Daily Scripture

Scripture:

1 John 3:22-4:6
Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25

Reflection:

Who among us has not paused to access major intersections of our lives . . .  after high school plans, marriage, entering the seminary or religious community, a job we took, the neighborhood we chose as home? Looking back years later, in a prayerful moment, we may have seen the hand of God in each big decision, realizing the Spirit guided us even when we didn’t know it.

The opposite can be true as well. We all make bad choices, even when they look like very fine choices at the time. We rush into a career/vocation that proves unsatisfying, we seek financial security only to find ourselves in an ethical cesspool, we marry someone who we failed to see had a destructive mental disorder, or an addiction to sex, gambling, or substances.

Our faith offers us guidelines for each decision we make, from what we have for breakfast, to how we spend our money, to who we choose as friends. St. John’s first letter encourages us: “Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they being to God, because many false prophets have gone our into the world.”

A word used by spiritual guides to test the spirits is discernment. Great mystics like St. Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas Merton focus much attention on the discernment of spirits. Why? Because there is a battle going on within us. We want to go one way, but something tells us to go the opposite way.

What criteria do we use to know the right decision? St John says, “This is how you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God.”

Acknowledging Jesus Christ come in the flesh leads us to put on the mind of Christ. How would my brother Jesus understand and handle this situation? Thinking like Christ means stripping ourselves of pride, of clinging to money, possessions, status, and honors. It means looking around to consider what someone else needs first, to see the impact our choices have on family, co-workers, the poor, the refugee, the innocent.

St. Ignatius assures us that the Spirit gives a feeling of “consolation” when we make a good choice. This gift of consolation is an assurance that, a best we can, we are in alignment with God’s desires for us. Consolation provides the chief characteristics of followers of Jesus: inner joy and peace.

After John the Baptist infuriated the political big wigs of his day, he was arrested. In today’s Gospel Jesus gets the news about his cousin’s imprisonment and moves out of his hometown of Nazareth to launch his life’s work of preaching and healing. He evidently wasted no time pleading for people to repent, as John the Baptist had done. Then, in a passage omitted in the middle section of today’s Gospel, he rounded up a couple of buddies to help him and he started to heal anyone who needed healing: the sick, those in pain, the possessed, lunatics, paralytics. In our time it would be like a someone walking among those living in tents and under expressways in every city in America to heal them one by one.

Jesus was living his vocation, what his Father wanted him to do when he got up in the morning.  Each of us are given the grace we need to discern what God wants us to do. Some are called to marriage, others to religious or non-vowed single life or widowhood. Some heal in health care settings, others are teachers, UPS drivers, factory workers, street vendors, craftsmen and women, tailors, writers, entertainers, homemakers, accountants, and on and on.

We all must weigh marriage/religious community, family, and community responsibilities against a desire to perform noble compassionate deeds. Some may have yearnings to do special or noted, like another Jimmy Carter or Mother Theresa. But in prayerful discernment, God may lead us to a  much more modest, unnoticed job caring for a grandchild with a disability or finishing our education to be high school teacher while working a low wage job to pay for food, shelter, and tuition.

Regardless of the choices we face each day, our faith provides a context for knowing what is God’s will for us. Praying for the grace to know what the Spirit is telling us will, in time, lead us to what is best for us and the ones we love. We will experience joy and peace. In this we must trust. “This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit,” as St. John wisely tells us today.

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

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Scripture:

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

Reflection:

…it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body…  -Ephesians 3:5b-6a

…behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem…  -Matthew 2:1b

I was fairly old before I came across the idea that the birth story of Jesus with the shepherds and the story of the visitation of the Magi were two different stories. The parish where we worshiped had a life-size creche right by the entrance to the church which included the manger, the Holy Family, the shepherds presenting their lambs, and three splendid, royal kings, including their camels and entourage, presenting gifts to the babe in the manger.

