Daily Scripture

 

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

Scripture:

Acts 12:1-11
2 Timothy 4:6-8,17-18
Matthew 16:13-19

 

 

Reflection:

Today we celebrate the Solemn Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  As I look at today’s readings I am humbled by the greatness and holiness of these two giants.  The first reading tells the story of Peter being freed from prison by an angel; the original "get out of jail free" card!  The second reading is a tribute to the great St. Paul and his willingness to "complete the race to the finish line" in his preaching of the good news.  The final gospel reading describes Jesus telling Peter that he is the "rock" upon which the Church will be built.  Wow!  How can I identify with the courage, selflessness and grace of these two giants?  Giants are a hard act to follow!

I am reminded of my childhood reading about the tales of the giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan and Babe, his great blue ox!  The closest I have to a great blue ox is Gabriel, my not so great black cat.  So how do I handle a reflection on these two great saints and giants of the early Church, Peter and Paul?

Maybe a giant Louisville sunset will help.  A couple of evenings ago, a classic Kentucky storm rolled through our area at sunset.  When it was over I was sitting and watching the sun go down through the windows.  The sun poured through small openings in the clouds and bounced off the leaves of the trees.  The green of the leaves glimmered like silver.  It was gorgeous in a way only God can provide.  I was touched by the sight and the remembrance of how much God loves me.  I guess I don’t have to be Saint Peter, Saint Paul or even Paul Bunyan to experience the joy of being loved by God!

God loves me completely, just as I am, without reserve, in a most beautiful, remarkable way; and, like most of us, I’m not even a giant.  But I am a child of God; and that’s enough for me and for us all!

Happy Feast Day Saints Peter and Paul!

 

Terry McDevitt, Ph.D. is a member of our Passionist Family who volunteers at the Passionist Assisted Living Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Genesis 13:2, 5-18
Matthew 7:6, 12-14

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, we hear several sayings, you could almost say, proverbs, from Jesus. All of them are well-known, including what is widely referred to as "The Golden Rule." The one saying that has drawn my attention is: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."

Sometimes I want to ask, like a petulant child, "Why?" Why is the narrow, constricted, way the one that leads to life? I believe it is because following Jesus takes us outside of ourselves and beyond our own desires. As we hear in the Gospels, Jesus says, "Whoever wishes to come after me, must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34). We don’t usually like to hear things like that, and so we often find ourselves looking here and there for any other way that could be easier.

But if we are willing to take Jesus at His word, we do find that following Him leads to life. We may not escape trials and suffering, but we will find real joy and real peace. We will find joy in knowing more and more the love God has for us in Jesus Christ. We will actually find joy in sharing God’s love instead of looking for what the world defines as love in all the wrong places. We will find peace in doing God’s will, more than we can find peace in following our own will. And we will find that the more often we enter the "narrow gate," or travel the "constricted road," we will find them more than wide enough for us. Such is the grace and love of God. May we all find life in following the way of Jesus!

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P. ([email protected]) is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish, Fairfield, Alabama.

 

The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Scripture:

Isaiah 49:1-6
Acts 13:22-26
Luke 1:57-66, 80

 

Reflection:

Behold the Lamb of God

"Behold, one is coming after me;" Act 13:25   Today is the vigil of birth of John the Baptist. John’s mission was to point out Christ to a confused and distracted world.  He tried to get people’s attention to God’s momentous coming to us in His son Jesus! The greatest event the world would ever experience was endangered of not being noticed!

In the morning of the great Civil War battle at Shiloh General Grant and the federal troops had no idea that a huge army of more than 44,000 Confederate men were within 600 yards away ready to attack!  It was amazing that the Union army survived much less as to win that great conflict!  How easy it is to miss the most considerable in the trivial.

The world needs a John the Baptist now to take us by the shoulders and shake us that we might become aware of the earth-shattering presence of the Risen Christ  who stands in our midst unnoticed by so many!  Our eyesight is terribly bad and we need Spirit possessed prophets to open our eyes to this unthinkable presence of the loving and living Christ in our midst.     "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." John 20:27.    This was the charism of St Paul of the Cross to get in touch with God’s love in His Crucified Son.

What a sad and tragic thing it would be if we go through life without a deep awareness of this incredible love that God has for us.  The thought that the great God would love us enough to send His only Son to die for us was "foolishness" to the ancient world of Rome.  You can see on the wall of a soldiers’ barracks on Palatine Hill one of oldest depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus with the head of a donkey!  It is a blasphemous crucifix.   God would have to be a donkey to die for the likes of us!

Looking at this graffiti that is almost 2000 years old still makes me shiver!  After so many years people today still have not comprehended this "foolish" love of God.  May we heed the words of John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God!"

 

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

Scripture:

Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus asks His disciples a question: "Who do the crowds say that I am?" And after they answer, Jesus asks another question: "But who do you say that I am?" And Peter responds, "The Christ of God." Then Jesus tells them what is going to happen, and how He will be the Christ: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised."

