Daily Scripture

Scripture:

Genesis 12:1-9
Matthew 7:1-5

Reflection:

"Stop judging, that you may not be judged." Matthew 7:1

 

I wish I could stop judging, but so often it seems that I’m judging someone before I realize it. For example, when I see a young person who has a punk hairdo or tattoos and piercings, I think, "Boy, they sure must need attention", or even, "How sick is that"? Then one of my kids got a tattoo and another got a piercing. And these were my kids who I knew and loved! They were and are intelligent, interesting people and very much worth getting to know. They have really helped me not be so quick to judge by appearance (or at least when I start to judge, I can stop myself more quickly).

I also used to be very judgmental of people who worked at abortion clinics. I used to pray once/week at a planned parenthood with a friend. We would take our walk around and around the clinic praying that the women going in would change their minds, or that the electricity would go off and they would have to close for the day. We prayed and prayed that the hearts of the doctors would be changed and that their eyes would be opened to the reality of abortion.

At this clinic there were "escorts" who sat at the door of the building. They would run over to a car when a client would arrive and rush them inside before a pro-life person could talk to them or hand them information about abortion. One day when we were walking, it was very cold. Since we were walking, we warmed up and soon didn’t need our gloves. As we came around to the front of the building, I sensed the Lord asking me to give my gloves to the escort who was sitting there and obviously very cold. I stopped and asked him if he would like to wear my gloves while I finished my walk. He looked at me curiously and then said, "Yes, please that would be very nice."

I will never forget that experience. The Lord showed told me that He loved that man just as much as He loves me! And that we were really very much alike… because we were both doing something for a cause we believed in. He believed in a woman’s right to choose and I believe life begins at conception and needs to be protected. It wasn’t my job to judge him – it was my job to be kind to him as I should be to all of God’s children. Remember the song the Love Round? "Love, love, love, love. Christians this is your call. Love your neighbor as yourself, for God loves us all." Lord please help us judge a little less, and love a lot more!!!

 

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:

2 Corinthians 11:1-11
Matthew 6:7-15

 

 

 

Reflection:

I know a group of people who would thank Jesus for the prayer that he taught the disciples: the "Our Father."  Those are the men and women who are involved in the 12 Step programs.  They always end their meetings by saying the Lord’s Prayer.  But it’s a prayer we all stand in need of.

One of the requests that is made to the Father is "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Two of the 12 Steps bring the individual face to face with the need for forgiveness. The fourth step asks for forgiveness of the resentments they have against those who have hurt them in any way.  And the fifth step asks for forgiveness for the ways that they, themselves, have hurt others.

I believe that anyone who prays the Lord’s Prayer knows that no one can omit those two petitions:  "I have been hurt by others, forgive them; and I, myself, have hurt others, forgive me."

I find that compassion is a great aid in these two instances.  A person who is in touch with the ways he/she has hurt others along with an honest sense of why they did so, will begin to understand why others have acted in their own way.  This doesn’t erase the hurt or wrong that was done.  But a compassionate person begins to realize that anger, jealousy, low self esteem, rejection, stress, greed for power over others, addictions of all sorts or many other reasons can drive a person to do the things they do.

An honesty can be gained by looking at and understanding why others have hurt us. Things can get out of control in everyone’s life.  That makes so much sense to bring our sincere request to the Father: "Forgive those who trespass against us."  Remembering why others have done the things that have hurt us can slow us down in our resentments
because compassion now helps us to look into the mind and heart of others.

Dealing with resentments caused by the hurts we have suffered, now brings us to another important moment in our lives: I need forgiveness because I have hurt others.  This can be a tough order.  Finally admitting to the hurts that we have inflicted on others can
be very humbling.  I have seen people break down and cry as they honestly admit that they have hurt others so unjustly, so selfishly, so blindly, so cruelly, so coldly and in many other ways.

