Daily Scripture

Scripture:

1 Samuel 18:6-9; 19:1-7
Mark 3:7-12

Reflection:

"O Lord, I trust in your merciful love. My heart will rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord who has been bountiful with me." Psalm 13:6 (Entrance Antiphon)

Many of us are familiar with Clare Luce Booth’s saying: "No good deed goes unpunished." Many of us want to believe that life should be fair. Many more of us become upset with God when we are not dealt with fairly in life. We cry out in pain, "Why does God do this to me!" The pain becomes even more painful when we are trying our best to be good people. We may even go out of our way to do something heroically good. Then tragedy befalls us. We lose a loved one to death, someone we love dearly becomes gravely ill, and we have a set-back on the job or even lose our job. Instead of our family becoming more united, they seem to become for divided, more alienated from one another. All these kinds of things seem to happen when we have made up our mind to be "good," to be even more faithful, more loving. It is difficult to see this as fair treatment on the part of God.

"No good deed goes unpunished." In the first reading, the young man David is called from the fields where he is watching sheep to lead an army led by Saul, the king. He defeats Goliath, and the people rush to praise him and to extol him as even a greater warrior than King Saul. Saul becomes jealous and begins to plot against him. At this point, I am sure that David is thinking, "What did I do that was so wrong, that the king now wants to kill me?" David did his best, won the war but lost the love of his king. That did not seem fair at all!

"No good deed goes unpunished." In the gospel reading, Jesus is caught up with doing good. In the preceding chapters of the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus preaches with authority, cures the mother-in-law of Simon his disciple, drives out an unclean spirit in a man inside a synagogue, cures a leper, cures a paralytic, heals a man with a withered hand and preaches the Good News to big crowds. Soon, he is followed by the Scribes and the Pharisees. They team up with the Herodias to plot against him. The last verse of yesterday’s Gospel reads: "The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death."

When we truly embrace the Person of Jesus, as Son of God, the Christ, and Son of Mary, we begin to strip aside the many assumptions which lead us down the path of earthly justice as the sign of God’s love. As God’s Love is unconditional, our love is called to be unconditional as well. That is not a truth that we learn easily. Nor can we learn it just by using our humanly resources. St. Theresa of Avila is quoted as saying to God, "If that is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them." She knew that God’s favor did not consist of the absence of trials or sufferings, but in the way we embraced them. Neither David nor Jesus allowed the immediate dangers to their person to prevent them from fully embracing their calling. We eventually come to Paul the Apostle’s insight: God’s grace is enough. Let us continue to trust in God’s merciful love.

 

Fr. Clemente Barron, C.P. is a member of the General Council of the Passionist Congregation and is stationed in Rome. 

Scripture:

1 Samuel 17:32-33, 37, 40-51
Mark 3:1-6

Reflection:

Saul answered David, "Go!  The LORD will be with you." (I Samuel 17: 37)

 

Reading the story of David and Goliath leaves me with just a little concern!  A young man with a shepherd’s bag with five smooth stones and a sling shot, watching a huge, overpowering man, walking toward him, carrying a long sword, a spear and a short curved Oriental sword on his hip.  There is no doubt that Goliath is intent on killing David.  Saul is afraid for David.  Saul tells him not to fight Goliath.  David will be killed.  David, however, does not run away.  He is confident that God is on his side.    Saul changes his mind: "Go!  The Lord will be with you."   

I wonder as we look backwards in our lives, whether you and I have sensed proof of God’s promise of being with us always.  We all have had some challenges that were threatening us.  But we made it.  Looking back at the year 1991 and waking up in the intensive care unit after suffering a heart attack was a surprise for me.  I was still alive.  Since then it’s a rare night that I fall asleep without first thanking God for the present day in 2012 and all the good things that have happened.  Life is a very real gift.  There seems to be nothing trivial happening in the course of a day. 

Interestingly enough there have been times, too, that my and your prayers were not answered.  That’s where we find ourselves resisting our trust.  What we are praying for seems to be the exact answer to what we are going through.  Yet what proves to be the saving factor is to spend time with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His plea to the Father was to ask that his impending death be spared.  Yet Jesus put his life and his future in the hands of his heavenly Father, "Not my will but yours be done."  It was Jesus’ conviction of the love of his Father that kept him focused.  He would trust his heavenly Father.

