Daily Scripture

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.

Scripture:

Philippians 1:1-11
Luke 14:1-6

Reflection:

In today’s compact first reading, St. Paul prays that the Philippians “discern what is of value.”  That brought to mind the following meditation:

When the time comes for our final accounting, when we stand before the Lord of Judgment, what will He ask us about our lives? Will He ask, “How many prayers did you say?” “How much money did you give to charity?” “Did you avoid sin?” These questions are important, but they aren’t the ones he will ask. I believe He will ask us something like this:

“Did you delight in my children? Did you give them affection, share in their wonder, bounce them on your knee and make them smile?

Did you care for my teens? Did you listen to them, affirm them and show them they were worth your time? Were you beside them in their searching? Did you believe in them?”

Did you share in the lives of my adults? Did you stand by them in their sadness and celebrate with them in their joys? Did you strengthen them in their failures and help them find peace?

Did you cherish my old folks? Were you patient with their infirmities and open to their views? Did you listen to their memories, help them in their loneliness and enjoy their company?

Did you… Did you love my people?”

This is the way of life that Jesus came into this world to teach us. If others see us, as his disciples, caring so greatly about people, they will have to conclude, “Their God must be a God of love.” If our lives have said that, we’ve said it all.

(Excerpted from the book, The Ten Things You Must Do Before You Die, by Alan Phillip, CP).

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

Scripture:

Ephesians 6:10 – 20
Luke 13:31 -35

Reflection:

Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power.
 -Ephesians 6:10

As I have been reflecting on the scriptures for today, I can’t help but think that they are perfect for where we are at this moment in our country and the world. I am sure many a prayer has risen to heaven to end the Covid virus or prayers for family and friends who have contracted the virus. Prayers for the healthcare workers and first responders. Prayers for protection. Prayers to get through home schooling children and many countless prayers for many other things.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is another example of how the scriptures give us what we need when we need it. He gives us the instruments to help get us through the strain of a pandemic. The uncertainty of the election and the change that seems to be occurring as our eyes are forced open to look at racism and inequality at the local, state and national levels. With his analogy of a soldier going to war, Paul tells us to put on “armor of God”, “gird our loins with truth”; “clothe ourselves with the breastplate of righteousness”; “hold faith as a shield”; “take the helmet of salvation”; “and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”. Let’s look at these words that I have italicized: God, truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and word of God. For me faith and the word of God stood out to the most. The scriptures have always been important to me and now all the more since March. My faith has grown into a deeper trust that God has my back if I trust in him. I had to dig deep to find the faith to go back to teaching on campus not knowing if I would catch the Covid virus. Our school has done an outstanding job of making it as safe as possible and I was very anxious the first couple of weeks. So far, so good. I know that I belong there to show the students and to support my colleagues that what we are doing is an important witness to the students that it is possible with adaptations to how we do school. We also have a very cooperative student body that also makes this possible. Whether it is conscious or unconscious we have all put on the armor of God and acted in faith and trust acting in hope and not fear.

How will I put on the armor of God today?

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus also acts with the armor of God. He trusts in the Father’s will for him and continues his journey to Jerusalem where he knows his end will be. He makes a prophetic statement to the Pharisees who have come to warn him, “Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose. While Jesus knew his purpose, we do not. We hope and believe that we are doing what God has asked of us for today. That is all that is asked of us. To trust in God. To search our hearts and listen deeply for God’s peace and love as we make our way through these tough days. Remember, there is a Resurrection. Remember, the Resurrection is about new life. Peace to you and your families as we make our way in faith and trust in God.

How can I focus on the Resurrection as I make my way through these hard days?

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