Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19
Matthew 11:28-30

Reflection:

Come to me… for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.

I am one day home from the gift of a very unexpected trip to Rome in this year of Mercy.  As I approached the designated door of St. Peter’s basilica I stepped aside for a moment before entering, wondering if there had been a necessary preparation I might have missed.   And then thankfully I came across the sign that stood by the door that gifted a simple, direct invitation.   “As you pass through the holy door remember that Jesus is the door who introduces you to the embrace of God’s mercy.”

Once inside, the basilica was abuzz with as one passing person said “a sea of humanity.”    Wall to wall people in such a number that much effort was required to stay attuned to the flow so as not to bump into people gathered with a multitude of intentions – cameras, selfie sticks, tourist group leader flags, candles.  It was a buzz of voices.  On a certain level it felt like a bustling museum.

That is until I stepped behind the heavy dark grey curtains in the quiet of a hidden side chapel to find Jesus  waiting in the Blessed Sacrament.  Instantly I found the space transformed by the gift of quiet stillness and a sacred silence.  In this space of complete and real Presence with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament I was gifted with a deep sense of coming home with the chance to find rest in the love and mercy of God.  No matter how frazzled the journey was to get here or how much we will be swept back into the whirlwind of a life after, in this moment of meeting Christ, the Bread of Life, we always have this opportunity to be steeped in the Peace of His humble, always welcoming Presence.

Another day I headed to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at someone’s suggestion.  It is known for Michelangelo’s sculpture commissioned for Pope Julius II’s tomb.  A giant Moses holding the tablets of the Law..  As the doors opened I entered along with a flood of tourists & pilgrims who had gathered in anticipation.  Looking for the flicker of a  candle in a red holder I headed towards the left side of the church; the only area with chairs and kneelers to pray in front of the tabernacle.   From the silence of this spot I turned to see the fullness of the crowd heading towards the statue of Moses.  Guidebooks and cameras in hand.  A buzz of sounds.  Deep rows of people pushing close just as they had in front of the Pieta at St. Peter’s vying for spots to see and adequately capture and experience this unique work of art.

With so much attention concentrated at the other side of the church I realized in a way I never experienced before how quietly humble Christ’s invitation and His Presence truly is.   This treasure of His presence, unmatched by any other, waits with a patience and love beyond any human comprehension. From behind a closed hidden spot in a tabernacle where only the keys of faith supply the map, it asks nothing but our own focused return of presence and surrendered love.  I write this knowing that I can find myself as both/and.  Consumed with a camera trying to capture some version of “must do or see” and as in this moment,  arriving with an open heart content to be filled with whatever it is God wants to teach or show me, desiring and tasting the relief and sweetness of His invitation.

M. Walsh, is a retreatant and friend of the Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center and the Passionist community.

Scripture:

Isaiah 7:1-9
Matthew 11:20-24

Reflection:

Wondrous deeds have been done by the Lord to us and in front of us. What else will it take for us to be strong in our faith and open ourselves up to a spiritual transformation?

In the readings for today, we see the Lord speaking to various cities and communities, and not in the most approving of ways. In both the first reading and the Gospel, the Lord has reproach for these cities which have seen the goodness of the Lord. Whether through action, scripture, preaching, or miracles they experienced God’s grace and yet did not repent. Today, our faith is countercultural drawing us away from our faith rather than towards God. Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm! Is 7:9.  If we start to view the trends of today as truth, what will come of us? If we dread, fear, or hate, what is inconvenient how we will ever become closer to God? We cannot expect something so glorious to be easily attainable, but have faith through the sufferings we incur along the way. It is through these sufferings that we are able to experience true peace and the love of God here on earth.

Do not be disturbed by the passing trials you are going through, since you must know that similar trials will come often. Our divine Savior visits those servants who are dear to him and purifies them with trials to develop their fidelity. – St. Paul of the Cross.

