Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Galatians 3: 1-5
Luke 11: 15-26

Reflection:

Persistence in Prayer

Have you ever been worn down by someone consistently asking you for something? Today’s Gospel is God’s encouragement, and even His command, to be persistent. Jesus teaches us: “I tell you, even though he does not get up and take care of the man because of friendship, he will do so because of his persistence” (Lk 11:8). Most of the time when you give your children something, it is out of love, but sometimes, as today’s parable says, it was not out of love, but only because of the person’s persistence, which wore us down.

Our intercessory prayers and petitions are to be persistent, but not for the purpose of breaking down God so we get what we request. God is never worn down. He loves us so deeply. It is He Who tells us to ask, seek, knock (Mt 7:7). God is the One Who is persistent in loving us. He is the Parent we tried to be with our children. So, in trust and obedience, we persist in intercessory prayer. God is far from being weary of our prayer. He is more concerned with our faith, and that we would lose hope and stop praying.

Therefore, continue to ask, knock, seek, and persist, despite what seems to be no answer from the Lord. Never lose faith in God’s desire to hear and answer our prayer (see Mt 6:6). Always rely on the grace of God, on the Holy Spirit, to help you in your time of need and to aid your weakness. In return, God always gives us the Holy Spirit who comes to aid our weakness.

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 Passionist Family.

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

Scripture:

Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14
Luke 11:1-4

Reflection:

“Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.’” -Luke 11:1

This growing up business seems to be a lifetime process. Today, I wonder what it’s all about, and what do I want to be when I grow up? Just when I think I’ve got this living business down, along comes COVID-19. Today I wonder and ask my God, what do you want of me?

Pulling from my past experience and remembering today’s feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, I recall all the times the rosary has pulled me through. My first experience was as a child. After dinner we would gather in the living room, and all take a chair to kneel in front of, as my father led us through the mysteries of life: the joyful mysteries; the sorrowful mysteries; and finally, the glorious mysteries. I remember thinking that Jesus and Mary lived really strange and different lives back then.

In Warrenton, Missouri, as Passionist high school seminarians, we would gather in the chapel after dinner and repeat the same process above. I still thought, Jesus and Mary lived really strange and different lives back then. Through most of my life since then, I’ve let go of thinking of these mysteries. After all they don’t really apply to my life.

Today, I’m beginning to think maybe they do. Just like Jesus and Mary, I am challenged. While I see no angel appearing to prepare me for the new life I will help bring into the world, I do realize that COVID-19, while not an angel, challenges me, and I believe all of us to do the same thing: “You will share in the experience of new ways of learning and they will call it online. That child will be the cause of much suffering and growth for you and for many, but it will rise and take its rightful place in the creation of my world filled with joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries.”

Dear God, I pray with the apostles today: “Teach me to pray!” I say: “Thank You, God!” Thank you for the good times, the challenging ones, but especially thank you for the crosses You’ve given me to bear. Finally, I pray with Mary: “My soul magnifies the lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

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

Scripture:

Galatians 1: 13-24
Luke 10: 38-42

Reflection:

We live in a rushed culture. Despite the deceleration of daily living forced by a worldwide pandemic, internally we are still programmed from toddlerhood for quick, constant action.

“This is your chance to save!”
“Hurry, it won’t last long!”
“I can’t wait until I am in high school!”
“Let’s take advantage of the interest rates now and buy a bigger house!”
“Get that job finished now! Another is waiting!”
“She needs this day care center now to best prepare her for grade school!”
“Time is money!”
“Act now! Don’t miss out!”

These declarations sound familiar? If so it is because, in a myriad of ways, we are all pressured by external forces to act, move, and get it done. Now.

Curiously, God seldom acts quickly.

Science tells us the Great Emergence, or Great Bang, occurred 13.8 Billion years ago. But complex humans have been around just 200,000 years…a miniscule fraction of time compared to the unimaginable billions of years that preceded human existence.

At my recent annual eye exam, I engaged the doctor in a discussion of the miracle of human sight. He said humans will never design a human eye; the nerve endings alone…1.5 million extending from the back of the eye to the brain in a circumference not bigger than the lead in a pencil… is beyond our imagination or abilities to reproduce. It is even more astounding that it took nearly 14 billion years of evolution to create the human eye.

