Daily Scripture

Holy Thursday 

Scripture:

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

Reflection:

Holy Thursday, in times past, has been referred to as Maundy Thursday.  Why "Maundy"?  Maundy is an anglicized version of the Latin "mandatum", which means "command".  And this is closely allied with the Lord’s remark: "I give you a new commandment: love one another" (Jn 13.35).  So today, Maundy or Command Thursday, is love day.

The church spells this out for us in the Eucharistic liturgy today, with its selection of historical words and actions.  She presents us one of the most significant events in the history of the Jewish people: the Exodus.  This was the Hebrew flight to freedom, after having been slaves in Egypt for the better part of four centuries, but now we find them poised, under the leadership of Moses, to escape this land and make their way to freedom in a new place.  This was not to occur by dint of amassing arms and weapons, but by gathering choice lambs from their flocks, and slaughtering them as part of a (paschal) meal, daubing their blood on doorway lintels, to escape the passage of the avenging angel.  This was a love feast, one of fellowship among them as each family looked to its neighbor to make sure everyone was able to partake of this last meal in bondage.  This all took place under strict orders, minutely detailing a command performance.

The church then jumps many centuries, to select a reading from the time of Paul the apostle, instructing the Christian community in Corinth about details of another meal (the first eucharist), carefully orchestrated to present the memory of what Christ Jesus did the night before He died: arranging a love feast of fellowship among those closest to Him, whose center-piece was bread and wine.  Like the Exodus meal, this too was eaten within hours of another journey to freedom, leading to the Garden of Olives, to mock trials before a procurator and high priests, and through the streets of Jerusalem to Calvary, where, as we proclaim at eucharist: "Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free."

To accentuate the love dimension of this last evening on earth, the church then presents us John’s memory of Jesus going to His knees before each of His disciples to wash them.  The import of this deed was not lost on Peter, who quickly saw the significance of what Jesus was about.  It is in the combination of these biblical memories about the foot-washing, the last supper and the paschal meal in Egypt, that the church formulates the theme of fellowship on the journey to freedom, as an enriching revelation of God.  For God is a fellowship of Persons calling us to the sense of freedom that is at the heart of  the Paschal mystery.

 

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

 

Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord

Scripture:

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
 John 18:1-19:42

Reflection:

Today, Good Friday, we all stand together in community at the foot of the Cross.  We are not here to analyze or think; we are here to feel and experience the love only a crucified Jesus can bring us in the midst of suffering and death.  We are here to live the intimacy of a relationship founded in the simple, sure truth only a crucified Jesus can bestow in our world.

We are here with the "good thief", the man crucified with Jesus who was embraced with the words of Jesus assuring him of a place in paradise.  We are here as people who have sinned and yet now, next to a crucified Jesus are assured of how much we are loved by God.  The arms of Jesus embrace each of us with love.

We are here with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  We are present as Jesus entrusts Mary and John with the loving care of each other.  Jesus asks us to care for each other in community at the foot of the Cross.  The arms of Jesus are extended as He entrusts us to include everyone in our community with love.

We are here with the centurion who recognizes the presence of God in the ultimate act of love, the death of Jesus.  We are present as Jesus extends love to a world longing for the embrace of God. 

We are here at the foot of the Cross, joined by the good thief, Mary the mother of Jesus and a Roman centurion.  We are all, along with every person in our troubled world, indeed with all creation, joined in a loving embrace with each other and God at the foot of the Cross, with Jesus our life and our joy!

 

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

Wednesday of Holy Week

Scripture:

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Matthew 26:14-25

Reflection:

Oftentimes I focus on the wrong elements in the narratives of Sacred Scripture. Take the parable of the Sower and the Seed, for example. It’s easy for this preacher to thrash the congregation for being the kind of seed that is choked by thorns, burnt by the sun, or eaten by birds. It is much more difficult to speak of our God, who lavishes us with love the way the sower in Jean Millet’s painting, spreads seed… extravagantly, unconditionally, even wastefully. Or we sermonize about the profligate son or self-righteous older brother, and often ignore the compassionate and caring "prodigal father" who seems to waste his love on two self-absorbed, self-indulgent sons.  

When I was a kid we called today "Spy Wednesday" because of Judas’ role in the passion and death of Jesus. A better focus might be to call this day "Reassurance Wednesday" because of how Jesus ministers to those around him. Refocus. In today’s first reading the words of Isaiah, words of self-assurance and encouragement for the suffering servant, almost sound like we are trying to encourage Jesus as he begins his darkest hours of Passion. But Jesus is the one who, in the midst of excruciating emotional and physical pain, will be healing others – the centurion’s ear after Peter severed it. This Jesus speaks kindly to the grieving women instructing them to weep for themselves and their families. And it is Jesus who forgives his executioners from the cross, and informs a thief that he will share paradise with him. Blessed assurance.

