Daily Scripture

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 22:19-23
Romans 11:33-36
Matthew 16:13-20

 

 

 

Reflection:

Light for Sight

And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Micah 16:17  Jesus reminds all of us along with Peter that we will never really see and understand Jesus unless the Father reveals Him.   Faith is our eye by which we perceive Him.  Faith is a gift we undeservedly receive that enables us to see and grasp Christ.  We need light for sight.  We need the light of revelation for the sight of Christ!  The closest friends of Christ like the apostles could not on their own see Jesus after his resurrection unless He revealed himself to them. 

The word for reveal in original Greek is apŏkaluptō.  It means to uncover, lay open what has been veiled or covered up.   "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!" Romans 11:33  "And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him." Luke 24:31 The word for recognized in the inspired Greek is epiginōskō i.e., to become thoroughly acquainted with, to know thoroughly.  

We desperately need the Spirit to open our hearts and minds to the dazzling light of Christ.    While reason is a wonderful gift of God, it alone will never bring us into a life of faith.  Faith is never against reason, but it is far beyond reason.   The practical result of this is that we must get on our knees and like the apostles of old and ask: "Add to our faith" Luke 17:5

In today’s world humility is not the most practiced virtue.   We are blessed with much more scientific knowledge now.   It is very impressive and very helpful.   We thank God for all our scientists who have made our life so much more wonderful.   But perhaps we are a bit more arrogant when it comes to religion. I am afraid we have a tendency to say if I don’t see it, it is not true.   Or, I will do it my way.   We must humble ourselves as we try to approach God.  We will never come into His friendship unless we have light for sight.  We must plead with Him that with open arms He says: "Come to Me"

 

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

 

Scripture:

Ezekiel 43:1-7a
Matthew 23:1-12

Reflection:

In our Gospel reading for today, we hear Jesus denouncing the scribes and Pharisees of His day. And at the end of this particular passage, He says, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." It seems to me that humility is at the heart of the matter in Jesus’ denunciation. The Pharisees Jesus is talking about were too caught up in their own prestige in the community, and too often looked down on others.

It seems that the Pharisees and scribes failed to have the same attitude as Ezekiel does in our first reading. In that reading, Ezekiel has a vision in which he is brought into the presence of God. His attitude is one of humility: "I fell prone as the glory of the Lord entered the temple by way of the gate which faces the east."

Perhaps the Pharisees would prostrate themselves before God like Ezekiel, but if that humility was not extended to their views of themselves or others, then it would be a hollow gesture. When we recognize that we are not God, and that we do not have God all figured out, and that we rely so much on God’s love and mercy, we get a true perspective about ourselves and others.

Jesus accuses the Pharisees and the scribes of laying burdens on people’s shoulders, without doing anything to help them. We can’t even try to do that! In his vision, Ezekiel says that "spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court." Imperfect as we are, God lifts us up to do the work He has for us to do. We are called to be about lifting up others! As fellow pilgrims on the journey, there is no need to try to lord it over others, or make a spectacle of how holy we think we are! Instead, we are to help others along the way, as we are helped. May we follow the example of Jesus, and be humble servants of all.

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P. is on staff at St. Paul of the Cross Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan. 

 

Saint Pius X, Pope

Scripture:

Ezekiel 36:23-28
Matthew 22:1-14

Reflection:

Everyone makes adjustments and changes as he or she moves through life.  We normally do it to better meet our goals or ambitions at a certain stage of our life.  Even Popes do this, like St. Pius X, whom we recall today.   And God Himself makes adjustments which don’t affect Him, but they do concern us, as we hear in our readings.

Sometimes we welcome these developments, at other times they are painful for us.  The prophet Ezekiel points out the incessant problem afflicting his fellow Jews: falling away from their attachment to God.  No surprise here, from our familiarity with Jewish history in the bible.  But what should attract our attention is God’s response to it.  On this occasion He doesn’t lash out at them for their infidelities, as He has done at other times and places, but institutes some new procedures in their regard.  He is going to release them from their exile in a foreign land, and purify them from their faults and failures.  This will entail a new heart and a new spirit: a true make-over, enabling them to start over, and rewarding them with a renewed claim on the land that had been theirs in former times.  So we hear of the Jews becoming the beneficiaries of God’s change of plans in their regard.

