Daily Scripture

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Scripture:

2 Samuel 7:18-19, 24-29
Mark 4:21-25

Reflection:

We celebrate the feast day of the great Saint Thomas Aquinas today.  Aquinas was a member of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominican religious order.  He taught, wrote learned books and contributed in an outstanding way to philosophy and theology.  He is the preeminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation.  Thomas Aquinas is one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles of Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor.  The works of Aquinas have long been a part of most seminaries and schools of theology.  In researching some of Aquinas’ background, I was surprised to learn that his greatest and last work, The Summa Theologiae which deals with the whole of Catholic theology, was uncompleted.  He stopped writing it about three months before his death in 1274.  When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on…All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.”

In reflecting on the reasons Aquinas gave for not finishing the Summa I am very humbled.  In reflecting on the gospel passages found in our readings today from ordinary time as well as the feast day readings, I also come away being humbled and challenged.

In Mark 4:21, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand?”

And

In Matthew 23:11-12, “the greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Aquinas was a brilliant theologian, philosopher and writer of Catholic thought.  So, why did he not finish the Summa???!!  I believe he was more importantly a person of deep faith, open to following the plan God had for him.  He did not need to finish the Summa, he did not hide his lamp of faith under a bushel basket, he opened himself up to the plan God put him on and in this way his light continues to shine in our world today.  He used the gifts God gave him to make the world of Catholic thought and deed live on for all the hundreds of men and women who have benefitted from his works.  He was a humble man aglow with the light of Christ.

…Challlenges for us…

Can we place our lamp on the lampstand to burn brightly so others may see the glory of God within and through us?

Can we serve humbly and faithfully as Aquinas did?

Can we give up our unfinished agendas and humbly accept the plan God has for us and trust that what needs to be accomplished will happen in God’s time and not necessarily on our timeline?

Saint Thomas Aquinas, inspired by your example, may we grow in knowledge of our Catholic faith and always strive to be people of humility and understanding.  May we keep this light of faith burning brightly as we continue to serve God and all God’s people.  Amen.

 

Theresa Secord is a Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

2 Samuel 7:4-17
Mark 4:1-20

 

Reflection:

 I will not withdraw my favor!

I was really fortunate to have great teachers in college and graduate school (seminary). One of my favorite classes centered on sacramental theology, and the professor was also a Jungian analyst; he used Grimm’s Fairy Tales and other mythological literature to help us understand the mystery of Baptism, Eucharist, Reconciliation and Marriage. Repeatedly he had to remind us, however, of our proclivity to get mired in analysis. We always wanted to know, “What does it mean?” and his usual response was, instead, “Stay in the story.” Nocturnal dream analysis is similar: don’t move too quickly into finding out the dream’s meaning, but stay in the narrative!

Jesus often instructs his disciples in a similar fashion. They want a plain and simple explanation, and he asks them to be patient with the metaphor, and not to get too cerebral!

And I suppose most of us are like David, too, in our first reading. We want to confine God to our categories, our horizons, our temple. God’s response is that the Divine dwelling place is in peoplehood, not brick and mortar. As much as we attempt to grab the Lord by his divine ankles and pull him into our domesticated, little world, God is elusive. While King David seeks to build a house for God, God tells David that God will be doing the building for David!

I reverence that passage in John 4 when Jesus is speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well.  As she professes, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” Obviously, Jesus is speaking on a deeper level.

Yet, the core of today’s readings moves beyond this challenge to not limit ourselves to the heady or analytic. So, God tells the prophet, “I will correct him with the rod of men, and with human chastisements; but I will not withdraw my favor from him.” We may get snagged with our propensity for control, but God’s love — indiscriminate, unconditional, without boundaries — eclipses even our longing for control!

Fr. Jack Conley, C.P. is the director of the Office of Mission Effectiveness.  He is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus

Scripture:

2 Timothy 1:1-8 or Titus 1:1-5
Mark 3:20-21

Reflection:

Uh-oh!  We have family issues.

I can’t help but smile when I hear today’s reading from Mark:  Jesus came home. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” They had heard he was doing strange things like forgiving sins and healing a paralytic man.  This just isn’t right, they say to themselves.

Jesus even redefines “family.”  When told his mother and brothers are outside, Jesus replies, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

The gospel selection for today’s feast of Sts. Timothy and Titus captures the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  He had just come down from the mountain-always where important things happen-where he selected his closest companions to share in his ministry.  From the outset of his ministry, Jesus gathers together a band of friends.  Perhaps not all the best trained, well-spoken or polished group of friends.  They didn’t always know what they were supposed to say or do, and they often tripped over themselves.  But they were Jesus’ friends and apostles.

Timothy and Titus were both first century bishops.  But first they were friends of St. Paul.  They knew each other and worked together.  Paul knew Timothy’s mother and grandmother by name.  He says of Titus, you are “my true child in our common faith.”  Paul is now writing from prison, but these two are like family to him.  He, like Jesus, has worked hard to develop another generation of ministers of the gospel who are sharing the Good News.

At the very beginning of Mark’s gospel at Jesus’ baptism, the sky opens and Jesus hears “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  That Father-Son relationship is deepened and tested as Jesus heads into the desert.  And when he emerges to begin his public ministry, he immediately gathers together his companions in ministry.  He invites these disciples to enter into an ever-deepening relationship, a relationship that is not always clear or easy for them.

It always begins in a relationship.  We live our faith in the context of family and friends, of parishes and schools, at work and at play.  The relationships are never perfect, but they are the place where the Good News is lived out first.  We don’t live our faith alone or among the fragments of broken relationships.  We first must be friends with Jesus, and then with our “families” – however they are defined.

 

Robert Hotz is a consultant with American City Bureau, Inc. and is the Director of The Passion of Christ: The Love That Compels Campaign for Holy Cross Province.

 

The Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle

Scripture:

Acts 22:3-16 or 9:1-22
Mark 16″15-18

Reflection:

A few years ago, while ministering as Student Director in our formation house in Bhopal, India, I received a call from a young man called Yesuraj. He informed me that a few years ago he stayed in our Half-way home for ex-prisoners, men who just been released from prison in Bangalore, South India that we Passionists had established. One summer, during my own seminary formation years in Bangalore, I was asked to assist in that rehab center. Yesuraj, a teenager back then, was released from prison and entered the program.

Now he was calling me after many years. I asked him where he was and what he was doing for his living. He surprised me by saying that he was on a retreat preaching team at a Charismatic Retreat Center in Bangalore run by the Vincentian Fathers! I wondered what made this teenager change his life from whatever he did to land him in prison and then in our rehab center, to be a messenger of Good News, bringing many people to God! He could have easily returned to his former ways of living like many other ex-prisoners did if he had wanted to do so.

Today we are not celebrating the feast of St. Paul, but his conversion. We remember the conversion and the subsequent holy life of many saints on their feast day, like St. Augustine. But the Church wants us to remember the day Saul became Paul for a very specific reason -the movement and growth of the Church took a different turn after his Conversion.

Paul, known as Saul of Tarsus, was a Roman citizen though Jewish at birth. As a Jew he was sent to study under Gamaliel, one of the greatest scholars of his time. He learned the law and become a fanatic observer of law. He was present at Stephen’s stoning and also approved of it. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, the same charismatic and zealous leader who dragged people out of their houses and persecuted them, becomes a fearless preacher of the Word, established communities and churches, makes leaders out of ordinary people. He would write his thoughts in the most legible way and also intellectualize the Christian faith.

“Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” Paul would redirect his missionary activity towards the gentiles because of the obstinacy of the Jews. It was with single-minded determination that the ‘Apostle to the Gentiles’ preached Christ as the one universal Savior. This Savior he served passionately and selflessly. He let nothing stop him doing it, be it hard work, exhaustion, suffering, poverty or danger of death.

It is a scary thought for many of us that God can call us in our brokenness to be His messengers. ‘Who me?’ is our response. Familiar territory always seems very comforting. Yet when we look at the story of Yesuraj or Paul or many other ordinary people like us, we are encouraged to say, ‘Yes Lord, I can!’

 

Fr. Bruno D’Souza, CP, is on the staff at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Scripture:

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

 

Reflection:

The Favorable Year of the Lord

In today’s Gospel Jesus comes back to His home town of Nazareth to “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” The word in the original Greek for favorable is dektos which comes from word to welcome.  Jesus announces that with His presence comes a season of incomparable kindness from God! With the return of Jesus to His home town He offers the warm welcome of His Father to the people with whom He grew up.

Nazareth was a small village of 3 or 4 hundred people.  For about thirty years He lived here He must have known personally just about everyone.   When He was a child, He played with them.  As a young man He probably took hikes with them.  Jesus was a great walker! He walked all over Galilee.  He walked a number of times from Galilee to Jerusalem which is about 90 miles!  As a carpenter they hired Jesus to fix things. A percentage of the village must have been cousins.  We know there was no special word for cousins except brothers and sisters. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”  Mark 6:3 Jesus was among relatives and friends.   For them it was cousin Jesus and aunt Mary!

It should have been a nice safe reception for the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.  You would think the old timers would sit around the old spring and say: We knew this nice young man with great parents would be wonderful!   Just the opposite was true.   Not only did they reject Jesus as messenger of the Father, but even the finest human being that God made after His Son, Mary his mother!  “And they took offense at him.”

How can you live as close to Jesus and still don’t know Him!  Even Jesus “wondered at their unbelief” Mark 6:6   “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.”  Can this not happen to all of us?  Maybe after all the years I have lived near Christ, my relationship with Him might be cold and excluding.  Do I love and care for Him more than anything else in the world?   This is the year of mercy, “the favorable (dekos) year of the Lord”.   Do I warmly welcome Him into my heart who welcomes me?

 

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. preaches Parish Missions and is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

2 Samuel 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27
Mark 3:20-21

Reflection:

During that last retreat season at St. Paul’s in Detroit, I had a talk about the sufferings of Jesus, some of which we don’t usually think about. Part of may talk was about how Jesus was often misunderstood, even by the ones closest to Him, and I used the passage from Mark which is our Gospel reading for today as an example of how He was misunderstood even by His family.

Mark tells us that when Jesus came home, a large crowd gathered, making it impossible for Jesus and His disciples to eat. Somehow, His family hears about it and decides “to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” So, Jesus’ family reaction to the news of great crowds coming to see Him is take Him home because He is obviously crazy.

Being misunderstood by even the ones closest to us is something most of us, I think, have experienced at one time or another. This Gospel passage challenges us to continue to strive to understand each other, out of love. Note the times in the Gospels when Jesus asks what He can do for this person or that when it seems obvious to us what should be done. Even though He may know what the person wants, Jesus gives them an opportunity to be heard.

Often it seems that in our society we have difficulty taking the time to understand each other, especially those who come from a different background or experience. But if we are to truly come together, we have to try to understand each other, as inefficient a process as that may be. We may even find how much we have in common! May understanding bring forth acceptance, and may acceptance bring forth love, and may love help bring forth the kingdom!

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P., is the local superior at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan. 

Scripture:

Isaiah 9:1-6
Philippians 4:6-9
Matthew 5:1-12a

Reflection:

Today we are praying for peace and justice.  So very often we do so thinking of other areas of the world.  We are fervent in our prayers for resolution of conflict in the Middle East, or the Ukraine, or North Korea.  We seldom think of ourselves as in need of these specific prayers in the United States.  Yet here we are with a day dedicated to just such a spiritual exercise.  The “why” of this day is easy.  January 22, 2016 is the forty third anniversary of the Roe vs Wade decision of the Supreme Court which in effect declared the child within the womb as a “non human being” and therefore not entitled to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.  They did not say what the child within the womb is, only what it is not and therefore not entitled to legal protection.  A country which bases its principles of society on such conclusions is just as much in need of a multitude of prayers as a place like Syria, Iraq, or the Holy Land.

Our Scriptures today help us to know how intensely we should pray.  Isaiah addresses a future time when those shrouded in darkness are ushered into a great light.  Their inability to see, to understand the truth, to discover the overwhelming presence of God’s life and love in the world will be remedied.  The prophet is talking about the promise of a savior.  We who have faith in the Lord Jesus understand Isaiah to be speaking of Jesus who is born to us as Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever and Prince of Peace.  It is He who will bring peace forever and justice for all.  The beatitudes of St. Matthew’s gospel invite us into the heart of Christian living.  These are the virtues which characterize those who profess belief in the Lord Jesus .  Generosity of  heart  and detachment in favor of the heavenly kingdom, meekness and mildness in favor of civility in relationships, strength in tragedy as we mourn and move forward in life, a burning hunger and thirst for righteousness calling us to be bold in professing by our words and actions the principles of faith that direct our minds and hearts, a forgiving heart toward those who offend and harm, open hearts which seek and recognize God’s life and love all around in the world, hearts which seek to establish the lasting and abiding peace that comes from God, and finally perseverance in professing belief in the essentials of  what it means to have life in Christ.