And so, we know who Jesus is: The Christ, our Lord and Savior. We know what He has done for us: He lived, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. We know why He has done this for us: He did this out of love for us, in order to save us. And we know where He is: He is in heaven with the Father, but also in us.

Knowing the who, what, where, and why about Jesus reveals to us about who we are, and the kind of people we are meant to be, and what we are meant to do, and where we hope to be.

In our reading from Galatians, St. Paul writes, "Through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus." We are all beloved children of God. That love, if we really accept it, compels us to respond. And so Jesus says, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." The love of Christ for us calls us to love in return. When we choose to love God and others as well as ourselves, we will find it necessary at times to deny ourselves, to put the needs of others before our own. We will find it better to surrender to God’s will. We will find our true selves by being willing to let go of any self-centeredness.

When we accept the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, we find ourselves willing to take up the crosses that come up in our lives, knowing that Jesus is with us in our sufferings as well as in our joys. And the more we know and understand who Jesus is, and what He has done and continues to do for us, the more we are willing to follow Him. And the more we are willing to tear down divisions and barriers that exist between us. Again, from our second reading: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."  If we could put that truth into practice, think what kind of a Church, what kind of a world it would be!

And if someone would ask us why we live this way; why we choose to love as Jesus did, we could answer, "Because of what He did for us, and because we want to be where He is for all eternity."

Who is Jesus for us? When we take the time and make the effort to understand the answer to that question, we will also be able to answer the question about who we are and what we are meant to do with our lives.

 

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

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga 

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30
Matthew 6:19-23

Reflection:

Today is the longest day of the year–or close to it.  This means we can accomplish more today than on any other day of the year.  Correct?  Not exactly, we caution.  It’s just a different disposition of our tasks throughout the 24 hours available to us.

It’s also the memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a Jesuit scholastic who died at a young age.  He’s a saint, accomplishing much in a short period of time.  Was he at an advantage over us older folks in getting a lot done in the amount of time available to him?  Or at a disadvantage?  And he is joined by other young saints in his achievement, such as his fellow Jesuits Stanislaus Kostka and John Berchmans, and young Passionists such as Gabriel Possenti, Gemma Galgani, Mary Goretti.

Well, it’s a matter of accomplishing the tasks to be done in the time available.  We call this packaging.  One way to approach this is by citing what "we have to do": keep the 10 commandments, the 5 precepts of the church, the1752 entries in the code of canon law, the tax code weighing in at around 25 pounds, city and country ordinances, rules at our workplace–among others.  Can we repackage all of this?

Jesus does so for us today.  What is the greatest commandment in the law?  This from a scholar in Jewish law (613 laws).  Jesus responds: love God, and your neighbor as yourself.  This accounts for the whole law and the prophets.

And John comments in today’s first reading that this commandment is not burdensome for one who has faith, believing that Jesus is the Son of God.

This faith is like an elixir.  It contains all the nutrients we need for the day.  We don’t have to engage in a harried chase after scores of substitutes in order to achieve the same ends.  It’s a question of simplifying.

So, if we love and believe, we are associates of Aloysius Gonzaga and his peers in codifying "the things we have to do" to achieve our place with God.  This is a simplification well worth pursuing.

 

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

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 11:1-11
Mattew 6:7-15

Reflection:

The readings for today seem to be about simplicity and transparency.

In the first reading we find St. Paul wondering if he made a mistake in his approach to bringing the Gospel to the people of Corinth.  His preaching was straightforward and very clear.  As you recall, when Paul first came to Corinth, he did so in fear and trembling.  He had just been mostly unsuccessful in his preaching at Athens and had come to realize that it was the message of God’s love that had power, not his oratorical skills.   So, he basically spoke of Christ’s great love in accepting even death on the cross for them.  It was a powerful message and many people converted.

But time has passed.  Other evangelizers have travelled to Corinth and preached a more complex and esoteric Gospel message.  The fine rhetoric of the latest preachers has caused confusion in the community and some have strayed into strange beliefs and superstitious practices.  Paul is telling them that they are losing the simple and profound truth of the Gospel.  He urges them to return to their original faith in Jesus because it is there that the true understanding of God lies.

In the Gospel, Jesus clears away the some of the false beliefs about what makes prayer "work."  Apparently, some believed that they needed to bombard God with a constant "babbling" of their needs and petitions.  Jesus tells them they don’t need to babble on endlessly because God already knows their needs.  And then, Jesus goes on to help us understand that the reason prayer "works" is God’s love for us and intimate relationship with us.  It is within that relationship of trust that our prayer becomes effective and nourishing.  And, the most important arenas for prayer are God’s will, daily bread (all those needs and relationships that nourish us), and forgiveness, a forgiveness that we’ve already received through God’s love and are called to share with the people in our lives.

We hear a lot of different things about what it means to be a religious person.  The readings today remind us that an authentic relationship with God needn’t be complicated or arcane.  Rather, it should be a straightforward embrace of God’s love for us revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of the Development Office for Holy Cross Province and is stationed at Immaculate Conception Community in Chicago.