As we conclude Lent this year and begin our Triduum journey, Pope Francis motivates me to follow this Jesus of reassurance. Our new pope declines places of honor and prays with Pope Emeritus Benedict in the same pew, or he waits for blessings of other Cardinals and then kisses their rings, and he will wash the feet of young inmates at Rome’s Casal del Marmo Jail.

Perhaps I could drop a note to someone who is enduring a difficult protocol of chemotherapy and encourage them, someone who struggles through the first weeks of widowhood, or divorce. May you have a really good Reassurance Wednesday!

 

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.

Tuesday of Holy Week

Scripture:
Isaiah 49:1-6
John 13:21-33, 36-38

Reflection:
It is Tuesday of Holy Week.  We have begun the observance of the most sacred days of our faith.  But the journey we’re asked to travel this week is not really Jesus’, but ours. 
He’s traveled this journey once and for all.  No, this week is about our journey.

During a retreat some years back, my spiritual director asked me to describe the scene that emerged during my meditation on the Passion.  His forehead furled as I described the scene.  "What’s wrong?" I asked.  "Where are you in this scene?"  I was standing at the very fringe at a great distance.  I was only an observer, it seemed.  I was watching in a detached sort of way Jesus’ abandonment, condemnation, agony and death.  My director suggested that I begin to enter more fully into the Passion that is not someone else’s, but mine.

This Passion Week must be our journey. It’s a journey we take with Jesus at our side, with Jesus who has been down this road already.  The Stations of the Cross might well be a prayer that could help us enter the scene more profoundly.  In a quiet moment by ourselves at home or during a visit to a church or chapel, pray through the journey that takes us from insults, abandonment, and death to new life.  Let Jesus take that journey with us.

We recognize in our journey the way of the cross long ago trod by Jesus. We have been misjudged and maligned (I).  Our cross comes in many different sizes and shapes – an illness, poverty, abuse, a failed relationship, or a secret too horrible to share (II). The road is uneven and full of potholes (III).  There are those who are "mothers" to us but who can’t do much more than be with us along the way (IV).  There are those – a friend, co-worker, brother or sister – who seem to show up at the right time to help lift the burden a bit (V) even as the sweat and tears nearly blind us along the journey (VI).

We often don’t think we can go on (VII), but then we seem surrounded by those who love us no matter what (VIII), no matter how many times we fall (IX).  We recall the experience of being stripped, of being humiliated or shamed (X).  Whatever our cross may be, Jesus knows it and is willing to be there with us (XI), even in the midst of very real losses and deaths in our lives (XII).  As his mother held him, so Jesus now holds us (XIII), and whispers to us when we think all is lost (XIV), "I promise you, you will live!"

 

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.

Monday of Holy Week 

Scripture:

Isaiah 42:1-7
John 12:1-11

Reflection:

"The Lord is my light and my salvation."  Psalm 27

You country folks might laugh at this city kid.  I find that driving on country roads at night is a bit scary.   And, of course, there is that very familiar experience of walking down a hallway or into a room in which there is no light only to bump into things that I couldn’t see.  Light is critical for sight.

This Monday of Holy Week has a very clear message for us in Isaiah’s reading.  It is God’s desire that His Servant bring justice to all the nations.  The recognition of the dignity of every man, woman or child is His goal.  It begins with me: "The Lord is my light and salvation."  Am I willing to bring that truth to others.

So many things get in the way of seeing and recognizing that dignity.   Without much thought or attention there can be an automatic judgment that someone isn’t worth much because of racial background, the area of town one lives in, the status of a job, the religious faith one lives by, the external appearance emphasized by style of dress, or tattoos, or pierced lips, ears or belly button or hair styles.  There are more.  We lump individuals into groups.  Very easy then to avoid having to deal with the individual person.

The individual person is the focus of God’s attention.  "Love one another as I have loved you."  Our journey with Jesus during this Holy Week will help us to see.  "The Lord is my light and my salvation."  There is no stranger in His eyes.  Externals will not blind Him.  There is always the individual.  Jesus would ask you and me to respect each individual.  Interestingly enough, to respect a person we need to "look back, take a second look" which is the root meaning of respect (re-aspicio…to take a second look).  Quick looks end up in quick judgments.  If you and I ever have light to see individuals it is by Jesus’ own example.  He was challenged with "Why are you eating with sinners?"  "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."  Oh, He knew whom He was dealing with.  He saw deeper.  He loved more deeply.  His patience was longer.  Can you and I accept this and share it with others.  Especially during this season of love and grace that has lead us to Holy Week and the awesome truth: "Greater love than this no one has but to lay down his life for his friends." 

Will you be my light?  Help me to see?  

 

Fr. Peter Berendt, C.P. is the senior priest at Immaculate Conception Parish in Chicago, Illinois.

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Scripture:

Luke 19:28-40
Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56 or 23:1-49

 

 

Reflection:

And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." Jesus passionately desired to celebrate that first Eucharist with his own.  The Greek word for earnestly desiring to eat the Passover is epithumea. It is a word filled with warm emotion. It is repeated twice in this sentence to emphasize an already emotional feeling of desire to a strongly expressive one quite surpassing anything else in the New Testament, The Eucharist was of overwhelming importance to Jesus!   Why was the Eucharist of such prominence to Jesus?

The answer is a few lines later when the Lord says: "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." Notice the word soma or body. This is not a dead corpse, but the living Body of Christ! It is Himself!   It is also the eternal and timeless act of giving Himself over for us.

The Greek word for given is dedomenon. It is in the present tense.  The Eucharist puts us into the eternal now of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.   What a remembrance we have of the greatest act of love the world has ever seen.  Devotion to remembering the Sufferings of Christ can never be too distant from the Eucharist. The Sacrifice of the Mass puts us into the real time of the Passion by placing us in the eternal act of Christ giving Himself to the Father and to us!

 

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

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Scripture:

Jeremiah 20:10-13
John 10:31-42

Reflection:

"In my distress, I called upon the Lord and He heard my voice." Psalm 18:7

Jim and I lived almost 500 miles from my parents when we were raising our kids. So when Dad seemed to be nearing the end of his life, we needed to figure out when to go home so we could see him before he died. I was afraid we might wait too long, so I began reading the Psalms each morning asking the Lord to show me when we needed to go home. I read each day until the word spoke to my heart. These are some of the verses:

Aug. 15^th Psalm 32:8 "I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk; I will counsel you keeping my eye on you." With this verse where the Holy Spirit confirmed that He was going to guide me . . .

Aug. 17th Psalm 34:5 "I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears." I didn’t have to be afraid of getting there too late . . .

Aug. 20th Psalm 37:31 "The law of His God is in his heart and his steps do not falter."  Still ok . . .

Aug. 25th Psalm 41:4 "The Lord will help him on his sickbed, he will take away all his ailment when he is ill." I don’t have to go yet . . .

August 27th Psalm 41:8 "A malignant disease fills his frame and now that he lies ill, he will not rise again."

I knew it was time to go home. The doctors hadn’t even diagnosed Dad’s cancer yet, but I knew God was telling me to go. We packed up the kids and headed home. We spent five days visiting Dad in the hospital and helping Mom. We got to see him before he died and he got to see his four grandkids and all the posters they made for him. He couldn’t talk by that time, but whenever we would lift up one of the kids for him to see, he would raise and lower his eyebrows and smile. It was such a precious time and I’m so grateful for it. Dad died a week later from pancreatic cancer. It still amazes me how specifically God can guide us with His Word and how perfect His timing is. Thank you Lord!!!

 

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]

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Scripture:

Daniel 3: 14-20, 91-92, 95
John: 8: 31-42

Reflection:

Today we hear that wonderful story of the three brothers, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to worship a foreign god, even when directly confronted by the all powerful King Nebuchadnezzar.  Their refusal to bend to the King’s command earned them a death sentence by fire.  God directly intervened and protected them from the fires of the furnace.  When he saw them walking around unharmed in the blazing furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar had a profound change of heart and not only freed them but also came to believe in the God of Israel.

In the Gospel we find Jesus debating with Jews, trying to help them understand who He was and accept his mission.  Jesus wanted them to know that becoming his disciple was a path to true freedom and an unbreakable relationship with God.  Because of God’s faithful care for them in the past, they find it very hard to recognize the truth of Jesus teaching.  They rebel and many walk away. 

The contrast between King Nebuchadnezzar’s change of heart and the Jews hardness of heart is striking.  It’s almost as if the fact that the people of Israel had received so much already through Moses, their scriptures and traditions, that they were blinded to the fullness of the revelation of Jesus.  I wonder if that doesn’t sometimes happen to us.  We have already received so many blessings in our lives that we are afraid to risk recognizing Jesus in our midst right now.  Clearly, today’s readings invite us to both cherish the relationship we already have with God and to keep alert to God’s call to me today to recognize him active and present in our world.

 

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.