Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17a
Matthew 21:23-27

Reflection:

The Scripture for today’s Matthew’s periscope has a group of the Chief Priests and the Scribes, and the other Synoptics Mark and Luke has the grouping to be Pharisees and the Elders.  The importance of these groupings represent the divisions which make up the membership of the Sanhedrin.  They are the religious, cultic, social, and legal make up in the Sanhedrin.  Their primary responsibility is to discern the truth and/or falsity of one who identifies themselves as a prophet.

This is the first time that Jesus is in the synagogue in Jerusalem.   It is also the last time Jesus will preach in the synagogue.  The religious leaders ask Jesus if He is a prophet?  Jesus doesn’t answer their question, but asks a question of them instead.  The question deals with the authenticity of John the Baptist.  Jesus asks the grouping “Is John the Baptist a prophet? or an imposter?  This method is a familiar rabbinic method.  To answer a question with a questions is a typical rabbinical method.  Jesus’ question silences the questioners, because to answer it one way would upset the Roman authorities, and to answer with another way would upset the crowds who acknowledge John the Baptist as a prophet.  Jesus reminds the questioners that the way their ancestors treated legitimate prophets in the past was to murder them.

If there is a lesson here it might very well be something that St. Francis De Sales said.  “It is not necessary to always speak, but if we do we must speak the truth”.  In a book on “How to get to yes with people we disagree with” there was a gathering of Generals who had different suggestions on how to marshal their troops and resources to win a war.  These men agreed First, when presenting a position they would never get personal.  Second, in presenting a position they keep focused on the issues.  Of course with this formula they won the wars.

Finally, Peter Drucker, Father of Modern Management, had this to say about how to act when two or more people come to an impasse:  Be firm, be fair, and be friendly!

Fr. Ken O’Malley, C.P., is a member of the Passionist Community at Sacred Heart Monastery in Louisville, Kentucky.

Third Sunday of Advent

Scripture:

Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading for Sunday (Matthew 11:2-11), we find that John the Baptist is now in prison, basically for having spoken “truth to power.” From prison he sends his followers to Jesus to ask Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” We may wonder why this man of faith, who recognized Jesus as the Messiah in the Jordan River, would ask such a question.

If we look back at last Sunday’s Gospel, John was describing the Messiah to the people: “I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” If we look at how Jesus related to the people, it is true that He was in conflict with the Pharisees and the scribes and the elders, but He did not seem interested in overthrowing them as the leaders of the people.

But even more to the point, John was in prison! If the Messiah was here, why was he still there? It’s not hard to understand where John is coming from. Even though this is the holiday season, and this Sunday in the Church is called “Gaudete Sunday,” and “Gaudete” means “Rejoice,” we may not feel we have much to rejoice about.

If we’re discouraged, as John seems to be, what do we do? When John’s disciples come to Jesus and asks their question, Jesus responds, not with fulfilling John’s expectations of Him taking an “ax” to the “root of the trees” (Matthew 3:10), but with fulfilling another kind of expectation, found in our first reading from Isaiah (35:5-6a,): “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.”

Hopefully, with this answer John regained his “sight,” and he could see that Jesus was indeed the one he was waiting for, even though He would fulfill God’s plan in an unexpected way. “But, Father,” you may ask, “What about me?” As far as I can see, I don’t see these wonderful things happening for me?” I know that it may not be happening for you now, and it may not have happened for you in a long time, but I believe it will happen for you. Again, it may not be in the way you expect. It may even require you to step out in faith, and help make it happen for someone else. But it will happen. God has not abandoned or forgotten us! Jesus is right with us in our troubles!

So as we make more and more room for Jesus, we rejoice. We rejoice about His love for us. We rejoice in His birth! We rejoice in His Passion and death! We rejoice in His Resurrection! And as we rejoice, we regain our sight of His love for us. We hear Him speak words of comfort to us. When we think we can’t go another step, we find the strength to keep walking.

And maybe, just maybe, we are able to see others as God sees them. We are not deaf to their stories, as others are not deaf to ours, and instead of shunning the “other,” we try to help them find joy in the love of God in Jesus Christ.

This joy, I think, is deeper than what we usually think of when we think of happiness. But it is real, and it is possible. May we make room for Jesus, and find joy in Him.

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is a member of the Passionist Community in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Scripture:

Sirach 48:1-4, 9-11
Matthew 17:9a, 10-13

Reflection:

During the first week of Advent, I could feel myself tempted to turn away from faith, from love, so stretched after having lost significant family members in these last two years. I had felt Jesus in their passing and yet in this moment I was deeply afraid of any further pain that might come in loving. The world of “what ifs?” arriving always viewed without present moment grace.

