January 15th – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary time
Reflection on 1Sam 3:3b-10, 19
Ps 40:2, 4, 7-10
1Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Jn 1:35-42
“This Sunday marked the close of National Vocations Awareness Week very fittingly, with all four readings centering upon the theme of God’s call and our response to Him. In the first, young Samuel hears the Lord call his name as he is sleeping near the ark of the covenant. (We could make a joke here about dozing off in chapel, but we will refrain. J) Sr. Cecilia Maria pointed out one of the consoling elements in this story: the fact that God calls Samuel four times, because the first three times, he doesn’t “get it,” and thinks that the voice is Eli’s. It takes a spiritual director finally to clue Samuel in and teach him the correct response: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” God is patient and persevering in His call, to be sure, because He desires so much that we hear His words!
The psalmist this week sings some of the most well known words of response to God’s call. “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire; but ears open to obedience you gave me. Holocausts and sin-offerings you do not require; so I said, ‘Here I am; your commands for me are written in the scroll. To do your will is my delight; my God, your law is in my heart!’” Sr. Rose Marie recalled for us that in Hebrews, these words are put on the lips of Christ at His Incarnation, with an even more striking translation. “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire; but a body you have prepared for me!” This wording helps us to understand the reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. “The body…is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body,” he writes, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” As we say yes to God’s call in our lives, Christ’s life and redemption continues in our very bodies! Our whole being belongs to God and to His work of love.
Sr. Mary Andrea also highlighted those verses from Paul. How consoling it is to know that “the Lord is for the body.” God so wants to be one with us that He gives us Himself as food for our mortal bodies! To God, our bodies and our souls are precious, beautiful creations molded by His own hands, and He stops at nothing in His work of restoring them to the glory He created them to possess.
The insights of Sr. Cecilia Maria were nostalgic this week. She shared that, as she read over the Scriptures in preparation for our sharing, she suddenly remembered that it was these very readings, three years ago, which enkindled anew in her heart the desire to give herself totally to God in religious life. The words of Jesus to the two disciples, “What do you seek?” ring true for her now as they did then, and as they should for all of us.
What do you seek? Could it be that you will find it, as those two disciples did, following Jesus Christ and staying with him this day?
December 4th – 2nd Sunday of Advent
Reflection on Is 40:1-5, 9-11
Ps 85:9-14
2 Pt 3:8-14
Mk 1:1-8
“
Where has this verse been all my life???” Sr. Cecilia Maria opened our Scripture Study with a laugh regarding our reading from St. Peter’s second letter. He assures us in verse 9, “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Self-avowedly impatient as she is, Sister often wonders out loud why God doesn’t get a move on with what is obviously his eventual plan in her life, and this Sunday she found a beautiful answer to that wondering. God is not delayed in coming; much less is he putting off his work in our lives. Rather, in his great mercy he is allowing us time to be prepared, so that we shall possess fully all his promises of salvation!
Sr. Rose Marie chimed in on the same theme. She pointed out that when we perceive that God delays in granting some grace that we yearn for, we often conclude that he must be punishing us for something. But that is not his purpose at all! If he delays in bringing to completion his work of salvation, it is only because he so desires us to be ready to receive it. “He is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish.” How loving a Father is our God!
Consequently we have another question to answer: how should we use this time the Lord gives us to prepare for his coming? St. Peter exhorts us to conduct ourselves in holiness and devotion, “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” Ponder the mystery behind these words! By striving to lead holy lives of prayer and loving service, we can in fact hasten the second coming of the Lord! As soon as he sees that we are ready for him, he will come!
“Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace,” St. Peter concludes. Sr. Mary Andrea brought out for us the significance of the final word in this reading. The more we exist “in peace,” the more we already exist in him and the fulfillment of all his promises. Yes, we must work at “preparing the way of the Lord,” but it must be in peaceful confidence that he is accomplishing that work. Indeed, from God’s perspective, the new heavens and the new earth are so sure that they already are; God already knows us as we are in eternal life. The more we open ourselves in peace to his work, the closer we come to his presence itself, his final coming in our individual lives.
