Daily Scripture

Scripture:
Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38
Matthew 13:47-53

Reflection:
Today’s first reading describes how Moses was instructed to build the Ark of the Covenant-"the Dwelling" and in the response, we hear the psalmist refrain, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God!"

Where do we find God’s dwelling place?  Our first response is that God dwells in the Blessed Sacrament present in the Tabernacle.   Jesus, Body and Blood, is truly present in the form of bread and wine.  This is the basic tenant of our Faith.  We believe in the Divine Presence and our spiritual growth is heightened by a developing love of Christ so present.

And God is with us in the Celebration of the Eucharist.  At the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Sacrament wherein he gave himself to us in order to remain with us and strengthen us.  Jesus dwells with us in the very act of the community of believers gathering in prayer at the Altar offering thanksgiving to the Father through the Son.

As a cradle Catholic, I grew up with a strong reverence for the Church building itself.  One of my earliest memories is sitting in a silent church, saying my prayers and knowing that God was present here.  When I have to make an important decision or if there is a crisis in my life, I seek God in the solace of my parish Church.  The Church is a special holy place.  There are other designated holy places – retreat centers, grottos, shrines.  Perhaps in your home, you have a small place where you sometimes sit or kneel and think about God.   God dwells in these holy places.

There is one dwelling place of God that we all too frequently forget, and that is that God dwells in us.  Just as we have reverence for Eucharist, for the Tabernacle, for the Church, we must also have reverence for ourselves and for one another.  I know a Passionist priest who speaks of this, and to demonstrate it, genuflects to the Tabernacle, to the Altar, and then to the people in the Assembly.

For surely we are not worthy to be called Christian if we spend hours in front of the Tabernacle, devoutly honor Jesus in Communion, bow or make the sign of the Cross as we pass a Church, but fail to treat one another with love and respect.

How lovely indeed are God’s dwelling places – all of them!

 

Mary Lou Butler is a long-time friend and partner in ministry to the Passionists in California.

Scripture:

Exodus 34:29-35
Matthew 13:44-46.

Reflection:

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks to us as He often does in the form of parables.  "The kingdom of heaven," Christ tells us, "is like a treasure buried in a field."  When such a treasure is found, the finder goes out and sells "all that he has" in order to buy the field.  Imagine this for a moment-all that he has.  This is not something you would do on a hunch.  That would mean selling your house and everything in it, your car, your wedding ring, your stocks, your 401K, your kids’ toys, your clothes-everything.  What could possibly be worth that?  Certainly nothing on earth. 

We could sell everything we have in exchange for finding the kingdom because no such thing on earth is as valuable.  So what will we get in return for giving up all we have?  The answer of course is that we will get everything we could ever need.  What we have on earth pales in comparison to what is promised to us.  How do we reconcile our daily lives filled with responsibilities and obligations with our commitment to put Christ first?  In other words, how can we seek the treasure if we are not willing to pay the price for it?

I know the way it goes in my own life when such a conflict arises.  I wonder, how can God ask so much of us when we have  a debt crisis to worry about, college to save for, a mortgage to finance, a car to pay off, a career to nurture, a PTA meeting to plan and on and on.  But when we live mindfully with God as the center of our lives, then all of those other things fall into place as they should.  We become better parents and workers and all that we aspire to be. 

The last parable in Matthew’s gospel today tells the story of the merchant searching for pearls.  "When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."  Now, I am sure I have read or heard this gospel dozens of times.  Since it follows the parable of the hidden treasure, it seems fitting that a similar story likens the kingdom to a fine pearl. 

But I noticed something interesting this time.  The kingdom is not actually compared to the pearl.  "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls."  The kingdom is actually directly compared to the merchant.  I hope I am not undoing over a thousand years of Biblical study here.  But it sounds to me like the kingdom is the one doing the seeking in this story.   And if that is the case, could we be the pearls? 

Let’s not forget that as we are out there seeking truth and re-arranging our priorities and trying to fit God into our schedule, that He gave all he had to save us.  We are precious to Him.  We are not out there alone searching for hidden treasure.  In a world that defines us by our things and our earthly accomplishments, let us remember that we are so priceless to Christ that he traded his life for our salvation. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a priceless gem.  And yet, that is what we are to our Lord.  Let’s not let Him down.       

