Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Jeremiah 14:17-22
Matthew 13:36-43

Reflection:

"The weeds are the children of the evil one."

I was looking forward to my assignment this month.  I’ve had my Bible waiting on my desk, next to my Catechism and some other prayer books.  I thought I would be very practical and empirical by dissecting the Gospel as I used to in school.  Maybe by picking apart the language and reading every footnote, I could uncover the true meaning-beyond any shadow of a doubt.  Then I read Matthew’s passage, and all that went promptly out the window. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks to us as he often does, in parables.  Christ describes the world as a "field" and the children of His Kingdom as the "good seed."  But among this good seed grows weeds.  The weeds are sown by the Devil and will be "collected and burned up with the fire" upon the end of time.  It sets up, in no uncertain terms, a competition of sorts between good and evil, between "us" and "them." 

I have seen this passage misused in the name of Christ with the message of hate and intolerance.  When some group of people has decided who exactly these "weeds" are, they can use these words to point their fingers and promise eternal punishment.  But this gospel is not about casting judgment on anyone.  The harvesters are the angels sent by the Son of Man, so it won’t be you and I who will be deciding the fate of our neighbor.   

What struck me as I mulled this reading over in mind is that the choices we make each day-how we live, how we treat people, how we parent-these choices can have enormous consequences.  Are we "righteous" or are we "evildoers"?  Have we chosen Heaven or have we chosen Hell?  We don’t wear a sign on our heads.  We haven’t been predetermined.  We are choosing each day how to live our lives and therefore choosing how we spend eternity. 

I will admit, eternity has not been high on my list of things to worry about lately.   As I type this, I am simultaneously thinking about my schedule for tomorrow, which school my kids should attend, what to make for dinner, what color to paint my bathroom and how to lose 10 pounds very quickly.  The details of our everyday lives have become all-consuming.

What we must remember is that there is so much more.  There is an eternity for our souls to live long after these bodies (that we obsess over) are dead and gone.  While the righteous will "shine like the sun," the evil will be thrown into a "fiery furnace."   It is a horrifying prospect, and yet each day we may struggle to make the right choices that bring us closer to Christ. 

God’s plan for us was never suffering and death.  But our Father loves us so deeply that He granted us something that must be very painful for Him to watch everyday-free will.  And with that gift, let’s face it, we have sometimes chosen poorly.  But we can make different choices.  Let’s take time to pull the weeds from our own garden. 

 

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

 

Scripture:

Jeremiah 13:1-11
Matthew 13:31-35

Reflection:

Sometimes the little things in life do matter! A loincloth, a mustard seed, a particle of yeast…seemingly insignificant items that reveal a most significant message!

The Prophet Jeremiah is one of the Hebrew Bible’s greatest and possibly "strangest figures." Although born to an educated priestly family, Jeremiah’s career as a prophet was fraught with disappointment, despair, deportation to Egypt, and most possibly, at his life’s end, betrayal. Often called by God to perform ridiculous acts in public in order to capture the attention of King and court; his use of poetic language and imagery nonetheless captures God’s enduring love for Judah and continued faithful call to be in covenant relationship with Israel’s God.

In this passage, God tells Jeremiah to use his loincloth (yes, a traditional undergarment) as a sign of God’s current relationship with Judah gone bad. This was an illustration of King Johoiakim’s attempt to play politics with the area’s two superpowers Egypt and Babylonia. Ultimately that policy game would fail. The nation of Judah along with the King’s son and successor would be captured, dragged in chains and die in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah tries to warn the King that just as a loincloth is worn close to the body and protects it, so too does God’s Covenantal love protect God’s people, if it is adhered to. Discarding the loincloth, like discarding the Covenant, only results in failure and despair.

Today in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus uses the example of a mustard seed and a bit of yeast to tell his listeners what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. These seemingly small, insignificant items reveal a much larger truth beyond themselves! As part of Jesus’ Kingdom teaching, what is hidden will ultimately be revealed; what is cast aside will be redeemed; what is dead will be brought to new life.

We live in a world today which is addicted to grandiosity and sensationalism. "The bigger the better" we often think…However the small, everyday events of life go by without notice or attention. Yet Jesus makes it clear that God uses such small, ordinary, seemingly insignificant things to bring us into contact with the reign of God. Jesus reminds us, just as Jeremiah reminded King Johoiakim, that it is our faithfulness, our love of God and our commitment to one another in the Lord that allows God’s redemptive power to transform, insignificantly at first, our personal lives, our communities and our world.

 

Patrick Quinn is the Director of Planned Giving for the Holy Cross Province Development Office.

Scripture:

Isaiah 38: 1-6, 21-22, 7-8
Matthew 12:1-8

Reflection:

God bless my dad. He had a saying, "There are rules and regulations…" I’m not sure he ever finished the phrase.  He didn’t need to.

 

His phrase-lette was, of course, hauled out when someone (me, my sisters, my brother-in-law, hippies, etc.) had already or were in danger of breaking the rules and regulations.  I actually think my dad was entitled to some bragging rights because, well, he was pretty good at following "the rules" himself.

But it wore him down, too, I think, the reliance on rules as a way to keep life somehow in order; as a way to identify who could be judged as right and wrong. At the end of his life I had a moment of profound sadness – and Lord knows I could be very wrong in my own judgment of this – but I wasn’t sure that my father knew how much he was loved by God. I wanted him to know in his bones that he was cherished by God, not because he had kept the rules, but because he had actually lived out of a more compelling law: he tried to be a good father in the face of some very difficult circumstances. He wasn’t always easy, rule-observer that he was, but we knew where he stood and he kept our little family’s ship on course.

It is Jesus’ words today in the Gospel that reverberate within me: I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.  How many times in the Gospels do we hear Jesus urging the Pharisees to see beyond the rules to a greater, deeper law? Don’t observe the Sabbath, Jesus says, by judging harshly or rigidly the human embodiment of God’s love. Be merciful and you will truly honor the one who made you.

For Jesus and those who follow him, that greater, deeper law is rooted in love.  Let’s pray that our Church is never the hardened repository of do’s and don’ts that limit and exclude, but a body whose very life-breath comes from the Holy Spirit and  her loving, merciful people seeking only to do God’s will.

 

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

Memorial of St. Bonaventure, bishop and doctor of the Church

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19
Matthew 11:28-30

Reflection:

In the 11^th chapter of his gospel Matthew gathers the teaching of Jesus as to his mission (in response to messengers from John), as to John’s place among the prophets, a warning to the towns that did not accept his teaching, a revelation of his intimate relationship with his Father, and finally the invitation to come to him that is today’s scripture for us.

This is certainly a well known passage. "Come to me all you who labor" The Greek can also mean "are weary" or "are exhausted". What are people weary of? The burdens they carry. Jesus, as he does elsewhere, is alluding to the burdens of keeping the law. (Mt 24:3) The many rules and regulations that an observant Jew needed to obey.  The good news that Jesus is offering is that coming to him, giving him one’s heart, is to forever lay down the burden of the law and find rest.

How do I read this for myself? Certainly the burdens of the law can be a metaphor for the difficulties, hardships and pains of life. But then the metaphor breaks down. Jesus removed the burden of the law, but he has not promised to remove the difficulties, hardships and pains of life. Rather he intimates that they will always be there: "Take up your cross daily and follow me". (Lk 9, 23)  So what we are left with is that somehow Jesus will

help us through difficulties, hardships and pains of life so that they do not exhaust or weary us. I wish I could say that from my own experience, but I personally have been blessed throughout my life. Maybe my test is still to come.

However, I will personally vouch for Jesus’ description of "a yoke that is easy". The Greek word can also mean "well fitted". As a carpenter by occupation Jesus probably made yokes for oxen. He knew how they had to carefully measured and crafted for each individual oxen. So Jesus is implying that whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and abilities exactly. I have felt that as a Christian. Jesus has shared with us his Spirit. I have found inspiration in the scriptures, forgiveness in the sacrament of Reconciliation, and nourishment in the Eucharist. I made my vows as a Passionist fifty-five years ago. This is a yoke that has made me happy and fulfilled.     

 

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

Scripture:
Isaiah 7:1-9
Matthew 11:20-24

Reflection:
What if you knew for certain that there was an event about to take place and you told everyone you knew and no one listened to you? Perhaps in some small measure you would then understand Jesus’ voicing his frustration in today’s gospel.

Jesus preached the Kingdom of God and He preached its imminent arrival. He knew it was going to happen and He wanted all God’s faithful to be ready. He was, as we say in modern parlance, "a change agent." Jesus not only proclaimed the event, He was the event! He in himself embodied the Kingdom. As God he knew, like the Jewish Prophets before him, that the coming of the Kingdom signaled a different way of being…of living one’s daily life, of interacting with one’s fellows. And he showed this not only by the way he lived His life but by the way he touched others lives as well. Echoing the words of the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus had no doubts of God’s in-breaking into the world. He was "firm in faith and stood firm!"

So you might be able to imagine Jesus’ utter amazement when the cities in which His greatest miracles were done did not take seriously his message. These cities were blessed with a "preview" of God’s action in the world, but they refused to change. Whether out of fear or ignorance or even willful pride, these sophisticated cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida or Capernaum just couldn’t be bothered.

And what of us? Do we really take seriously Jesus message of the Kingdom? Do we live the change the Gospel proclaims? Are we truly "firm in faith?"  

 

Patrick Quinn is the Director of Planned Giving for the Province Development Office in Chicago.

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 1:10-17
Matthew 10:34-11:1

Reflection:

Once Swami Vivekanandha asked his disciples a question. When is it that you are in the daylight, and when is that you are in the night? One of the disciple said, "when the sun rises it is day and when the sun sets it is night?" Another disciple said, "When I can distinguish between a rope and a snake from a distance then it is day, if I fail then I am in the night." After being dissatisfied with their answers, he said to his disciples, "When you see from afar a man or a woman as your brother and sister, then you are in the light; when you fail to see in a man or a woman as your brother and sister then you are in darkness."

In the first reading today, God was dissatisfied with the worship and prayers of the people because their life was far away from bringing justice to the poor and needy. The poor were treated unjustly because the rich distanced themselves from them. God demands that worship has to be consistent with the practice of justice on behalf of the downtrodden, the helpless, the orphans and the widows. God hears our prayers especially  when we dedicate our life to the poor and the needy.

In the gospel today, the call to discipleship requires sacrifices which invole absolute dedication to Jesus even over familial ties. As St. Benedict says, "Prefer nothing whatever to Christ". Then, Jesus promises the rewards of discipleship and his complete identification with his disciples. "He who welcomes you, welcomes me…"  "Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers and sisters you have done to me."  Let us pray that we may be faithful to God’s call and bring justice through our love for our brothers and sisters beyond our boundaries.

 

Fr. A. Justin Nelson, C.P. is member of the Indian Passionist Vicariate and is currently serving as associate pastor at St. Agnes Parish in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Isaiah 6:1-8
Matthew 10:24-33

Reflection:

"Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known."

Hmmm…really?  If that is the case, I’d better start watching pretty carefully what I say in secret.  Despite my resolutions to the contrary, it is too easy behind closed doors to make comments about others that I would never say to them in person.

I grew up that way.  Mine is a large and loving family, yet we have an unfortunate habit of talking about other people behind their backs.  More than once, I was the last person to know that several siblings were angry with me over something, because they spent months talking about it together without telling me.  Even today, the amount of "secret" talk (sometimes bordering on gossip) in the family circle can be substantial.

But what happens when secrets are revealed?  Inevitably, people are hurt on both sides, and sometimes the consequences are devastating.  People in my family have certainly been hurt.  In the public sphere, respected figures are forced to resign when "offline" comments are captured by an errant microphone, and we regularly hear stories of people feeling betrayed when another’s true feelings, motivations, or actions can no longer be hidden.

On another level, too, every time I hear those around me speak negatively about another person in their absence, it makes me wonder who I can trust.  Are people really being honest with me, or are they saying things to make me feel good while offering their true opinion to others out of my hearing?  If they talk about others that way behind their backs, what are they saying about me behind mine?  Am I being ridiculed in ways I don’t even realize?

Then I catch myself saying negative things about another person to someone else, and I have to ask myself the same questions.  How accountable am I and with how much integrity do I speak?  How often do I destroy just a bit of someone’s soul, a bit of their reputation, behind their back?  What purpose do I serve when I complain without going to the person and discussing it face to face?  If someone would feel hurt or offended by my comments, why am I saying them?  How often do I build up the Reign of God with my private remarks, and how often do I tear it down? 

As Jesus reminds us, each person is counted.  Each word is heard.  Each attitude is recorded.  Those people about whom I speak are more precious than a thousand sparrows.  When I denigrate people behind their backs, there is no good excuse.  I can only stand before God and say "Woe is me!  I am a person of unclean lips." 

It is a hard habit to break, but I am working on it. With today’s readings echoing in my ears, I pray the angel’s burning charcoal may purge my mouth, heart, and mind, that one day soon I will not be embarrassed or ashamed to have anyone hear in person what I said about them in private.

 

Amy Florian is a teacher and consultant working in Chicago.  For many years she has partnered with the Passionists.  Visit Amy’s  website: http://www.amyflorian.com/.

 

Passionist Feast of
Mary, Our Mother of Holy Hope

Scripture:

Hosea 14:2-10
Matthew 10:16-23

Reflection:

The feast of Mary, Our Mother of Holy Hope, is celebrated in the Passionist Congregation, but not the general calendar. Celebrating such feasts is a way of nourishing Passionist spirituality throughout the year by recalling aspects of the central mystery of Our Lord’s Passion

There is a choice in the first reading: Sirach 24:1,3-4,8-12,19-21. Wisdom proclaims her glory before her people. For her we will hunger and thirst; obeying we will not be put to shame and serving her we will never fail. Or, in Acts 1:12-14, we see Mary with the apostles and disciples in constant prayer after Our Lord’s Ascension. The Response for today is the Magnificat of Mary, "My soul proclaims the goodness of the Lord", and our refrain, "Hail, O Mary, our hope". The Gospel is the wedding feast of Cana, John 2:1-11.

How might the feast of Our Mother of Holy Hope speak to us as lovers of the Passion? Another Marian feast is Our Mother of Sorrows, Mary beneath the cross. Here we may feel the invitation to stand with her, to comfort her, and enter with her into the mystery Jesus’ love upon the Cross. But in today’s feast we share with others the fruit of the Cross, the Tree of Life. The Preface for the feast, "Mary, Mother and Sign of Hope", shows Mary, having stood by the Cross, as the unfading star of hope and consolation before the dawn of everlasting day. We would stand with her again, each of us stars of hope in the nights of darkness.

We speak of the Passion of Christ as the love story of God told new. But not everyone approaches the Cross confidently. Many people see the Cross of Jesus and become afraid. They cannot go from the Cross as beacons of hope. Maybe their path is first to find comfort in the good that comes from the victory of the Cross, the hope and strength that brings consolation into our lives. Then they may draw near to the Cross of Christ without fear?

This feast is one that nourishes our compassionate sharing with those who suffer, our visits at the hospital bedside when words run out, our prayers for those frustrated who seek fulfillment, the failure, the abandoned. In the Gospel of the wedding of Cana, Mary tells the waiters to do what Jesus directs, although Jesus seems to dismiss her request  saying, woman, my hour has not come. Every mother knows that her work has not ended the day her child comes to life in the world. Indeed! Mary’s work as Mother continues as does that of every mother, she continues to share in the work of Redemption, guiding her son as only a mother can. Your hour has indeed come; off to work. Her hope is our hope.

Passionist Bishop and martyr Blessed Eugene Bossilkov, CP was arrested in Sophia, Bulgaria, in 1952. Alone and in prison he was put to death by a firing squad late one night. He served a persecuted Church and suffered greatly. He writes in a beautiful letter that things are bad, but he is a son of the Province of Our Lady of Holy Hope (Holland) and so he keeps going. May hope keep us going, may it be the star’s light to brighten the lives of others.

 

Fr. Bill Murphy, C.P. is a member of St. Paul of the Cross Province and is pastor of St. Joseph’s Monastery parish in Baltimore, Maryland.