God graces us with His presence in our daily lives in order to transform us by His love and mercy into what He has planned for us. God places on our hearts his Word and Will for our lives. When we open ourselves up to this possibility and begin to live in faith, we realize that it is the only possibility and wish to be transformed. Why would we want to do anything else? We have free will and can make the active choice to open our lives to the will of God, or to turn down the wide and easy path. In what way will you choose to seek His Will today?

I seek nothing else, I long for nothing else…save in all things to be transformed by love in the divine will… – St. Paul of the Cross

 

Kim Valdez is a formet Pastoral Associate at Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center in Houston, Texas.

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Colossians 1:15-20
Luke 10:25-37

Reflection:

The parable of the Good Samaritan is so familiar to us that it may no longer surprise us as parables are meant to do.  Two modern-day stories may give us an idea of the shock of inconvenient faith Jesus conveyed to the lawyer who asked “who is my neighbor?”

One

Henri Nouwen tells the story of a conversation he had with an older experienced professor at the University of Notre Dame, who remarked: “You know…my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted – until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

Two

On June 1, 1998, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about a 50-year-old man who suffered a heart attack while taking the grueling state bar exam. Two other students immediately stopped to help the man by administering CPR until the paramedics arrived, then they resumed taking their exam. Citing policy, the test supervisor refused to allow the two students additional time to make up for the 40 minutes they spent helping the victim. The state bar’s senior executive for admissions backed the decision stating, “If these two want to be lawyers, they should learn a lesson about priorities.”

Just so.  Our work of compassion requires us to interrupt what we are doing at the time and pay attention to what is really important.  In today’s gospel, Jesus taught the lawyer a lesson about priories.  Interrupt your state bar exam, he told him, and be neighbor to the man suffering a heart attack.

What Jesus said to the lawyer, he says to us: “Go and do likewise.”

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

Scripture:

Isaiah 6:1-8
Matthew 10:24-33

 

Reflection:

 Mary, Mother of Holy Hope

Emily Dickinson calls hope the thing with feathers. Like a singing bird it keeps spirits up in the chill, the dark or the storm. If I associate hope with a bird it would be because they flit around; they are here then they are there.

I received an email from a friend saying that her brother was on his way from Rome to Bologna to see a cancer specialist. The glioblastoma tumor was increasing and treatments ineffective. A second email two days later said that the doctor found no cancer, only a hole in the brain(!), but no cancer. She could not describe the joy of her brother and family on the train ride back to Rome. What a difference between two emails. The first asked for prayers that spoke of hope, but the ‘feathered thing’ looked a bit irrelevant, not at all up to a seemingly impossible task to me. In the second email ‘hope’ was not to be found, only celebration. Hope had been there and then flitted away.

Today the Word of God calls us to hope. The prophets offer hope despite some very hard word. Matthew overflows with hope- what you hear in darkness, speak in light; do not be afraid of anything; do not be intimidated but have hope.

The Passionist community today celebrates a feast observed from the time of its founding, ‘Mary, Mother of Hope’. Thomas Struzzeiri, CP, promoted this devotion. He carried a picture of Mary, Mother of Hope on his parish missions. Soon this picture was found in the rooms of the religious. The devotion invites all to ask Mary’s assistance in their spiritual need, and to see her as model and support of our hope.

Blessed Dominic Barberi, CP offers a reflection on Mary as a model of Hope: hope is an anchor that keeps the ship of our souls safe on the stormy sea of a troubled world. It enables us to confidently expect eternal life and the aids that lead to it. Since Mary possessed this virtue to an heroic degree she is appropriately called ‘Mother of Holy Hope’. Barberi gives a picture of hope from the Song of Songs: ‘who is this coming up from the desert, leaning upon her lover?’ Mary hoped on Calvary, when the disciples fled in fear, in the persecution of the infant Church. She remained firm in the midst of what seemed disaster and supported those who turned to her as to a mother. She encourages the weak, lifts those who fall and urges the strong to ever greater trust. Mary has not resigned from such maternal service in our day.

Dominic Barberi was a theologian and teacher, who went to England with hopes of enabling dialogue and union between the English Church and Rome. He suffered much from cultural and religious differences, and did not see ‘his hope’ realized. But he had a unique gift, a surprise: welcoming John Henry Newman into the Roman Church.

On June 27 as my friend’s brother went to see the doctor in Bologna. In her second email he shared with me her prayer, ‘that my mother, who had recently died, would accompany Mary, Jesus mother, to plead before her son for the recovery of my terminally ill brother’. In my prayer I had forgotten that Mary is the Mother of Hope. My friend did not!

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

Scripture:

Hosea 14:2-10
Matthew 10:16-23

Reflection:

The backdrop of today’s gospel is Jesus choosing and sending forth his disciples to preach, teach and heal in the towns and villages of Galilee.  In commissioning the disciples, Jesus warns them about persecutions they will face.  And he counsels them on how they are to respond: “so be as shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.”

In the Greek, shrewd means to be wise, to be with insight, to comprehend a situation and to respond prudently.  And simple means to be unmixed.  It once referred to things like pure gold or unmixed wine.  And so it means to have purity of motive.

In the communities of evangelists Matthew and Mark, it was dangerous to be Christian.  Nero and the Roman Empire like wolves were persecuting them.  But for us today, how do we balance being both serpent and dove among wolves while proclaiming the gospel?  What does this look like?

On the eve of World War II, the Nazis, like wolves, were persecuting Jews.  One individual, Sir Nicholas Winton, like a shrewd serpent, saw where this danger was leading.  He quickly organized a rescue operation that saved the lives of 669 Czechoslovakian children from Nazi death camps.  He brought them to the safety of Great Britain.  After the war, like a simple dove, Winton drew no attention to his heroic humanitarian effort.  Indeed, it went unnoticed for more than 50 years.  But in 1988, while his wife was cleaning their attic, she discovered the records, the children’s names and their parents, and those who harbored them.  At a surprise event to honor Winton, there sat many of the now grown children whose lives he saved.  They stood to thank him.  Dove-like, Winton said nothing.  He simply wiped away tears.

What does Jesus’ commissioning mean for us disciples today?  After all, we are threatened neither by Nero nor Nazi.  To be sure, we face hostility.  To live and express our faith in our culture is to incite ridicule and accusations of intolerance and hate. Our temptation to behave like frightened sheep.

In such times, we are to heed Jesus’ counsel.  We must discern the sign of the times; act prudently, proclaiming the gospel in the midst of growling wolves.  And we are to live out our faith boldly and selflessly.  In the Thomistic definition of Christian love, we are to will the good of the other – like serpent and dove.

 

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

Scripture:

Hosea 11:1-4, 8c-9
Matthew 10:7-15

Reflection:

“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.
Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts;
no sack for the journey, or a second tunic,
or sandals, or walking stick.
The laborer deserves his keep….(Matthew 10:7-10)

From my earliest childhood I remember my mother assigning my siblings and I a job to do each day, i.e. dusting the furniture, going to the bakery, cleaning the basement…  When I went to the Passionist Prep High School, we, my fellow students and I were all given a daily job that we did right after morning mass and breakfast and before classes began. It wasn’t much, just mopping the corridors, or dusting the furniture and floors in a classroom. These “jobs” from my childhood and high school had no monetary value assigned to them, yet they gave me a sense of community, that I’ve spent the last fifty years trying to recapture.

No doubt, getting paid for what we do is important, but nowhere as important in my life as the volunteer jobs I gladly pursued or the tasks I was assigned at a kid.  Not even out of college yet, at the request of my good friend Fr. Joe C.P., I began teaching CCD Classes at Immaculate Conception Church on the Northwest side of Chicago. That eventually led to a career in teaching with the Chicago Public Schools where I served in many different capacities. The one aspect of the job that kept drawing me back was my relationship to my students. It was my volunteer “teaching” that really taught me how to teach, i.e. how to love my students. Yes, the education courses I took were valuable, but the spirit of the job I learned as a volunteer.