In contemplating these phenomena, a respect for God’s pace emerges.

In today’s section from the letter to the Galatians, Paul’s reflects on the slowness of his discernment of God’s will for his life. He tells us it was a long, circuitous route. He didn’t just fall off the horse and start preaching to the Gentiles the next day. Reading his full life story, we know God’s plan for him took decades to be realized.

Today’s psalm is good to read in moments of quiet: “I give thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works.” All on God’s time.

And as we read the passage from Luke about Jesus welcoming Mary Magdalene to sit at his feet and learn as a disciple, as only male could do in that culture, we understand the inclusivity of God. She wanted to know more of God’s awesome ways…the ways of grace, working with time and nature, to form a creation that reflects God’s immense love for each of us.

As we all face the serious suffering and fears of COVID-19, economic hardships, human threats to our natural environment, racial injustice and political incivility we may be tempted to get anxious and worried (like Martha?) and want quick solutions.

There are no quick solutions.

But there is hope.

As Christ’s disciples, we are offered one way to strengthen hope: God’s will. To discern it we must go to our rooms in quiet, as Jesus directed.

Then, be patient and listen. If you give God this space God will lead you, on God’s schedule, in the direction you must go. This and this alone, will give you relief from our crazy, rushed culture. This way alone will provide you the deep, lasting peace you seek.

Jim Wayne is a board member of the Passionist Solidarity Network (PSN), and author of The Unfinished Man. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Galatians 1:6-12
Luke 10:25-37

Reflection:

Spending some time with Paul’s letter to the Galatians of this Monday morning, we read how Paul is disappointed in the fickleness of this Galatian community. They seem to have quickly forgotten certain teachings Paul had inspired within them, and now they began to listen to and follow other teachings. He reasserts that the Gospel he proclaimed to them was not his, but it had come from Christ. Therefore, to not listen to the Gospel, he proclaimed was to not listen to Christ.  It even implies that one is rejecting what Christ has taught.

The word “gospel” comes from the Greek word “eualgelion.” Breaking that word apart, “eu”  translates to the English word “good” and the word “angelion” best translates to the English word “announcement.” (Notice the word angel in angelion,  Scripturally, angels have been the ones who make God’s announcements.)  Thus, we frequently say that the word gospel means good news.

If you read this text, you’ll notice Paul uses the word Gospel to mean two different things.  Sometimes he capitalizes the term and sometimes he leaves it lower case.  This is to make his point.  When the word “gospel” is capitalized, Paul is referring to the Gospel which Jesus brought to us. It is written in lowercase when Paul is referring to teachings away from the teaching of Christ.  So in reading this text, the capitalized word “Gospel” has a completely different meaning than the lowercase “gospel.”

Yet isn’t that where we are today? I live in Chicago. Last weekend we had 43 shootings reported to the police. That doesn’t include the shootings that weren’t reported, or the other murders, or the numerous other violent and nonviolent crimes that don’t get reported to the general public. Most people who are perpetrators of these crimes aren’t operating out of a Gospel with a capital “G.” They operate out of self-centered desires. They base their good news on self-centeredness. What benefits their personal self is what they deem good news.  This kind of attitude rarely takes others into consideration. 

Take for instance where we are amidst this pandemic.  With over 200,000 US citizens having already died we all meet people who think only about themselves.  We all meet people who don’t take precautions on spreading the virus to others. Nor do they care if they spread the virus to others. 

Or another example are the over seventy-nine million displaced people in our world who have been forced from their homes by conflict and persecution. Thirty million are refugees. And half of them are under the age of eighteen. Over two-thirds came from just five countries. Do those in power in these countries think about good news in terms a capital letter “G”  or a small “g”?     And with this idea or thought in mind, how does the rest of the world receive these displaced people? What is Good News in the midst of actions which were motivated by self-absorption?