A similar scenario presents itself in the gospel: a change of plans, originating with God, but impacting us.  It depicts a banquet that a king planned on the occasion of his son’s wedding.  The invited guests don’t show but went about their own business instead, which apparently was of more concern to them than wedding festivities.  In fact, they even got downright mean.  But this didn’t phase the king.  He simply made some adjustments in his program and issued a new invitation list.  He wasn’t to be outflanked by the disrespectful reactions of the original invitees.  Once again we note God, while sticking with His basic plan, yet more than ready to pursue a change to accomplish His original purpose.

Popes also are not above these maneuvers.  As, for instance, we note in the life of St. Pius X, whose memorial we recall today.  He inherited a fairly long-standing tradition of communion practice in the church of about a hundred years ago, when young people were not admitted to the eucharist until they had reached a certain age, such as well into the teens.  Pius thought this was much too late, and, mindful of Jesus’ fondness for small children, decided to advance the age for youngsters to the time when they were able to distinguish the eucharistic bread from other, ordinary bread-a practice most of us have been familiar with– around the age of 6 or 7

Another change this pope instituted was more frequent communion for adults.  Before his time, people, especially men, approached the eucharist very sparingly, often just once a year, such as Christmas time.  Perhaps they felt unworthy to do so more frequently, not realizing the eucharist was food to spiritually strengthen us, precisely so as to strengthen us.  It was Pius X who adverted to this practice, and urged the laity to be more frequent communicants.

So when we note how God, and the Pope, are ready and willing to change the way things have been done, often for centuries, we should not hesitate to adjust whatever  we have been doing, or not doing, and that may be proving detrimental to us.  This is not change for the sake of change, but change for the better.  Whatever improves our standing with God, and one another, is worth pursuing.   Certainly we can support this appreciation of God by engaging in petitionary prayer, knowing from today’s bible readings how accommodating God can be.

 

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

Feast of St. Bernard, Abbot

Scripture:

Ezekiel 34: 1-11
Matthew 20:1-16

Reflection:

In today’s first reading, Ezekiel is mandated by God to speak a word of judgment against the spiritual leaders of his time.  Ezekiel tells these spiritual leaders that their task is to Shepherd God’s people (the sheep).  Ezekiel condemns them because though "you have fed of their milk, worn their wool, and slaughtered the fatlings," you have not pastured the sheep.

What does it mean to "pasture the sheep"?  Ezekiel describes it this way, "You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured.  You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost…."  And so, they are condemned!

 Once again, in this morning’s reading from Ezekiel, we hear that God wants those who believe in Him, to reach out with compassion and generosity to the sick and the injured, to the lost and the wounded.  How many times have we heard that message?!  Yet, most of us know how difficult that is.  It’s easy to be so engaged in our own struggles, so lost in our own personal world, that we not only don’t reach out to those around us, we often don’t even notice them and their needs.

Today, we pray for the grace to see those in our lives who are lost or injured and we ask God to give us the courage to reach out to them with God’s love and ours.

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 56:1, 6-7
Romans 11:13-15, 29-32
Matthew 15:21-28

Reflection:

Among the various things that have happened in our country and around the world recently, there was mention in the news of the fortieth anniversary of the resignation of President Nixon. When I was in high school, I remember coming home after school and watching the Watergate hearings on TV. Senator Howard Baker asked what has become a famous question, "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

I bring this up because our Gospel passage for Sunday (Matthew 15:21-28) has raised similar questions for Scripture scholars and theologians. In the encounter between Jesus and the "Canaanite woman," people have wondered whether Jesus actually had a change in His vision of His ministry, or whether He was actually teaching His disciples a lesson about the universality of His mission. In other words, what did Jesus know, and when did He know it? I’m not sure I have a definitive answer to the question. I think the questions come up because the debate raises important issues for various people. For those who stress the divinity of Jesus, there is no doubt that Jesus knew what He was doing all along, and therefore must have been teaching His disciples a lesson. For those who stress His humanity, it is important to detect growth and change in Jesus’ life on earth, and so they have no problem seeing Jesus change His views about His ministry. And there are those who see it as significant that a woman, a "foreigner," no less, is instrumental in helping Jesus broaden His horizons, and so the importance of women in Jesus’ life is once again confirmed, with implications about the role of women in the Church. I know it can be a cop-out to say this, but I do believe there is validity to all three perspectives.

But perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from this encounter in the Gospel is that, as we have seen in Matthew’s Gospel before with the visit of the Magi at Jesus’ birth, the Good News of Jesus Christ is not just meant for a specific group of people, but for the entire world! We cannot in any way, judge others as undeserving or unworthy of God’s love in Jesus Christ! We cannot try to withhold the Good News of Jesus Christ from anyone!

It may seem to be a given that the Gospel is meant for everyone. But this has led me to another topic for reflection. For those who see no reason why the Church should be involved in social justice, I offer this: If it is not right for us to withhold the Good News from anyone, can it be right for us to withhold the necessities of life? Many applaud the Church for the charity work that it does, but criticize the Church for doing things such as helping undocumented, or illegal, immigrants. But does it not make sense, along the lines of the Gospel, to see these people more in terms of their humanity than their legal status? In many ways, working for justice is the best (the only?) way to see that everyone has not only the necessities of life, but the opportunity to be the fullest expression of who God made them to be. Does the Church itself need to keep learning this? Absolutely!

Do we dare hope for a church and a world which is just and at peace? Do we dare hope for a world in which no one is prevented from living their full potential as human beings? What’s going on in the world seems to speak against any kind of hope. But the woman in our Gospel reading dared to hope! Knowing she was a foreigner in the eyes of Jews, she still came up to Jesus, begging for healing for her daughter. And ultimately, no matter what one reads into their exchange, Jesus heals her daughter. May we be like the Canaanite woman and dare to dream and hope, and help bring about healing in Jesus Christ!   

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P. is on staff at St. Paul of the Cross Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan. 

 

Scripture:

Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32
Matthew 19:13-15

Reflection:

This little periscope of two verses of Matthews Gospel has been called one of the loveliest incidents in the New Testament.  The mothers bring their children to be blessed by Jesus.  This was very understanding for its time because 30 percent of all children at the time of Jesus died at birth, 30% died of illness, and 60% of all children died before the age of sixteen.  It is not surprising then at the urgency of the mothers to want to have their children blessed by Jesus.

This passage is preceded by Jesus’ statement about the sacredness of marriage.  This passage will be followed by Jesus’ statement on the importance of celibacy.  None of the ancient religions or philosophical systems at the time of Jesus gave such importance to the child. Nowhere else will one find a teaching on the importance of the family as is taught here.  If you include the children you automatically include the significance of women in Matthew’s community. 

At this time the early Church was debating the legitimacy of the baptism of children. When Jesus says "Don’t hinder the children from coming to me"  Matthew deliberately uses the same word (kolo) "hinder" that is used in the baptismal formula for the baptismal rite. 

The significance of this teaching is still with us today.  Recently a survey was taken on "Marriage and Happiness."  It found that the first year of marriage is the year of the greatest bliss.  The fifth year of marriage marks the end of the honeymoon and is the most difficult.  The tenth year of marriage for some reason is equal to and may even exceed the happiness of the first year.  And most recently it is found that the twentieth year of marriage, the years of the empty nest can exceed the bliss of even the first and tenth year.  One community skews this pattern.  It is the Catholic community.  The birth of the first child exceeds the bliss of the first year, and what’s more the birth of the second child exceeds the bliss of the first child.  Jesus saying "do not hinder the children from coming to me" has been tattooed into the DNA of every disciple the importance of the child.  We cannot do other than to love the children if we want to be his disciples. 

 

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

Feast of the Queenship of Mary

Scripture:

Isaiah 9 : 1 – 6
Luke 26 – 38

Reflection:

Today, for the second time during the month of August, we honor our Blessed Mother.  Actually, the "Queenship" of Mary may sound like an odd title for one of her feast days.  I have sometimes found it to be a strain to put the idea of "Queen" together with Isaiah’s prophecy and the wonderful image of Mary as the "handmaid" of the Lord in Luke’s gospel.  Of all the evangelists, St. Luke might be the one to most shy away from images of royalty when it comes to both Mary and her Son.  Yet here we are celebrating this wonderful feast day.

Isaiah certainly looks to the birth of a king who will restore the royal line of King David and be the savior for the people.  The majestic titles – Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, and Prince of Peace – create a vivid portrait of one who will rise up to fill God’s People with light, joy, and peace while freeing them from all that is darkness, all that holds them down, and all that holds them away from God.  Who can the mother of this King be?

As believers in Jesus, we look back on Isaiah through the prism of the resurrection.  We recognize the mother of this newborn king.  St. Luke describes her for us.  She is a humble maid servant of the Lord who listens attentively to God’s voice and is only intent to follow God’s pathways for her life.  It is Mary’s acceptance of God’s design that transformed her life to one of service not only to God but to her Son and, through Him, to all of us.  Her "yes" created a role for Mary in each of our lives, i.e. to draw us with love to the heart of her Son, Jesus.

As such, Mary stands in a position overlooking the cascading generations of believers offering majestic and royal guidance to the pathways of our lives.  She reigns as "Queen" for sure, but a "Queen" who is always a humble, gentle and loving companion and guide. 

 

Fr. Richard Burke, CP, is a member of St. Paul of the Cross Province and also serves on the Provincial Council of Holy Cross Province.  He lives at St. Ann’s Monastery in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

 

Scripture:

1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Luke 4:16-30

Reflection:

Right from the start of his papacy Pope Francis has emphasized the need for the Church to care for the poor.   Even choosing the name "Francis" was part of his mission to remind the Church that it is to be a place of mercy and compassion, a community that works for justice for those most vulnerable.

Some of the biblical inspiration for the Pope’s emphasis can be found in the readings for this first Monday of September.   Both of these readings reflect on the very beginning of the mission of Jesus and of Paul.  They, too, put their emphasis on the cry of the poor and God’s care for them.

The first reading is from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and it states one of the most fundamental principles of his mission.  Paul tells his Corinthian community that he did not come to them "with sublimity of words or of wisdom" but, rather, he had resolved "to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  This is the very core of Paul’s understanding of the gospel.   Jesus died as a sign of love for us.  His death by crucifixion came about because of a whole series of commitments that had defined Jesus’ mission: his healing, his association with the poor and the outcasts, his bold challenge to the authorities who had other priorities, his ceaseless proclamation of the Kingdom of God which would be "good news for the poor."   Thus the cross was transformed from being a sign of a terrible form of capital punishment into a paradoxical sign of ultimate self-sacrificing love.  Paul saw in the cross of Jesus that God wished to save the world not through an overwhelming power but through what the world would deem "weakness"-self-sacrificing love.   This was a sign for Paul that the God of love revealed through Jesus had a special affinity for those who were suffering and vulnerable.

The Gospel selection from the inaugural scene of Jesus’ mission in the Gospel of Luke drives home this same astounding message.  At a dramatic moment in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus chooses as the keynote of his own ministry a reading from Isaiah, chapter 61 – "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."   This quotation is a preview of what Jesus in fact will do as he moved out from Nazareth across Galilee and ultimately to his death and resurrection in Jerusalem.

There are two basic lessons for us in the readings for today.  One is that our God, revealed though Jesus Crucified, is a God of unfathomable love, a love lavished in a special way on those who suffer.  And, secondly, this same love of God impels us to live lives attuned to God’s love for us and, therefore, to be driven by mercy and compassion in all of our relationships.

 

Fr. Donald Senior, C.P. is President Emeritus and Professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union.  He lives at the Passionist residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.