As I read today’s Gospel selection I think Jesus couldn’t be talking to me, a 21^st century citizen whose value is determined by the amount of money or prestige my job brings. On second thought, I think Jesus may have had me, us, 21^st century U.S. Citizens in mind. Thank you Matthew for taking the time to write Jesus’ words down for us to read today.

I spent the first 20 or so years of my life oblivious to thinking that I could put a price on the value of my labor or contribution to a task at hand.

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

Scripture:

Hosea 10:1-3
Matthew 10: 1-7

Reflection:

This passage of Matthew deals with the calling of the Twelve.  The significance of the “Twelve” is not missed on Matthew’s audience.  There were twelve patriarchs, as well as, twelve tribes in Israel.  The calling of the Twelve is a reconstitution of Israel, as the People of God.  Other than Peter we know very little about the other eleven disciples.  One thing we do know is that there was great diversity within this group.  Matthew is a tax collector, which meant he had to have been a collaborator with the Romans, who were the occupying force of Israel.  At the other end of the spectrum there is Simon, the Zealot, a member of the political party that wanted to overthrow the Roman government.  The genius of Jesus is that He could weld these diverse men together into a community of service and love.

In this call passage is the only time Matthew refers to the Twelve as “apostles.”  First they are “called.”  In the Bible, to be called has the power of a “summons.” It is an invitation one can not refuse.  It is something of a court order for jury duty, or a draft in the army.  In other words, we are free, but we won’t want to refuse even if the opportunity to do so presented itself.  Remember the “calls” of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Judith, Ester, Jael, and Mary to name a few.  Second, to be an “apostle” means to be “sent.”  In Matthew one is only “sent” after one spends time with Jesus, knows the Father’s Will, ministers to the lost sheep, preaches the Word, heals the sick, and casts out demons.  God calls whoever God wants.  Through baptism we are all called and are being sent.  We have been summoned.

Fr. Ken O’Malley, C.P., is the formation director and local superior at Holy Name Passionist Community in Houston, Texas.

Scripture:

Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13
Matthew 9:32-38

 

Reflection:

 The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Matthew 9:37-38

In our readings today we have two striking agricultural images, one from the Old Testament and one from the Gospel. The first warns us that, “The stalk of grain that forms no ear can yield no flour.” It speaks of wheat growing a stalk, but not fulfilling its purpose, to provide nourishment in the form of flour. Pope Francis says something of this when speaking of evangelization. He says, “Be so [evangelizing] without being presumptuous, imposing “our truths,” but rather be guided by the humble yet joyful certainty of those who have been found, touched and transformed by the Truth who is Christ (Homily, Domus Sanctae Marthae, February 27, 2014). We can not be a “presumptuous” stalk of wheat, providing no flour. We are encouraged to develop our own deep relationship with Christ and share this throughout our lives. As the saying goes, attributed to his namesake St. Francis, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” Pope Francis says further, “It will be your witness that brings him the restlessness on which the Holy Spirit works.” By living our lives in the sure knowledge that the kingdom of God is at hand, we will be true witnesses to that truth.

In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that the people living this truth are few. This should not discourage us, but spur us to further efforts. The world is in great need of the Good News that we can, each and every one of us, live and experience the kingdom of God right now. How inspiring this is when I let it fully penetrate my thoughts and feelings. If the kingdom is truly here, how can I hold anger in my heart for my neighbor, even if he cuts me off in traffic? Even if she is campaigning for the wrong candidate? Even if he is late for an important meeting? When I allow the kingdom of God to become manifest between us, how can I hold others in any way but Christian love?

My prayer for today is that I witness to the kingdom with everyone I meet, to the best of my ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

 
Talib Huff volunteers and works at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights. You may contact him at [email protected].