Trust doesn’t always give us clear answers.  Being rooted in love does keep us from wavering.  It certainly brings peace.  Are you able to trust?  Can you and I put our life in the hands of God with no exceptions? 

 

Fr. Peter Berendt, C.P. is on the staff of Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center, Houston, Texas.

Scripture:

1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19
Psalm 40: 2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20
John 1:35-42

Reflection:

The theme of our scriptures today is how a disciple should respond to God’s invitation to better know him. The young Samuel was learning the ropes as it were of how to serve in the liturgy of temple where the ark of God reposed. As far as the priest Eli was concerned Samuel was just a helper and a gofer. Eli had two sons he was grooming to take his place. However, he was able to give his young apprentice the wisdom of his experience: "Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply: speak, LORD, for your servant is listening."  I do not expect the LORD to speak so clearly to me. So if I am to listen to the LORD I must reflect on what is happening in my life and read the signs of the times in my personal situation.

Andrew was a disciple of John. We can be almost sure that he heard the message of the John the Baptist, underwent a deep spiritual conversion and was baptized by him in the River Jordan. When John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God, Andrew and a companion must have wondered what that title meant. They were curious enough to follow Jesus and stayed with him for most of the day. Spending those hours with Jesus turned their lives in a new direction. They were certain that they had found the Messiah! Andrew finds his brother Simon and brings him to Jesus who immediately accepts him and gives him a new name, the Rock. I need to be always ready to undertake new commitments. I should never be so attached to what I am doing now, that I never see new opportunities to serve the LORD.    

 

Fr. Michael Hoolahan, C.P. is on the staff of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.    

Scripture:
1 Samuel 15:16-23
Mark 2:18-22

Reflection: 
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"

"New wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

Jesus is criticized because his disciples do not fast.   It was a practice very close to the hearts of John’s disciples and the Pharisees.  Fasting is indeed a very helpful spiritual practice: gets us to cut down on the amount or even the quality of our food.  The emphasis doesn’t stop there.  Rather it heightens our awareness that "less food" can help us to become aware that we have been gorging ourselves, pampering ourselves in many ways and failing to deal with reality. 

Reality begins with me.   Joy, happiness, laughter are good for all of us: weddings, birthdays, graduation, recuperation from sickness, coming to grips with addictions, etc., etc.  Jesus makes a good point: "Can wedding guests fast while the bride and bridegroom are with them?"  Rather, let the bigger picture of the wedding celebration teach us that the love that is seen in the couple is going to be the source of growth and strength.  This growth will come through:  "…for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in health and in sickness."   Reality gives us the whole picture:  better & worse, richer & poorer, health & sickness.  

Each of us has experiences that put us in touch with challenging people, situations and things that reveal the worse, the poverty and sickness in our lives.  It doesn’t help to use the old ways and means to deal with them.  Jesus’ image of putting a new piece of cloth that hasn’t shrunk onto an old cloth is going to bring trouble: in the first wash the new cloth is going to shrink.  That could tear or cause an unsightly crease.  And then I love his example of pouring new wine into old wineskins.  It isn’t going to work because the new wine will continue to ferment and burst the old wineskin.  No, he says, you need to put new wine into new wineskins.  The new wineskins will stretch.   Wouldn’t it be a sight to see someone still wearing clothes that no longer fit.  To refuse to accept this simple physical fact becomes a serious problem when I cling to childhood values that do not fit my life today.

So what I learn is that I must live for today.  There have to be those joyfilled, happy, moments and times that help me to realize how fortunate and blessed I am.  And there are also those painfilled, challenging, in-my-face moments that tell me that just cloaking them with externals isn’t going to work.  It’s my attitude, my reactions, my willingness to accept the new insights, along with insights that I have refused to accept that are now calling for a new wineskin.  The old wineskin isn’t going to work.   The disciples of John and the Pharisees are holding on very tightly to the practice of fasting.  Their wineskin is old.  Their view of life, of holiness is stunted.  They need to get a new wineskin that can stretch with the input that Jesus is offering them. 

