Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7
Acts 10:34-38
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Reflection:

Several years ago, while on a retreat at Mater Dolorosa, Fr. Mike Higgins gave a presentation on the baptism of Jesus. His reflections in that presentation changed my frame for Jesus’ baptism. Frankly, I naively thought that Jesus chose to be baptized as an example of what we should do, and I didn’t ponder much beyond that concept. Certainly, I believe by virtue of our own baptism, just as in the case of Jesus’ baptism we hear the voice of God our Father calling us his beloved. We are all his beloved son or daughter. (v. 22)

In the scene in our Gospel from Luke we read that after all the people had been baptized…and Jesus also… as if it was an afterthought, a point to be added and not the main event sufficiently remarkable enough to open heaven. In the text we have the Trinitarian scene, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as the people wonder if John might be the Christ. John quickly points out that he was not.

Fr. Mike invited us to imagine the scene where Jesus entered the Jordan and was baptized. John was performing a baptism of repentance, the forgiveness of sin. Imagine the pouring of water literally washed away the sin of the people. Jesus entered that same water and immersed himself completely in our sin. He enters fully and intentionally into our chaos. Might his very act of emerging from the Jordan; being fused in our humanity—our sin, be what opened the heavens and called forth the Spirit.

We hear the phrase often; Jesus took on our sin—ultimately, he carried it to the cross. Forgiven. Gone for all eternity.  And God the Father blesses him and us—God our Father sees our humanity as beloved.

Now, imagine for a moment if we were to freeze the scene as Jesus emerged fully bonded with our human sin; we may even begin to identify our sin. Are we tempted to think that this is unacceptable? Does it make us too uncomfortable? Thoughts like, “he absolutely cannot take on my sin—my unforgiveable sin; I am not worthy,” begin to take shape. Further, he must not die for that sin of my brother or neighbor because that sin is simply unforgiveable.

This may feel a bit fanciful.  Yet, isn’t that what we are tempted to do in our humanity as we live out our lives? Somewhere deep within, do I deny that Jesus took on all sin and obliterated it forever? With echoes affirming this concept in both the first and second readings; Isaiah’s suffering servant tells of peace, healing and justice; The Acts of the Apostles remind us that God shows no partiality and neither should we.

While I completely understand that some wounds, some places of unforgiveness, need to be worked out over a lifetime. Is it possible that when we hold unforgiveness in our hearts, either towards ourselves or others, we hold back the gift of the cross of Christ? Freely given to us and for us.

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.

Scripture:

1 John 5:5-13
Luke 5:12-16

Reflection:

Some years ago, during a retreat team meeting at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, the topic of faith came up during our discussion.  Dr. Michael Downey, then part of the team, offered this comment.  “The opposite of faith is not doubt.  The opposite of faith is smug certainty.”  It is an insight I’ll not soon forget.  Like Dr. Downey, the leper in today’s gospel also offers insight and a powerful image about true faith.  No smug certainty here.  Rather, he reveals a radical trust in God, and a faith undergirded by humility.

“Lord, if you wish,” he says to Jesus, “you can make me clean” Lk 5:12b).

Because leprosy made one ritually unclean, and anyone who touched a leper also became unclean, lepers were forbidden to live with others.  This was a cruel, but necessary way to prevent the spread of this disease in a community, as well as the risk of ritual defilement.  Indeed, the social consequences were as bad as the disease itself.  Lepers were condemned to live out their lives at the margins of society.  They were effectively alienated from family and community, and worship in the Temple.  They lived lives of lonely exile.

“Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it.  Be made clean” (Lk 5:13).

With these words, Jesus healed the leper in more than one way.  He healed him, not only of the debilitating effects of his leprosy, but Jesus also restored him, integrated him to his community and place of worship.  With Jesus’ healing touch, this man no longer wandered in alienation from God or God’s people.

Does our faith resemble that of the leper?  It should.  A faith like his can heal us of our own leprosy of sin that alienates us from God and those whom we have hurt by our transgressions.  Christ invites us to approach him in faith and profound humility, and to utter the words “If you wish, you can make me clean.”  With hand outstretched to touch us, Jesus will restore us from our self-imposed, debilitating alienation, even as he speaks words of love to us: “I do will it. Be made clean.”

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

Scripture:

1 John 4:19-5:4
Luke 4:14-22a

Reflection:

People who heard Jesus were amazed at the wisdom coming from his mouth. Or at least some of them were. Others took offense at his teachings because he turned power structures on their heads. People in Jesus’ time believed that wealth and position were signs of God’s favor. Showing off was elevated to an art, whether the topic was fine jewels or the length of one’s prayer tassels. Both secular and religious leaders were often in competition with each other for status.

Today we encounter those same misperceptions. Very popular Christian preachers teach that God wants us to be healthy, wealthy, and successful, and they assert that achieving these is a sure reward for one’s faith. Millions of people follow their teachings, donate generously to their “ministries”, and pray that they, too, may become God’s highly favored rich class. Our everyday language subtly but surely reinforces that view.  We talk about being blessed by God only when things are going well, everyone we love is healthy, and we have all the material things we need. We believe that if we do things right, please and obey God, and act as “good Christians”, then we deserve to live well (according to a definition of “living well” that is very close to the prosperity preacher’s).

But Jesus scorned the idea that it is a sign of God’s favor to be wealthy, well-regarded, or hold positions of importance and prestige. Instead, he taught, it is a sign of God’s favor if you are known for your love of all. He plainly stated that rather than loving power, control, or money, we cannot claim to follow God unless we love PEOPLE. His focus was on the dignity and worth of each person he encountered, and especially those marginalized ones who had been denied respect and love by the self-righteous believers of his day.

We can too easily follow the path of those in Jesus’ time and declare ourselves righteous and good people, as evidenced by our many “blessings”, and yet ignore what Jesus defines as the heart of his message – love. John puts it in no uncertain terms when he states, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.” That’s pretty strong language!

Take a minute with me and think about all the people you have brushed aside, looked past, or actively turned away in the past week or two. Perhaps you found them unattractive or not as intelligent as you. Perhaps their accent is difficult to understand. Perhaps they practice a different faith tradition or eat different foods than you do. Perhaps they are on the street begging for attention and coins.

Or, as is often the case, it might be someone in your personal circle. It might be a friend who hurt you, a family member you don’t trust, a colleague whose political beliefs clash with yours, or a peer who got the promotion you wanted. It might be someone you envy because you recognize that the person is smarter, more engaging, more attractive, or holds other qualities that you wish you had but don’t. There are an infinite number of reasons to exclude others, refuse to share resources, fail to seek understanding, withhold forgiveness, shun vulnerability, and protect ourselves within our own fortified world. Unfortunately, many people today are making full use of every one of those reasons.

Yet our command from Christ is exactly the opposite – include, share, understand, forgive, be vulnerable, and protect others. Love unreservedly. Love everyone. Love your enemy. Love those who persecute you. Love the sinner. Love the leper. Love the poor. Love the migrant. Love ALL of God’s people, and treat them as your own. This is a much scarier proposition, especially in today’s hostility-filled environment. Anyone who loves those cast aside risks being cast aside themselves. Anyone who stands up for what is right may be cut down. Anyone who speaks truth to power could end up getting crucified.

As we come to the end of this Christmas season, steeped in the wonder of the incarnation and God’s earthly presence, I pray that we may continue to give birth to the God of love in our world. Start with just one of the people you thought of earlier. Choose differently with that person. Give forgiveness, acceptance, resources, or understanding. Then, choose another one and do the same. Let’s work together in our own small ways to bring the Gospel to life. Let’s live what we just spent an entire season celebrating.

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:

1 John 4:11-18
Mark 6:45-52

Reflection:

By Camel or Boat, Bewildered or Awed We Go For as Witnesses

The gospels this final week of Christmas season show various manifestations of Jesus’ power, not unlike the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary. Matthew who tells the story of the Magi taking the good news of the newborn King of the Jews to their lands, will end his gospel telling the disciples to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing and teaching, and knowing that Jesus is with us until the end of time. We who have stood before the mystery of the Incarnation like those wise men, are reminded of our work for the reign of God.

To begin this week we read in Matthew of Jesus going throughout the land and healing every type of illness, and proclaiming that the reign of God is at hand. Tomorrow is the parallel reading from Luke when Jesus inaugurates his ministry, reading in the synagogue from the scroll of the prophet Isaias, ‘to free the captive and to bring sight to the blind’.

The reading of the multiplication of the bread is a manifestation of Jesus that combines Jesus’ teaching with his sharing the bread, like the Eucharist, both the word of God and the body of Christ. The story continues today as Jesus meets his disciples on a stormy sea, rowing with the wind in their face, in darkness surrounding them – a situation that resonates with their mental attitude, ‘they were utterly bewildered, for they had not understood the meaning of the loaves, but rather their heart was hardened’. Note the collective response, ‘their heart’.

We missed the reading from John of the wedding at Cana this year as part of our post-Christmas readings due to the unfolding of the calendar, but we hear in our final weekday reading that Jesus is the bridegroom in our midst. Our bridegroom’s heart will never harden, and we are invited to grow our hearts to the size of his!

The Christmas season has filled us with the gift of the Father’s love, Mary’s emptiness, a baby who is the God-hero, gift and surprise. The Passion too we have seen in the shadows. In the fullness of the reign of God the sun will be no more, it is not necessary since the light of God will be our light. And the medicinal leaves of the trees by the abundant water of the Heavenly City will bloom each month – we won’t need refills! – so we will be full of life and new energy. Let us hold onto the joy of the Incarnation as we go now to live, proclaim and share the reign of God that is the privileged work before us.

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

Scripture:

1 John 4:7-10
Mark 6:34-44

Reflection:

In celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord on Sunday, we were reminded that for God there are no   outsiders. All of creation is under the bright Light that came when Jesus Christ was born (“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” John 1). The ‘revelation’ of God in Jesus Christ was to bring about more clearly the universal love of God. Everyone can pray “our” Father.  No one is excluded.  Everyone is included in God’s circle of love, and therefore every single person in this world is my sister or brother. I am called to live my life in ways that show respect and love for God’s family.

The readings today amplify the theme of this great revelation of God’s love. The breaking of the bread and its being shared is a symbol of the life of the Christian community, where all the resources of the community are shared. In fact, resources mysteriously seem to multiply as people share with one another. Additionally, there was bread and fish left over to share with those who were not present.

Notice that Jesus does not distribute the bread and fish himself. He asked his disciples to help him. Is that how Jesus acts today? People come to know Jesus today through our thoughtful deeds and words. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.”

Like the fragments of bread and fish, God’s love is in abundance. As it flows into you, let it flow beyond you to others. It is impossible to separate God’s love for me and my love for others. We cannot have one without the other.  Our Christian life, then, is about being loving persons. As St Paul the Apostle says in his famous passage in the first letter to the Corinthians, “If I have not love, I am nothing.”

The source of my ability to love, especially when I don’t feel like showing love, is not within  myself. “Love consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.” The evidence is in God’s sending “his son as an offering for our sins”. Our Founder, St. Paul of the Cross, powerfully preached that Jesus, hanging on the cross, is the most dramatic sign of God’s love for us, a love that is entirely free and never earned by any action of mine.

Look at Jesus on the Cross, offer a prayer of gratitude to him and then go and pass that love to anyone you meet today. Let the Light shine brighter as you help Jesus distribute the bread and fish.

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., is director of the Province Office of Mission Effectiveness (OME). He resides in Chicago.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Often, I think back to the ‘50’s when growing up and attending Mass with my father who liked to go to the first Mass of the day, 6:30 am, where it was easier to get a seat. That was not true of the later Masses when my mother would go.  You had to get there early if you wanted to be assured of a seat. That’s not a problem today. Even attending Midnight Mass without a ticket at the Cathedral this Christmas, I had no trouble getting a seat.

I’m not sure what this means, but when I read in today’s Gospel selection: “…And great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan followed him.” (MT 4:25) I wonder where are those great crowds today? Don’t we want to learn today? Don’t we want to be healed? Where do people go to be healed today?

Many years ago I heard the whole gospel message summed up in the simple phrase, that I am lovable and I can love. Now hearing that once was not enough to change my heart, in fact, I need to hear that over and over, even today on a daily basis, I am lovable and I can love. Experiencing love and being loved for me has been a lifetime process. Still today after attending Sunday Mass all my life, and praying and meditating on a daily basis, I often find it hard to believe. You mean, there is a God who created this world I live in, who personally loves me and wants me to be happy, joyous and free? That can’t really be.

