Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

Reflection:

It is election season, and I am disgusted by the state of the political discourse. Fear seems to be the driving factor on so many levels – fear of anyone who is different, fear of refugees, fear of Muslims, fear of terrorists, fear of someone taking away what is “rightfully mine”, and on it goes. Another kind of fear is playing out as well: the fear of being bullied.

I cannot remember any other time in my life when people were afraid to give their honest opinion about a politician or their policies because they knew that they would be bullied, not only by that person but by the millions who follow him. All it took was one newscaster to say a candidate was a bad debater, and the Twitter-verse erupted with the most vile, spiteful, demeaning comments about that newscaster. She was shaken to the core by the vicious attacks, and honestly frightened for her family. And she is not alone. It has happened repeatedly, to such an extent that (according to news articles in major publications), many prominent donors and authority figures are keeping silent for fear of similar attacks against them and their families.

I worry what we are teaching our children in this election. We’ve fought so long and hard to combat bullying in our schools. We’ve fought for the dignity of every person, and for everyone’s First Amendment rights to free speech. We instruct young people on the virtues of our political system of governance and the importance of compromise that protects the common good. Yet we vote for and cheer people who contradict those principles at every level. And our children are watching

I do not advocate for a particular candidate or party – neither is or ever will be perfect. But it is time to speak against the tactics of fear, bullying, prejudice, discrimination, and egoism from any candidate, side, or party, and I believe that we Christians have a particular responsibility to do so. Who has the courage to speak out? Who will be the Peters of our day, standing before the Sanhedrin and proclaiming the truth of God’s love, mercy, and salvation? Who will rightly feed the lambs and tend the sheep? Who will help stop the degradation of our political process, uphold respect and dignity, and find a mutually beneficial path forward?

I am searching for ways to make my voice heard. I am definitely speaking up in conversations with others, trying to model the type of behavior I long for from our politicians. I am educating myself even more deeply on the issues at stake and the consequences of each politician’s views so I can discuss intelligently and respectfully and without twisting facts. I voted in our primary election and will vote in the general election in November. I am encouraging pastors and religious educators to speak out against these tactics in formation, RCIA, classes, and from the pulpit. It doesn’t feel like enough but it’s a start, and I will be looking for more opportunities to bring civility, compassion, honest debate, and Christian virtues to the fore.

I’ve heard the proverb that Christians are like snowflakes – individually they are unique and beautiful, but together they can stop traffic. Can we join together and create an environment of respect and integrity? Can we afford not to?

 

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:

Acts 6:1-7
John 6:16-21

 

Reflection:

Peace, Do Not Be Afraid

The great appearance stories of Easter have passed us now: Mary Magdalene, Emmaus, Thomas, and Jesus’ breakfast with his apostles. As we read John for the remaining 50 days we settle in with a quiet presence of Jesus. Instead of surprises Jesus teaches us, prays for us; he gives us of hope and the promise of the Spirit.

In the first five chapters of John’s gospel people grapple with faith. In contrast to John the Baptist are new disciples. They use such titles as ‘Messiah’ and even ‘Son of God’, but we know their understanding is wrong. There are the ‘Jews’ who reject Jesus, but also a sincere seeker, Nicodemus; the Samaritan woman and her village welcome the gift of Jesus, and a royal official whose son Jesus cures, will believe in him. And there is Mary. Her openness to God’s will enables God’s plan to unfold, but it doesn’t stop at Jesus birth. She continues to advance the plan of God a she calls her son to his hour by her faith in him at Cana.

As we finish our second week of Easter we might name Nicodemus as the spokesperson for these first five chapters of John. But we don’t move to a new level of faith as we read now chapter six. It is again that basic question of faith. We see a heart breaking response as the chapter will conclude: some of his disciples left him. They found what he was saying too hard to take.

As we continue our journey through John he works to help us believe. The writer of the gospel tells us as he ends the gospel that the signs of Jesus that he records are meant to help us to believe.

How might today’s brief gospel that follows the multiplication of loaves advance John’s reflection on faith? Perhaps hearing Jesus say, ‘do not be afraid, it is I,’ is all we need? Another time Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to the Father and they need not be afraid since there will be room for all and no one is to be forgotten. He is the way. Indeed fear is a barrier to love, and trusting love makes it easier to believe.

