Daily Scripture

 

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Scripture:

Ezekiel 34:11-16
Romans 5:5b-11
Luke 15:3-37

 

Reflection:

 "They’re rioting in Africa, they’re starving in Spain.
There’s hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don’t like anybody very much!"
(Sheldon Harnick 1953)

The above lyrics were sung by the Kingston Trio back in the good old ‘60’s. I remember them well and I often feel their appropriateness-especially after listening to the 5:00 o’clock news. The places and names have changed, but that’s about it. It’s then I muse:  Where’s that "Good" Shepherd when you need him? He must be asleep on the job. Why if I ruled the world, things would be different.

Sometimes, in a moment of clarity I recall the mess I’ve made of things. Yes, I’ve tried hard to do the right thing, but only to find out that I messed up again. I thought I knew the right answer, but was proven wrong again. Then I think of some other lyrics:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."
(Reinhold Niebuhr)

Finally, once again I realize I need to get out of the way and let the Good Shepherd be the Good Shepherd. I’m one of the flock and oh so lucky to be in His care. The following line of the 23^rd Psalm helps me. It goes:

"Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come." (Today’s Responsorial Psalm, USCCB)

 

Dan O’Donnell is a Passionist Partner and a longtime friend of the Passionists.  He lives in Chicago.  

Scripture:

Tobit 6-7
Mark 12:28-34

Reflection:

Deciding between good and evil is frequently not much of a challenge. But what happens when we have to decide between good and good? Jesus had to ask himself if he should heal someone on the Sabbath or refrain from doing work on that special day. Should I attend Mass on Sunday or take the day to visit an elderly mother in another town? This is the puzzlement addressed in the gospel today.

If there are too many laws, people get confused about what is truly important and what is secondary. The Jews had over 600 laws. One law might conflict with another law. Jewish moralists tired to figure out what laws are more essential, so people could know what laws enjoy a priority. The prophet Micah summarized the Law by writing, "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" A famous rabbi summarized the Law by saying, "What you hate for yourself, do not to your neighbor. This is the whole law, the rest is commentary."

Perhaps the Scribe who engaged Jesus was experiencing conflict between the need to love the people in his life and the need to fulfill all the demands of Temple worship. Jesus resolved his problem by assuring him that practical love for God and neighbor comes before the need for ritual observances and worship. The Pharisees reversed the order. They absolved people from taking care of their old parents so long as they willed all their wealth to the Temple (Mark 7:11-12). In this way they became skilled in manipulating religious laws but deficient in what Jesus calls "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith" (Matthew 23:23).

Jesus is not looking at achievement but at attitude. He is not looking at the deeds themselves but the motivation behind them.  Jesus is not interested in a barren religion – in only keeping the rules – but rather in relationships. He wants us to have a dynamic relationship with God and one another. Paul the Apostle recognized the responsibility to love when he said: "Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 8:10b).

 

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., is Provincial Superior of Holy Cross Province and resides in Chicago.

Scripture:

Sirach 36:1, 4-5, 10-17
Mark 10:32-45

Reflection:

Today’s gospel reading from Mark includes an argument regarding who will be "first" among the disciples of Jesus.  James and John make their argument that they should be first before the other disciples.  The remaining disciples react the way we all might react, stating their displeasure with James and John.  Jesus then responds, "Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all."

Jesus did not say whoever wishes to be great among you will be "somewhere in the middle" and the slave of "some" as long as you are in your comfort zone.  Jesus did say those disciples who wanted to be great and sit at his right and left hand would have to be the servants of everyone.  This all-inclusive message of servant leadership probably upset the apple carts of Jesus’ disciples!  The message of servant leadership to all clearly was not the expected requirement for greatness among the disciples.

I doubt whether this message to "go to the end of the line and serve all" corresponds to our own ambitions.  Although I might want to serve all at the end of the line I usually end up "somewhere in the middle" where I am still in my own comfort zone.  In other words, I pick and choose who, when and where I want to serve.  I make my choices based on my own comfort rather than on the stirrings of the Spirit of God in my heart!

My prayer today for all of us is that we truly examine our criteria for determining who, how and when we will serve.  I pray for our courage as we strive to live our Passionist calling to share the all-inclusive message of God’s love for all with all as Jesus did in his Passion and Death!

 

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

Scripture:

Sirach 17:1-15
Mark 10:13-16

Reflection:

Today’s first reading from the Book of Sirach (or Ecclesasticus) is a fine summary of Biblical Wisdom.  The author of Sirach was a scribe and teacher of Jewish law in the second century B.C.  He probably lived in Jerusalem and instructed young people in religion and moral law.  In the tradition stretching back to the ancient sayings in Proverbs, it was the last of the great Hebrew wisdom literature to be written. 

It is helpful to see Biblical Wisdom with a backdrop of the epic creation stories. It’s as if we shared for a moment the mind and consciousness of our first ancestors, Adam and Eve before the fall.  As they walked with God in the evening they looked out at the beauty and order of God’s wonderful creation and saw what God saw-all things at peaceful rest under God’s careful hand.

Biblical Wisdom is not just common sense, or some kind of "street smarts" that might help us succeed in life, though there is a bit of that, for sure. It’s really a much more profound vision that always has to do with the place of God as the life source of all things. This God is the beginning and end of all that is, and as such, this God is the secret inside that only real "wisdom" can understand. 

And so, in today’s Gospel when the "children," in all of their innocence, were not allowed to approach Jesus, it was to Jesus an offence against the Wisdom of the ages. It takes a childlike quality to get beneath or step aside from the "wisdom of the world." So Jesus became indignant and said, "Let the children come to me, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." 

In all of us there is a place of simplicity and childlike innocence where Biblical Wisdom resides.  If we take the time and opportunity to go there for a moment today we too may experience the gentle touch of the Lord Jesus who "then embraced the children and blessed them, placing his hands on them."   

 

Fr. Jim Strommer, C.P., is the local superior of the Passionist community in Citrus Heights, California.

Scripture:

Sirach 6:5-17
Mark 10:1-12

Reflection:

His Memory at Mass

Memory is a beautiful reality! "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."  James Matthew Barrie   It consists in putting in the depths of our minds and hearts another person.   Each morning at Mass Jesus commands us: "do this in remembrance of Me".  Luke 22:19   In the Scriptures memory is a vital concept.  But God remembered ( Hebrew zaw-kar) Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. Gen 8:1   When God remembers Noah He saves him and creation!  When God remembers us we are in the heart of God and are deeply touched by Him.  His memory ignites the compassionate love of God.  "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." Ex 2:24  When God remembers He saves. Being in the memory of God is a beautiful place to be.

 When at the Eucharist we are in the presence of the most explosive moment of Divine Love in Salvation history.  We know that Christ dies no more but because of Christ’s divine nature all his human acts are caught up into an eternal now.   When we participate in the Mass we are experiencing His memory in-force.   The "Living One" holds us close in his awareness and heart at the liturgy.  Are we not privileged as St John was at Last Supper to "lean on Jesus’s chest" John 13:25

Divine Memory is different than human memory.   When I have a person in my mind and heart I exercise no causality on him.  But when I am up front and center in God’s memory his love can and does effect me.   When Jesus tells us: " do this to my memory " we awake the primal divine fire of His love for us on the Cross.  Here at St Agnes Church in Louisville we have a beautiful glazed terra-cotta over the main altar. St Paul of the Cross is reaching to embrace the Crucified Christ who is extending his arm to grasp our saint.   I think this is a beautiful picture of what happens to us at Mass.  We are swept up into the living and present reality of the crucified and risen Christ.   We are touched by this memory of Christ.   We pray with the good thief one of the shortest and best prayers of the New Testament: "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" Lk 23:42

 

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

 

 

Scripture:

Sirach 4:11-19
Mark 9:38-40

 

 

 

Reflection:

"Wisdom breathes life into her children and admonishes those who seek her. He who loves her loves life; those who seek her will be embraced by the Lord. He who holds her fast inherits glory; wherever he dwells, the Lord bestows blessings." Sirach 4:11-13

Last Sunday at mass when we were celebrating Pentecost, the priest said that the Holy Spirit is better than Google! I love that! The Holy Spirit was sent to teach us all things, to remind us of all that Jesus said, and to help us. It seems to me that we can all benefit from asking the Holy Spirit to help us as we seek God’s wisdom. The more time we put into pursuing it, certainly the more we will learn and grow in wisdom.

When we start listening to the Holy Spirit, it’s amazing all the ways He can direct us. I was driving to an address I was unfamiliar with one day, and I prayed for the Holy Spirit to tell me when to turn (this was before GPS!) I came to an intersection and sensed in my spirit, "Turn now", but I thought "No, it’s the next one." I went one more and turned and couldn’t find the street. I went back to where the Holy Spirit nudged me to turn, and it was the right one!

We have to get our brains out of the way if we want the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us! There is so much information out there which purports to be the "truth" or the "right way" to do something. We also have our own ideas about how to do things, but if we seek the Holy Spirit for truth, we will find the real thing!!!

I think the place to start is in acknowledging that we don’t know it all and that God does! "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Prov. 1:7) I think we need to humble ourselves, and ask God to teach us and then be open to learning from many venues: the Bible, homilies at mass, reading the Catechism, reading good spiritual books, etc.

We see too in the reading for today that seeking wisdom has many benefits: life and blessings, correction, being embraced by the Lord and inheriting glory! So let’s all continue to seek after wisdom and keep our hearts and minds open to the working of the Holy Spirit.

 

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. Janice also leads women’s retreats. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 6. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.jcarleton.com/ or email her at [email protected]

Scripture:

Sirach 5:1-8
Mark 9:41-50

Reflection:

In our first reading from Sirach, the author writes, "Delay not your conversion to the Lord." Both our readings, from Sirach and from Mark, speak to being in right relationship with God and with others.

In the reading from Sirach, we are told not to rely on wealth or strength. The obvious implication is to rely on God alone. But while we trust in God’s unconditional love and His care toward us, we are not to abuse the relationship! We are not to take God’s love and mercy for granted. Would we do that with any of the loving relationships we have with people? Of course not, otherwise those relationships wouldn’t really be loving ones. The same is true of our relationship with God. As we rely on God, we respond to His love for us.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells us ways to respond to God’s love. We are called to tend to others’ needs, no matter how small or great: "Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward." The same goes for us who offer even a drink of water to someone else. But if we were to cause anyone to sin, then we remove ourselves from our relationship with God, and it would be better if a "millstone" was put around our neck.

Jesus feels so strongly about this that He uses harsh language to drive His point across: "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off." "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out." Jesus is not asking us to blind or dismember ourselves. He is asking for a total commitment from us. He is asking us to keep "salt" in ourselves, that is, the desire to follow Him and share the Good News. If we do that, we will not lose our reward, and we will "have peace," with each other, with ourselves, and with the whole world.

May we not delay in being in right relationship with the God who loves us beyond description!

 

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

Scripture:

Sirach 2:1-11
Mark 9:30-37

Reflection:

The mirror was an early invention of ours, with evidence of its presence among us going back over centuries past.  It likely owes its invention to a previous fascination we had with our own face as we bent over a pool of still water and marveled at the image reflected there.   Our inventiveness managed to recreate this image, so that we can note the blemishes on our features and do our best to remove or diminish them.  But this advantage can easily be offset by an obsession with how we look and appear to others.  We can easily become self-absorbed.  The scriptures today present a contrasting alternative to such preoccupation with oneself.

In his wisdom, Sirach steers us away from ourselves.  He shows us, not controlling a situation, but rather being acted upon by circumstances over which we have no influence.  They counter the tendency to be obsessed with our face and appearance before others, and show us amid trials and adversity that diminish such self-concern.  Sirach presents us as victims of misfortune, being tested like gold in a crucible.  His advice, in this turn of events, is to forget ourselves and reach out to the Lord, putting aside the mirror of self-absorption, and attending to our victimization.  This change in our focus of attention can position us to experience the Lord and His helping hand in our life.  It moves our attention off our selves, and fastens on a compassionate and merciful God, Who becomes the centerpiece of the mirror that preoccupied us.

A similar scenario is evident in Mark’s gospel for the day.  Here the Person of Jesus emerges in the mirror into which we stare, and presents Him as Someone Who is not a dominating center of attention.   His image is rather that of a victim of circumstances, exhibiting passivity before the circumstances engulfing Him, which will lead to His apprehension and death.  Jesus then proceeds to expand on the implications of this for His followers: to accept being last rather than being first, to put aside personal ambition to be the greatest, and to assume the guise of a child.  Children usually spend little time before the mirror admiring themselves.

These biblical readings provide timely advice for us today.  They remind us of our proneness at being the center of attention, overlooking what is occurring around us.  They show us how quickly our life situation can change, negating the self-absorption that so often consumes our time and energy, and confronting us with some daunting challenges.  These can reduce our agency and augment our passivity, away from control to that of victimhood.   In looking through the mirror we must see beyond the self portrayed there, and note what lies beyond.  It takes a poetic eye to see other things in life’s mirror, such as Joseph Plunkett suggests in his verses:

I see His blood upon the rose                                                         I see His face in every flower

And in the stars the glory of His eyes                                            The thunder and the singing of the birds

His body gleams amid eternal snows                                            Are but His voice-and carven by His power

His tears fall from the skies.                                                            Rocks are His written words.

                                                                  All pathways by His feet are worn,

                                                                  His strong heart stirs the ever beating sea,

                                                                  His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

                                                                  His cross is every tree.

 

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