Daily Scripture

Scripture:

2 Kings 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36
Matthew 7:6, 12-14

Reflection:

"Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few." Mt 7: 12-14

I used to think this passage was referring to the road to heaven (and maybe it is). But knowing how merciful God is and how He wants all of His kids to make it home one day, I’m not so sure anymore. I find it hard to believe that only a few will make it to heaven. Maybe instead it refers to the way we live our lives here on earth. The road that leads to life could be referring to the road leading to abundant life; to living in the Kingdom here on earth. How many people do you know who are totally surrendered to God’s will? Not resigned, but joyfully abandoned to His will? These people live in the Spirit, and display the fruits of the Spirit. They know that true peace and joy don’t come by following our own desires, but by seeking God’s way in everything.

The broad road that leads to destruction could be living by my own will and letting my feelings control me. Until we learn to live in the Spirit, our lives are filled with regret, fear, worry, bickering, selfishness, unforgiveness, envy and sin. Many, many people live this way – even in the church! Often I think we don’t really believe that we can change. "I can’t help it if I worry". But God tells us over and over again in His word not to be afraid and not to worry. He wants to teach us how to live in victory over fear and anger and jealousy. He wants us to put others’ needs before our own and to live by the "Golden Rule".

When we take God at His word, and claim His promises for our own lives, we begin to cultivate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control. It’s our choice and it’s a process to go from wanting our own way to wanting God’s way. It’s much easier to run our own lives. But by yielding to the Spirit daily, we can grow in holiness and more and more live that abundant life. We can live in the Kingdom now; we don’t have to wait until we die. But it takes courage and discipline and humility to die to ourselves and to put on the mind of Christ and let Him control us.

So, which road will you choose?

 

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 2, soon to be 3. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.jcarleton.com/ or email her at janice@frcedric/org

Scripture:

Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24

Reflection:

Have you ever done anything you regretted?  If you haven’t, I want to meet you because I’ve never met anyone who didn’t regret some things in their lives. 

It seems that regret is something of a universal, human experience! 

It’s no surprise to have regrets.  After all, sometimes we take risks or do things that have consequences very different from what we planned or imagined.  Or, sometimes we do things because we’re hurt, angry or afraid that we regret when things calm down a bit.  And, of course, when we make decisions based on our feelings of righteousness or of vengeance (often enough rationalized as "justice") we have much to regret.

The Prophet Zechariah speaks of God pouring out on the house of David and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem a "spirit of grace and petition" that frees them to embrace their deep regrets over their destruction of the "one whom they have pierced" so that they can mourn and be purified from their great sin.

All of us need such a grace.  Can we expect God to give us such a gift?  Are you free enough to even receive such a grace?  Or, are you locked into the prison of living in your regrets?  A difficult dilemma we each much face!

Perhaps as we struggle with our regrets, the question Jesus asks of his apostles in today’s Gospel is an important question for us.  "But who do you say that I (Jesus) am?"  What is your answer?  Can you reply with Peter, "The Christ of God!"?  Or, are you trapped into believing something less?

If we believe that Jesus is "The Christ of God" then we know that God has given us the "spirit of grace" that frees us to mourn our regrets and be purified of our sin.  That is, after all, what Christ has done for us.  As St. Paul testifies in his letter to the Galatians, "through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus." 

One of the great challenges of the Christian life is "to be who we are."  We are God’s children through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  Today’s Scripture readings call us to welcome God’s transforming love into our lives.  If we do, we are not only freed from the prison of our regrets, but are also freed to share God’s great love with all those in our lives.

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of the Passionist Development Office and is stationed at Immaculate Conception Retreat in Chicago.

Scripture:

Sirach 48:1-14
Matthew 6:7-15

Reflection:
In St. Matthew’s version of the "Our Father", he concludes with the words, "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you do not forgive other, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions."

Radical forgiveness is embedded in the center of a Christian’s identity.  The reason we find forgiveness so difficult is because we are often living in the ego-filled part of our consciousness.  Using the image of a tree, we can say the heart of the tree is what is in the ground.  The part above the ground is meant to be an expression of the deeper part.  The above-ground part is in motion, moving this way and that way.  The leaves are seasonal.  They come and they go.  Inside all of this movement is hopefully an expression of our essence, who we are deepest down.  Often enough, this upper part is egocentric craziness and filled with some delightful Loony Tunes of life.  The trouble is, we begin to identify our essence with this upper commotion and passing, changing images and feelings.  When someone hurts me, I brood, begin to justify my negative even hateful feelings towards them.  My hurt becomes a cancer within me.  The other person is going his/her merry way but here I am, in my upper consciousness, turning my own heart into a cesspool.  Forgiveness seems to be so illogical and crazy.

