Daily Scripture

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Las Posadas is a popular Latino Advent tradition.  The faithful process on nine evenings with candlelight, reenacting the journey Mary and Joseph took from Nazareth to Bethlehem, searching for lodging (posada) where Mary could give birth to the baby Jesus.  When they were rejected in place after place, they were forced to seek shelter a stable where the Christ Child was born.

Spanish friars introduced this tradition in the 15^th century to the forcibly colonized people of Mexico as a way of converting them to Christianity.  Even though I have no facts to back me up, nevertheless I am convinced that within a short time Las Posadas became a ritual of resistance embedded within an ostensibly charming tradition by a people forced to wear the yoke of a foreign culture.  This was no mere effort to convert a people to a different religion.  This was a forced conversion of traditions, culture, and language by the dominant Spanish power.

Such a political understanding of Las Posadas has certainly been the case in our time for many communities throughout the nation.  In Boyle Heights, the poorest barrio of Los Angeles, for example, and in Billings, Montana, the faithful organized Las Posadas processions to advocate for the poor and affordable housing, and immigration rights.  In the central California town of San Juan Bautista, El Teatro Campesino with its powerful theater of political resistance, annually lead the community in Las Posadas with Mary and Joseph dressed as campesinos seeking shelter, fair wages and decent working conditions against a faceless and oppressive agribusiness.

Similar implications of injustice and oppression could not have escaped the indigenous people of Mexico as they were led in Las Posadas led by the Spanish priests.  Like Mary and Joseph, they undoubtedly experienced the pain of rejection, class inequality, discrimination, and displacement.  In this nine-day journey of resistance, they must have they carried the hope that the God who acts in history would one day unshackle them from their oppressor.  In the long December darkness, within the posada songs, the Mexican people may have heard the haunting echo of Isaiah: “Comfort, give comfort to my people” (Is 40:1).

Three-thousand years earlier, God gave comfort to another people similarly forced to assume foreign values in a foreign culture.  The Judeans had suffered a generations-long Babylonian exile.  Through the prophet Isaiah, however, God sent them a message of comfort.  Indeed, this was more than a mere message.  This was a proclamation of “glad tidings” and “good news” – the pivotal term for gospel.  And the good news was that God was about to reveal himself, make himself known, in the oppressive circumstance of their lives.  Get ready, Isaiah tells his people.  “In the desert prepare the way of the LORD…then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed” (Is. 40:3-5).  Isaiah is arousing hope and a vision of stunning possibility among the Judeans.  Get ready; your exile is about to end.  Centuries before Babylon, the Israelites cried out in their shackled Egyptian slavery.  God heard their cry, and through Moses, led them to freedom, their Exodus.

God’s self-revelation is always manifested in acts of salvation, in Egypt, in Babylon – and in a town in Bethlehem.  “God so loved the world, that he sent his only son” (Jn 3:16).  Isaiah’s proclamation of glad tidings, good news, is our good news today, our gospel.  This time, God’s self-revelation came about incarnationally, through a weak and vulnerable infant.

In this season of Advent, we sing the anthem: “O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.”  In many ways and on many levels, we are those exiles, displaced, for example by sin, by consumerism, or addiction.  Others of us are exiled, displaced by poverty, homelessness, political oppression and violence with doors slammed shut, no posada, no room.

Amid this darkness, we are to remain hopeful.  “Comfort, give comfort to my people.”  Isaiah is ever the “disrupter for justice,” as Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann describes the prophets.  Isaiah tells his people to get ready for their freedom, their exodus from the Babylonian oppressor.  Isaiah’s message never changes.  It is simply re-interpreted for different times and circumstances.  Get ready to journey from displacement to restoration, from alienation to reconciliation, from the rejection of lodging to the posada of a stable, and from darkness into light.  Advent is a time of hopeful anticipation.  In the meantime, we await in ritual resistance, refusing to be conformed to this world, but ready to be transformed by the coming of Messiah.

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 35:1-10
Luke 5:17-26

Reflection:

It is an Ignatian practice to put oneself into the stories of scripture and see what can be learned. The first time I did this with the Gospel story of the paralytic, I imagined myself as that man, lying miserably on my mat at home. Suddenly, my friends burst into the house with stories of a miracle healer who could make me walk. Brimming with excitement, they pick up my mat and start running through the rough stone streets, causing me to hang on for dear life. When we reach the house where Jesus is, there are so many people we can’t get in. Somehow, my determined friends manage to climb up onto the roof, me and my mat in tow! They start literally ripping the roof apart until they have a big enough hole, and then breathlessly lower me down until I am face-to-face with Jesus.