And so, the Lord’s Prayer for all of us becomes very genuine and true, especially as we say with compassion and love: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

 

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

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

 

Scripture:

Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9
Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19
John 19:31-37

 

Reflection:

"To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:14

There is no doubt that every one of us has wrestled with the question, "How do I know that I am truly loved?" Maybe this question has occasioned sleepless nights or endless conversations with others. To love and be loved is what our heart longs for with great passion. Ideally, we are born into a loving family, we make loving friendships and we enter into significant life-long loving relationships. However, we do not live in an ideal world, and some of us are born into a family where love is not given or expressed, where we have not chosen our friends wisely or entered into life-giving and life-long loving relationships.

This feast, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, invites us to take all of our doubts and worries about love and being loved and place them into the Heart of Jesus. It shows us the height and depth and breath of God’s love for us and what happens when the Divine Heart encounters the Human Heart.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus began to love from the very first moment the Word became Flesh. Mary, his mother, was the first beneficiary of this love, and she was the first one who loved him in return with a human love that only a mother can give. As Mary carried Jesus in her womb, the Sacred Heart of Jesus began to touch the lives of those around him. Did not John, his cousin, leap for joy when Mary came to visit Elizabeth, her cousin? Did not Joseph become more just and compassionate when he came in contact with the pregnant Mary? The Sacred heart of Jesus is forever reaching out to touch our lives and inviting us to love in return.

And Jesus learned what it means to love in a human way living with Mary and Joseph. Did Jesus not learn compassion and charity from the example of Joseph and Mary, his loving parents? To love and be loved are the two sides of the same coin.

This kind of Love demands faith, which surpasses all knowledge, as St. Paul tells us in the second reading for today’s Mass. So many never go beyond our human experience of love, that is, the desire to know for certain that we are really and truly loved, that someone cares for us so deeply, that we will never have doubts in our hearts about that love. So often, we use human measures to mark our certainty that we are loved. We are loved if no harm ever comes to us. We are loved if we are saved from suffering. We are loved if our family and friends are spared the afflictions of this life. If we find ourselves asking the question repeatedly, "Why do these things happen to me?" we may still be living our lives just on the human plane, and have not entered more fully into a life of faith.

Jesus’ Sacred Heart experienced the joys and sorrows of this life. He rejoiced in his family, his mother and father, his cousins and friends, in his neighbors and countrymen. He was also moved with pity and compassion when he met the blind and the lame, the hungry and the poor, the outcasts and the cast-offs of society. On the other hand, Jesus suffered insults and rejection, hatred and violence, distain and hostility. Ultimately, he was condemned, tortured and crucified. This is what we call Unconditional Love.

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is about Unconditional Love. God’s Unconditional Love for us and the call for us to give Unconditional Love to God and to our brothers and sisters, that is, to everyone born in this world. When we do that, we are filled with the fullness of God.

 

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

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 

Scripture:

Isaiah 61:9-11
Luke 2:41-51

Reflection:

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  It is certainly the companion to yesterday’s feast of the Sacred Heart.  Clearly, the connection is the human hearts of Jesus and Mary.  Today’s feast is not about theology or the church.  It is, rather, about the human heart that symbolizes the power of life, the center of passion, the source of love and commitment.  And, the hearts of Jesus and Mary above all others reveal to us the very heart of God who is love.

We often tend to idealize Mary’s experience as a Mother.  After all, Jesus must have been the "perfect" son!  Yet, in the Gospel for today, we are reminded that being someone’s Mother is always filled with mystery, misunderstanding, hurt and sorrow.  Mary and Joseph are clearly frightened when they can’t find Jesus.  When they finally find him after a three-day search, the response Jesus gives them was not particularly satisfying.  The Gospel only comments, "his mother kept all these things in her heart."  That was the first of many occasions when Mary was confused and frightened by the actions of Jesus.