Then the scripture of Peter walking on water came Into my heart. Peter stepping out of a boat into turbulent seas looking straight into Jesus’ eyes. The wind distracting him and bringing fear back into play. Peter turning away from Jesus’ gaze and sinking. As I reflected on this scripture, viewing the emotions of grief as turbulent seas, faith and peace again found a soft place to land.  I need to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus.

But how? This personal God. This now invisible God. This Mystery. Unseen.

As we pray our prayers before communion, before the Blessed Sacrament, we come to know that He is seen. That we matter. Jesus did not spend His days breaking down the ins and outs of creation to prove the seed of its existence. His focus is fully on relationship. There was no question to Him who is at the center of it all. Through His Word and the Eucharist He comes to invite us, tell us, to love God and love our neighbor. We cannot see when our hearts become insular, small, protected, hidden.

His outstretched arms on the cross teach us the full stretch of love. Those unable to see and hear that love tried to pin Him in that pose as hate and fear-filled mockery. And yet, those same outstretched arms reflect what remains unseen without personally knowing him. His Heart, His Sacred Heart, that stretched beyond any human comprehension throughout His life and death.

His arms and heart opened wide to our suffering, to our sorrow, to our sins that harm love, pulling us into His love with His unfathomable consent to take it all. He cried out to His Father, as we cry out to His Spirit for the courage to live wider and deeper. To bear love, no matter how hard. To show how excruciating His anguish was we are told in Luke, that “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” at Gethsemane.

While the’ joy of Christmas is preferable sometimes the only true comfort comes from standing at the base of His cross covered in tears.

The gentle lyrics of a song rose as I finished this reflection:

“We have been told, We’ve seen his face,
And heard His voice alive in our hearts, Live in my love with all of your heart,
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” -David Haas

As we move into this third week of Advent, may we ponder today’s Responsorial Psalm, “Lord, make us tum to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.”

M. Walsh is a retreatant and friend of the Passionist community, with deepest gratitude for the charism and prayers for their vocations.

Scripture:

Isaiah 48:17-19
Matthew 11:16-19

Reflection:

Today’s Scripture comes from the section of Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus is beginning to get some serious opposition from the Jewish leadership. At the beginning of the chapter John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is “the one who is to come, or should we look for another” (v.3) I am willing to bet that they were looking for another because what we are treated to in today’s text is a resounding NO to Jesus’ message. It spells a rejection and a refusal to be moved to believe what they see and hear about Jesus.

How exasperating for Jesus. He has come to share his very self with humanity, even to giving up his life, and we cannot see our way to accepting his message of love. It was too radical for the Jewish leadership to accept then and even today. That is what it boils down to, at least it seems that way to me. If we think that this situation could only happen in Gospel times, then sadly we are very mistaken. Look around, look within!

Have you ever given your love only to have it thrown back in your face? It can be very hurtful and may leave a resentful attitude in our hearts. The miracle about Jesus here is that it doesn’t make him bitter. He willingly continues his mission. I admit to hearing his exasperation but then that is only the author putting those words on the lips of Jesus. I wonder what does the author wish us to understand today more than 2,000 years later at the close of the second week of Advent and on the feast of St. Lucy? The name Lucy means light. What beacon of light do you see and hear in this reading?

For me it is the last line of the text, “But wisdom is vindicated by her works” (at the end of verse 19).

Our first reading from Isaiah speaks to this wisdom and how both to recognize it and receive it. Although we are told how to achieve it, there is simply no earning it. It is a gift and it sets a beautiful future full of hope.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, our sixth grandchild was born—what joy is the gift of new life. This has been a year of babies in our family and among our friends. It fills me with hope to be surrounded by new life!

Psalm 1 also suggests that prosperity comes from being planted deeply in God. That will bear great fruit. Not like the wicked who ignore God’s commands.

How many times have we read these lines and judged those on the “wicked” side of Jesus? That is the easy default pattern. However, I believe the challenge for us is to go deeper with the text long enough to understand something new. The new here is to stay the course amid all the polarization and discouragement. To hope in new life for our future and trust in the divine plan for our world.

May we be firmly rooted in God so that we can stay the course. May we look to the future coming of Christ in our lives, daily. May we know what that looks like! Come, Lord, Jesus, come! Amen.

Jean Bowler is a retreatant at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, California, and a member of the Office of Mission Effectiveness Board of Holy Cross Province.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Scripture:

Zechariah 2:14-17 or Revelation 11:9a, 12:1-6a, 10ab
Luke 1:26-38 or Luke 1:39-47

Reflection:

This is not a meditation but a commentary which may inspire your prayer and devotion to Our Blessed Mother for our contemporary world. I share this with the help of the late, Fr. Virgilio P Elizondo, author and professor at Notre Dame University and the Mexican-American Cultural Center.