Our gospel is set near Passover. We know that story: it is night, a fearful people begin a journey to they know not where, they come to water, the wind picks up and the water parts and they escape. But now Jesus’ disciples find themselves dealing with water that becomes a fearful obstacle. There is no dry land to put their feet on but Jesus walks to them as if it were dry land. Then they are safe on the shore. There is no calming of the storm in John’s story, but we hear Resurrection words of Jesus: ‘Do not be afraid, it is I’. Are there two Passovers together here? The first Passover when the Jewish people set out from Egypt on their Exodus, and the Passover of Jesus from death to life; the Passover where Jesus meets us in darkness and fear, where he destroys fear and brings us over the waters of death to our true home.

Darkness and swirling waters may surround us even during these Easter days. Jesus says to us, ‘Do not be afraid. I am with you’. Let us abide with the Rise One. Let us look and listen to the one who goes before us and bring us to safety. Be at peace.

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

Scripture:

Acts 5:34-42
John 6:1-15

Reflection:

“Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.”    John 6:11

The Gospels are very fond of this memory of dining with Jesus.  The incident of the multiplication of the loaves is mentioned six times in the New Testament.  In Biblical tradition eating was considered a very special time of intimacy with family and close friends.  About one third of John’s gospel takes place during a meal!   It was at this wonderful meal on Holy Thursday that some of the most beautiful words that were ever spoken are enshrined.

The Church and tradition has always associated these meals with the Eucharist.   These were wonderful times of closeness to Christ.  Jesus Himself cherished this Eucharistic meal at the Last Supper.  “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  LK 22:15   The words earnestly desired are a weak translation of the much stronger Greek word ep-ee-thoo-mee’-ah  which means to passionately  desire.  It is even doubled in strength by being repeated twice in same sentence.

The Eucharist was no afterthought in the Gospels. It was expressed with a depth of feeling found nowhere else in New Testament.   Pope John Paul II beautifully expressed this in his encyclical ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA.

“The Eucharist, as Christ’s saving presence in the community of the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most precious possession which the Church can have in her journey through history.”  #9 “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living bread. Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”.^{2 “}Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.”

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. gives parish missions and retreats.  He lives in the Passionist community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Acts 5:27-33
John 3:31-36

Reflection:

The other day in the midst of a rather heated discussion, a friend of mine who just happens to be an African American man, pointed out to me that I live a privileged existence. That took me back and initially I wanted to deny it. I couldn’t though; it’s true no matter how improbable that seems to me. It’s probably that same denial that makes it hard for me to believe that such situations as reported in today’s first scriptural selection  (ACTS 5: 2:7-33) actually happened. Scripture stories often seem so remote and unrelated to my world.

Closer to my world is John Baptist de La Salle whose life we recall today.  He was born just 43 years before St. Paul of the Cross, in 1651. Unlike the apostles brought before the Sanhedrin in today’s reading he was born into privilege. Following the Spirit, he rejected this life in favor of educating the poor of his hometown Reims, France. He did so at considerable cost to his own social standing, incurring the disdain of the social elite of his day by moving into a home with the unpolished teachers of the poor hoping to teach them manners and refinement. This led to his eventually founding the first normal school (school dedicated to training teachers) as well as the first religious institute of lay brothers who were not priests. We know these men in the United States as the Christian Brothers.

Help me God in my unbelief, especially when it centers on people who are not as privileged as I. Give me the courage to give up my position as de la Salle did, and to follow the example the apostles demonstrate in today’s scripture, risking death to witness in word and deed to the marvels of your works in my world today.

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

Scripture:

Acts 4:32-37
John 3:7b-15

Reflection:

The LORD is king, in splendor robed;
robed is the LORD and girt about with strength.

Have you ever noticed that in scripture, when someone is clothed or robed, it is with “majesty” or “dignity?” Jesus taught us to clothe the naked, so how do we “clothe someone with dignity?”

Have you ever noticed after walking into a gathering your mind starts summing up everyone and placing labels on them? “He’s awfully tall, she’s too thin, that one looks nervous, they’re too loud, she’s not participating in the right way, he should know better.” On and on our minds categorize people and put them in boxes: “safe,” “scary,” “good,” “bad,” “left,” “right,” “radical,” “conservative,” “looney,” “my candidate.” What are we doing when this is going in? We are clothing them. We are draping our judgements around their shoulders so that we don’t need to deal with who they really are. The problem is that I believe those judgements to be real and let them drive the way I deal with others when we interact. Judging each other and putting labels on them was not the clothing Jesus commanded us to clothe each other with.

So, to get back to my original question, how should we clothe each other? I would say that it means to hold everyone we meet, in the truest sense of the words, as a beloved child of God, a person of sacred worth and value. If I can move beyond my mind’s chatter to be fully present to someone as they are, a beloved child of God, I am clothing them with dignity. Jesus asks us to do this with not only with our family and friends, but with those who despise us. We are to do this for those whom we may wish to despise. We need to do this with the young, with the old, with the infirm, with the healthy, with the Jew, with the Samaritan, with those who love us, with those who revile us. Sometimes we need to do this in spite of their not believing it themselves. Some of us have been so beaten down, suffered so many trails and disasters, that we no longer believe themselves to be children of God. And yet that is a cornerstone of the teachings of Jesus. This is, for each and every one of us, our birthright.

My prayer for myself today is that I clothe everyone I meet in the robe of majesty they deserve as a child of God.

Talib Huff is a volunteer and presenter at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, California.

Scripture:

Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38

 

Reflection:

The Annunciation of the Lord

With the Easter Alleluia’s still fresh on our lips, we today hear the humble words of Mary at the Annunciation of the Lord:  “May it be done to me according to your word”…Fiat!    This 2016 Liturgical Year finds the “regular” date of the feast of the Annunciation on the Good Friday of Holy Week, and thus we’re encouraged to not miss out on the beauty of this Feast by its transfer to today, the Monday of the 2^nd week of Easter.  We have good reason to rejoice with Mary – and to commit ourselves once again to God’s Plan for us.

The Gospel selection from Luke provides us with the familiar details of this feast:  the angel Gabriel was sent to the betrothed Mary, addressing her as “full of grace”.  She was asked to conceive in her womb and bear a son, to be named Jesus…”Son of the Most High”.  Mary’s response was tinged with the feelings that grip us all when we hear a challenging message and which requires a sincere personal response.  Reassured of God’s love for her and God’s Life at work in her, she said “fiat”…Yes!…and her life was changed — as was the history of all creation!

The story of the Annunciation of the Lord is welcome “good news” for Mary, and for each of us and our world!  Mary’s “yes” helped give flesh to the Good News of God’s merciful love for all creation in the person of Jesus who lived, taught, healed, suffered, died and rose for us…ultimately encouraging those Alleluia’s we’ve been singing these days, and God’s redemptive love that helps us face all the challenges of life.

Today’s feast celebrates Mary’s vocation as mother of our redeemer, Jesus – and as we just heard on Good Friday, our mother as well.  She is lovingly present to us and encourages each of us in our vocation, be that as married, single, or priestly/religious people.  Like Mary, we face many challenges and opportunities and can benefit by Mary’s humble example in our “fiat” to the action of God in our lives, our call to lead lives that help give flesh to Jesus’ love for our 21^st century world.

No doubt Mary had great joy in her heart as her life unfolded after the Annunciation.  As we continue to celebrate these days of God’s Easter love for us, may that same Annunciation / Easter joy radiate from our lives as we live our vocations and proclaim and give flesh to God’s mercy and love for our world.

With Mary we say:  Amen!  Alleluia!

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is a member of the Passionist community in Chicago, Illinois. 

Scripture:

Acts 5:12-16
Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
John 20:19-31

Reflection:

Jesus said to him (Thomas), “You have believed because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” John 20:29

Many of us would have been in the same boat as Thomas. We too have trouble believing sometimes. Sadly, in the church today, many people don’t believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. A 2008 CARA poll showed that 43% of Catholics believe that the consecrated host is merely bread which symbolically represents Christ’s spiritual presence.

