time and attention. Sometimes our work keeps us too busy. We want that overtime and so we can’t make it to church. We work all day and we’re tired so we just want to sit in front of the TV and not be disturbed. Sometimes people keep us from time with God. We get too busy with friends, going places doing things, and God just sort of ends up being neglected. We have good intentions and plan to spend time with God, but we never quite get to actually taking some quality time with God.

If I am too busy for God, I am too busy! I set my priorities! I find time to do that which I believe is important. Would my life be different if I set a priority in my life to accept the invitation to spend some time with God, to strengthen my relationship with Jesus, to listen to the gentle whispers of the Spirit? “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., is the director of the Office of Mission Effectiveness and resides in Chicago.

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

Scripture:

Wisdom 3:1-9
Romans 6:3-9
John 6:37-40

Reflection:

Recently, I found myself imaging and asking what I would do if I stood in a room with two exit doors – one marked ‘my past’ and leading to a room packed with all the events of my life to date, and the other door marked ‘my future’ and this room would be filled with my dreams and hopes for the future. To make the choice hard, I imagined only being able to choose one of the doors – either to revisit the past or look ahead to the future.

Of course, this is an artificial choice, but one that might just be hard to make.

For some people relishing and celebrating the past with all its achievements or memories of exciting or meaningful times might be a fulfilling and happy experience. Perhaps too the past might just contain all those happy memories of loved ones who are not part of one’s life any longer and whose absence is deeply felt

For others, looking forward is their fundamental approach to life and they would draw energy from such a perspective.  In some cases, people allow the future to lead them onwards and thus inspiration, dreams and hopes are strong drivers in their life choices.

Neither the past or future reality – or indeed the present moment – is complete without the other dimensions. Indeed, today’s feast, that of All Souls – speaks to the dimensions of past, present and future. We, the Church on Earth, in this moment honour and pray for those who have gone before us into the future life of heaven. We celebrate and place our trust in the promise of God that eternal life is not only their gift now but is also an inheritance that awaits us also.

The image of the Church on Earth praying for the Faithful departed, and in turn them praying for us is a comforting one. Today is one day where that reality is not only imagined but celebrated.

We offer our prayers to God today – prayers of gratitude or intercession for our dear departed precisely because we want to share their memory with God and because we believe that they pray for us too.  

In our thoughts, prayers and Eucharist today let us all join in prayer. Let today’s feast be a rich, prayerful and hope filled time for you and those you cherish.

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

Solemnity of All Saints

Scripture:

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Reflection:

All Saints Day is a beautiful feast celebrating the call to holiness open to all the daughters and sons of God—those already wrapped in God’s loving embrace and those of us still on the road.   Paul the Apostle frequently referred to his fellow Christians as “saints” or “holy ones.”  The Greek word he used is hagios—meaning to be holy or saintly—the same word in fact is used of God, the “all holy one.”  Paul applied this title to all Christians, not just the ones that seemed to be the most pious or well-behaved. 

This call to holiness reaches deep into the Scriptures.  In Leviticus (19:2) God summons Moses to tell the people: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy”—a command that rings down through the entirety of the Bible.  The notion of humans imitating the holiness of God is something distinctive about our Jewish heritage and our Christian faith.  Most ancient religions did not correlate the worship of their gods with the values that ought to guide their lives of their devotees.  They hoped that homage to their gods would protect them from harm and lead to prosperity, but they did not derive their code of conduct from the example of their gods.  In fact, some of the behavior of the ancient gods of the Middle East and in Greek mythology was not to be imitated!

For the Bible, however, the “holiness” of God referred to the awesome beauty and power of God and God’s astounding tender love and mercy towards God’s people. One of the earliest acclamations about God is found in Exodus 34:6 as Moses encounters God at Sinai: “The Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love and fidelity.”  God’s steadfast mercy, fidelity, and abiding love define what “holiness” means and set a pattern for the way we are to live our lives.  Astoundingly, as Genesis (1:16) affirms, the God of Israel creates humans in the divine “image and likeness”—we are endowed with a God-given capacity for holiness.

For Christian faith, God’s holiness is embodied in the person of Jesus.  In his very being and in the manner of his own life, Jesus revealed God to us.  As Pope Francis has repeatedly said, “Jesus is the human face of the Father’s mercy.” God’s Old Testament command to “be holy as I the Lord your God am holy” becomes for Christians equivalent to Jesus’ call to his disciples, “Come, follow me.”  In striving to live as Jesus lived we find the path to holiness.

That is the spirit of today’s readings.  The first reading from Revelation is typical of the dramatic and vast canvas of this visionary New Testament book. Standing before the throne of God and the Lamb (the exalted Christ) “a great multitude which no one could count from every nation, race, people and tongue” cries out in exaltation, praising God and the Risen Jesus.  The Responsorial Psalm 24 also exults in God’s beauty and power: “The Lord’s are the earth and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it.”  And our response expresses the longing we are to experience as we, too, strive for a life of goodness, a life of holiness: “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face!”

The reading from the First Letter of John underscores the link between God’s love and the quality of our lives: “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.”  John will affirm over and over: to be a child of God is to love as God loves, the central command of Jesus’ teaching.

And, finally, in the gospel passage from Matthew we hear Jesus’ beatitudes that begin the Sermon on the Mount, a  summation of the values and commitments that lead to authentic holiness, and, in fact, reflect Jesus’ own manner of life:  Comfort for the poor, for those who mourn, and for the meek;  Blessing on those committed to mercy, to peacemaking, to justice even at the cost of persecution.

At this tense and fractious moment in our history, this Christian vision of what authentic human life can be is balm for our souls.  God calls all of us to be holy as God is holy!

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:

Philippians 1:18b-26
Luke 14:1, 7-11

Reflection:

Happy Saturday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time!

How many times have you heard the saying “It’s better to give than to receive”?

I don’t know about you, but I remember first hearing that as a kid, and thinking to myself, “Hmmm… that’s pretty stupid.  It’s AWESOME to get stuff.”  As time passed, though, I began to accumulate so many things that I was running out of space to keep them.  So I did what any other normal person would do in that case.  That’s right – I built a shed to hold all my stuff.  But it all was mostly just a bunch of things I really didn’t need…  and some of it I didn’t even want.  As the piles got bigger and bigger, ultimately, it all only served to really weigh me down.

It’s funny, in a sad way, how that transferred to my spirit and emotion.  I also held on to pain and hurt.  I held on to mistakes and brokenness.  I made space in my heart to house the betrayal and horror I had experienced.  It was like a huge trailer, covered with a mountainous pile of the past, on top of which I was sitting, the ceiling right at the top of my head.  Can you imagine trying to pull such a thing around with you?  I was unable to take any more.  I had no more room, and there was no place to build a shed.

If I were a betting man, I’d wager I’m not the only one of us who has experienced these types of things.

In today’s Gospel (Luke 14:1,7-11), Jesus instructs, “Do not recline at the place of honor.”  Instead he says to take the lowest place, so the host can ask you to move closer to the place of honor.  “The one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

On the surface, this sure looks like a social-status-climbing chess game to me.  I could just hear people saying, “OK, I get it.  I’ll sit down there because that way I’ll get the greatness and recognition I’m after.”  That sounds pretty hypocritical and selfish to me, and I don’t believe that’s what Jesus really intended as his point.

And then one day in church I heard this Gospel (for probably the 100th time), and it hit me.  It wasn’t at all about looking good in front of your friends.  I heard Jesus explain that by humbling yourself, you are actually becoming more open to God’s call to come closer to him. 

Being empty means God has room to fill you up!

It’s a sad truth that tearing down our sheds and emptying our trailers are such difficult things to do.  But it can get us off our “mountains,” bring us home, and help us prepare a place in our hearts to house all the care, compassion, forgiveness, peace, and love that God wants for us to both have and share.  Ultimately, it gives us a gift so huge that we’’ll never be able to house it… it brings us closer to God.  And that, my friends, is a gift worth all the room we can possibly make.

So let me ask you… what spot at the table do you need to get up from and leave behind?  What things must you to let go of in order to have space for God to work miracles in your life?

Let’s all pray to hear our great and loving Host say to us, “Come.  Come closer.”

Dear God, thank you for all the gifts you offer us.  Please grant us the grace to always be empty enough to accept your call to rise, and sit closer to you. Amen.

Peace and love to you today, and forever.

Paul Puccinelli is Director of Liturgy & Music at St. Rita Parish in Sierra Madre, California, and a member of the retreat team at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center.