October 16th – 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on Is 45:1, 4-6
Ps 96:1, 3-5, 7-10
1Thes 1:1-5
Mtt 22:15-21
“ Well, after a LOOOOOOONG hiatus (15 weeks!), the novitiate and juniorate reconvened for a Sunday Scripture Study this weekend, and we took off running with our readings’ reflections on the gifts and providence of God. Isaiah’s beautiful prophecy to Cyrus, the Persian king, struck us all with its illustration of how God works in history. Cyrus is the most unlikely candidate to further God’s work of salvation – he is a foreigner, outside the covenant; he does not even know God! But it is precisely him whom God anoints and arms “for the sake of Jacob my servant;” it is precisely this outsider who enables Israel to return to and rebuild Jerusalem after their exile. How encouraging for us! Even when all seems hopeless, when we seem to have messed up beyond all reparation, when we cannot (or will not) help ourselves, God does not give up on us. In His ceaseless and infinitely creative care, He continues providing for us, calling out to us, raising up Cyruses in our own lives to liberate us from our captivity so that we may return to Him again. We can have confidence in God’s will and help, especially when we find ourselves unable to help ourselves!
The readings also proclaim how much God gives to us, and how we ought to make a return for such free generosity. Cyrus is anointed and endowed with all sorts of gifts “though you know me not;” through him Israel is given a new lease on freedom and righteousness, and all the nations are given a witness of the goodness of God Almighty. The Psalm praises God for having made the heavens and, indeed, everything that is. In his letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul effuses thanksgiving for all the works God has wrought in the hearts and minds of the brethren there, not least their election “in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with much conviction.” How much God does for each of us! How much we have received from Him! And He desires that we make a return for such gifts. In Isaiah, we learn that he has done all these things for Cyrus and Israel so that all peoples may know that there is none besides Him. In the Psalm we are exhorted to sing to the Lord, bless His name, announce His salvation, give Him glory and might, bring Him gifts and bow down…in short, to acknowledge what He has done and to consecrate a portion of the gifts as a sign that all belong to Him. St. Paul gives us an excellent example of how to repay thanks and praise to such a generous Lord. And – last but not least! – Jesus in the Gospel summarizes our obligation: “Repay…to God what belongs to God.” How often throughout the day do we acknowledge and consecrate a portion of our gifts?”
July 3rd – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on Zec 9:9-10
Ps 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14
Rom 8:9, 11-13
Mt 11:25-30
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
It is such an oft-quoted verse, so full of comfort for so many souls. But what does Jesus mean when he exclaims these words in today’s Gospel? What is his yoke, and what his rest? What lesson shall we learn from him who is meek and humble of heart, and how shall we learn it? I suspect that the answers to these questions vary from person to person, as Jesus beckons each of us from our unique labors and gives us our own unique share in his yoke. But a certain paradox in these lines stands out: how can any yoke be easy, or any burden light?
The paradox deepens when we consider that the yoke of Jesus Christ was (and is) his Cross. He himself shuddered in the garden before he took it upon his shoulders; he stumbled under its weight thrice as he bore it up to Calvary; he died upon it a painful and shameful death. How, then, can he call it easy and light? How can he beckon us to his side in order to find rest?
For us in our sharing, we found the key in God’s abounding love and mercy. Our psalm proclaims that “the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to all, compassionate to every creature.” This same Lord is our teacher, “meek and humble of heart;” how can he be aught but gentle in teaching us to shoulder a bit of his yoke? Far from crushing us, the Cross gradually teaches us how to love with his own love, for the sake of his love. Neither the teacher nor the lesson is terrifying in the context of his love. He shall always and only guide us along the paths that we can manage, and he shall always be with us to help us bear the burden. It is this that makes it “easy” and “light.”
May 15th – 4th Sunday of Easter
Reflection on Acts of the Apostles 2:14a,36-47(49a)
1 Peter 2:20b-25
John 10:1-10
“ It’s Good Shepherd Sunday, and after a brief vacation from scripture sharing we all sort of meander one by one into the novitiate recreation room to post our personal reflection theme on the dry erase board. Usually, we don’t have to write much, because chances are one of us will post the rest of what another would like to say.
So today, our novitiate is struck by the confidence we can have in Jesus, Our Good Shepherd. We know that He is the way, that we are in Him and that through Him we have access to the Father. Even though the dark valleys He may lead us through sometimes are truly dark valleys, we don’t have to worry too much because it’s safe to follow wherever He leads.