Four years ago in a parish I was working, after a particular Sunday liturgy, I discovered Maria dancing in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary statue.  She was bubbling over with enthusiasm. Her eyes were luminous. And her whole body was moving to a song playing deep in the core of her spirit. I inquired, “Maria what brings you such a joy today?”  With tears in her radiant eyes she announced, “We bought a house!!! We own a house!! Praise Jesus! After years of living in refugee camps and Government housing, we now OWN a house! I never thought this would happen.”    I knew I was standing before someone who knew and lived Gospel with a capital “G.” And Luke’s words were as true at that moment as they were on the day of the Annunciation, “Blessed are you who believe that the promise of the Lord would be fulfilled.”

As we hear Paul’s letter today, we can almost feel his disappointment and frustration as he tries to bring to light the Good news of the Gospel of Jesus which is beyond any human definition of good news.  I suggest our work today is to be more attentive to Good News, amidst the world looking to please themselves.  And then the big challenge is to find exciting ways to share and proclaim that Good News.

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

Scripture:

Job 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17
Luke 10: 17-24

Reflection:

I remember when I was young, my mother used to write my name on just about everything. She would put my name on school supplies, clothing items, and sometimes toys. My name even appeared on the refrigerator door with a photo.  Is your name written on things that you own? Even today I have my name written on various items: passport, driver’s license, legal documents, business cards and even on my office door. Sometimes we might want to put our name on a laptop or cell phone or maybe even on the inside cover of a special book.  This is helpful because when the item is lost or misplaced, you might get the item returned. Your name on a particular item says that article belongs to you.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples, “…rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”  First, though, Jesus gives a prohibition, a warning. “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you.” Jesus had sent the disciples out to announce the Kingdom of God. They returned from their short missionary journey all excited because the evil spirits were subject to their commands. Jesus calls off his disciples from rejoicing even in that which is legitimate and a good reason for rejoicing as any-namely, success against the powers of darkness. He calls them to fix their joy upon a good infinitely to be preferred to that-their name written in heaven. Jesus was fearful of spiritual pride and a false sense of security in his disciples.

When I am successful, it is easy to think that it’s all because of me–my skills, my knowledge, my determination, my power. I become the center and fail to acknowledge all that lies behind my success: encouragement of friends or education or opportunities others don’t have. Maybe even luck plays a role. And behind it all is God’s graciousness. The other point is that when we have a false sense of security, we are easily crushed and lose heart when the tide goes against us. To fortify us against these two outcomes, Jesus reminds the disciples that their victories are temporary. Having their names written in heaven is permanent.

My name on a piece of clothing says that item belongs to me. Having my name written in heaven means I belong to God. God does not forget me when dark clouds surround me, when the good I desire to do fails miserably or when there is no reason to rejoice. God knows my name, loves me and watches over me every day of my life. My name is written in heaven. Now that is a fact in which we can rejoice.

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

Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels

Scripture:

Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5
Matthew 18:1-5, 10

Reflection:

The concept of a ‘guardian angel’ is one that has a long history both in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and is a belief and devotion that has ebbed and waned over the centuries. Perhaps the simplest and most foundational thought one might hold on this feast day is taken from Pope Francis talk in 2014 when he suggested in his homily for the Feast of Holy Guardian Angels, that one could consider a guardian angel to be one’s “traveling companion” in life. Indeed, the Pope suggested “No one journeys alone, and no one should think that they are alone.”

In this light we might reflect today on the fact that God is always offering assistance, guidance and direction in our lives and that it is God’s will that we should not just seek God, but that we should successfully find our way home to our Father in heaven.  In this endeavour Jesus is both our model and saviour who has shown us the way.

Yet we cannot help but notice that angels also feature in the life of Jesus too. Angles announce the birth of Jesus, they clarify and announce his resurrection from the dead and they both announce and convey instructions to the disciples at the time of his ascension to the Father. In addition, we see angles accompanying and comforting Jesus after his temptations and trial in the desert and again they are present to offer comfort in his sorrow and agony in the garden prior to his arrest, suffering and death on Calvary.

Thus, angels seem to be a ‘link’ or ‘connection point’ whenever there is a heavenly truth to be revealed to us.  

They are significant in that they highlight that God is always close to us and serve to point us always in the direction of the truth so that we might be helped in knowing and seeing God’s activity amongst us.

