Daily Scripture

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Perhaps you, like me, sense that we celebrate Christmas doing the opposite of what brings peace and joy. Christmas entertainments, shopping, decorating, traveling, cooking, and trying to meet what my Mother called “social obligations,” easily fill our days and nights during this Advent season.

All this hub-bub blinds us to the message of the season. We struggle to find time alone in silence, to slow down to enjoy small details of life around us. To listen to God.

When Pope Francis addressed the U.S. Congress in the fall of 2015, he highlighted three Americans for us to study: Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day.

Each of these 20th-century pilgrims took time to prayerfully and critically analyze what is right and what is wrong with our way of life in America. They each acted on what they noticed. In their time they were condemned as disrupters, Communists, and worse. One was murdered.

Studying their lives, I have learned they each saw (their eyes were open) how the Gospel applies to a nation that prides itself on military strength, higher profits, efficiency, material comforts, possessions, self-sufficiency, while ignoring and devaluing the weak and marginalized.

These American values run counter to Jesus’ message of humility, sharing, serving, listening, non-violence, poverty, respecting God’s time, sacrifice, and total trust in God.

In today’s reading from Isaiah we are told the deaf, blind, lowly, and poor will be healed and exalted. I like to imagine Christ reading these words in the scrolls in the local synagogue. I think of him sitting alone in that sacred place, next to a window, sunlight streaming in, listening to birds and people on the streets of the sleepy town of Nazareth. There he lets the words penetrate. Over time . . . many years, in fact . . . he understands what his Father is calling him to do. His eyes are open. At the right moment he stands up in that same synagogue and quotes Isaiah to his family and fellow Nazarenes: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me with the commission to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to send off the oppressed with liberty.”

Not long afterward, in today’s Gospel, a couple of guys shouted at him on the road, asking him to pity them. Jesus immediately gave them sight. They were so thrilled that they defied his request to not speak of the miracle. Instead they whooped it up, letting everyone know what had just happened.

But more astounding was the passage that follows (verses 32-34), not included in today’s Gospel. The sighted men could see another who needed healing. They saw a mute man possessed by a demon and brought him to Jesus. What did Jesus do? He healed him, of course.

Marinating in a culture that blinds us to pain and threats everywhere, we need Christ’s healing. Making space to deeply reflect on the challenges of our time, the way that King, Merton, and Day did, will open our eyes to the urgent need to protect of our environment, ban all nuclear weapons, condemn of racism, welcome (not demonize) refugees and immigrants, curb the greed of corporate titans, insist everyone has a home, healthcare, a living wage, and an excellent education. It will also open our eyes to people right around us who are lonely, scared, hurt, sick, addicted, cold, and hungry.

We can so easily be blinded by honors, riches, power, comforts, commercial distractions, and “social obligations” of this season. Let us each ask Christ, as the two blind men pleaded, “Son of David, have pity on us!” and really believe, as they did, that He can open our eyes.

None of us can fix all that ails this world. But God is calling each of us to some noble act, however small or large, that “helps make the world a place where it is easier for people to be good” (Dorothy Day’s words).

What do you see that needs your attention this day?

“And their eyes were open.”

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

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Today’s gospel presents a most challenging element.  “Not everyone who calls Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  Like many things Jesus says in the Gospels, there is an element of vagueness in this statement.  We humans crave the absoluteness and actions that can be measured, judged and quantified.  In Jesus’s world, the immense abundance of God outclasses all of our human measures. 

The action Jesus mentions is seeking the will of the Father.  This requires a different posture.  Happily, we are blessed by our founder, St. Paul of the Cross in this regard.  His prayer and reflection on this topic are wisdom for us today.  Ultimately, Paul sees God as all good and trusts that the source of all goodness will give him whatever is good, regardless of whether the individual person thinks that it is good. Paul is extraordinarily wise in not judging the trials that come to him. He believes in and directs others in a simple philosophy; if the source of ultimate good gifts us with trials, then the trials must be good. If we are gifted with pain or anguish, then this must be good as well.

Paul believes that many people inflict suffering onto themselves by believing that they know better than the Lord. And in rejecting some of the “gifts” which God gives us we really aren’t people who follow the Divine Will.