          

Marlo Serritella is on staff at the Holy Cross Province Development Office in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Scripture:

1 Kings 3:5, 7-12
Romans 8:28-30
Matthew 13:44-52 or 13:44-46

Reflection:

Have you ever come across something that you just had to have? When I visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati last summer, there was a print for sale of a painting depicting the experience of slavery. It is a powerful painting, but the only prints that were for sale measured 2 feet by 3 feet. I had already filled up the wall space in my office, and I was close to doing the same thing in my bedroom, but I wanted the print, so I decided to get it anyway, and I made room for it on my wall.

If you’ve had a similar experience, both you and I need to listen to Jesus in the Gospel reading for Sunday (Matthew 13:44-52): "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it." As much as I desired that print, or as we have desired certain things in our lives, do we want the kingdom?

Would we be willing to "sell all that we have," or "go all out," for the kingdom? Would following Jesus and doing God’s will be the most important things in our lives? Those are the kinds of questions these parables pose to us. There are many times when we find ourselves single-minded in pursuit of money or a job or a career, or even a spouse. But is it possible to be that single-minded in pursuit of holiness? Is that even the smart thing to do? After all, the other things we pursue can be seen and heard and felt. Holiness can seem a bit abstract.

In our first reading from 1 Kings (3:5, 7-12), Solomon, having succeeded his father David as king, asks God for wisdom and understanding so that he can govern the people well. God is pleased with such a request, and grants his wish. And Solomon is known far and wide for the wisdom he possesses. But if you read further into 1 Kings, you’ll find that Solomon doesn’t always use the gift he’s been given. He desires other things, winds up disobeying God, and his wisdom seems to go out the window. To put ourselves totally at the disposal of God, knowing His incredible love for us, is real wisdom, as irrational as it may seem. We are to put everything on the line for the "kingdom of heaven." 

Now, how can we know that what we’re striving for is truly about the kingdom? Sometimes the thing to do seems to stand fast in our position, no matter what other people think. At other times, listening and dialogue seem best (The debt ceiling debate might be an example). Prayer and spiritual direction can help greatly in discerning where we need to put our energies. But I think there are some things we can consider as we move along in our lives. If our single-mindedness leads us to violence, or condemnation of others, it probably is not of the kingdom. But if it leads to reconciliation, to peace and justice, to love of God and love of neighbor, then I think it probably is following the promptings of the Spirit.

The single-mindedness Jesus calls for requires grace from God. Our faith tells us that God freely bestows that grace upon us. As St. Paul says in our reading from Romans (8:28-30): "We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." We know where our real treasure lies – in the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ, culminating in eternal life. It is there for us to have. How bad do we want it?

 

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

Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene

Scripture:

Exodus 20:1-17
John 20:1-2, 11-18

Reflection:

"Lord, you have the words of everlasting life." 
John 6:68c

Certainly the Lords words teach us about eternal life, and the gift of salvation, but Scripture is also incredibly helpful for our daily lives! What a treasure we have in Gods Word! Reading the Bible has helped me make decisions; comforted me; taught me; strengthened me; challenged me; convicted me; and given me cause for rejoicing.

Here are some of my favorite verses:

"God is my refuge and my strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble." Ps 46:2

"Fear is useless, what is needed is trust." Mark 5:36b

"I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk; I will counsel you, keeping my eye on you." Ps 32:8

"You will show me the path to life; abounding joy in Your presence." Ps 16: 11a

"You set me high on a rock, You give me rest. For You are my refuge." Ps. 61:3

"The Lord my God is with me. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in me. He will quiet me with His love. He will rejoice over me with singing." Zeph. 3:17

I put the verses into first person, so that they speak more directly to my heart. When I want to memorize a verse, I put copies around the house and on the visor of my car so that I will see it often. It’s so good to hide God’s Word in our hearts. Then the Holy Spirit can bring it back to mind when we need it! There is also power in God’s Word to accomplish what it says. May we all mine the depths of scripture, and let God change us into the image of His beloved Son, Jesus.

 

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 4. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.jcarleton.com/ or email her at janice@frcedric/org

 

Scripture:

Exodus 24:3-8
Matthew 13:24-30

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear another parable from Jesus. This parable has to do with an enemy of a landowner sowing weeds among the landowner’s wheat. The landowner’s servants ask him if they should pull up the weeds, but the landowner tells them to wait until harvest time to separate the weeds from the wheat. In the parable the good seeds are understood as the "children of the kingdom," while the bad seeds are the "children of the evil one." Harvest time is the time of judgment, and what happens to the weeds and the wheat is self-explanatory.

The parable sets a choice before us. Do we want to be "weeds" or "wheat?" The remarkable thing about our relationship to God is that, even though we may act like "weeds" at times in our lives, we don’t have to remain so! God has the power to change us from "weeds" to "wheat!" He also shows us leniency in giving us one opportunity after another to put ourselves into His hands so that we can do His will!

To choose to be "wheat" has implications for how we treat one another. Often our temptation is to ask the same question that the servants asked after they discovered the weeds in the field: "Do you want us to go pull them up?" Sometimes we are all too willing to help God when it comes to separating the "weeds" from the "wheat." Often we point to those on the other side of an issue or group of issues, or those on the other side of some segregation (albeit unwritten and unspoken), and declare that they are "weeds’ to be thrown into the fire. It is not up to us to decide the judgment of another. That is up to God. Instead, we are called to be open to whatever "weeding" needs to be done with us, so that we can bear better fruit. God can and will do what needs to be done in us and through us. We need to choose whether we are at His disposal or not.

 

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

 

Scripture:

Exodus 12:37-42
Matthew 12:14-21

Reflection;

Today’s first reading tells of the exodus of the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt; their journey away from death and into the light of hope.

And then today’s Gospel reading tells of the light of hope that dawns on those cured by Jesus, which only hastens Jesus’ own journey towards death.

There is that saying that goes something like: We live in a mystery wrapped in an enigma. How apt that seems as one ponders our journey through life, always reaching toward light and hope even as we are surrounded by loss and the great and small deaths of our existence here on earth.

What makes that journey possible, I believe, is love. Love of God, family, friends, neighbor, self. It is God’s love for the Israelites, for example, that literally brings them out of their suffering to a new beginning rooted in hope. They are not a perfect people, of course, but a people flawed by doubts and inconsistency whom God nevertheless wants to know, intimately, and be known by.

It is a God who loves us so deeply, so profoundly, that a Son is sent to prove for all time that death is not the final word of our human existence. Love is. And so Jesus cures the sick of mind and body, restoring hope to all who feel bereft.  These wounded people feel better, are even transformed, not because they have been forever cured and will never die, but because they have been loved. And when they, and we, love God in return, a different kind of eternal life is granted to our weary hearts.

Today is my mom’s birthday, deceased now for several years. I’ve mentioned her before in my reflections on July 16th. She was both tough and tender, scrappy and vulnerable. She never looked back, except to tell stories in the grand Irish way. She didn’t care much for regret, which could be maddening and perplexing. She always looked ahead. When my father died and I wanted to visit the grave, she said in a somewhat surprising way, "Why? I never think of him as being out there."

In this rather unsentimental, simple way my mom was saying something profound. We are a people on the move from darkness to light. Loss, even death, does not define us, for we are certainly more than what rests in a wooden box at the end of our days. While on earth, we live in hope. We keep at it – tough one day, bruised the next – but we journey on.  And is the love that we experience in our lives and through our faith that makes new life possible as we journey out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, away from death and into a new light.

 

Nancy Nickel is director of communications at the Passionist Development Office in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Scripture:

Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b
Matthew 13:10-17

Reflection:

The blessings we enjoy from God are so overwhelming that we gradually lose our capacity to react to them.  From the initial creative activity whereby God drew this wonderful universe of ours out of sheer nothingness, to the present time, God’s blessings have accumulated to the point where no calculating device can begin to tally them.  As a result, we fall into ways of taking them for granted, since we have no other suitable manner of formulating an adequate response for them.

But there at least two issues of a rather delicate nature in this regard: first, God’s blessings are not equally distributed among us; and second, most of us who have been gifted abuse what we’ve received.