For years, these two stories were conflated into one grand scene in my mind. It was only after deeper study and wider reading I came across the idea that many biblical scholars hold, that the visitation by the Magi (a word meaning, “wise one,” or “priest,” and not indicating any social standing or rank) most likely occurred months if not years after the birth of our Lord. I still find it difficult sometimes to disentangle the popular culture, and artistic representations from “gospel truth.”

So, what is the truth of this gospel? The reading from the letter to the Ephesians makes this quite clear. Today is the Epiphany of the Lord, the revelation to the world beyond a small, nondescript stable in a backwater town that God is incarnate. That He is Lord to all the world. That the Gentiles are part of God’s family. It is interesting to note that the Greek word used by Paul that is translated as “Gentiles” is ethnos, meaning “the human family.”

Paul is saying we all belong to Christ, from the greatest to the least. No one is left out of this family. Another notable fact is that the magi didn’t remain. They returned to their own lands and their own ways. But they were still included as “members of the same body.” Still today the Risen Christ calls us to recognize that everyone we meet, whether they are from a different land, speak a different language, wear different clothes, or have different customs, are our brothers and sisters in the eyes of God.

This year, let us make a renewed effort to meet everyone as our brother or sister in Christ.

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:

1 John 3:7-10
John 1:35-42

Reflection:

The Christmas Event and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Today’s Gospel selection features John the Baptist and two of his disciples meeting Jesus as he walked by – John the Baptist call Jesus “the Lamb of God”.  This chance encounter led to Jesus’ invitation to the two disciples of John the Baptist to “come and see” where Jesus was staying – and ultimately, those first few hours with Jesus led to lives of life-changing discipleship. 

Over the centuries and around the world, countless others have heard in their hearts Jesus’ personal invitation to “come and see”.  One such 18^th Century American woman-disciple we honor today:  St. Elizabeth Ann Seton…the first American-born saint.

Married to William Seton and mother of their five children, Elizabeth Ann was raised an Episcopalian but was later drawn to the Catholic faith by an Italian Catholic family whom she met while in Italy traveling with her husband.  After her husband’s untimely death from tuberculosis at the young age of 30, Elizabeth Ann embraced the Catholic faith – and subsequently opened a parish school in Baltimore to support her family and live her new-found faith. 

Drawn by Elizabeth Ann’s example, her fervor, a group of young women joined Elizabeth Ann in her gifted approach to education and Christian living.  In 1809 they formed the American Sisters of Charity, following the rule of St. Vincent de Paul; later they founded other schools and orphanages.  By the time of her death on January 4, 1821, the community had expanded their ministries as far west as St. Louis.

Elizabeth Ann Seton was called to help build up the Church in her era.  As noted in today’s Gospel, Jesus drew disciples to Himself and began the Church; centuries later and in another part of the world Elizabeth Ann joined those early disciples in saying “yes” to Jesus –and then working tirelessly to build up the Church.

This year 2025, God continues to bless us with our Passionist charism as enfleshed by St. Paul of the Cross years ago and lived today by many women and men world-wide.  May we deepen our relationship with Jesus as 2025 continues to unfold; may we encourage others to “come and see” God’s love present in our needy world.  I’m sure St. Elizabeth Ann Seton prayed the encouraging words of today’s Responsorial Psalm 98:  “Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wondrous deeds…”  Yes…Amen!!

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.  

Scripture:

1 John 2:29-3:6
John 1:29-34

Reflection:

‘I did not know him myself’

In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist uses this term twice, and each time reflects that whilst personal knowledge of Jesus, even personal contact is not the case, his trust in God’s revelation and direction to him is sufficient to motivate his faithful response.

More than this – John becomes an advocate, an announcer and a witness to Jesus – such is his trust.

We make much of the family connection of John and Jesus, and some scholars suggest they shared ministry together in the earlier period of Jesus life, but here the Johanine community suggest a different kind of relationship. One that we too can imitate.

Without the kinds of ‘proof’ the modern world so often insists on, we too can be a witness to the one we know as our saviour and ‘the Lamb of God’. 

Witness in this sense is not based so much on knowledge or prior experience, but on absolute trust in God’s revelation. John’ experience seems to be Trinitarian – the Father announces Jesus and calls John to witness to him, the Spirit manifests self and in turn revels Jesus to John and finally John sees Jesus and seeks him out. 

We know John lived his witness to Jesus to the fullest and prepared the way for Jesus. Let us live in the same spirit. 

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is the Provincial Superior of Holy Spirit Province, Australia.

Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, and Doctors of the Church

Scripture:

1 John 2:22-28
John 1:19-28

Reflection:

St. Basil and St. Gregory knew each other as children and rekindled their friendship while studying in Athens as adults. The two men became close friends who supported and challenged each other throughout their lives. After they finished their studies at the finest universities, they decided to devote themselves to a life of prayer as hermits. With input from Gregory, Basil composed a rule of life for monks, which still influences the monasteries in the Eastern Church, as well as Benedictine monks in the West.

Called to a more active life of service in the Church, they left the monastic life and were ordained priests, and eventually became bishops. St. Basil became Archbishop of Caesarea and St. Gregory became Bishop of Constantinople in what is modern day Turkey.

As bishops, both men were called upon to defend the Church from Arianism, one of the most damaging heresies; for it denied the divinity of Christ. St. Basil contributed to the Nicene Creed, which states that Jesus is “of one substance with the Father,” also expressed as “consubstantial.” In today’s first reading, written two hundred years earlier, the Apostle John could be speaking to the Arians when he said: “Anyone who denies the Son, does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.”

St. Basil and St. Gregory are Doctors of the Church because of their significant contributions to the Church’s teaching, as well as their holy lives. Their theological depth in responding to the heresy of Arianism, and their ministerial successes as bishops In contentious and polarized times (much like our own), came out of their deep prayer lives. Here is an excerpt of a prayer written by St. Gregory Nanzianzen:

For there is one longing, one groaning, that all things have for you.
All things pray to you that perceive your plan and offer you a silent hymn.

As 2025 begins, let us draw inspiration from St. Basil and St. Gregory for the new year. May we follow their example and ground all our relationships, and all our activities in prayer. As St. Gregory further prays:

In You, the One, all things abide, and all things run to you, Who are the end of all.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Patty Gillis is a retired Pastoral Minister. She serves on the Board of Directors at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center in Detroit, Michigan. Patty is currently a member of the Laudato Si’ Vision Fulfillment Team and the Passionist Solidarity Network.

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Scripture:

Numbers 6:22-27
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:16-21

Reflection:

Happy New Year!  

We begin this year with the beautiful, timeless blessing Moses shared with Aaron and the Israelites:

The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!

This passage is more than retelling a moment during the Exodus journey. This is our blessing, too. We begin the new year assured that God will be watching over us, caring for us and always loving us.

Today we celebrate the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, the oldest Marian feast day in the calendar. Luke’s Gospel returns to the visit of the shepherds following Jesus’ birth. He writes that Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” This is one of three moments when Luke uses a similar phrase. The other two are when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would have a son, and when Jesus was 12 years old teaching in the temple. As a woman of great faith, she reflected and prayed over these and many other significant events during Jesus’ life.

Mary, like most mothers, would have questions, lots of questions, for her Son. No one else in the Gospels comes close to spending as much time with Jesus. She raised Him, introduced Him to Jewish law and practices, accompanied Him in His travels, witnessed His ministry, remained with Him as He suffered and died. She did not simply observe. She needed to understand Him. Just imagine the conversations between mother and son.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that Mary returned to Jerusalem with the apostles and disciples following Jesus’ ascension. I believe Mary would have been a spiritual director for the early church community. She would have guided them to a deeper understanding of Jesus’ teachings.

Let us pray that Mary, the Mother of God, will guide us in this new year to a deeper relationship with her Son.

Mike Owens is coordinator of the Passionist Alumni Association and a member of the Migration Commission of Holy Cross Province. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Scripture:

1 John 2:18-21
John 1:1-18

Reflection:

Children, it’s the final hour.   -1 John 2:18a

That’s the first line of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  “It’s the final hour.”

One thing that comes to my imagination is the writers and editors of the Lectionary all sitting around a big table, worn from working into the wee hours of the morning, empty carafes of coffee and donut crumbs laying all over the place.  Some guy is asleep under the table, I’m pretty sure.  “They’ll need to be reminded that it’s the last day of the year.  Let’s use I John 2:18.”

Perhaps they’re right.  Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas…. The time has raced by for me.  The Baptist’s cry of “Prepare Ye the Way” has now become “I hope you’ve prepared the way.”  And now I feel a lot like I imagine those editors: weary from a long stretch of preparation and service. 

And now it’s New Year’s Eve!  Party and dance and music and eggnog (with a little extra nog, please). 

Wait — where did 2022 go?  I had all these plans for things I was going to accomplish.  Where are my running shoes; I have to get in shape.  I promised 365 days ago!  Where’s my pencil; I need to finish composing that choral work on the Cross, which I started in February!  Where’s my paintbrush; the house…

But wait, there’s more!  As I sit and reflect on the past 365 days, I’m forced to ask myself some very, very hard questions: Did I make room for God?  Did I let Christ thrive in my heart?  Did I reach out in love and care to others?  Did I call to apologize to that person that now hates me?  Did I forgive that person that betrayed me?

Was I Jesus’ hands to those in my little part of the vineyard?

Were you?

Mistakes are part of living life as humans… but Jesus gives us the most basic instruction: “Love as I have loved.”  And, dear friends, if we can do that, we have a good shot at a wonderful New Year.

————

Dear God of beginnings and endings,
the Alpha and Omega,
thank you for the gift of every hour,
even this last one. 

Please grant us the grace to let go of our regrets and failures
so we may live the new dawn of tomorrow,
and birth your love to the world.  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.

Scripture:

1 John 2:12-17
Luke 2:36-40

Reflection:

We look forward to Christmas, to the birth of the Child Jesus, for the feeling of anticipation in awaiting the arrival of the Savior of the world. We realize that as we age, we appreciate the joy of seeing others receiving gifts, rather than that anticipation from our youth of receiving. 

You may have experienced the feeling of anticipation – whether it is waiting for Christmas morning, a new birth, a new job, celebrating the vocation of marriage or the religious life. 

Yesterday we heard about the anticipation and reward of Simeon, who spent his life awaiting the fulfillment of the promise that one day he would see Christ – and the fulfillment of his promise was more than he expected as he not only met Christ but held him in his arms! Today we hear of Anna, a widowed woman who spent her entire life serving as a witness to Christ. 

Even though Anna was able to enjoy her marriage for only seven years, and was left childless and alone, she spent the rest of her life living the choice to serve God through her prayer and praise, in never-ending anticipation of his merciful grace. She specifically moved to Jerusalem so she could be near the temple! Anna’s sole purpose in life was to please God. She was a constant presence at the temple, in a state of fast and prayer. William Barclay once wrote: She had known sorrow, but she had not grown bitter. She was old, but she had never ceased to hope. She never ceased to worship. She never ceased to pray.

As Simeon received the Christ child and lifted him up to declare him as the long-awaited Messiah, Anna was there in the right place (the Temple) at the right time (as Simeon receives Christ in his arms). Anna now knows that her prayers of seeing Christ have been answered, and she continues her ministry in sharing what she has seen. 

One of the meanings of the name Anna is grace – how very, very appropriate. May God’s grace fill you as it did Anna, and may you have the dedication to our Lord, as did Anna, in service to the Almighty God in anticipation of his merciful reward. God bless you!

Patty Masson supports the Passionists from Spring, Texas.