Trembling, I look up at this miracle worker, waiting for his words. And what do I hear? “Your sins are forgiven.” ………….  WHAT? I thought you were going to make me walk! What do you mean, my sins are forgiven? What kind of a healer are you? ……. In other words, I thought that I’d be hopping mad!

But then I did a double take. I thought about the sick, dying, and grieving people I’ve worked with, and especially those who lived with disabilities. Combining their experience with the gospel story, I re-imagined a very different possibility.

Maybe when Jesus said those words, for the first time in my life, I realized there was someone who looked at me and didn’t see a disability. Maybe I recognized his insightful wisdom that the kind of healing I really needed was not outward and physical, but interior and more deeply rooted. Maybe I needed to be healed of the pain I had caused others when I took my frustration out on them, healed of my lack of acceptance of myself, healed of the guilt I felt when I considered myself little more than a burden, and healed of my distancing from God when I blamed God for my circumstances. Maybe, just maybe, instead of being angry, my heart was pierced, I felt completely loved just as I was, and I cried for joy.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for the bystanders, who loudly refused to believe that Jesus could forgive sins. So he acquiesced and said, “Rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” And that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t get up and throw a party. In fact, the story seems almost anti-climactic, and perhaps at that point it was. Perhaps I had been healed in the most important ways, and being able to walk was just the extra bonus – nice, but not so necessary anymore. So I unceremoniously walked home praising God.

There are many lessons in this story. One that is often overlooked is exactly the point of my reflection: When we pray for healing, God always heals. But God heals us in the ways we most need healing, and those may not be physical healings at all. Sometimes we need a healing of relationships, or healing from hurt and abuse, or spiritual healing, or even healing into a peaceful death. So when we pray, we need to allow God to act as only God knows how. We need to allow God to heal us and our loved ones where we most need it, rather than in the very narrow definition of healing that we intend.

Every day since I engaged in this practice, I decided to begin my prayer by asking God to heal me where I most need healing. Then, when I pray for someone else, I ask for the same thing. One example of such a prayer: God of compassion, your daughter Mary is hurting.  Look upon her with love, see all the places that need your healing touch, and embrace her in those places. If there can be a physical healing, then please, O God, let it be. But we trust that you will heal her in the ways she most needs it, filling in holes that are empty, repairing what is broken in her life, and raising her up where she is brought low. We trust in your goodness and rely on your loving power, for you are our God forever and ever.  Amen.

In fact, I prayed this prayer with my mother last month as we walked her on her journey, entering her into hospice care in mid-November. God did indeed heal her, but not physically. She died and went to her eternal home on the feast of Christ the King.

In our broken world, filled with hate, division, prejudice, and violence, we need healing more than ever, and I dare say, the type of healing we most need is rarely physical. In fact, if all those hurting, afraid, broken people who feel justified or compelled in carrying out abuse, exclusion, and violence were healed in their hearts, our society and world would be a very different place.

This Advent, then, as we work to birth Christ in our world, let’s join together to pray that all people may be healed where they most need healing, that they may be made whole and brought into the awareness of God’s love for them and for all people. Let’s pray and let’s work tirelessly to be instruments of God’s healing and loving power. If we start with ourselves and work out to encompass our neighborhoods, cities, nation, and globe, we may yet be able to make straight the path and see the glory of God on this earth.

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:

Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Luke 3:1-6

Reflection:

Let Us Be Herald’s of Good News

Lady Jerusalem is mourning. Her children have died in war and been carried away in servitude, there is chaos, oppression, and God has not saved them. Where is our God?

Isaias watches this mother who mourns, climb to a high point of the temple. She  looks to the horizon where her children disappeared. Then she takes off her black mourning robes, puts on her dress that speaks of God’s justice and adorns her hair with a display of glory. She witnesses that God will bring back those to whom God is bound by a covenant of love. The divine gift of joy settles over her as rebuilding life from the ruins begins. Mercy and justice are the companions who return with her children.

A 2007 movie, “The Visitor” tells the way grace breaks into the worn out life of a recently widowed college professor. With neither hope nor meaning he returns to his New York apartment that he had not visited for several months only to find that an unknown couple had moved in and were living there. They were scammed. They pack and immediately prepare to leave. Unlike himself, they are young, one a musician, the other a humble woman with an artistic eye who makes simple jewelry that she sells on the street. He is from Syria, she from Senegal. The professor does not let them get far, but calls them back until they can find a room. An unlikely, tentative friendship begins, and this over the hill professor is taught to play African drums. The story becomes one about justice, alienation and relationships. Through compassion and dialogue barriers are overcome and a life giving friendships are created. A mistaken arrest ends in a deportation, his girlfriend’s love leads her to follow him out of the country, and Walter finds his place and his joy with a group in Central Park who play very good drum music!