Second, Paul adds that if you submit yourself to God’s will, even if events transpire contradictory to your personal desires, then you can at least take heart that you are working with a greater authority. This doesn’t necessitate total passivity.  On the contrary, we will be challenged much like Jesus was in the garden.  What it does mean is that we aren’t tossed so much by the ups and downs or the ebbs and flows of life.  It frees us from the childish notion that good days and bad days are rewards or punishments. As Paul the Apostle reminds us that our identity is in Christ.   Who we are is who we are in Christ.  So regardless of the outcome of our days, whether we may judge them as good days or not-so-good days, the real meaning is that we see our true selves and our connection to Christ.

Yet Paul of the Cross will take this one step further.  He goes so far as to say, Feed on the will of God.   Let God’s will be nourishment and food. Paul referred to this as “having the food of the divine will in a pure spirit of faith and love.”   When you begin to discover that pursuing the will of God is a real blessing and that it nourishes your soul, then you will find yourself returning again and again to the table of that nourishment. 

At seventy-seven years of age, Paul hadn’t changed his understanding. To Anna Maria Calcagnini, he writes:

Now, I would like to tell you about a principle of faith that embraces the highest perfection. Jesus Christ said to his apostles one day that his food was to do the will of his eternal Father. What an important point this is. Therefore, in every event of life, in all interior and exterior worries, desolations, aridities…. In bodily pain, in all of these find the food of the divine will…

Another point to ponder in this Advent season. 

Fr. David Colhour, C.P., is the Provincial Superior of Holy Cross Province. He resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Our Hungers and Hopes This Advent

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks by the Sea of Galilee and encounters “great crowds” of needy folks:  the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute…and He cures them!  And He lovingly feeds them with the seven loaves of bread and the few fish that his disciples had brought along – a feast!!  People were fed and healed…with baskets of leftovers!

I can’t help but think of the crowds of these days between Thanksgiving and Christmas…crowds of shoppers, some even pushing and shoving in pursuit of their “treasures.”  Some are “needy” people, like those of long ago — dealing with loneliness, frustration, various physical and psychological illnesses, selfishness and greed, etc.  Jesus lovingly desires to come and meet their needs, to cure their aches and pains, and feed their spirits…to pour out His loving heart for us all.

Jesus fed the hungry crowd with seven loaves of bread.  For people of ancient times, bread was a fundamental source of nourishment and, therefore, a symbol of all the good things needed to sustain life.  Even now, we speak of a person who earns a living for their family as a “breadwinner.”  Who among us these days can resist the inviting aroma of fresh-baked bread and the warm feelings that fresh bread inspires?  And yes, those Holiday breads…

This Advent 2024 we journey as people of hope – needy, hungry people seeking Jesus who is “Bread for the Life of the world” … Life that is wholesome, inviting — and lasts!  Advent becomes for us an evolving celebration of the transformation of all creation in Jesus!  These special days we look to the great event of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem (the name means “The House of Bread”), then to Jesus’ presence in our midst in the Eucharist and the Scriptures and one another.  And like the Prophet Isaiah, we look for the great coming of Jesus at the end of all time: to destroy death forever, to wipe away our tears, to save us from our selfishness, to share eternal Life with us. 

These Advent days, as members of the Passionist Family, let’s open our hearts to God who comes to save us, to nourish us, and to love us in His life, death, and resurrection.  We pray these days:  Come, Lord Jesus!

Fr. John Schork, C.P. serves as the Province Vocation Director and also as Local Superior of the Passionist Community of Holy Name in Houston, Texas.  

Scripture:

Isaiah 11:1-10
Luke 10:21-24

Reflection:

Hiding things from the learned and clever might seem a difficult thing to do. For example, most parents know much more about their children’s behaviour than the son or daughter realises, but the parents often choose to keep things hidden and quiet. Teachers see much more than any student thinks. Partners keep quiet about some faults and, in general, tend to follow the advice of Pope St John 23rd, who once said, “See everything and overlook a great deal”.

So, today’s reading finds Jesus rejoicing in this idea of ‘hidden things’ and their discovery by others – but it’s with a twist.