In the middle of our faith-shaping pilgrimage through Advent, we pause to celebrate one of the most dramatic, historic phenomena in the last 500 years in the Western Hemisphere – the visitation of our Blessed Mother to a simple Indian peasant, Juan Diego, a recent Christian convert. The encounter with Mary on the top of a hill known as Tepeyac, near Tlatelolco, once an Aztec center and the place where the final battle of the Spanish conquest had taken place just 10 years earlier.

Our Mary’s apparition is the entrance into the so-called “ ’New World’ which simply opened new territories where people could be segregated, dominated and enslaved; (from the perspective our Blessed Mother,) it is the entry into the real New World where men and women of all colors, ethnicities and backgrounds could live and work in peace, mutual respect, and harmony.” (Elizondo)

Our Lady is God’s special gift to America at the very beginning of the New World. Providentially, God would not allow the Gospel “to become an instrument of colonization and through Guadalupe” would assure that the Gospel would continue to heal, liberate and unite all peoples of this hemisphere. This new unity of peoples will be America’s true gift toward the formation of a real world community.” (Elizondo)

Such a grace-filled time in history! This appearance happens when the culture and the people were being annihilated. This divine intervention offered hope in the midst of one of the darkest moments in history.

It is amazing how in moments of great historical crisis, Mary has appeared once again to usher in the healing, liberating, unifying and saving presence of Her Son.

 “Truly she ‘lifted up the lowly’ (Luke1:52) as Juan Diego and millions after him are transformed from crushed, self-defacing and silenced persons into confident, self-assured and joyful messengers and artisans of God’s plan for America. (Elizondo)

Advent is God’s shaping of our lives, and the honing of our vocational commitments. Today Mary charges us with a mission. She spoke to Juan as the does to ourselves, “Am I not here, I who am your mother?”

She shows us how to meet our brothers and sisters where they are. Coming to know Mary comes with obligations. She claims us for God and asks us to do as she does. Through our encounter with those beyond or “safe zone,” we introduce others to Jesus. We “birth Him into the world,” where his presence is hidden. “Am I not here, I who am your mother?”

What is it Mary asks us to do in the “birthing of her Son?”

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P., is a member of the Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan.

Scripture:

Isaiah 40:25-31
Matthew 11:28-30

Reflection:

Why is God often late?  Consider:

– Calamities took Job’s family and wiped out his possessions before God spoke with him. Late.

– Except for Joshua and Caleb, all the Israelites who left Egypt died before they could enter the Promised Land. Forty years too late for them.

– Martha, sister of Lazarus who died shortly before Jesus arrived, chided Jesus. “Lord, if you had been here…” she said. But now, too late.

– Jairus’ daughter died before Jesus arrived. Too late.

– Zechariah and Elizabeth fervently prayed for a child until they grew old. Thanks for the message from God, Gabriel, but it is several years too late.

The list goes on.  We can sympathize with the skepticism of Israelites who heard God’s message from the prophet Isaiah, “Give comfort to my people. Tell them the end of their exile is near.”  To that message, they responded that God doesn’t understand them — “My way is hidden from the Lord.”  And what kind of just God is it that punishes them with an empire far more evil and monstrous than his people had ever been — “My right is disregarded by my God.”  God was late the day the Babylonian Empire invaded their land and destroyed their temple.  Too late.  They were discouraged and disbelieving of any message of prophetic hope.  They were truly in exile, not only from the homeland, but from God.

No doubt we can add our own experiences of God arriving late in responding to our needs, subjecting us to exile of loneliness, grief, or broken relationships.   Perhaps that is why Advent is important for us.  This is the time of learning to wait and not merely waiting, but waiting in hope.  Hope is that virtue that calls us to trust God, even in our darkest exile of seeming hopelessness.  This is the time when we pray “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel — and us — that mourn in lonely exile here.”

Advent is the time to embrace the message of Isaiah: “They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar and with eagles’ wings.”  The Advent message is unmistakable.  God does hear us, wants to lighten our burden and strengthen us.  Emmanuel will come for the Israelites and for us, if we will wait in hope.  God may not respond to our needs when we think he should and in the way we think best.  But he will respond as God always does, in the fullness of time.  God is late — but always on time.

Deacon Manuel Valencia is on the staff at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Isaiah 40:1-11
Matthew 18:12-14

Reflection:

I’ve always struggled with the parable of the lost sheep. It’s partly because although it was everyday experience 2000 years ago, I’ve never tended sheep nor met anyone anywhere who would qualify as a shepherd. It’s also hard because it seems foolish to leave ninety-nine sheep at risk, just to find one that had strayed.