We hear of these mishaps in today’s scriptures.  In the Exodus reading, we hear about one of God’s great blessings getting underway: the deliverance/exodus of the Hebrew people from their captivity in Egypt for the journey to the Promised Land.  This blessed event happened only to the Hebrew people (not to other captive peoples throughout the world of that era); hence, they’ve come to be called The Chosen People.  Chosen indeed, because so manifestly blessed, as is presented in today’s reading describing their assembly for their first encounter with the God Who is calling them out of slavery into freedom.  We may wonder: why them, and not some other people?

In addition, despite the reverence, awe and trepidation accompanying their gathering at the foot of Mt. Sinai, for their first encounter with the God Who is leading them to freedom, we know that days are coming when they will flagrantly overlook and even complain about the great blessings that have been lavished on them by God.  And, yet, they remain blessed by God, the Chosen people.

The day’s gospel touches on the same issue: why some and not others?  The issue is the parables Jesus uses to speak to the people.  They are rich in meaning but their wealth has to be deciphered and mined.  The disciples put the question to Jesus: why do some get to understand these sayings He presents, while others do not?  Ultimately, it is again a question of chosenness, with those not so privileged seeming to be penalized ("even what he has will be taken away").  But, once again, those of us gifted with Jesus’ explanation of these parables can abuse or disregard them.

So we count our blessings, and thank God for them, seeking to treasure them with fear and anxiety since we lack all initiative before the gifts of God: we cannot demand them, nor can we guarantee we will treasure them all the days of our life.  Their growth and increase lies beyond us.  But we can pray: "Give us this day our daily bread."

 

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

 

Scripture:

Exodus: 14:21-15:1
Matthew 12:46-50

Reflection:

Someone said to him (Jesus) "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wishing to speak with you." Matthew 12:47

Chapter 12 of the Gospel according to Matthew paints a picture of a Jesus consistently being harassed by Pharisees for disobeying Jewish law and for doing good works. Some Pharisees even accused Jesus of expelling demons by the power of Beelzebub. (Mt. 12:24) Jesus’ strong reaction to this accusation was quick and clear: "How can you utter anything good, you brood of vipers?" (Mt. 12:34) Earlier, Matthew reported: "When the Pharisees were outside they began to plot against him to find a way to destroy him." (Mt 12: 14) Jesus’ mission was one of mercy and healing, giving food to those who were hungry (Mt. 12:1), restoring full health to the man with a shriveled hand (Mt. 12:13), healing the many in need (Mt. 12:16), sight and speech to the blind and mute (Mt: 12:22), and he still could not convince the Pharisees that he was sent by God and of his power to heal, to redeem, to bring new life as a God-given power. One of them says, "Teacher, we want to see you work some signs." (Mt. 12:38). He says this after he has just witnessed one sign after another!

This scripture leads me to ask, why is it so difficult for me to believe in this Jesus we find in the Gospel according to Matthew as the One sent by God, full of love and compassion? It may be because I have my own understanding of Who God Is. The God of my faith is sometimes so different than the God of the Scriptures, of both the Old and New Testament. I sometimes want a God who will punish the evildoer immediately and mercilessly. I want the lawbreaker to get caught and be dealt with swift justice. I am not always so willing to give help to those with shriveled hands, those who are blind, those who cannot speak, those who have been possessed by unclean spirits. These are social ills and not necessarily connected and integral to our Faith Life. For some of us, believing in God and believing in Jesus does not oblige me to feed the hungry, clothed the naked, heal the sick, treat the criminal as my brother or sister, or any of the other kindnesses or mercies enumerated by Jesus in Matthew 25:31 ff.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is still addressing the crowds when his family appears outside, wanting to speak to him. This is the moment we see the depth of Jesus’ Gospel, the good news of the Reign of God. For Jesus did not say, please excuse me, let me go out to see what my mother and my family wants. Rather, he asks, "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?" (Mt. 12:48) Then pointing to his disciples, he says, "There are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is brother and sister and mother to me." (Mt. 50)

To believe in this Jesus, we do not only have to change the way we are with one another, but we also have to redefine our relationship with one another. This is easier said than done. This is why the Pharisees were so opposed to Jesus. This is why it is so difficult even now to believe fully in the Jesus of the Gospels. For the Pharisees, the people in power, it was easier to get rid of Jesus than to have a conversion of heart.

Today, as we do every day, we have a chance to choose to be a Pharisee or a disciple. Only with God’s help can we be a disciple. Help me today, O God, to do your will!

 

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