My faith and hope and love at this stage of my life are calling for me to let go of my childhood wineskins.  They can’t stretch to receive the wonderful and challenging ways that my faith and hope and love are hoping to grow in this year of 2012. 

 

Fr. Peter Berendt, CP, is on the staff of Holy Name Retreat Center, Houston, Texas.

 

 

Scripture:

1 Samuel 4:1-11
Mark 1:40-45

 

 

Reflection:
Our readings today take us from a battlefield where Eli, a priest of the Lord, loses his two sons with the Ark of the Covenant being captured by the Philistines to a serene setting of healing and compassionate love as Jesus heals a man afflicted with leprosy.

What connection can there be between these two very diverse places?  And what message can each event teach us today?

We all know that Israel was dearly loved by the Lord; yet, the Philistines soundly and overwhelmingly defeat them in battle.  The Ark of the Covenant is taken from the Israelites through the death of Eli’s two sons and now resides in the hands of the enemy Philistines.  As one narrator puts it, "the glory has departed from Israel!" and it will not return until the Ark is taken to Jerusalem.  This is a tremendous transition in Israel’s history and Israel is now to enter into the age of the prophets, the first of whom is Samuel.  It is Samuel who will introduce the reign of the great Kings, Saul and David.  Through all of this, Israel is called to trust and to be faithful to the Lord.  Out of a battlefield of defeat and apparent despair comes a new moment in the life of God’s people if only they will place their trust in Him.  Certainly all of us know those "battlefield" moments when we feel loss, confusion, even despair.  It is at such times that we are called to draw closer to the Lord who alone is our hope and our salvation.  We are called to move beyond apparent defeat and to know through loving trust the peace that comes only from the Lord.

But why should we believe this is possible and how can we so confidently put our trust in the Lord?  It is here that we look carefully at the second place that draws our attention in today’s readings, the place where we see the Lord so lovingly heal the man whose life was so devastatingly torn asunder by leprosy.  When Jesus cured this man not only did he heal him of a terrible, terrible disease but, in the very same instant of healing, Jesus makes it possible for him to return to home, family, and loved ones.  No longer is he an outcast but now is part of all that he holds dear in his heart.  How could he remain silent?  As the scriptures tell us, "The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter."  So great was his joy that it was impossible to remain silent even if it was Jesus himself who requested it!

The Lord in whom we place our trust at times of darkness is the very same Lord who is present to us in those battlefield moments of our lives.  It is Jesus, the Lord, who is with us as he was with the Leper in today’s Gospel.  It is Jesus who reaches out in caring, compassionate love.  It is Jesus who leads us beyond moments of darkness and discouragement to the experience of new life, hope, and healing.

 

Fr. Pat Brennan, CP is the director of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

 

Scripture:

1 Samuel 3:1-10, 19-20
Mark 1:29-39

Reflection:

The Gospel of Mark begins abruptly:  "The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."  This is how it happened.

 

Simon’s mother-in-law lies ill with a fever.  Jesus promptly takes her hand and helps her up.  She is immediately cured of her fever and she begins waiting on Jesus, Simon, James and John.  Can we perceive the good news in this episode?

First, Jesus breaks a cultural barrier by touching Simon’s mother-in-law.  In that culture and time, men did not touch women, except family members.  Jesus then breaks a Mosaic barrier.  He heals the woman on the Sabbath.

Second, the Gospel tells us Jesus "grasped her hand and helped her up."  The Greek verb for helping her up is "egeiren."  It means literally to "raise," the same word used to describe Jesus’ resurrection.  And she waited – in Greek "diekonei" – more accurately, she ministered to them.  We get the word "deacon" from it.

Jesus immediately dramatizes for us the beginning of his good news.  There are no barriers, no obstacles that will prevent Jesus from entering our house, our soul, where suffer spiritual illness.  By his healing touch, he will raise us to new life and restore us to our community.  And in that new life, we are called to minister to one another.  That is how the good news happens.