No longer is the core of God’s plan to be something to be ‘learned’ or subject to esoteric theories and interpretations. It is not a new ‘law’ in the sense that it can be codified, learned in such a way that it can be recited by heart (but ignored in living) and finally interpreted through various perspectives and then debated. 

No, God’s plan for our good now and in eternity is something so radically simple that those with an open mind, open heart, and open will are the ones most likely to ‘see’ it and discover its power. 

Jesus finds such openness in children playing, but it seems to be the dynamic of their play that inspires him to such a prayer as we hear today. Playing together seems based on openness to the other, inclusion, welcome,  acceptance of difference, and unity forged by a common task – these seem to be the dynamics that not only enable children to overlook a great deal but which are needed to build the Reign of God in our world as well. 

Of course the message – revealed to those whose faith allows them to hold onto the above values, but hidden from those who prefer their own ways and opinions – is not a written one but rather the message is Jesus, and learning the message requires lifestyle changes, openness and humility. 

He hides nothing from us if we are humble enough to be ‘mere children.’

Fr. Denis Travers, C.P., is the Provincial Superior of Holy Spirit Province, Australia. 

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.  -Isaiah 2:5

This passage made a powerful visual impression for the people who first heard it; for they saw how swords and spears were made: in the heat of a tremendous fire that melts metal. The sword, a tool of war, undergoes the heat of a forge and is bent round at the end, transforming it into a plow that breaks open the soil, readying it for seed. Likewise, the spear, another instrument of violence, undergoes the melting fire and is formed into a pruning hook for productive work in agriculture. These images of the transformations of the sword and spear have, over the centuries, become expressions of military weapons or technologies being converted for peaceful civilian applications.

As we begin Advent, the prophet Isaiah gives us a powerful vision of turning from violence and towards peace, a message joyfully proclaimed at Christmas to the shepherds: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on Earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:13-14.

We long for peace; we send Christmas cards that say, “Peace on Earth”, and yet peace eludes us, in our own hearts, in our homes, in our communities, and on the world stage.

Around the world, we see people, especially children, suffer the consequences of violence and war: trauma, famine, displacement, and even genocide.

The first candle we lit in the Advent wreath is the “hope” candle; and next Sunday, we will light the “peace” candle. And today’s Gospel story gives us some hope, and some practical tools for building peace. We see Jesus and the Roman Centurion working together for the sake of a servant “suffering dreadfully”. The Gospel does not give details of how Jesus and the Centurion formed a relationship. Given the political and cultural realities of their time, they both probably received criticism and misunderstanding for even speaking with each other.

The Roman Centurion was part of an occupying force that levied heavy taxes on the Jews, and brutally suppressed resistance. According to Jewish belief, Jesus would become ritually impure if he entered the Centurion’s home—he was a Gentile. And yet, Jesus offered to enter the Centurion’s home to cure his servant. And yet, the Centurion’s confidence in Jesus was so strong that he knew it would not be necessary for Jesus to come to his home: “only say the word, and my servant will be healed”. Mt. 8:8

During this Advent, let us pray for the courage to work with others to build the peace of Christ, bravely transcending any barriers that keep us apart.

Patty Gillis is a retired Pastoral Minister. She serves on the Board of Directors at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center in Detroit, Michigan. Patty is currently a member of the Laudato Si Vision Fulfillment Team and the Passionist Solidarity Network.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 33:14-16
1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2
Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Reflection:

Today we celebrate the beginning of Advent. Christmas is only four weeks away, and holiday preparations are in full swing. During this busy time, we are asked to spiritually pause and enter a season of waiting. That is an interesting dilemma for us. The Jewish people waited centuries for the coming of the Messiah, while we struggle to wait a few weeks to celebrate the birth of Christ!

My favorite hymn for this season of preparation is “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!” Each verse reflects one of the beautiful Old Testament prophecies of the coming of the Messiah. The first verse ties closely with today’s readings.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Jeremiah reminds the Israelites that God will not forget the promise to send a Messiah. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to grow even more in love for one another in preparation for the second coming of Jesus. Luke encourages us to be vigilant and pray for strength when we stand before the Son of Man.

And ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here

The Jewish people are suffering through their exile in Babylon, devastated that Yahweh has seemingly abandoned them. Jeremiah, in a more upbeat tone than we usually hear from him, offers hope to the Israelites—God’s promises will be fulfilled.

Until the Son of God appear!

We anticipate the appearance of the Son of God during this Advent season. Jeremiah speaks of the historical event of the Messiah. Paul and Luke encourage their listeners to be prepared for the end of time. There is a third coming, which is neither historical nor future. This is the importance of Advent for us today. We prepare for the spiritual coming of Christ into our daily lives.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you O Israel!

Mike Owens is the coordinator of the Passionist Alumni Association and a member of the Migration Commission of Holy Cross Province. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle

Scripture:

Romans 10:9-18
Matthew 4:18-22

Reflection:

Jesus has invited Peter and Andrew to be fishers of men. When have you felt a calling, an invitation of the Spirit? Maybe you felt called to a ministry at your church that you never, in your wildest dreams, expected to ever be a member, or even a leader. A calling for us today is a bit different from the calling of Jesus’ first four disciples – Peter, Andrew, James and John. These men left everything to follow Him. They trusted him, they felt his presence, they knew somehow that this was someone they needed to walk with. They returned to their families and their livelihoods, where they would continue to follow Jesus throughout their daily lives.

Do we continue to follow the call? There is a saying that is probably overused, but makes a lot of sense – he doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. How many times in ministry have we said, “oh, I can’t do that ministry because I’m not worthy”? We are all worthy, if we have that love of Jesus in our hearts, and we love him so much that we will serve him wherever he calls us! Can we trust him implicitly throughout our day to day activities, remembering that he is always with us?

Don’t let any earthly fear or attachment prevent you from answering the call! In your work, at home, at play – Jesus wants you, and he wants to be with you – he wants us all, to share in his works, and all we have to do is let go and trust his guidance. Don’t be a periodic searcher for Jesus in your life, bring him close to you always, and acknowledge and accept those gifts that he so generously wants us to have! God bless you!

Patty Masson supports the Passionists from Spring, Texas.

Scripture:

Revelation 20:14; 11–21: 2
Luke 21: 29 – 33

Reflection:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  -Luke 21:33

Tomorrow at sundown we begin a new liturgical year with the beginning of our celebration of the season of Advent. There always needs to be an end before there is a beginning, and the readings today are about the passing away of Heaven and Earth. We have many names for this: the end of time, the apocalypse and the Second Coming of Christ. From time to time, we may see a person standing on a street corner with a sign, “The End Is Near”. Even though we ponder on the message of the sign, we don’t know when or how. We read in the New Testament that there will be signs. The reading from Revelation speaks of “the sea giving up its dead” along with Death (evil) and Hades, the place of the dead. We are also told that all “the dead will be judged according to their deeds”. Those who fail the judgment of God end up in a pool or lake of fire, which symbolizes a second death or the final destruction of death. The last section of this passage then speaks of “a new heaven and a new earth.” These are places joined in a new beginning where death does not exist. The victory over evil has been won and evil has been wiped out of existence. All that is left is a “new Jerusalem”, the holy City of God. In another commentary that I read; it was more of a restoration of a transformed, this-worldly reality. All had been restored to the state it was at the beginning of time when God first created it. Imagine all living things restored to their most perfect and holy state. That is something that is a challenge to wrap one’s mind around and yet that is why we pray, worship, and believe in the living God. We know that all things are possible with God, who alone knows when this restoration will occur. We must not sit around, waiting for it to happen. As we go about our day we must continue to pray, worship and do good works to build the Kingdom of God in the people that we work with and our families.

Advent is a time for us to begin again, working to become the person that God created us to be. Yes, the end will come for all of us; however, today, we have an opportunity to rekindle our efforts to reflect the love, peace, and mercy of our God.

On a side note, the Book of Revelation is one of the most difficult books of the Sacred Scriptures to understand or comprehend. It is meant to be understood figuratively and not literally. However, the imagery contained in these passages can open us up to a deeper understanding of all the Scriptures.

May the new liturgical year bring many blessings and graces to you and your family.

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