But then I consider families who have a seriously ill child. The parents don’t abandon their other children, but they make tremendous sacrifices to get the best care possible. They may, for instance, leave other children with relatives while they travel to a particular treatment center. They may rely on friends to drive kids to activities while they transport the sick child to appointments, chemo, or doctors. They forego family vacations, devoting all family resources to their child’s life and health. Of course, if one of the other children truly needed something, they would try mightily to address that need as well. But the entire family is willing to sacrifice in order to get the one child back, doing whatever they can to return their child to the “flock”. And if they are successful, there is great rejoicing indeed!

In this parable, we aren’t told what provisions the shepherd made for the safety of the 99 while he was gone, but that isn’t the point anyway. The lesson is about God, not us. We all stray (sometimes significantly) or we may be in tremendous need due to circumstances. Yet no matter what we do or how far we go, God intensely longs for us and actively searches to find ways to bring us back home. Like the parents of the ill child, God’s love knows no bounds, God will sacrifice anything, and God will follow us even when we refuse to follow God. And we are called to act in the same way, not just for a family member in need but for all.

The challenge: Am I part of God’s “search team”, or am I quick to give up on another person when they have gone astray, sinned, or abandoned the practice of their faith? How securely do I cling to my own abundance, rather than risking what I own for a higher good? Do I allow myself to even see the need? In what ways can I change to become the embodiment of the parable’s shepherd on earth, allowing God to use me to gather the lost, forsaken, and lonely persons of this world?

These are tough questions, but we dare not ignore them. As individuals and as faith communities, we are not called to remain within our private pastures. We are sent out into the world, to search for God’s beloved children, let them know they are loved, and bring them back home.

Amy Florian is a teacher and consultant working in Chicago.  For many years she has partnered with the Passionists.  Visit Amy’s website: http://www.corgenius.com/.

Scripture:

Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Luke 1:26-38

Reflection:

Thoughts on Mary’s Immaculate Conception

Imagine the experience of Mary being greeted by the angel Gabriel. A good translation says that Mary was utterly ‘confused’, terrified might also be appropriate because Gabriel responds with a strong, ‘do not go on fearing’. Mary hears, ‘you will conceive a son, his will be the throne of David and he will rule over the house of Jacob’. Mary, unlike Eve who acts without thinking, stops and asks, ‘how can this be?’ Conceiving a child, a Savior, God’s action, a leader for her people. How fast could she process this incredible information? Could a lifetime of thinking about this encounter make it easier to say, ‘yes’? This is the moment when God’s grace is reaching out. It is the beginning of ‘the irrational season when love bloomed bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason there would have been no room for the child’. (Madeline L’Engle).

St. Bernard stops time between the explanation of Gabriel, that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and the power of the Most High will overshadow her, and Mary’s answer. We peek into the mind of Gabriel. The angel is frightened Mary will say no. How great is this decision placed in the hands of so young a woman? If she says ‘no’, God will have to start the long process of preparing for a savior all over again. In this forever moment of waiting Gabriel, the angels of heaven, Adam and Eve, all creation hold their breath as they await the word of Mary. They pray, ‘Please say yes and save us!’ And Mary says ‘Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you say’.

Conceived immaculately, Mary is different than all the daughters of Eve. Mary didn’t receive from her foremothers what tilts us to put ourselves ahead of God and our brothers and sisters; to think our way or the highway, our will over the one who loves infinitely. Was Mary then in the same place as Eve in the garden? Both of them knowing God as they did. Was the new Eve more like Eve than any other of the daughters of Eve? Someone has offered an interesting meaning to the words, ‘Where are you?’, spoken to Adam and Eve who after eating the apple hid from God. God was not asking about a geographical location, but to Adam and Eve, ‘how do you feel now? Are you where you should be in our relationship? Are you where we should be together?’

Mary makes herself one with the will of God. How does that translate into her life? She brings her son into the world of the poor and will become homeless, a refugee. Mary the mother of the Savior is not just a bearer of life. Her grace is that of other mothers to guide their children and to sometimes launch them! ‘Do whatever he tells you’, she says to the waiters. Unwelcome in his hometown, ridiculed and rejected, Mary must have learned so much about suffering, power and forgiveness. She stands beneath the Cross and will receive her son into her arms. No one could have suffered the Passion so much as Mary because she is one with her Son, one in his suffering, in his love of the Father and all of God’s children, all of God’s creation.

As we celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception God’s gift to her is a gift to us all. We may be afraid of that gift. Mary will say to us, ‘Do whatever he tells you’. To drink of that wine, to do His will, is the yes to love God as God wants to be loved.

Fr. William Murphy, CP is the pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Jamaica, New York.