It can be so hard to see the genuine self that is deep within.  It is hard to die to this surface self and see what is truly real.  We may now and then get the intuition into this depth of self.  The mystics are individuals who are blessed, on this side of the veil of death, with this perception in an ongoing way. They see the self almost engulfed in union with God and others.  The sense of the unifying power of love is so real and powerful that most of the surface feelings and insights fade into almost nothingness.  The fact that someone "hurt me" melts away in face of my "unity with all, even my enemies".  Jesus, at the moment of his death, cried out, "Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing."  In his book, "Tortured for Christ", Richard Wurmbrand tells stories of how Christians, being tortured in the most horrible and evil ways, feel not hate for those hurting them, but a desire that they come to know Christ and his love.  They are so emptied of all that surface ego-centric garbage, that the essence of their Christian being is sensing union with those killing them and not hate.

Say the "Our Father" slowly and reverently.  It can be a powerful prayer that gets us living more on the level of our real, Christian self and not on the whirlwind level of the blowing and changing images and feelings of surface consciousness.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."   

 

Fr. Blaise Czaja, C.P. gives parish missions and retreats.  He is a member of the Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan.

 

Scripture:

1 Kings 21:1-16
Matthew 5:38-42

Reflection:

Do you ever wake up and wish there were a quick and easy "owners manual" for how you are to lead your life?  It sure would make life less stressful and challenging.  Our contemporary society is one that reinforces the quick and easy solution to everything and there seems to be an application for the iPhone or iPad to solve every problem.  I propose today a better application to guide The Way-iSermon.  With this new download, you would have direct access to the teachings and applications found in the wisdom teachings from the Gospel of Matthew…for the Sermon on the Mount is indeed our most beautiful, faith-filled "owners manual". 

I fear, however, that there would not be a world-wide queue for the release of this new application.  While the temptations of the electronic Apple products are very enticing, iSermon would not offer the "easier, softer way" that our contemporary society pays big money to capture.  As today’s Gospel reading explains, the answers to life’s challenges and conflicts cannot be found in shortcuts to living.  The real answers are found in choosing the more difficult way.   In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was not preaching an easier, softer form of Judaism. Matthew’s Gospel professes a more intensified commitment to God that extends beyond the letter of the Jewish law. In addition, Jesus pointed to one of the many challenges of living in a Roman occupied society.  In the occupied regions, people were often pressed into service to carry the bags of the Romans as they traveled to and fro.  Jesus taught that they should not resent being pressed into service and merely carry the baggage the distance, but instead, should volunteer to go twice as far. 

In all cases, Jesus is clearly saying that we cannot afford to live an "easier, softer" way.  Nor can we afford to harbor feelings of resentment or anger for transgressions and hurts in our lives.  Indeed, festering resentments and bottled up anger are at the heart of many mental and physical diseases that plague our world today.  A profound cure is offered to us this day in the Sermon on the Mount.  Popular or not, I intend to continue to "download" these teachings onto the hard-drive of my life and pray that I may be transformed.

 

Angela Howell ([email protected])  is a retreatant and volunteer at Mater Dolorosa Passionists Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, California.

 

Scripture:

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

Reflection:

While celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation, I like to remind the penitent of Proverbs 24:16…"The just one falls seven times (daily) and rises again." Sometimes, we can become so "caught up" with our sinfulness, that we forget or disregard the mercy of God.  What a fine line the Church and each local community, each family and each person must walk in warning strictly against sin and yet clutching the sinner back for Jesus.

King David, that man of extraordinary talents, the writer of so many of our Psalms, the one who danced before the Ark of God with abandon, was pointed out as a public sinner…guilty of adultery, murder, deception and infidelity.  Yet even with Nathan’s tongue-lashing, all David said was: " I have sinned against the Lord."  Nathan assured him of God’s forgiveness, just as we hear God’s forgiveness pronounced in the penitential rite at Mass or in the sacrament of reconciliation.

In the Gospel, we hear the familiar story of "the woman known as a sinner".  She and Simon the Pharisee make good foils for our contemplation.  The great commentator Barclay comments on Simon: "Most likely, Simon was a collector of celebrities; and with a half-patronising contempt he had invited this startling young Galilean to have a meal with him."  As the guest of honor, Jesus would have been more than ready to engage whoever came to him with question, concern or tearful request.  The repentant woman stands in for all of us, with whatever sins we are aware of in our lives.  We perhaps cry over forgiven sins or over a pattern of sinfulness that is broken by God’s grace.  We stand, not in judgment over sinful humanity, but one in solidarity with the human family.  A couple of thought provokers: A) With the environmental sin of the Gulf oil disaster before us, do I own my part in this because I too have desired cheap fuel over the safety of workers, the good of the earth? B) Do I share with others, at least in a general way, how the Lord’s forgiveness of my (our) sins has set me (us) free?

HAPPY THE ONE WHOSE FAULT IS TAKEN AWAY, WHOSE SIN IS COVERED.

 

Fr. Bob Bovenzi is resides at the Holy Name Passionist Community in Houston, Texas.

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Scripture:

Ezekiel 34:11-16
Romans 5:5b-11
Luke 15:3-7

Reflection:

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the symbol of the fidelity of the love of God.  This ancient symbol reminds us that God loves us unconditionally with a love we cannot earn or ever be worthy of.  He loves us as we are right now, at this moment, not as we should be, or possibly could be, but as we are with all of the physical warts, psychological quirks and spiritual infidelities.

If such a love seems almost too difficult to believe, perhaps even too shocking to believe, then we must reflect on the tender passage of Ezekiel in today’s readings.  The Word of God tells how the Sacred Heart of Jesus loves us and remains faithful to us:

Thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
As a shepherd tends his flock
when he finds himself among his scattered sheep,
so will I tend my sheep.
I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered
when it was cloudy and dark.
I myself will pasture my sheep;
I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal…         Ez 34:11-16

Jesus is our shepherd, who rescues us when all seems cloudy and dark, when we have strayed.  This is the unconditional, unqualified, unreserved, unrestricted, unlimited, no strings attached love that the Sacred Heart of Jesus has for you, for me.

 

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

Scripture:

1 Kings 17:7-16
Matthew 5:13-16

Reflection:

There is a story told of Mahatma Gandhi getting on a train just as the train starts to pull away from the station. As he jumps onto the train, one of his sandals falls off onto the tracks. Gandhi quickly slips off the other sandal and lets it fall onto the tracks too. Someone observed his gesture and asks, "Why did you do that?" Gandhi replied, "Now someone will have a whole pair of shoes to wear." When people see our compassion, observe our selflessness and hear our words, may they glorify our heavenly Father.

 

Fr. Cedric Pisegna, C.P. is a missionary preacher, author of 14 books and creator of the TV program Live with Passion! airing in many cities. You can learn more about his ministry at: http://www.frcedric.org/

Scripture:

1 Kings 17:1-6
Matthew 5:1-12

Reflection:

It was around the year 85 of the first century, that the Evangelist, St. Matthew, perused a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St. Mark and asked himself, "What could I add to this clear proof that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God?  What would be of benefit to my part of the New Israel and made up of converts from Judaism and Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, Romans?  How can I bring harmony and appreciation of what Jesus saw as valid in the Law of Moses and its deepening in the Law of Love given by Jesus?"

Matthew’s answer involved him with weeks and months of research and writing.  He saw Jesus as did Mark as Son of God.  He saw Jesus as renewing the Law of Moses and the demands of the prophets.

"Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand."  The aims and law of that Kingdom would be spelled out by Matthew in five discourses that gathered together the teaching of Jesus–a hand book for his flock and for the Church at large

The first great discourse we know as the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with startling paradoxes by asserting where true happiness is to be found.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  

Surely many who heard what Jesus proclaimed were shocked and thought:  "Is this Jesus person serious?  Aren’t we children of Abraham to whom God promised land, children and prosperity? "   And the mighty of Wall Street who boasted of the value of greed would repeat their unbelief.

Who are these "poor in spirit"?  In Israel they were the Anawim– a remnant chastened, humble,  who take refuge in the name of the Lord.  Such are the "poor in spirit" for Jesus as he joins the law of Moses to the renewal he is achieving  by himself as the Living God!

The message telling of true happiness was not merely for those assembled on the Mount of Beatitudes, it is valid for us today.

You are "poor in spirit" if  your drive in life is not the size of your bank account, or the car you drive or the gratifying pleasures you can afford.  One who is poor in spirit is keenly aware that he or she was created to know God, love God, serve God in this life and look forward to an eternity in glory with the Lord.  If such is your aim, then surely you are blessed and even now truly happy.

Each of the beatitudes speaks of the attitude of mind and heart those who put their trust in God.  Desire to put down others is controlled by meekness.  Simplicity gives us the mind of God.

Jesus gives the life-plan that makes for assured happiness in time and eternity.  It may well demand a repentance, a change of mind and heart, but it gives peace of soul now and assurance of a joy that will never end.

 

Fr. Fred Sucher, C.P. is retired and lives in the Passionist community in Chicago.  For many years he taught philosophy to Passionist seminarians.