Yet, as Mary lives out her life, we witness the pure love of a Mother for her Son, but even more importantly, the love of the perfect follower of Jesus.  It is her total love of God that opens her to the request that she be the Mother of God’s Son.  It is her total love of Jesus that supports her through the heart-wrenching experience of watching her son rejected, brutalized, condemned and killed.  It is her undying love of those Jesus loved that makes her the central support of the early Christian community and all those who desire to follow Jesus.

An immaculate heart is an unwavering heart, a generous heart, a courageous heart, a totally faithful heart.  May Mary’s love of Jesus and the followers of Jesus, support us as we struggle with our faltering hearts!

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. ([email protected]) is the director of lay formation for Holy Cross Province and is stationed at Immaculate Conception Retreat in Chicago.

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 6:1-10
Matthew 5:38-42

Reflection:

This passage of Paul is very personal. Paul asserts that now is the acceptable time and day of salvation.

Do we think that today? Is today really a day of grace for us? Maybe, like the Corinthians of Paul’s time, we have many difficulties and challenges to our faith. We become discouraged by what is happening, or not happening in our parishes. We feel let down by our episcopal leaders. Or there may be factions and dissent in the community. His passage reminds us that we have not received God’s grace in vain. Paul spoke of what he had to endure: beatings, imprisonments, riots. He spoke of how he disciplined himself with labors, vigils, and fasts. Yet through all of the events of his life he acted through the Holy Spirit and in the power of God. He saw in his life a mixture of light and darkness, of good and bad, of having nothing, yet possessing all things. In our own journey we need to hold fast to what God has done for us. Paul bared his soul to the community of Corinth. May we hold steady on the course and run as to win the prize.

 

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

 

Scripture:

Exodus 24:3-8
Hebrews 9:11-15
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

 

 

Reflection:

Corpus Christi raises up before our eyes the beauty and value of the Eucharist. It brings to mind the gift of the Body and the Blood of the Lord. The Eucharist stands at the heart of our Catholic faith.

There are different ways of approaching the Eucharist, some of which are devotional. But the bible readings chosen for us by the church today stress the Eucharist as a sacrifice, which brings to mind the Mass. Recent popes have worried that we don’t pay sufficient attention to the sacrificial nature of Eucharist. On the other hand, some complain that attending to the Eucharist in any of these ways can be detrimental to concerns of justice, peace and the integrity of creation, constraining our efforts "to the sanctuary", and restraining them from social concerns beyond the church walls.

Today’s readings suggest otherwise. The reason is the focus on blood that the Bible presents. In Exodus it is the blood of animals, in Hebrews and Mark it is the blood of Christ. What’s notable about this emphasis on blood is the effect it produces: covenants, alliances, agreements, solidarity among those sharing in the blood.

When Moses sprinkles the blood of animals on the alter and on the people, he is uniting a sacrificial offering (sanctuary) and people, making their laborious way across the desert on their journey to the Promised Land. He calls it "the blood of the covenant". Covenant is an alliance, a device for achieving justice, a way of leveling out relationships between otherwise uneven partners: God and humans. In other words, this religious act effects the balance of justice in peoples’ lives.

More cogently, the author of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of blood again, this time, the blood of Christ shed on the cross, far superior to the blood of animals described in Exodus. And so, as we might expect, the effects are superior. The blood of Christ does more than enable us to cross the desert. It helps us to reach the gate of heaven, traversing the distance between earth and heaven. And once again we note that this is a covenant, a new covenant. It negotiates the extreme differences between our lowly selves and the eminence of God. It is a justice device, effecting solidarity between such unlikely partners as God and humans.

We have the privilege of anticipating this blood-facilitated covenantal arrangement with God by our Eucharistic sacrifice, where what Mark describes in the gospel takes place among us here and now. Jesus first took bread, then took wine, transposing them into His Body and Blood, as He proceeded to name it: "This is my blood of the covenant…" Once again "covenant" emerges to the fore – a justice device to bring about a species of equality between totally unequal partners: God and us.

The celebration of Corpus Christi reminds us that what takes place in the sanctuary of our churches brings about an unlikely straightening out of relationships, that can carry over into our social concerns, which desperately seek to hit upon legal and moral arrangements repairing the inequities in our daily lives. We strive to articulate new covenants with earth and sea, with one another, by looking to the Passion of Christ, and His shedding of blood, to restore the original creation of God in our midst, where all of us have suitable access to the land, enabling us, in turn, to enjoy just and equitable relationships with one another, because, thanks to His blood, we enjoy a covenantal bonding with God. A sense of Corpus Christi leads to a sense of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation.

 

Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. ([email protected]) is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. 

Feast of St. Anthony of Padua

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Matthew 5:33-37

Reflection:

Saint Anthony of Padua is probably the second best-known and loved of all the Franciscan saints.  He was born near the end of the 12^th century in Lisbon, and lived only until the year 1231– a lifespan similar to that of St. Francis.  He lived a full and fruitful life, however.

Ordained for the Augustinian community, he transferred shortly afterwards to the Friars Minor.  He wanted to be a missionary among the African peoples, but God had other things in mind.  He taught theology in Bologna, Italy.  His greatest glory was his preaching, which brought many people back to Christ.  Known as a "father of the poor", he lived out Francis’ love of "Lady Poverty" by making sure as many poor as he and his brothers could help had daily bread.

Anthony’s most popular attribute, however, is helping people to find lost or misplaced articles…those keys, eyeglasses or purses or wallets we sometimes misplace.  On a deeper level, he represents for us someone who has taken to heart Paul’s words to us in our selection today from Second Corinthians: "And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."  Anthony lived out the ministry of reconciliation by preaching God’s love, by helping to feed the poor and living his community life.  May we do so also, thanking God for sharing in this ministry.

 

Fr. Bob Bovenzi, C.P. is stationed in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Matthew 5:13-16

Reflection:

"You are the salt of the earth."

"You are the light of the world."

These are both very familiar statements of Jesus, known even to those who are beyond the Christian community.  While it is good to be familiar with stories, phrases and lines of scripture, there can be a disadvantage in that what is well known can become too familiar to the point of becoming commonplace.  We can even have a tendency to "tune out" what we think we know and have heard time and time again.  Even the words of Jesus can thereby lose the ability to surprise and challenge us.  But Jesus, by speaking in metaphors, opened his meaning to unlimited, living meanings for people of all ages.

"You are the salt of the earth."  Salt is a seasoning that needs to go into something else and come in contact with food that is bland and flavorless in order to fulfill its purpose as salt.  And in this contact the salt not only enhances the taste of what it touches but the salt itself is changed and becomes part of what it flavors.  Salt and food blend together in a way that makes them a part of the other and together they are more than what they were singly.  The flavor has always been locked in the food but by contact with salt it is freed to express the taste that it really is.  Both salt and food come to some kind of completeness and thereby fulfill the purpose of the other.  The metaphor is limitless.  And Jesus said that WE are the salt of the earth.  Interpretations and our imaginations can burst forth with freedom.

"You are the light of the world."  Light must go into darkness to have the effect of illumination for a room or the world.  A lamp lit in the noon day sun has no purpose and in fact is a waste of fuel.  It is not needed. But in the midnight darkness and gloom the light penetrates and transforms what is obscured to illumine what is there but unseen.  Light does not actually bring anything new but makes visible and apparent what has been present.  Again, the metaphor is exceedingly rich.

The salt and light that Jesus says is within us, indeed actually IS us, cannot stay safely as our own possession.  They must be used as intended so that we may become what we are intended to become.  Jesus challenges us to go to those whose lives are bland and locked inside themselves or to those who are living in fear of an inner darkness of hopelessness.  Otherwise we will be putting our light under a basket and our salt will stay in the shaker.

 

Cathy Anthony ([email protected]) is on the staff of St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan.