Daily Scripture

Scripture:

1 John 2:12-17
Luke 2:36-40

Reflection:

In our gospel today we have the conclusion of the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple.  Did you ever wonder why Jesus came among us as a baby?  Why didn’t he come upon this earth as a fifty-foot giant commanding attention or as a knight in shining armor?  Why didn’t he arrive flying in a Star Wars airship?  Why did he come as a little baby?

I think he came as a baby, first of all, to show us we have nothing to be afraid of.  When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the angel said, “Do not be afraid.”  When the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, the angel said, “Do not be afraid.”  The angel told the shepherds, “Do not be afraid.”  So many times Jesus told his followers, “Do not be afraid.”

Jesus came to cast out fear: “Do not be afraid to talk to God.  Do not be afraid of those who can harm the body but cannot harm the soul.  Do not be afraid to speak the truth.  Do not be afraid to stand up for justice. Do not be afraid to follow me.  Do not be afraid to live.  I am Emmanuel.  I will always be with you.”

 Secondly, a baby wants to be held and loved.  Jesus came as a baby to tell us that he wants our love.

And thirdly, once you caress a little baby, it is natural to pass the baby around for others to hold.  Once we hold Jesus, he says, “Now give me away.  Give me to others so that I may bring them joy.  And when you give me away, you still have me.”

Like Anna let us give thanks to God and then speak of Jesus to all who are looking for redemption.  Do not be afraid to hold him, and then give him away.

 

Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.   http://www.alanphillipcp.com/

Scripture:

John 2:3-11
Luke 2:22-35

Reflection:

Yesterday, I got a haircut.  I went to the same woman who has cut my hair for the last two years.  She is a young, Muslim, single mother of a ten year old.  She told me about a man who came into the shop last week and started screaming at her.  “No Muslim is going to give me a haircut.”  She was reduced to tears in the back of the shop while her co-workers tried to eject the man from the store.  This young woman has never uttered one unkind word in my presence.  Sad.

Two weeks ago, I attended a walk for “Everytown for Gun Safety” with my wife in honor of the children killed at Sandy Hook.  Across the narrow street from our starting point stood a man with an assault rifle and a handgun strapped to his waist.  In our crowd were women, men, children and a friendly golden retriever.  Sad.

Three weeks ago, I watched a news story about a young police officer killed in the line of duty.  He had a young family with two children and a wife who now has to raise them without him.  Sad.

Four weeks ago, I saw the trial of a police officer who had killed an unarmed black person in a major city in our country.  People were angry and hurled insults toward the police in a demonstration against the action.  The family of the man who was killed cried in their deep grief.  Sad.

Today I read the first reading from John in preparation to reflect on its message.

“Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.”

I have often heard and used the phrase, “Hate the sin, love the sinner”.  I now think “love” means more.  Love calls for an effort on my part to understand, to feel compassion and to find common ground with the “sinner”.  I must engage the other in dialogue, not put them down with clever one liners on Facebook or Twitter or use “Zingers” to attack them.  Love is active, not passive.  Love searches for the common ground which unites and does not divide.

I have a lot to think and pray about today.  Please join me.

Terry McDevitt, Ph.D. is a member of the Passionist Family in Louisville, Kentucky.

Feast of the Holy Innocents 

Scripture:

1 John 1:5-2:2
Matthew 2:13-18

Reflection:

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. This feast can highlight for us the difference between the Christian celebration of Christmas and the secular celebration that most of us indulge in to some extent.  Our secular Christmas is over, the paper has been torn from the gifts, most of the lovingly prepared food consumed, there is not a Christmas Carol to be heard in the stores or on the radio, the decorations have already begun to wither, in fact, where I live the day after Christmas, folks are already starting to take down their trees and the trees begin to line the streets for pick-up.

But in our churches, it is still Christmas. And as Christians, we remember that Christmas day is only one day in the Christmas season, and the Christmas story is only one chapter in the epic of salvation, and only one chapter in our liturgical year.  So at Christmas we sing Glory to God in the highest…we give praise and celebrate, our Savior has come, but we remember that the cross is also part of the Nativity.  The reason for the celebration is that we will be saved, and we remember that it is on the Cross that salvation happens.

The Church gives us a reminder with this Feast of the Holy Innocents that even in the midst of great rejoicing, there can be sorrow.  For us, it is still the Christmas season, but we mourn this day.  Most of us experience this in our lives.  We know that all that happens to us is part of our life journey and part of God’s plan.   Pain and sorrow walk with us just as do joy and hope.

These innocent baby boys that were slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers must indeed have a very special place in heaven.  They died like all martyrs for Christ, but they also died IN PLACE of Christ.  In Matthew, we read that Herod was so angry when he discovered that the Magi had deceived him that he had all the male babies killed.  And the people mourned.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents is part of the liturgical Christmas season.  It’s a good time to remember that for many today even in this season of rejoicing, there is pain and sorrow.  Let’s temper our rejoicing.  Let’s pray for our sisters and brothers who are suffering and let’s reach out where we can to alleviate that suffering.  For we are Christians and for us the message of Christmas is not just about Christmas day.

Mary Lou Butler is a long-time friend and partner in ministry to the Passionists in California.

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Scripture:

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
Colossians 3:12-21
Luke 2:41-52

Reflection:

Some years ago, I remember speaking with a priest from another town. I was acknowledging my discomfort (especially, as a celibate) with preaching on this Feast of the Holy Family. Cryptically, he responded, “Ah, don’t sweat it, Jack; people don’t expect much… tell a story, sprinkle a little spiritual pixie dust around, and you’ll be fine!”  Not only is the statement remarkably condescending, it is bad theology!

Maybe that is why extended families and friends can be a challenge at Christmas. You know, the Aunt Gertrude who introduces herself as a “recovering Catholic”. “Don’t get me wrong, Father, I’m a spiritual woman, I’m just not into religion.” Or belligerent Uncle Clarence, hovering over the punch bowl and fancying himself as master of religion and science… marveling at the wonder of technology and how it has finally, definitively, disproved the existence of God.

First of all, today’s feast is not so much a day set aside to honor families… It’s more an extension of the Christmas mystery: INCARNATION, the mystery of God becoming human, and what that means for us.

It’s not so much about becoming spiritual beings nearly as much as about becoming simple human beings.

I had a homiletics professor at Notre Dame who, at one class, thundered: Don’t sanitize Scripture! His contention was that we’re so uncomfortable with the loose ends and messy humanness of Sacred Scripture, we over-spiritualize it, we try to scrub up God’s word and sanitize, and we over-pietize it.

That, to me, is the very core of today’s liturgy. Raising children is never easy, in any culture, at any time.

In today’s “Finding in the Temple “narrative, Mary and Joseph have an adolescent, and the kid is missing, the child is lost… and whether physically, emotionally, spiritually — when any good parent becomes aware of the loss of their child, it is an occasion of worry, fear, blame, guilt, & most especially: heartbreak.

The consolation is that we will find him in the Temple, that is, we find the child back in our experience of God …compassion and tenderness, mercy, forgiveness, hope. Holy Family is not about perfection, and certainly not about some scrubbed-up and dumbed-down pious event. It’s about the mystery of Incarnation, a continuation of the Christmas mystery crashing into our lives, the coming together of human and divine, material and spiritual. Emmanuel. God with us.

 

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.

Scripture:

Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59
Matthew 10:17-22

Reflection:

It was an amazing Christmas experience. It was the same feast, yet different in so many ways.

I lived in the Philippines for two years when I was in my late twenties. I often smiled and rolled my eyes when I’d hear at Christmas time Bing Crosby on the radio singing, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” as I lounged under a palm tree in the tropics.  It was not going to happen.

Yet there was something intensely profound in celebrating Christmas there. There, in the midst of immense poverty in the squatter community where I lived, the hope of Christmas really meant something.

For nine days before Christmas Day, before the sun lights the morning sky, Filipinos rise for Simbang Gabi, which literally means “night church,” or often called Misa de Gallo, from the Spanish, “Mass of the Rooster.”  Either way, it was the middle of the night! Winding through tiny homes patched together with scraps of material often salvaged from the adjacent garbage dump, families made their way to the simbahan (church) carrying a “parol” or Filipino lantern shaped like the Star of Bethlehem.

They came in hope, much as I imagine the shepherds did to see a newborn child. They came with expectations, much as the wise men did. They came to a simple chapel, Simbahan ng Kristong Hari (Church of Christ the King), much as Mary and Joseph did to a shed in Bethlehem.

This rising contrasted so profoundly with the rising I remember as a child. We rose to run to the tree to see what Santa Claus brought.  Perhaps we can return this Christmas to the story Filipinos re-enact in their Simbang Gabi:

And the shepherds said to one another, “Do you hear what the angel is saying? Let us rise and go to see him.” All at once, as they were walking, the star stopped over the stable. The shepherds were amazed. How was it possible that the Son of God could be born in such a place? They went in to see him, and they found everything to be as the angel had told them. Then they kneeled down before him and adored him.

 

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 Solemnity of Christmas

Scripture:

Isaiah 52:7-10
Hebrews 1:1-6
John 1:1-18

Reflection:

Christmas is such an important liturgical event in the Church’s calendar that it have given us three Masses to lift up the importance of this day.  There is the Mass at Midnight, at Dawn, and for the Day.

The gospels for the first two Masses are taken from the Gospel of Luke, and the Mass for the Day, uses the Prologue from the Gospel of John.  The Vigil Mass for Christmas uses the Gospel of Matthew.

Luke is the only synoptic to develop the nativity event.  Luke is the only synoptic to use the term “Savior.”  It is the text used in the Midnight Mass.  We are told that Mary and Joseph have to leave Nazareth to go to Bethlehem, about eighty miles, to complete a census required by the Roman Government.  Every fourteen year such a census was demanded.  Right off we are told that Israel is occupied by a foreign forces.  Citizen regardless of their conditions must comply.  Israel was a land of anguish, destruction, forced deportation, filled with outcasts.

Luke also tells us that when it was time for Mary to deliver her child, there was no room for them in the Inn.  An Inn is simply a fenced in area where animals and their owners can settle.  The implication is that Mary and Joseph deliberately chose to stay in a stable, where there would be more privacy.

Luke further tells us the first to know about the birth of the child, were shepherds in a field tending their sheep.  What is unusual about this is that shepherds were considered outcasts of society.  In the eyes of society they were considered to be of shiftless and dishonest character.  In the Old Testament they were classified along with prostitutes, publicans, and tax collectors. They were selected to be the first to hear the Good News that the Messiah was born, the Savior.  They received the message and went to witness the Child wrapped I swaddling clothes, with Mary and Joseph.

It is important to note that the Shepherds announced to Mary and Joseph what they were told by the Angels.  They also proclaimed the good news to all they met, and were filled with joy.  It is not to be missed that the first to preach and proclaim the Good News of the Incarnation were these shepherds, the poor, the despised, the outcasts of society.  Everyone is responsible for sharing the Good News, no matter who we are, and what our circumstance may be.  And it also important for us to listen to the Good News, Salvation is present to us.

We are moved with humility, because God loved us so much the Son, became incarnate, one with us.

He was born in need, a prerequisite for the Reign of God.  He was born of a young couple on the road, in a manger.  He was first recognized  and proclaimed by shepherds, societies outcasts, not royalty, or wealthy, but the poor and lowly.

How do we get to Bethlehem?  Like Mary and Joseph, by our routine family responsibilities.  Like the shepherds, we need to listen for the messengers of God, who bring the Good News to us.  When this happens we are restored to wholeness, which the Incarnation brings.  We are rescued from sin and our alienation from God.  And, God become immanent.  Through us God is made present to the outcasts.  Jesus, who became one with us, saves us from destruction and self isolation.  Karl Barth said that “The Incarnation, is God’s search for human kind.”  This search is continued through you and me as we live out the mystery of God taking on human nature.  This continues through the Church.  This continues the reality that is Christmas.  Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

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

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Scripture:

2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Luke 1:67-79

Reflection:

The Dawning of Our Compassionate God

On this day before Christmas the liturgy brings a beautiful text to our prayerful attention. “The compassionate mercy of our God has dawned and visited us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Lk 1:78  This complex, poetic and beautiful text is hard to translate, but very clear in its meaning.

At Christmas a new day of God’s passionate mercy lights up the world!

In the original inspired Greek text the word for compassion, splagchnon, is much stronger than its English counterpart.   Splagchnon is full of deep emotion and comes from the innermost feelings of our anatomy.   The word means visceral or intestinal.   For the ancients it was a way of expressing what is deepest in our being.  God with the deepest mercy like the sun is dawning on us at the birth of Christ!  This message is right from God’s heart.   He is head over heels in love with us humans.   “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him.” Misericordiae Vultus Pope Francis

Christ is often compared to the sun’s rays.  “And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, Upon them a Light dawned.” Mt 4:13   Thanks to modern physics we know a lot more about the light of the sun.   It is generally strongly agreed that light is not just a ray but also a stream of tinny energized particles called a quanta.  When we sit in the sun we are enveloped in billions of quanta coming from the core of the sun’s nuclear reactor which fuses at 27 million degrees.

Christ is the “light of the world”.  It is fitting we use so many lights at Christmas.   His coming at Christmas blankets the world in the life giving quanta of Christ.  This comes to us from the depths of the Father’s heart.  The Christ child is the most beautiful and precious gift that can come to us in this blessed season.  We must never leave it unwrapped under the tree of the cross!

 

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

Scripture:

Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24
Luke 1:57-66

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading for today, when the baby born to Elizabeth and Zechariah is about to be circumcised, the relatives are ready to name him after his father Zechariah, but Elizabeth corrects them and says, “No, he will be called John.” But the relatives protest, saying, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they turn and ask Zechariah, who has been mute since the birth of John was announced to him. Zechariah writes on a tablet, “John is his name.” Immediately Zechariah gains his speech and praises God.

When I reflected on this reading I was struck by the relatives’ protest: “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” In other words, “This is a completely new name for this family.” And it got me to thinking about the church’s response to the things going on in our world. Our faith has been handed down to us through the centuries from apostolic times. That will not change. But the church has always tried to make the Gospel message intelligible to each culture and society in which it finds itself. And sometimes that may require new terms that have not been heard before in order to help people deal with things that have not been seen before.

In Jesus’ time, His proclaiming of the kingdom was new and at times radical to those who first heard it. In many ways, the Gospel is still new and radical today. The challenge is to discern how the Gospel message can be translated into terms that people understand without compromising the basic truths of our faith. That has been the challenge of the Church almost from the beginning. When we face war and terror and deal with the implications of technology and the crisis facing our environment, we may need new terms to speak to the people of the 21^st century. But we do that as we have always been called to do it – with love and compassion and mercy, seeking peace and justice for all of God’s creation.

As we continue to make room for Jesus in our hearts this Advent, we pray for the grace to be open to how we communicate His love to the world of today.

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