 

Deacon Manuel Valencia is on the staff at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

 

 

The Epiphany of the Lord

Scripture:

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

 

Reflection:

We live in a world of stars. Astronomers tell us that there are some 300 billion galaxies in the universe comprised of trillions of stars. Our closest star, the Sun, provides heat, energy and lights our way. When I was in the mountains of California at night, I loved to watch for shooting stars (actually meteors.) When I saw one I felt like I was especially blessed.

Once when we were filming for television, when I walked into the chapel, the producer said, "Here comes the star!" I shyly looked down and said, "I’m no star." Then, as I thought about it later, that is exactly our role as a disciple of Jesus, to be a star. Like the Sun we are to be a light in a dark place. By our attitude and generosity, we can bring blessing to others. Like the star in today’s Gospel, we have opportunity to use our talents to point people to Jesus.

The Magi represent us all. I heard a sermon by an African American priest friend of mine. On Epiphany he shouted, "What made the wise men wise? They looked up!" In other words, they were looking, watching for their star. Stars abound. I remember as a young man how the Gospel of Matthew spoke powerfully to me and led me to Jesus. Once I went to a play, Godspell, and was powerfully touched. I once watched a movie, Jesus of Nazareth and was spellbound. Billy Graham’s preaching helped change my life. It is right that he should have a star on Hollywood’s walk of fame. God has a way of leading, guiding and speaking to us through the fine arts, poetry, novels, creation, people and music. Stars abound.

We celebrate light this Epiphany. Even though darkness covers the earth we can rise because our light has come. Our world is full of stars. Epiphany tells us that we can expect new stars, new manifestations of God’s grace that will lead us to Jesus. We live in a world of stars and Epiphany invites us to "look up!"

 

Fr. Cedric Pisegna, C.P. is a missionary preacher, author of 15 books and creator of television and radio programs airing in many cities. You can learn more about his ministry at: http://www.frcedric.org/ 

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 or Isaiah 55:1-11
Acts 10:34-38 or 1 John 5:1-9
Mark 1:7-11

 

 

Reflection:

The Baptism of the Lord

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. It also marks the final day of Christmas season. Although there is only one reading with the gospel, several choices are offered. I have chosen Isaiah 55:1-11 and Mark 1:7-11.

The reading of Isaiah is a good ending/beginning reading. We hear hints of Lent: ‘Seek the Lord…turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous and forgiving’. It is also a reading included among those for the Easter Vigil, "Come to the Water". And there is the echo of Christmas, ‘I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.’

The gospel, in describing Jesus’ baptism also describes the meaning of his ministry. The Spirit descends upon Jesus as it did upon the people of Israel gathered around Mt. Sinai. Like Joshua leading Israel across the Jordan, Jesus leads this Exodus which will have its Passover in which a new people of God are born.

An ancient commentary on the first five books of the Bible says that these books begin and end with an act of loving kindness by God. "It is written in the beginning: God made for Adam and Eve garments of skin and clothed them; and it ends with an act of loving kindness for it is written: when Moses died God buried him in the valley of Moab". The commentator concludes, ‘Thus you should do likewise".

Tomorrow as we begin the yearly reading of Mark, we hear the first act of loving kindness by Jesus, the healing of a man possessed by an unclean spirit. We will come in the end of the gospel to the greatest act of loving kindness, the act that completes the meaning of all the miracles Jesus will perform, his dying on the Cross and his being raised up to life.

The Father and the Spirit are present at Jesus’ baptism, likewise on Calvary they are present. The final breath of Jesus bestows the Spirit upon all who will gather beneath the Cross, bringing a new people to life; the Father receiving the Son’s act of love and obedience.

This day of ending and beginning may we remember God’s acts of loving kindness that surround us. At Easter we will renew our baptisms. Now we follow Jesus, and we see the acts of loving kindness flowing from his ministry. Joined with Jesus as we are, in the power of the Spirit and loved by the Father may we live our baptisms. ‘Thus may we do likewise".

 

Fr. William Murphy, CP is pastor of St. Joseph’s Monastery parish in Baltimore, Maryland.