And what does it mean to “follow in his footsteps” as our 2nd reading for the day has it? I asked the question to myself, and I found myself being answered directly by Sr. Mary Veronica. Jesus calls us countless times throughout the course of our life. But the meaning of His call seems to change depending on where we’re at with Him on our journey.
I like St. Peter a lot. He turned out to be such a good shepherd to Christ’s flock because he, himself, had a lot of experience with learning what it means to follow Him. Our Lord called Peter to follow Him at the beginning of His ministry, and Peter was so up to the challenge and so eager to find out more that he left his nets, his boat, house and home to follow Jesus. Did he ever get excited wondering what was in store for him since he was so close to Jesus? Sometime after he had gotten used to being a leader among the apostles and disciples, he tried to lead Jesus away from His Passion. (Jesus had strong words in response… “Get behind me Satan!”) Then, at the last supper, Peter declares that he will follow the Lord to death, only to be bitterly heartbroken at his utter failure when the test came. Then after the resurrection there comes the same call to Peter from Jesus, “Follow me.”
I think it’s particularly meaningful that this call came after Peter had gone back to fishing—his comfort zone. How did Peter feel now about this invitation? I venture to say that Peter understood something differently about what it meant to follow Jesus because Peter, after Jesus’ Passion, death and resurrection, had a deeper and more enlightened understanding of who Jesus is. Maybe now he knew that following Jesus isn’t an immediate experience of glory. He knew through experience that following Jesus means going through the Passion with Jesus with patient faith, hope and love so that we will be glorified with Him. And not only had Peter seen who Jesus is, he had also deeply experienced his own weakness and failure and had a deeper self-knowledge as a result.
But we know that Peter still chose to follow Jesus. And later, when he came to the dark valley once again, he followed Jesus through the Passion into glory. What is the strength that enables us to follow the Good Shepherd through the dark valley? Maybe humility and total confidence in the strength and love of the Lord.
April 10th – 5th Sunday of Lent
Reflection on Ez 37:12-14
Ps 130:1-8
Rom 8:8-11
Jn 11:1-45
“I AM the Resurrection and the Life,” the Lord proclaims to us this Sunday, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my Spirit in you that you may live!” What hopeful words to us who so often cry to Him “out of the depths,” wondering if He “hears the voice of our supplication.” We discover in all our readings, and especially in our Gospel, that the Lord does indeed hear our cry, He heeds it, He takes it up as His own, and He conquers the powers that hold us in death.
When do I raise my voice in a cry “out of the depths?” In the psalm, “the depths” connote Sheol, the place of the dead, as well as the depths of human anguish, and from the psalm’s own words, we know that this is the anguish of a soul who has died the death of sin. This poignant song is a perfect backdrop to the story of Lazarus’ death and resurrection, for we are each a Lazarus in the eyes of God. We have all died of sin, but no matter how long we have been in the tomb and no matter how much we stink, God loves us and desires to give us fullness of redemption. He hears our cry, and in His love He is moved to pity us.
“See how He loved
him,” is what the onlookers say of Jesus and the dead man. See
how much He loves you! Having heard of your anguish, your
bondage, your darkness, “He became perturbed and deeply
troubled…and Jesus wept.” In His anger at a death that never
should have been, He rebukes those who have bound and imprisoned
you: “Take away the stone! Untie him and let him go!” And He
calls you forth to life.
In our
sharing, we actually spent a good chunk of time looking at the
figure of Mary, who falls at the feet of Jesus in supplication
for her brother. John tells us that “Mary was the one who had
anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her
hair;” perhaps, then, she knows what it is like to cry “out of
the depths,” and to receive mercy and new life. She knows that
Jesus is able to grant that same new life to her brother, and so
she cries to the Lord on his behalf. It is her supplication that
draws forth Jesus’ compassion and miracle; it is because she
fell at His feet that Lazarus is brought back to life and that
many of the Jews begin to believe in Jesus! We realize the power
of a single prayer, a single act of love, a single act of faith.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but
even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give
you.”
Amen. May we
all pray with the confidence of Jesus, Martha, and Mary! This is
the trustworthiness and love of God for you!
April 3rd – 4th Sunday of Lent
Reflection on 1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13
Ps 23:1-6
Eph 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
This Sunday we came into the recreation room to write down the themes that stood out to us in our liturgy this week. Somehow we all ended up gathered around a Dictionary looking at translations for the Greek word for “worship.” I have found that Dictionaries can actually be quite entertaining since I came to St. Joseph’s, though I must say that Greek dictionaries are a new thing that came with Sr. Cecilia Maria, our classical language scholar!
Anyway, our themes for this week centered very much around faith and paradoxes as Jesus restores the blind man’s sight by anointing his eyes with mud and sending him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. Why did Jesus first cover his already blind eyes with dirt before healing them? Could it be that sometimes he has to make us blind, or more blind rather, so that He can give us true sight? Much of the time we do not know the extent of our own blindness, though, do we? So deep that St. Paul can say in his Epistle to the Ephesians, “You were once darkness.” But he follows by saying, “but now you are light.” And we know that this transformation is what happens when we say “I do believe” to the Lord’s word.
Another theme that struck us was the way in which this blind man was sent to wash in the pool to be healed. It occurred to us that this poor blind man didn’t really meet Jesus (or see him, for that matter) until after he had been thrown out of the synagogue. He had his sight, and he was expelled from the synagogue for testifying to the facts and appealing to the reason of those who questioned him. This man had just lost an important part of his standing before God and Jewish society. However, we know that there is much more than loss happening here— because after he is expelled, Jesus comes and finds him. Then this man comes to faith in Jesus as the messiah. So in being rejected on one level, this man was actually being sent to Christ, the living water and the light of the world.
March 27th – 3rd Sunday of Lent
Reflection on Ex 17:3-7
Ps 95:1-2, 6-9
Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
Jn 4:5-42
This Sunday we filled the novitiate whiteboard, as usual, with the words and verses that struck us each as we prayed on our lectionary readings. When all arrayed, our choices drew some laughter – each Sister had brought a contribution very typical to her….
Sr Mary Veronica enthusiastically inscribed, “Woman, believe me!” (Jn. 4:21), and we caught her enthusiasm for the riches of the marital imagery at the well. We hear “woman” thirteen times in this passage – it must be important – and we are reminded of the other significant times Jesus addresses someone as Woman: at Cana and on Calvary. We also recall the numerous times in Scripture that a man meets his wife at a well, and we remember that each of us is created for union with the Divine Bridegroom in the eternal wedding banquet of the Lamb. We are each the Samaritan woman, hearing our God cry out with His eternal longing, “Woman, believe me!” Having searched high and low for a husband, one to whom we can give our whole love, we are each challenged to believe in the One who says to us, “I AM, the one who is speaking with you.”
Sr Cecilia Maria had delved into the
pages of her Greek Bible and dictionary, writing the words,
“doV
moi pein - give me to drink” (Jn 4:7). She was struck that Jesus does not here ask for a drink, He asks that we give Him to drink. What does He thirst for? John hints at the answer in recording Jesus’ later statement, “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (Jn 4:32). What has He been given to eat, if not the faith of the Samaritan woman in Himself, and the beginnings of faith among all the townsfolk? He thirsts for our faith, our souls; He thirsts for us to come drink of Him! Notice that the Samaritan woman leaves her water jug at the well – her thirst has also been sated.
Sr Rose Marie brought our attention once again to “the gift of God” (Jn 4:10), which is the Spirit’s faith, hope, and love in “the glory of God” (Rom 5:2). How blessed we are that He has poured forth His Spirit into our hearts, His sanctifying grace as a spring of living water, welling up to eternal life!
Sr Mary Andrea began with a practical detail and used it as a springboard into the rich spirituality of the Passion. “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock…. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink,” God says to Moses in Exodus. What a rich symbol of the rock of Christ, struck upon the Cross to pour out streams of living water that are the Sacraments!
March 20th – 2nd Sunday of Lent
Reflection on Genesis 12:1-4
Ps.33
2 Tim 1:8-10
Mt 17:1-9
“Rise, and do not be afraid.”
We love Jesus, but if we listen to Him deeply we realize more and more that we are sinners. Sometimes we, who love Him, want to fall on our faces in fear and shame before the pure and glorious light on the face of Christ.
