Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Ezekiel 18:21-28
Matthew 5, 20-26

Reflection:

Several years ago, while serving in Kentucky’s House of Representatives, a memorial resolution honoring a former U.S. Senator came to us for a vote. The recently deceased United States senator had supported the Viet Nam war over four decades before.

Along with many, I thought the war in South East Asia was a tragic mistake. Instead of speaking against the resolution for the former senator, I decided to be respectful and simply not vote on it.

The representative seated next to me noticed my failure to vote and asked why I had not voted.

“He was one of the people responsible for the Viet Nam War,” I explained.

The representative then asked a question that pierced my self-righteousness: “Don’t you believe in forgiveness?”

Without hesitation I pushed the green button on my desk, indicating my casting aside the grudge I had not realized I was carrying.

Being reconciled to one another, Jesus instructs us, is absolutely essential if we want a relationship with a God whose mercy is boundless.

We all want to be god-like in our judgment of one another. “I’ll show her!” “Who does he think he is?” “He hits you, you hit him harder.”  “I’ll never forget what she did!”

We learn these messages from early childhood and, if not checked by the Gospel message, we use them in business, among friends and neighbors and, worse of all, in our families.

Like my wise legislative seatmate, we can all use someone who pierces our wall of self-righteousness…someone who will remind us that we are to imitate God in extending mercy to all, even our worst enemies. That someone may be a trusted friend, confessor, spiritual director or spouse. But it ultimately comes down to examining our own consciences in our deep prayer time with Christ…and asking for forgiveness for ourselves.

Forgiving those who do us wrong not only frees us from the chains of wanting to settle a score, but, more importantly helps us understand our need for forgiveness from a loving God.

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

Scripture:

Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25
Matthew 7:7-12

Reflection:

Knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. -Matthew 7:7-8

“Knock, knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Dwayne.”
“Dwayne who?”
“Dwayne the bathtub! I’m dwowning!”

Most of us are familiar with knock-knock jokes. They are a simple form of humor that plays with puns in the form of first names. But if you’ve spent much time around young children, you’ve probably noticed that they don’t seem to get the form correct. For example, you might hear something like this:

“Knock, knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Apple.”
“Apple who?”
“Apple on your head!”

followed by peals of laughter and delight at how clever they are. So what does this have to do with today’s reading? Well, I think God like to play knock-knock jokes on us. But because our ways are not God’s ways and our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, they seem more like the children’s version. Jesus tells us to knock and we will be answered. Often when I knock on God’s door and ask for what I need, it seems there’s no connection between the answer I’m given and what I asked for. It might go something like this:

“Knock, knock!”
“WHAT DO YOU NEED, CHILD?”
“Riches.”
“THEN I WILL SEND YOU A SPECIAL NEEDS SON WHO WILL ADD NOTHING TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT BUT FILL YOUR HEART TO OVERFLOWING.”

You see, I think when I pray to God and ask for what I want, I’m way too specific on what the answer should look like. I need to let God answer my prayers in His own way. And I need to maintain an open heart, and a listening inner ear that is ready to recognize God in the reply. It’s like the old story of the man who was caught in a flood. He was told to evacuate, but he refused, saying, “God will care for me.” The waters continued to rise and his neighbors came by in a boat to rescue him, but he refused, saying, “God will care for me.” Finally he had to get on the roof of the house and a helicopter came to his rescue, but he refused, saying, “God will care for me.” He finally was swept away in the flood and was drowned (like Dwayne above). When he met God he said, “Lord, why didn’t you answer my prayers and make the waters recede?” God replied, “I sent you help three times, but you refused each time.”

My prayer for today is that I have the grace to hear God’s answer to me as He intends it.

Along with working as an independent teacher, Talib Huff volunteers and works at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights. You may contact him at [email protected].

Scripture:

Jonah 3:1-10
Luke 11:29-32

Reflection:

God Cares!  God Loves!

Today’s Scriptures highlight the actions of Jesus, and the Old Testament figures of Jonah and the king of Nineveh.  People were needy:  the crowds who followed Jesus wanted a “sign” of Jesus’ power; the entire ancient city of Nineveh was caught up in a web of destructive, evil ways.

No doubt, God cares – and responds to our needs in special ways.  The at-first reluctant prophet Jonah made his way to the large, evil city of Nineveh and began preaching to everyone the need for repentance and a change of heart.  The king of Nineveh heard and quickly responded to Jonah’s message, calling for a city-wide program of penance and change of heart.  And it happened!  Wow!

Jesus was sent to preach and heal, to give of himself and bring about a change of heart for everyone.  In today’s Gospel selection he chides the people who continue to seek “signs”, rather than acknowledge His words, wisdom, and witness – “something greater than Solomon…something greater than Jonah…”  He challenged the people to go beyond physical expressions of power — to powerful transformations of the human heart…from lives of selfishness to lives of selflessness.  God cares!  God loves!

Our Lenten prayer, fasting, and sacrifices are means of personally experiencing God’s care for us and our world – and encouragements to live lives that witness God’s transforming love for our needy world.  No doubt our world needs God’s love to change contemporary hearts that are besieged with mistrust, anger, fear, lust, impatience, etc. – as was the case in Nineveh and the world of Jesus’ earthly days.

These days God calls us to a more intimate communication (prayer), to a deeper sensitivity to the gifts and needs of our lives (fasting), and a greater outreach to those in any need (sacrifices).  May these days of Lent 2020 help us experience the depths of God’s love and care for us and our world!

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

Scripture:

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Matthew 25:31-46

Reflection:

Matthew presents Jesus the universal judge who presides over a grand assembly of the faithful and the many and discerns whether they have lived according to his gospel.

At first the scene might be on to evoke fear and concern in our hearts.

But let us look more deeply.

Yes, it is a teaching of Jesus that speaks of judgement, but it does this in a way to highlight that the gospel requires of us more than mere words and intentions. The essence of the teaching is that living the good news means acting in ways that are just, generous and that are outreaching to those less fortunate.

So we might notice that the ‘judgment’ – the statements of Jesus – are merely a statements about what already has been done, or failed to be done. It merely brings out a reality that has been present all along.

Secondly notice the element of surprise. Both those who have failed to reach out beyond themselves in order to care for others and indeed those who have in fact done this – are both surprised! Both express astonishment that in fact Jesus was to be seen, found and served in such moments.

Those who have failed to act generously in life are astonished that in every cry there was a chance to serve Jesus.

Those who have in fact reached out to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill and the incarcerated are equally surprised to find that in doing so they were serving Jesus too.

In all of this perhaps we see that acting justly, compassionately and caringly is an innate quality. It happens naturally and spontaneously as an expression of who we really are. Equally we see in this story the power of selfishness and self centredness to blind us and to prevent us from actin on what otherwise might be our true nature.

We are made for each other. We are social creatures. More so we are made in God’s image and likeness and so are essentially relational. A real expression of our nature is thus to reach out to others around us who need our help and concern.

There are many ways to reach out to the needy. To give but two examples of what I mean here.  The imprisoned are more prevalent than merely those in jails – there are many imprisoned by false self-images or bullied so that they shrink into the narrowest and loneliest of places to live. The hungry are not only on the streets but often in our midst as well fed people, who in fact hunger for affection or for rest or for spiritual nourishment. And the list goes on.

Let us tend the practice of compassion in our lives. Let it grow to be a natural and spontaneous response to need. In such ways we will develop the attitudes that underpin the responses that Jesus so ardently seeks in our world

The season of Lent is such an ideal time to make these renewal efforts Let us live these forty days in that spirit.

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

Scripture:

Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Reflection:

The readings for this first Sunday of Lent remind us of the deep realism of our Scriptures.  There is breathtaking beauty—the opening lines of the first reading from Genesis remind us that God has breathed the divine life within us.  Like a cosmic potter, God fashions a bag of clay and breathes into it, creating a living human being.  In the magnificent first chapter of Genesis that preceded this passage, with its mighty story of God’s creation of the universe, we learn that we have been made “in the image and likeness” of God—a similar affirmation of the inherent beauty and dignity of the human person.

But these lyrical affirmations are balanced by the account of the “fall” that commands most of this Sunday’s first reading.  Into the beauty of the universe step arrogance, violence, and the threat of death.  These opening chapters of Genesis portray the Bible’s understanding of the complexity of human life.  We are graced and sacred but also capable of failure and sin and marked by death, as reflected in the vivid stories of Genesis that follow: the lure of evil in the garden, the calamitous failure of Adam and Eve, the outbreak of violence with Cain and Abel, and the chaos of the flood that threatens the very existence of the world God created.  Thus, as history demonstrates, both beauty and death mingle in our complex heritage as human beings.

But it is also important that for the Bible death does not have the last word.  God regrets the destruction caused by the flood and promises Noah never to destroy the world, a promise sealed by the rainbow.  And eventually, God would make a pact with Abraham and Moses and the story of Israel’s redemption begins to unfold, reaching—in the conviction of Christian faith—its climax in the person of Jesus, the one who reveals God’s unconditional love for the world.

It is this vast drama of our salvation that is evoked in the readings for this first Sunday of Lent. During Lent we become aware of our frailty and mortality—the crunch of ashes on our foreheads at Ash Wednesday: “Remember, you are dust and unto dust, you shall return…”  But Lent leads to Easter and the divine promise of new, abundant, and unending life.

Also taking his cue from Genesis, Paul speaks of “two Adams” in his letter to the Romans, our second reading for today.   The sin of the first Adam ushered sin and death into the world; the “New Adam,” Jesus, brings an “abundance of grace” and new life into the world.  With the death and resurrection of Jesus, the long reign of sin and death has been shattered and hope restored.

That tension between the power of death and the power of life is played out in the drama of the gospel selection from Matthew.  The first Sunday of Lent traditionally begins with the account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.  Immediately preceding this drama, at his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus had been suffused with God’s life-giving Spirit and declared to be God’s beloved Son.  Now, like Israel of old, Jesus enters the desert and endures the assaults of evil.  But where ancient Israel had failed, Jesus prevails—faithful to his Father’s will.   Jesus matches each attempt of Satan to lure him away from his mission with a quotation from the Scriptures: “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”

The readings for this Sunday bring home to us the meaning of Lent which ultimately is a preparation for Easter.  These forty days are a time to take stock, an opportunity to realize our need for repentance and renewal.  But also, a time that reminds us of God’s enduring love for us and an invitation to bask in God’s limitless forgiveness and the promise of life unending.

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.

[This reflection appears in Fr. Senior’s regular column, “Perspectives on Scripture” in The Chicago Catholic newspaper and is used here with permission.]

Scripture:

Isaiah 58:9-14
Luke 5:27–32

Reflection:

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. –Psalm 86:11

Every four years we have an extra day in our calendar. An extra day! Twenty-four additional hours! I have been thinking about what I could do with an extra day. There is a function at school in the evening that is on my calendar to attend but the rest of the day is open to anything that I want to do. It is Saturday, so that is laundry time for me. I also workout with a friend in the morning. But still, time for something different if I can resist the temptation to fill it up with “things to do”.

The readings for today focus on our call to follow God. Three days into Lent and the Church continues to remind us that it is a time to grow closer to God. A time to reflect on how we are building up the Kingdom of God. Keeping the Sabbath and helping others in a time of need. Isaiah reminds us of the spiritual gifts that are given to us when we do good things for others and when our mind and heart are focused on God.

In the Gospel Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, to follow him. Now in the Gospel the next line is, “And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him”. So, he walked away from all the money that he was collecting at the customs post. I wonder how long that stayed on the table before people started grabbing the money? I am sure he was not popular with the Roman authority over this and the scriptures never mention that the authorities came after him. I would think he would be afraid to do such a thing. When Jesus called Levi that had to be a powerful spiritual experience for him to be moved to just leave everything behind.

Maybe that is what this extra day is about. Leaving the ordinary Saturday tasks for something extraordinary. Taking time for quiet reflection. Listening to music and taking time to just be. To enjoy the “extra” day as a gift to be explored rather than filling it up. I see Lent as a time to allow myself more experiences of just being. To read the Sunday readings and ponder them. To not turn on the television and fill the house with useless noise and spending time in silence. May you enjoy your extra day and discover what extraordinary experiences await you. Happy Lent!

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

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Luke 9:22-25

Reflection:

We begin another season of lent, contemplating what we can “give up”; how much chocolate or soda or gossip we can avoid for those forty days. But was that the intent of the comment, “take up your cross and follow me”? Isn’t it more? More about being Christ to others, more about serving the poor, the sick, the dying. If there is some way that passing up that Hershey bar helps someone, great; but, if there is something more valuable you can contribute to society in the form of service, why not try to make that your dedicated sacrifice – maybe it will turn into something as habit forming as a chocolate addiction!

God bless you!

Patty Masson resides in Houston, Texas.