The joy and the hopes, the grief and anxieties of the men and women of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted – these are the joy and hopes, the grief and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. So begins the Pastoral Constitution of the Church.

It is good that we can put out Christmas lights in the dark nights of Advent. Advent candles in our homes or churches are good symbols, but all of those colored lights on trees, doorways and roofs, lining the streets, are festive! They shine in Advent’s darkness reminding us that a weary people is out there, inching their way along, stumbling and falling. They long for the peace of Jerusalem, the hope of the New Jerusalem, like scattered sheep and strays they want a shepherd, they are the anxious, the worrywarts, those with not quite enough, the sick, the down trodden and the neglected.

May grace invite us to be heralds of Good News, crying out that graciousness of heart and spirit makes straight roads and eases the burdens of tired people. We can smooth out places that are impassable because of fear and prejudice and intolerance. In barren places and wastelands we can bring life. See highways leading to our Lord that appear where paths were first cut by the humble steps of someone toward reconciliation.

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

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

The story of Adam and Eve has fascinated us throughout the entire Christian era. It is a symbolic and foundational story – and it is one shared not only by the Jewish and Christian faiths but also by Islam (in a slightly amended form).

So why is the story of Adam and Eve featured on this Feast day where we honour Mary?

Often we only focus on Adam and Eve’s free will decision – one that leads them to disobey God – and we then contrast this with Mary’s free will decision to say ‘yes’ to God. And this is a valid reflection.

But perhaps today we might look at Adam and Eve and see that their story, at its deepest level, highlights the fact that God has been the creative force behind human evolution and has loved humanity from its very origins. More so it gives us a reference point and contrast through which we might see that the ‘new moment’ of creation – when the Word became flesh – is truly a new step in our evolution in that through Jesus we find our way to the Father and to sharing life to the full with God.

As Paul writes, God “chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him…In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ”

In this sense evolution, and human life itself, had been leading to the point where Mary is born and is then destined to be chosen to be the ‘Christ-bearer’. Mary is destined to become fundamentally instrumental in the coming of Jesus Christ into our world. This Feast day highlights that from her conception she is ‘immaculate’ or ‘free from sin’. That is, from her earliest moments Mary is seen to be as one full of grace and as one who does not surrender to anything that would lead her away from faith in, and loyalty to, God.

Thus today we celebrate Mary’s role in our salvation, but we do so in a special way that leads us to focus on her very beginnings and we draw inspiration from her gift to us.

The Second Vatican Council echoed the words of St. Ambrose and taught that Mary as the Mother of Jesus, was therefore a ‘type’ of the Church in the order of faith, charity, and perfect union with Christ.

In this sense let us imitate Mary. She is the first of the disciples and the model for our following of Jesus. Mary is for us a perfect example of how to live a life of faith, how to be charitable in all our dealings and how to seek union with Jesus in all we do.

With Mary let our daily cry be, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 29:17-24
Matthew 9:27-31

Reflection:

These long cold Midwest winter nights can get to me. I find myself inside more often, doing the same old things day after day and seemingly going nowhere. One good thing though is I have more time to read. I read today’s scripture selection from Isaiah. He tells of a day when the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lowly will find joy and the poor will rejoice. Yeah! Right. For sure, he didn’t have the nightly news to watch in his day.

I long for the day when all will be right! I’m tired of mine as well as others limitations, and just wish we’d all get our acts together, taking care of one another, and living lives worthy of what I believe to be our calling—to be one with the God of love, kind of like Isaiah predicts will happen.

My first reaction when I read the passage in Isaiah today is to identify the tyrants and those who do evil amongst us, and of course I think I’m better than that. On second thought though, I realize I more often than I wish to admit, lord it over anyone who doesn’t think or act like me. I do wrong. I don’t like to call it evil—I call it making a mistake. I more often than I wish “…leave the just man with an empty claim.” figuring that’s someone else’s job.

Isaiah gives me hope though: “…Now Jacob shall have nothing to be ashamed of…Those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding, and those who find fault shall receive instruction.” Someday, I won’t be ashamed, I will acquire understanding and I will receive instruction. Wow! There’s hope, but where? Maybe, just maybe Frank Sinatra had it right when he wrote in his song High Hopes: “Oops there goes another problem kerplop!”

Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he’d punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin’ that dam.

Maybe if I just keep buttin along, doing what little I can, giving the beggar on the street a buck when they ask, singing a song when I want to cry and washing the dishes when they are dirty. God help me see how I have to change today to help bring about your kingdom.

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

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:1-6
Matthew 7:21, 24-27

Reflection:

Jesus doesn’t want us to deceive ourselves, missing how serious are the challenges of following him and the rewards that accompany our life with him.

Yet, I often find it difficult to fully my Christian life amid the layers of American society’s norms, ideals and standards for “success.” We are saturated with advertising, political propaganda, false assumptions of what gives us security and happiness.

Sorting all these messages and measuring them against the Sermon on the Mount is what Jesus is asking us to do in this passage from Matthew’ Gospel. It comes at the end of the challenging Sermon, when Jesus lays out God’s will for us.

Matthew makes a dig at the ruling Jewish class in two verses omitted at the end of this chapter: “And it happened that when Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. For he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

Implied is that the scribes…the intellectual, religious and political elites…are the ones attempting closeness to God by saying, “Lord, lord!” and following specific legal prescriptions to guarantee sanctity. Their ways are not The Way, just like American status seeking, consumerism, exploitation of the environment, militarism and economic disparity are not God’s Way.

Jesus’ words are radically demanding. They must penetrate to our bones and transform us. They insure we will be different from the crowd. They insure we will suffer. But they also insure we will experience deep peace and radiant joy.

Will I take a chance on Jesus?

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:

Isaiah 25:6-10a
Matthew 15:29-37

Reflection:

The university across the street from us has a course entitled, “Ultimate Questions”  on a couple of  conversations I have had with the students we mentioned the difficulties of life.  For many of us trying to juggle everything and hold it all together is exhausting.  Why does life have to be so hard?  That is one of those ultimate questions.  Biblically, one explanation goes clear back to the Adam and Eve story of the fall.  I’m left thinking about that as I ponder the gospel of today.  Some of those brought to Jesus have been beaten up by life.  Others have never fit in.  While still others are broken, deformed and hurt.  Why does life have to be so hard?   And Jesus cures them.  Yet that wasn’t enough.   Even after restoring so much brokenness to wholeness, Jesus still has more compassion for the people.  In witnessing the hunger of those right in front of him he reaches out, holding the scarcity of a few fish and seven loaves in his hands he fills what is lacking with the abundance of compassion and thus it’s not such a hard day after all.

Then did you hear what Isaiah spoke to us in the first reading?  He helps us recognize the presence of God through the description of delightful banquet feasts.  The Lord GOD is the one who wipes away the tears from all our faces.  When we see this happening, God’s compassion is present.  Our worries are wiped away, and we rejoice in God’s blessedness.  On that day, it doesn’t seem like life is so difficult.

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving our parish’s food bank was opened for its monthly visitors.  One of our visitors had her basket filled with canned goods, vegetables, milk, sweet potatoes, meat, and a turkey.  She was in tears as she came to the end of the line.  A huge burden had been lifted.   “I lost my job two days ago.  Now look,” she exclaimed pointing to her basket.  “My babies and I are actually going to have Thanksgiving!”

On that day it will be said: “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
Let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”

Fr. David Colhour, C.P. is the pastor of St. Agnes Parish in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 8:5-11

Reflection:

“In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it… One nation shall not raise the sword against another.” Isaiah 2:1,5

I love to imagine people of all races and ages streaming toward heaven. It will be so exciting! No more tears, no more wars, no more prejudice. It’s mind-boggling really to imagine meeting so many people from all time and places. And to finally experience perfect PEACE! We so long for peace in our war-torn world. All injustice will be over, all fighting, all hatred. All put to rest. Praise God!!!

So how can we enjoy a foretaste of paradise here and now?

The third luminous mystery is “The Proclamation of the Kingdom.” The Kingdom of God is at hand! We can begin to experience a tiny taste of heaven even here on earth as we seek to love God and love our neighbor. When we reach out in love sharing what we have with those who have less; when we pray for the areas in the world that don’t have peace; when we intentionally give up something and then use the money we would have spent to bless someone else. Of course the ways are endless!

Let’s be the people that long to see God’s face and in the meantime, let’s look for Him in the people around us and share his love and compassion and mercy with everyone we meet today and every day.

“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.’” Mother Teresa

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Bainbridge Island, Washington,  and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 6. Janice also leads women’s retreats and recently published her second book: God IS with Us. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.janicecarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected].