Daily Scripture

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Luke 4:16-30                           

 Reflection:

Do not grieve like those who have no hope. No prophet is accepted in his native place.

There’s this amazing little person that lives in my house.  About 46 inches tall, long hair, a beautiful singing voice, and wow, what a dancer.  She just turned nine last week. It really seems like yesterday that she was still a question – something I wasn’t even sure was real – and today, yes the 31st of August, 2015, she’s walking into a fourth grade classroom for the first time.

My father died just a few days after my daughter was born.

I remember getting The Call.  I was off to pick up my wife and daughter and bring them home from the hospital for the first time that morning.  But then, on the way, I had to go sign for my father’s body, stop by the mortuary and buy a casket. And when I finally got to the maternity ward, I was greeted by the nurses and doctors with such joy…but I sure didn’t feel joyful.  There were flowers and balloons everywhere, but all I could see were my shoes hitting the floor – one after the other – thumping along as though there were someone else’s feet inside them.

Some years later, around her birthday again, my daughter and I were walking toward the sanctuary when the Pastor walked up and said, “Daphne, I just love your shoes!” (They were very pink, and very bright).  And she said “Oh, Monsignor, I don’t love them. They’re only things.  You can’t love things…only people.”  Very graciously he replied, “You know, you’re right. I don’t love them, but I sure do like them very much.  Well, goodbye.”  My little girl again piped up, “No, no! Monsignor, for people with faith there is never a goodbye…only See-You-Laters.”

For people with faith, there are never goodbyes.

I wish I had remembered today’s passage from 1st Thessalonians when my father died.  How obstinate I am!  I wonder how many times God tried to reach me in all these years of sadness before he used a (then) 5 year old to bring to life the Good News.  The signs and messages were always there…I was just too closed to accept them.

The people in today’s Gospel were a lot like me. Here is the Son of God himself, standing right in front of them, talking to them. God comes to heal the sick, bring sight to the blind, shower peace and love to all people, share the message of Eternal Life, and these folk were just too closed to see him at work in their lives.  In fact they were so angry, they were going to cast him away and throw him off a cliff!

God appears to us all the time, in every moment – always waiting to save, always knocking at the door of our hearts, begging to be let in – if only we would make room and let him in.  Look around… A pal or neighbor says a word that “hits home,” or some graffiti on the side of a truck that goes by, perhaps a tiny whispering sound, or someone you’ve only just met who seems to know exactly what you’re going through… Or maybe, just maybe even a 6 year old ballerina with very pink, very bright shoes.

Who has been God to you?
How have you led Him to a cliff to be thrown over headlong?
How has God touched someone through you?

How are we going to open the door right now?

Because it’s true… For people with faith, who are open to the work of God in their life, there is never a goodbye… only a “see you later.”

So, friend, see you later.

Dear God, thank you for the gift of your most amazing and ever available presence. Please grant us the grace to always open the door and let you in. Amen.

 

Paul Puccinelli is Director of Liturgy & Music at St. Rita Parish in Sierra Madre, CA, and a member  of the Retreat Team at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center.

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Reflection:

In today’s gospel Jesus lists the evils that can come out of the human heart: “unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice deceit,” etc.  How does evil get in there in the first place?  By letting in the wrong kind of thoughts.

Way back in the second century Marcus Aurelius Antonius noted, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”  Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and your change your world.”

The British philosopher, James Allen, said, “Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit — and man is his own gardener.”  As our own gardener, we need to take charge of our thoughts.

In our first reading Moses is in effect telling his people to let their thoughts be about the statutes and decrees of God.  Our responsorial psalm reminds us that the one “who thinks the truth in his heart” will live in the presence of the Lord.  St. James tells each of us today to “humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you…”  So reading, reflecting on and studying Sacred Scripture is the first step to care for our thoughts.

The second step is to follow St. Paul’s advice to the Philippians.  “Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

One day a Jamaican grandfather was talking to his grandson about his inner turmoil.  He confided, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart.  One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one.  The other wolf is the loving, forgiving, compassionate one.”  The grandson asked him, “Which wolf will win the fight, Grandpa?”  The grandpa paused for a moment, then said, “The one I feed.”

If we feed our minds with the Word of God and with thoughts of the beauty that surrounds us, we too will live in the Lord.

 

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

 

The Passion of
Saint John the Baptist

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:9-11
Mark 6:17-29

Reflection:

“Beheading” is a word we hear too often today in the media.  This cruel act is re-counted for us again in today’s readings from Scripture as we remember the beheading of St. John the Baptist.  The account of this event describes the self-centered motives of King Herod.  He is a person who has set himself as the center of his universe.  Words from the current International Charter for Compassion stand in clear contrast to Herod’s motives.

“Compassion impels us to de-throne ourselves from the center of our world and put another there.”  (International Charter for Compassion)

Herod’s motives also are illustrated in Pope Francis’ new encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’”.

“When human beings place themselves at the center, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative.  Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests.”  (Laudato Si’, Paragraph 122)

John the Baptist preached alone against Herod’s self-centered relativism and it cost him his head.  Today is a good day to take a moment and reflect; where do I place myself in my universe?  Am I at the center?  Or am I making every compassionate effort to place another there?

 

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

Feast of Saint Augustine

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Matthew 25:1-13

Reflection:

Are you a foolish virgin or a wise virgin?!  Today we hear the well-known scripture from Matthew about the wise and the foolish virgins.  The five wise virgins took time to prepare for the bridegrooms coming by having their oil lamps ready as opposed to the five foolish virgins who were left out in the dark because they had not planned well.  At first glance we could say this would have been a perfect opportunity for the wise virgins to share their oil with those who did not have any!  BUT would that have taught the foolish ones to be any better prepared for the next time!?  Maybe some would have become better planners or maybe not!

It seems to be that so much of our lives have to do with timing along with faith!  Faith helps us to ‘stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.’  In the absence of faith our sense of timing always seems to be off, we are always running out of oil!  We seem to be totally overwhelmed by the fact that things are just not working out right.  We become easily perplexed and frustrated.  When we put our faith and trust in God’s timeline, Gods’ plan for us, and we remember God is in charge of our live and we are not, then things seem to fall into place so much easier.

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of St. Monica and today we celebrate the feast of her son, St Augustine.  We know Monica kept her lamps full and relied on God to hear her lifelong prayers for her son’s conversion.  Again, this conversion all happened in God’s time.  St. Augustine led a licentious life and moved restlessly for a long time until his conversion.  His famous quote, ‘ my heart is restless until it rests in you, my God’ reminds us to place our faith and trust in our God who knows us better than we know ourselves.

May we place our focus on becoming wise virgins whose lamps are always oiled and ready to lead us along the path that God has set before us.

 

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

Feast of Saint Monica

 Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 3:7-13
Matthew 24:42-51

Reflection:

I can’t say I have ever been inspired by images of saints contemplating a skull, but today’s readings do remind us of the benefit to pondering end times, or the coming of the Lord at the end of time.  And over the years, I have far too often presided at the funeral of an adolescent; it is sobering to gaze upon the congregation of many classmates, at once feeling invincible — and now, fragile, even vulnerable.

So what does Jesus really mean when he thunders, “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Matt 24:42)  In his Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul also prays that they be kept “blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.”  (1 Thess 3:13)

The admonition to pay attention or stay awake is not meant to intimidate or threaten, as if God were a vengeful tyrant, waiting to pounce upon us as a bird might when seizing its pray. Rather, it is the persistent care and “in-your-face” love of a parent, who refuses to abandon her child, much like Monica, whose feast we celebrate today.

How can we maintain a hopeful or even cheerful stance when statistics are bleak and weigh us down? Research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate stirs me. In 1975 there were 369,133 marriages celebrated in this country; last year 154,450. The total number of priests has decreased from 58,398 to 38,275; the decline in religious sisters and brothers is even more dramatic. Catholics who attend Mass weekly has tumbled from 42% to 24%. We all know the percentages of “nones” (those who profess no religious identification or denomination);  those who are disengaged from any mainline religion are in our families, they live next door, or share an office with us.

Yet how Christ-like the preaching of Pope Francis! He, too, calls us to wake up the world! Don’t get so bloated with comfort and convenience that you are anesthetized to the mystery of God-presence in the poor. Don’t become so stressed or anxious with overwork that you are numb to God’s love in the grandeur of creation, the beauty of nature. Don’t clutter your calendars and closets that you miss those moments when God is crashing in with favor and compassion.

Maybe skull-gazing isn’t so bad after all.

 

Father 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:

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 23:23-26

Reflection:

My brother, Dan, would have been 49 years old today.  He was just shy of turning 23 when he was killed.

His suddenly being taken from family and friends threw open what Jesus today calls the “whitewashed tombs” and the “adorned memorials.”  I look back at that horrific time and see now how his death gave me a new chance at life.  Like many of us, I suspect, I like to have things look good.  I don’t like messiness.  I like things in their place.  But Dan’s death was messy.  It was not the way it was supposed to be.

What I mean by having a new chance at life is that all the messiness, the brokenness, the hurts that I stuffed into tombs deep within myself and then whitewashed to pretty them all up, they could not endure Dan’s death.  A wise priest once asked me, “What would Jesus have to do if you let him into your life?”  If everything is nice and neat, all things in their place, what do you need Jesus for?  My brother’s death forced me to open those tombs to allow the mercy and love of God to enter my life.

We all learned as kids that Jesus died for our sins.  He died that we might live.  He experienced the messiness of human suffering and death so that we might know that the suffering and messiness of our lives can be redeemed and healed.  I truly believe that God would have helped me uncover the whitewashed tombs of my life at some point.  But I do know God brought life to me from Dan’s death.  And this I know on his birthday, he continues to live.  His spirit urges me to invite Jesus into those dark and broken places in my life so I can live life authentically, honestly and passionately, messiness and all.

 

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.

Scripture:

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 23:23-26

Reflection:

Today the Church celebrates the lives St. Louis, King of France, a crusader, a defender of justice, and patron of the needy; and St. Joseph Calasanz, a theologian and canonist, who was devoted to the education of the poor.  Many of St. Joseph Calasanz’s contemporaries were disturbed because learning would make the poor restless with their plight.

Matthew was writing about an argument in his community.  There was a dispute between the Rabbis of the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai.  One school of thought proposed that one-tenth of the produce of the land was to be tithed.  This would be any increase in livestock, fruit trees, oil, and wine.  The other school of thought said that not only was the above to be tithed, but also “mint, dill, and cumin.”  Matthew’s comment was they “filtered out the gnat while swallowing a camel whole!”

Matthew pronounces a number of “woes.”  He says the Scribes and Pharisees were concerned about “the outside of the cup and the plate.”  They were more concerned with “external cleanliness than with interior cleanliness.”  He goes on to say, they were like “whitewashed sepulchers” nice to look at from the outside, but they were contaminated on the inside.  Tombs were whitewashed so that people could see them even in the night and would avoid them.  To get close to a tomb made one ritually unclean.  Whereas, they should be concerned with the larger realities of Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness.  He continues to say that “purity” and “integrity” are a matter of the heart.

Paul in his message to the Thessalonians has a similar message to Matthew’s.  The Thessalonians were caught up in -uttering prophecies, divine oracles, forging letters, and concocting rumors of the “second coming.”  Paul encouraged them to be people of courage, in the face of opposition, please God rather than other humans, avoid flattering and greed, be gentle and minister with those you have been called to share your life after the examples of Saints Louis and Joseph Calasanz.  Amen.

 

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

Scripture:

Revelation 21:9b-14
John 1:45-51

 

Reflection:

Transparency

Jesus really loves Nathaniel.   He is not a deceitful man.  “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him.” John 1:46   The word that is used to describe deceit in the original Greek text of John’s Gospel is “dolos”.   A good way to understand this word is its etymology which means “a bait for fish”.  We offer a worm to the fish not to feed him but to eat him.

When Jesus looks at Nathaniel He sees a man who is transparent A duplicitous or deceitful person presents himself as respectful and caring for another, but deep down is only using others for his own ends.

Many of us have an all too long a history of using people in a nice way.   Often there is lacking a genuine care for the welfare of the other, but with a very real care for our own self.  In today’s Gospel we find a man, Nathaniel, who is transparent. He can be unpleasantly honest. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” But what you see is what you get!

Transparency is used a lot today in politics.  However, the claim of transparency is often the ultimate duplicity!    It is a deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another.  People are a great gift of God to us.  The name of Nathaniel literally means “gift from God”.  The gifts of God must be used but not just appropriated for our personal use.    They should bring us to serve Him, His people and not just ourselves.

Let us pray that we may not be duplicitous in our relationships with God, others and ourselves.   Blaise Pascal in a moment of negativity said: “We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.” May God grant to us that most comforting and humble attitude of genuineness!

 

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