While angels feature throughout the scriptures only three archangels are mentioned by name in the scriptures – Michael, the warrior leader of the heavenly hosts, Gabriel, the heavenly messenger and Raphael, God’s healer, or helper. The three essential qualities or activities they witness to may be a key reflection for us today. God will strengthen us, God will always communicate and share with us and God will forever offer healing to us.

We are never alone in our spiritual journey.

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

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Scripture:

Job 19:21-27
Luke 10:1-12

Reflection:

Today the church celebrates a saint who captured the heart of the modern church.  A young French woman who traveled from her hometown of Lisieux, in northern France, only once in her life—a trip to Rome to see the Pope and get permission to enter the Carmelite cloister when still younger than the required canonical age (she was turned down!); a cloistered sister for all of her brief adult life (she entered the convent at 15 and died at the age of 24); someone who dreamed of being a missionary to foreign lands but who never left the walls of her convent.  Despite all this—or perhaps because of it—her generous and expansive spirit, captured in her own writings and her articulation of what she called her “little way” to holiness, struck deep chords in Catholics around the world.  There has been a tendency to view Thérèse somewhat sentimentally; touched up photos and art portrays her as too pretty; in fact, she had a compelling face, full of character and a lot of grit. 

Pope Pius XI called her the “greatest saint of the modern church.”  She was put on the fast track to canonization, declared a saint in 1925 only a few years after her death in 1897.  Pius XI made her the patron of missionaries and John Paul II declared her to be a doctor of the church. Thérèse would be amazed at this to be sure.  She considered herself no match for the great and learned saints.  She identified with the children in the gospel whom Jesus embraced. As she noted in her diary:

Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God’s arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.

The Scripture readings for today’s liturgy are not specifically paired with this feast but the Response Psalm echoes Thérèse’s spirit of complete trust in God’s love for her:

Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call;
have pity on me, and answer me.
Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.
Your presence, O LORD, I seek.
Hide not your face from me;
do not in anger repel your servant.
You are my helper: cast me not off.
I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

And, fittingly, the gospel passage is from Luke’s account of Jesus’ sending out the seventy-two disciples on mission, encouraging them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (Luke 10:1-2).   Thérèse constantly prayed for missionaries and corresponded with some of them.  Her body may have been confined to a small parcel of land but her spirit was world-wide, the spirit of the Gospel.

Her spirit is still alive in the church.  In his encyclical on the environment, Laudato ‘Si, Pope Francis refers to the spirituality of Thérèse as a guide for us in the face of enormous moral challenges such as care for the environment.

Saint Therese of Lisieux invites us to practice the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship. An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation, and selfishness. In the end, a world of exacerbated consumption is at the same time a world which mistreats life in all its forms. Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the common good are outstanding expressions of a charity which affects not only relationships between individuals but also “macro-relationships, social, economic and political ones”. That is why the Church set before the world the ideal of a “civilization of love”. (Laudato ‘Si, par. #230-231).

Thérèse, the cloistered missionary of Lisieux, would be proud!

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:

Job 9:1-12, 14-16
Luke 9:57-62

Reflection:

Quarks and leptons are subatomic particles, the smallest units of matter that we know of.  I sometimes compare myself to a quark, a part of an atom that is a part of a grain of sand in the vast Sahara Desert.  

Scientists tell us there are billions and billions of galaxies in our universe that is billions and billions of years old.  We are each so very, very small in comparison, like a quark.

Job didn’t know about quarks or the size of the universe.  But in the presence of the Infinite Creator, he certainly felt very, very small. Why would God have any concern about him, a creature so insignificant? “If I appealed to him and he answered my call, I could not believe that he would hearken to my words.”

And here we have a paradox.  We as human persons are at the same time so small – and yet so great.  Psalm eight tells us, “You have made the human person little less than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5).  Job didn’t know that.  He just knew that the Creator had power far more than he had.

Besides, as baptized followers of Christ, we are made members of the Body of Christ.  It doesn’t get any better than that, a little quark made great by the grace of God.  Job didn’t know that either.

What job knew was how small he was and, eventually, how blessed be was.  He possessed both humility and gratitude.

Realizing our quarky littleness leads us to humility.  And realizing that we share in the life of God leads to gratitude.  We have a lot in common with our little friend Job.

Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

http://www.alanphillipcp.com/