While I don’t categorize just the “good” things that have happened to me today as the sign of God’s love for me, I can look over my day and realize that I am truly blessed or loved. I’ve eaten three healthy meals, I’ve spend time with others who share their experiences, and I can come home on a cold winter’s day and sit by the fire with my cat where we both bask in the warmth of not only the heat from the fire, but also in each other’s company. My cat likes to be with me. I am truly blessed.

Help me dear God, to spread that Good News to each and everyone I meet, to the person next to me at Mass, to the beggar on the street, and to all I come in contact with today, then maybe I will learn to look at other measures than the number of attendees at Sunday Mass to see that Your Gospel is still being preached and heard today.

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

Feast of the Epiphany

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Where do I meet Jesus, the Christ?

How curious the Gospel writers include the lowest of the lowly…dirty, rag-clothed shepherds…as well as foreign upper crust magi to be the first to get it about the baby. Was the point to reveal the inclusive love of Jesus?

It is so easy for me to find a comfortable, isolated setting to live. Nice neighborhood, safe streets, surrounded by life’s best amenities. Real estate developers speak of EXCLUSIVE places to live as the most coveted. Away from the rift raft, the criminals, the drug dealers.

But that is not the Christian Way.

The teaching of Christ is inclusivity. Everyone welcome.

But more than welcoming, we are told that it is being with those our culture shames and devalues where we find the most valued of all: Jesus the Christ.

Hard to live this way in our world. I avoid the beggar on the street, looking the other way when one gets into my space. I’d rather the sanitized care for the poor: give a donation to St. Vincent DePaul Society or a homeless shelter.

Several years ago I read Robert Coles’ book on Dorothy Day. The renown Harvard psychiatrist recalled entering St. Joseph Catholic Worker store front in New Your City’s notorious Bowery neighborhood. He saw Dorothy for the first time sitting at a table with a man talking nonsense. She listened to his every incoherent word. When she looked up and recognized the famous doctor she asked “Which one of us would you like to speak with?” Coles commented that his first impression of the saintly woman was the message of equality. She did not presume he wished to meet her; the troubled street guest was no better than she.

Typical Dorothy Day. She saw the face of Christ in everyone…the important, the poor, the mentally twisted, the addict, the prostitute, the wealthy, the powerful and the weak.

Isn’t this is the meaning of Epiphany.

This feast, one of the grand ones in our faith tradition, prods me out of any cocoon I have created to insure nothing overwhelms or agitates me. My task, instead, is to embrace everyone, without discrimination. I am called to live this way in my family, my circle of friends, my neighborhood, parish and yes, in my entire world. It means, in Pope Francis’ words, to build bridges, not walls.

The message is, in fact, counter-cultural in today’s world. But the Gospel has always been counter-cultural. That’s why the One who preached it was crucified.

Jim Wayne is a board member of the Passionists Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Office, state legislator, and author of The Unfinished Man. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

1 John 3:11-21
John 1:43-51

Reflection:

Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.  ~1 John 3:18

In our first reading today we have a selection from John’s first letter. In this scripture we have a clear teaching on how we might go forward into this young, new year with confidence.

In the reading, the author makes a strong case for a simple message: it’s all about love. If we have true love in our hearts for one another all will be well. But we must not carry this love as a hidden, secret thing. We are called to live out this love in our lives. This love is to be expressed and experienced constantly. And if we somehow falter, we need only to turn back to the love the Christ shows to us. This will help us rekindle the flame that may burn low in the trials of daily life.

So how do we show this love? There thousands of different moments (86,400 seconds, to be exact) throughout the day where we can pause in our own agendas and give someone else our time or attention. To those close to us it may be as simple as doing a chore that is on another’s to do list. Or bringing them an unasked-for cup of tea.

But what of the dozens of people I encounter as I go through my life that I will never see again? Can I slow down enough to acknowledge them, to truly thank them for their help? Can I share a little bit of who I am with them and inquire and listen to who they are?

Opening ourselves up to another and sharing our presence can be a great kindness in this busy world. It can remind us that we are all on this journey together. Slowing down and giving of themselves is the gift that both the shepherds and the Magi gave.

I pray that as I continue through this Christmas season I take the time to show love to my sisters and brothers by my true presence.

Talib Huff is a lay member of the retreat team at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights. He may be reached at [email protected].