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Reflection:

"Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." II Corinthians 9:6

 

When I was growing up, I became a boy scout. It was fun going to the meetings with boys my age, going camping and singing songs around campfires and being involved in projects that the Church wanted us to do as Boy Scouts. We all received a Boy Scout manual with directions as to how to earn merit badges. Every month, my Boy Scout companions would submit their projects for merit badges and after a year or so, some had a slash full of them. I would study the manual and look to see which merit badges did not take too much effort to do. Needless to say, I did not earn too many merit badges!

Many of us think of ourselves as generous people. Generosity is a quality that calls us to do more or give more than we normally would do or give. Our tendency is to hoard the bounty we have collected, whether they are material goods or those more elusive gifts we have developed, like our talents and time. The more we accumulate these gifts, the more we tend to guard them with great care and not to let them go easily. It takes a great deal of effort to share our bounty with others.

The readings for today’s Mass focus our attention on generosity and purity of intention. St. Paul is urging his community to be cheerful givers because God loves cheerful givers. He recognizes that it is hard to be generous in a world that tries to take advantage of that generosity at every turn. So, if we sow our bounty reluctantly and cautiously, then our harvest will be small and poor. Then everyone will lose out. We will become even more reluctant to share generously with others. We will all be impoverished.

But when we give to God or we give to others, we need to do so from the heart. We need to recognize that our blessings and our gifts are not earned by our own merits. People who accumulate things often believe that they have done so because they are more intelligent and more cunning than the rest of us. They do not realize how the Provident God has showered them with blessings and good things. Sometimes, we accumulate things not because we have been good, but because we have cheated and lied and been dishonest with our neighbor. And because we have not been struck dead instantly, we think we have gotten away with such injustice.

We forget the refrain that we find in today’s Gospel: "And your Father who sees in secret will repay you." The more ill gained is our bounty, the more we hoard it to ourselves.

So, as we reflect upon our lives, upon how we sow our bounty, our time and our talent, let us remember the message we find in today first reading: "Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work." Then the words of Jesus will come to pass: "And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."

What more could we ever want!

 

Fr. Clemente Barrón, C.P. is stationed in San Antonio, Texas.

Scripture:

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36-8:3 or 7:36-50

Reflection: 

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 7:36-8:3), we see Jesus at the house of Simon the Pharisee, and something quite remarkable happens when Jesus reclines at table. An uninvited person, a "sinful woman," comes in, weeping, and actually washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with some ointment that she brought. Simon is unimpressed at such a display. He knows her to be a sinful woman, and can’t figure out why Jesus doesn’t know who or what she is.

Jesus, knowing what Simon is thinking, offers a brief parable about two people whose debts were forgiven by the same person. Jesus asks what might be seen as a strange question: "Which of them [the debtors] will love him [the creditor] more?" Who loves their creditors at any time? Not anyone that I know. But Simon answers the question, "The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven." After affirming the answer, Jesus contrasts the woman’s behavior with Simon’s toward Him. While Simon’s generosity was minimal or nondescript, the woman was extravagant in her care. And then Jesus makes a connection between love and forgiveness: "So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." And then Jesus says to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven." And while the other guests are thinking about that, Jesus tells the woman to go in peace.

A good way to understand what Jesus says is to see the woman’s outpouring of love not so much as a cause of her forgiveness, but as a result of it. Somehow she was touched by her encounter with Jesus, and aware of His love for her, she responded with an expression of love which to some may have seemed over the top, but to others might have been deeply touching.

We may not be able to relate to the woman. We may not be in a situation where we would describe ourselves as having "many sins" to be forgiven. On the other hand, we cannot be like Simon, who apparently saw no need to be forgiven. Instead of navigating a "middle way," (which is what I usually tend to do), perhaps we are called to make a choice between the woman’s response and that of Simon. After all, whatever Jesus did for the woman here happened sometime before He turns His face toward Jerusalem to enter into His Passion, death, and Resurrection for our salvation. We don’t have to be terrible sinners to be overcome by such an outpouring of love for us!

Have we become so used to the story of our salvation that it doesn’t move us? There is a Shirley Caesar song (I can’t remember the title) about a man who was considered to be too out of control for a congregation because he was so caught up in Jesus, and how he explained to them what he was doing. I’m not saying that we have to be very emotional when we’re not that kind of person, but if we were in touch with what Jesus did for us, it would have to call for some response. For the woman in the Gospel, she gave of herself in a much different way than that of being a prostitute (if indeed that was what she was). We, too, are called to give of ourselves, for the only way we can express our love for Jesus is to show love to others and to the whole world whom Jesus loves. Might we risk being extravagant in our love? By this I mean, might we risk going beyond what is comfortable in sharing the love of Christ? That might not be so outlandish, if we, like the woman, were filled with the reality of Jesus’ love for us. As St. Paul says in our second reading from Galatians (2:16, 19-21): "I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and has given himself up for me." A life in Christ is a life of giving.

 

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