Following is one of my favorite “Eucharistic Miracle” stories. Maybe you can share it with family and friends who don’t believe in the True Presence. (You can also Google “Eucharistic Miracles” for more stories.)

“There was a man in Italy who refused to believe the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. St Anthony could not convince the man by his words would. The unbelieving man would starve his mule for three days, then bring his mule to the town square. Anthony would bring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. If the hungry animal would come to Jesus in the monstrance rather than a bucket of food, then the man would accept the church’s teachings and believe that Jesus was truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.”

“On the third day the man came into the town square with his very hungry mule. St. Anthony approached from the other side of the square with the Sacred Host. Many people, both believers and unbelievers alike, watched to see what would happen. A large bucket of oats and a bundle of fragrant hay were placed before the hungry animal. But all this was ignored by the mule. Instead, the mule approached Saint Anthony and fell on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament to adore Jesus. True to his word, the man made a profession of faith in the Real Presence because his mule had believed first.”[i]

I pray that we would recognize the awesome treasure we have in the Blessed Sacrament, and go as often as possible to receive Jesus – body, blood, soul and divinity.

[i] http://www.worksbyfaith.org/st-anthony-and-the-mule-a-eucharistic-miracle/

 

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR 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].

 

Scripture:

Acts 4:13-21
Mark 16:9-15

Reflection:

Today’s reflection is in two parts: the first taken directly from the Lectionary readings; the second in view of the Sunday celebration of the Divine Mercy.

Most of us know that the followers of Jesus came to be called “Christians” in Antioch (Acts 11:26). But what were they called before that? Today’s readings take us through several steps by which the disciples of Jesus came to be identified with their mission, and its corresponding name.

Today’s Gospel of Mark recalls the several events which by which Jesus’s resurrection was made known to the disciples.  Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, who went to tell His disciples, but they did not believe. Jesus appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who returned to tell the disciples, who did not believe. Jesus appeared to the eleven at table and rebuked them for their unbelief. At this point, Jesus commissions them, in a similar way as his parting words at the Ascension, “God into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

The transformation of the disciples is from unbelief to proclamation. They take up the mission of Jesus and it becomes the single driving force of their lives.

Not surprisingly, we find Peter and John, in the reading from Acts, describing their duty as it has become clearer to them: “It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”

The New Testament word that names this group of Jesus’ disciples is “witness”. Twelve times in the book of Acts, the disciples describe themselves and their companions as “witnesses” to His Resurrection. To be a witness meant that one had accepted the Resurrection of Jesus as the life-giving event of one’s life; and it meant that one was committed to proclaiming the Risen Lord as the living Savior of all people, the Good News.

We, who are living members of the Body of Christ, are still called to be witnesses. We need to proclaim the presence of Christ among us today; we need to express the unquestioned love of God for each one of us by our treatment of one another.

We celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy on the Sunday after Easter, tomorrow. During this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has already challenged us to be both agents and recipients of a divine mercy. To whom can I show a divine mercy? How is divine mercy being offered to me?

Because many of us who share these reflections live in the context of religious life and parish life, the grace of mercy is easily received and given among our like-minded friends and parish families.

It is a more challenging effort to break out of the environment of my spiritual family, in order to sow the seeds of mercy in the hard-packed, barren and arid fields of our society’s fringes.

I am thinking back on my visit to a parish in Tennessee last week. One of the parish’s most effective programs is to “feed the hungry,” which it does through its St. Vincent De Paul parish society. Every other Tuesday, in conjunction with Second Harvest, one hundred and forty families come to the parish parking lot to receive a ration of food stuffs which will provide supplementary nourishment for the children and adults in their families. Everyone is welcomed with friendly humor, and genuine interest in the family’s welfare.

We don’t always have to start something new in order to enrich our communities with a divine mercy. Sometimes all we have to do is bring ourselves into the circles of caring and sacrifice that already exist all around us.

May we continue to grow in the grace of mercy given and mercy received during the rest of this Jubilee Year of Mercy!

Fr. Arthur Carrillo, C.P.  is the director of the Missions for Holy Cross Province.  He lives in Chicago, Illinois.