Such virtues of the beatitudes invite us to a deeper appreciation of all of our relationships.  In so doing, we are pushed toward a far wiser and ever greater reverence and respect for all of life.  Every life matters.  In a special way, the innocence of the unborn human person demands our reverence and respect.  We are called to propel that very same reverence and respect to every human person from conception to natural death without reference to race, economic status, ethnic origin or even faults  or serious failures.

That’s a pretty tall order.  We are able to see why it is we, as a country, are in need of intense prayers for our country and ourselves.  We have a ways to go but we have the encouragement we need from St. Paul in our second reading today.  He tells us to have no anxieties but persevere in making our petitions known to God.  Although there may be some darkness to deal with, we should focus on the good, the excellent, the honorable, the pure, and whatever is worthy of praise.  Each of us and our country has much to focus on in such a way.  Today, we are called to further the march toward fullness of light to guide our way in respecting life in the womb.  Only then will the fullness of God’s peace reign in our hearts, our lives, and our society.

 

Fr. Richard Burke, CP, is a member of St. Paul of the Cross Province.  He lives at St. Ann’s Monastery in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Feast of St. Agnes

Scripture:

1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7
Mark 3:7-12

Reflection:

The recent power ball win of over one billion dollars, by three different parties, is an example of astounding good luck falling into the lap of three families, for no apparent good reasons that the rest of us can determine.    Of course, they were the envy of millions of other competitors for this prize.  As the prize grew in size, the odds constantly increased against any given individual ever succeeding in winning it.   When the grand finale occurred, the realization of what had just happened started moving toward a reflective stage.  And this will likely last a long time.

We have something like this in the gospel reading today, which recounts the stories of two individuals, similarly blessed with their “winnings”, though in presumably lesser amounts.  The gospel regales us with the story, first, of a farmer, or maybe just a bounty hunter, who stumbles on a treasure hidden in a field.  He furtively looks around to ascertain whether this stroke of good luck has been noticed by others, and, then, satisfied that it remains known to him alone, he buries it again so that he can proceed to purchase that field and gain legal possession of it.  And, in the same vein, there is the pearl discovered by a merchant dealing in pearls who stumbles on one of great value and does what he has to do to gain it.

The upshot of these stories highlights what is at stake as we live our lives, and see them ever shortening as we age—perhaps with goals and ambitions for ourselves remaining yet unachieved.  A couple of things to note here entail, first, like the scriptural examples just mentioned, the unlikelihood that we will gain what we want, since the element of stumbling upon our prized goal is rather bleak, comparable to the surprise that is very much part of today’s gospel stories.  And the second concern pressing on us is whether we can assemble whatever it is going to take in order to guarantee that we have the prize in hand.  What can we scrape together to strengthen our hope that we are winners—something, apparently, that the gospel implies is possible for us, unlike the recent power ball prize that hardly seemed to lay within the realm of possibility?

The church tries to soften the anguish of engaging in a losing proposition by discounting or at least diminishing the sinking feeling that we are engaged in an impossible venture, first, by citing St. Paul’s reflection on the unlikelihood  that we are in position to become a winner in our efforts to gain the prize of heaven.  For he seems to depict God at the card table of life, so to speak, holding a set of cards that appears to be a losing hand—really, a terrible one.  For what He has to deal with is ourselves: foolish, weak, lowly, unlikely players in the challenges of life.  And He is trying to win on our behalf.

And win He did, with the unlikely saint we commemorate today: Agnes.  Just thirteen years old, she seemed to have little going for her, with the odds stacked against in terms of the threatening demands that she abandon her faith convictions in view of the terrible forces bearing down on her: torture and death.  It was as unlikely that she could maintain her fidelity to God as winning the lottery, or finding the treasure hidden in the field, or discovering the pearl of great price, for she was facing the powerful, the wise, the strong described by St. Paul.  But she did, with God at the table beside her.  Dealt a bad hand, He proved to be the consummate player in the game of life, by endowing Agnes with an instinct of faith, a kind of spiritual cunning against which the forces marshaled against her were no match.  She proved to be the greatest kind of winner: a saint.

 

Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.