We are just settling into Lent. We’ve been repenting and mourning our sins for the past week. Now the Church encourages us with Christ’s words, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”
Maybe this is also a way of saying, “Do not be discouraged. Keep looking at the Jesus you know and love. Trust Him, and keep going ‘with the strength that comes from God.’” And He will deliver us from death.
March 13th – 1st Sunday of Lent
Reflection on Genesis 2:7-3:7
We had a beautiful Scripture sharing this past Sunday.
It connected perfectly with the tapes we have been watching
during meal times, “The Father’s Plan” with Jeff Cavins and
Dr. Scott Hahn. They have
been discussing the fall of Adam and Eve and it is Dr. Hahn’s
insight that Adam was indeed the first to sin because the Lord God
told him to tend and guard the garden.
When the serpent or
dragon, they are used synonymously in
the Scriptures, entered the garden and tempted Eve it seems Adam was
sitting idle watching everything rather than defending his wife and
driving out the dragon. Dr.
Hahn surmises that perhaps Adam was frightened and intimidated by
the dragon and that this indeed was his trial, would he be faithful
unto death or cave in to fear and rationalize that perhaps the
dragon was right. He opened
the door to fear, let trust die in his heart, and realized just how
vulnerable he was in his nakedness.
Once the door was open to fear humanity has been plagued on
ever escalating levels. A
constant refrain in Scripture is, “Do not be afraid,” the words Pope
John Paul II is so famous for uttering.
He had pondered so profoundly the mystery of the fall I
wonder if this is what prompted him to make these the first words of
his pontificate. Perhaps
it is because Adam and Eve’s sin was so nuanced by this fear
that God was so merciful. It
was not the diabolical rebellion of Satan, “I will not serve” which
could not be forgiven. Is it
not fear that is at the root of so many sins, perhaps, most sins.
From earliest childhood we seek to cover our vulnerability by
all kinds of defense mechanisms, we so do not want to be vulnerable.
It is scary.
In our fallen condition indeed we need to have some
boundaries, the Lord God himself made clothes for the man and woman,
but we tend to put on armor and surround ourselves with walls.
Most unfortunate of all, we protect ourselves from our
Heavenly Father. All this is
explained much more clearly in the book by Dr. Scott Hahn, A
Father Who Keeps His Promises.
Jesus, the new Adam, so
wondrously redeemed us by willingly accepting the Father’s plan,
entering into combat with the dragon, defenseless except for the
mighty love burning in his Heart.
The dragon used all the violent forces he is familiar with,
while Jesus stood naked and vulnerable with truth and love as his
only weapon. And, He was
vindicated! Ohh! The pathos
of our humanity, so frightened and vulnerable.
Are we willing to say “Yes” to our Father’s plan and cry out
to Him for help, or will we try to fall back on our own resources
when things get tough?
One can understand why the Father is so merciful to us and
why we, in turn, should be merciful to one another, ever looking for
the frightened child hiding behind the walls of pride and arrogance
or laziness and selfishness.
March 6th – 9th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on Mt 7:20-27
"I do not know you”
How powerful, sad, and
also terrifying those words are coming from Jesus in last week’s
Gospel from Matthew! Not
just, “Sorry, friend, you got something wrong.”
But “I do now know you.”
What does Jesus mean?
Doesn’t He know us all?
After discussing it in our group, we
concluded that Jesus must be speaking in terms of having an
authentic relationship with Him.
It’s like He’s saying that those who do the “work” of God
without truly being sent by God (giving the impression that they
have a relationship with Christ without having one in fact) are
either deluding themselves or are out-right frauds.
Jesus tells us that only the one who
does the will of God will enter the kingdom of God.
Obedience to God, then, is an effect
of truly knowing and loving God.
And He acknowledges a relationship with us when we seek to
make Him happy by doing what pleases Him.
And is this not the simplest necessity of love?—to make the
one we love happy?
February 27th – 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on Is 49:14-15
Ps 62:2-3, 6-9
1Cor 4:1-5
Mt 8:24-34
"Every once in a while, God
graces us with a set of lectionary readings whose meaning is so
blindingly obvious that we cannot but hear it. Such is the case with
this Sunday’s readings, and thanks be to God, for we desperately
need to hear and to heed His lesson. We desperately need to trust
and hope in the loving providence of our heavenly Father.
“Can a
mother forget her infant? Even should she forget, I will never
forget you,” God assures our doubting hearts. His love is
unconditional and everlasting; no matter what we do or how much time
passes, He is ever mindful of His covenant with His beloved people.
“Trust God at all times, my people! Pour out your hearts to God our
refuge,” the psalmist cries, “in God be at rest!” He is a faithful
and trustworthy Father to each of us; He shall never fail to provide
all we need. There is no need for worry!
Indeed, our Lord in the Gospel reading pleads with us not to worry.
Five times He begs us: Do not worry! And He assures us that our
heavenly Father will provide for all our bodily and spiritual needs
even more perfectly than He does for the birds and the flowers of
His creation. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow,” He
says, and we do well to heed and imitate their lesson. They grow
wherever they happen to be planted and exert neither worry nor
effort into blossoming forth; they are utterly dependent on God to
clothe their humble grasses with beauty, which He never fails to do.
Would that we, too, set aside our own anxieties about food and
clothing and health and wealth, and instead trusted confidently in
God’s never failing care! Indeed, we know that worry and stress
(even about good and necessary things) can stunt or even kill our
lives, if not physically, almost certainly spiritually.
We shall never do wrong by giving our heavenly Father our
wholehearted, undivided allegiance. With St. Paul, we are called to
be “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God,” and we
shall be held accountable to Him for our fidelity. Do we trust Him
who is trustworthy? And do we enter wholeheartedly into His
trustworthiness as we go about the daily task of bringing His
Kingdom into our world?
May God alone be our rock and our salvation, our secure height from
which we cannot fall.
February 13th – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on
Sir 15:15-20
Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34
1Cor 2:6-10
Mt 5:17-37
"Do
not think that I have come to abolish the
law or the prophets. I
have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you,
Y not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a
letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.
YWhoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be
called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.@
With these words, Jesus introduces the section of His Sermon on the
Mount that deals with parts of the Mosaic Law. In the teachings that
follow, He deepens the implications of the commandments, seemingly
binding His disciples even more strictly than the most fervent of
Pharisees.
"You have heard
Y
but I tell you
Y," He repeats over and over
again, expanding
Akilling@ to include anger and insult,
Aadultery@
to include lustful glances and divorce,
"a false oath"
to include any oath at all, etc. The Christian moral law seems here
to be more impossible to obey than the Mosaic! How can we hope to
live according to this law of love that God writes upon our hearts?
One answer can be found in our reading from
Sirach.
AIf you choose, you can keep the commandments,@
the wise man assures us, for
Abefore man are life and death, whichever he chooses
shall be given him.@ God does not ask of us a task
that is beyond our ability to carry out. All He asks is our right
choice, our willingness to keep His commandments, and He honors that
choice by Himself supplying the power we need to be faithful. If
this was true in the Old Covenant, how much more true it is in the
New, when we have the Spirit dwelling within our very beings! What
is impossible for man is possible for God, and He does supply the
grace we need to live by Christ=s
teachings.
We can and must pray with the psalmist for this
grace:
ALord, teach me the way of your laws; give me insight
to observe your teaching, to keep it with all my heart.@
The heart is the seat of our choice; what abides in the heart is the
root of all our righteousness, as Christ teaches in another part of
the Sermon on the Mount. He can call us to a higher living of the
moral law precisely because He sends His Spirit to dwell in our
hearts and to guide us in His ways of love! He Himself is, in fact,
the answer to the psalmist=s
prayer; we pray for the wisdom to observe God=s
law, and Wisdom incarnate comes to us to show us the way.
In all this, we must remember that to choose to
do God=s
will and to accept the His grace that empowers us to do it, requires
that we be humble. The wisdom of God is Christ Crucified,
Aa stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
gentiles.@
If God=s
wisdom were easily recognized by the proud,
Athey would not have crucified the Lord of glory,@
St. Paul
reminds us. We must always bear in mind that to live the moral law
in the New Covenant is to be conformed to Christ, who died that we
might live. The fulfillment of the law happened in the shedding of
precious blood on Calvary, in the whole and humble outpouring of self that
Jesus made in His Passion and Death. May we always live united with
Him in that eternal moment of the law=s
fulfillment.
February 6th – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5
“I resolved to know
nothing… but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
“…your faith rests
not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”
What
does it mean to have faith? We talk about it often in terms of what
we believe… what we know about God. But this reading from
Corinthians says that the foundation of our faith is not so much
what we know about Christ
on an intellectual level. Just a bit earlier in 1 Corinthians, St. Paul describes Jesus Christ crucified as
the power and the wisdom of God. Then, he goes on to say, “your
faith rests not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” Our
faith, then, is founded on the
person of Jesus Christ, and not only that, but him
crucified. In other words,
faith is personal. Faith is about knowing who God is.
St. Paul says, “I resolved to know nothing…
but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” We want to know God. We want to
see Him… ask Him questions, sit and talk with Him, enjoy His
company. Sometimes it comes easy. Other times we seem to be in
darkness, even as we are wanting even more to know Jesus. St. Paul points us to the cross. He seems to
be telling us that if we want to know God, if we want to believe in
Him more deeply, Jesus crucified is the answer: love in the midst of
darkness. And this love is wisdom, power and light.
January 16th – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reflection on Isaiah
49:3, 5-6
Ps 40: 2, 4, 7-10
Jn
1:29-34
We find in the readings this week a vivid
illustration of God’s overwhelming love for His chosen one – His
people, His Christ, and each and every one of us chosen to be His in
Christ. In the book of Isaiah we find that the Lord has formed each
of us in the womb “as His servant,” that is, to do His will and thus
to bring His people back to Him. This is our purpose of being, the
very reason He created us! To do His will far surpasses a duty; for
us it is a joy and a fulfillment of the very core of our nature. But
for a God who is Love, this service does not satisfy. “It is too
little, He says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of
Jacob…; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation
may reach to the ends of the earth.” Here we see the largess of
divine love, a love that cannot be sated by servitude nor by a
partial salvation. Finding an open heart in His servant, God calls
him deeper into love and transforms him into a beacon of His grace
to all the nations. He does this with each of us. Each time we open
our heart to doing His will, He draws us deeper into relationship
with Him, deeper into the receptivity that is ours as His beloved,
His chosen one.
The psalmist sings a similar theme as Isaiah.
Finding that “sacrifice and offering you do not want” – “for it is
too little for you to be my servant” – the just one responds,
“Behold I come,” or in another translation, “Here am I!” This is the
response of the willing servant to the call of the divine Master,
ready to do His will. Only a few weeks after Christmas, it is
striking that this joyful cry is the fulfillment of all our Advent
longing. “Come, Lord Jesus,” we have prayed, and we have heard the
promise, “Lo, I am coming soon,” and now we hear: “Behold, I come!”
And God blesses His willing Servant, who loved even unto death, by
making Him a light to the nations, the means of salvation for the
ends of the earth.
In the Gospel, then, John the Baptist
recognizes this Servant and Lover in Jesus Christ and proclaims the
fulfillment: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world!” Beholding the One whose Advent he has been proclaiming,
John’s first testimony to Him regards His fulfillment of Isaiah’s
Servant, the one who will extend salvation to the ends of the earth
through the Paschal Sacrifice of His Body and Blood.
May we ever more fully recognize with John the
fulfillment of all our hopes in Jesus, and may we model our lives
after both of these holy servants of God. Like John, may we be
willing to prepare the way of the Lord with our every word and
action, and may we be always watching for “the one who will baptize
with the Holy Spirit.” May we have confidence that our little acts
of fidelity to the will of God do, in fact, make Him known in the
world…and may we have the confidence of the chosen Servant that God
will, for His part, make us a light to the nations, to bring
salvation to the ends of the earth.
January 2nd – Epiphany
Reflection on Isaiah 60:1-6
Mt 2:1-12
The birth of
Christ was well publicized at first. First one, then many angels
announced the good news to the shepherds, who must have gone and
told the other poor citizens of the Judean hills. The Magi disturbed
Herod, the chief priests and leaders, and all of
Jerusalem
with their inquiry about the newborn king of the Jews. Simeon and
Anna prophesied about the child to all who were in the Temple. No class of people was excluded from
the announcement, and all of
Israel
was expecting the Messiah’s immanent advent. Why, then, was He
rejected by His people and driven into a life of hiddenness? What
was the difference between the expectation of
Israel, and the expectation of the
Magi, whose search for truth in the stars prepared them to respond
immediately when the Messiah’s birth was heralded?
We all should learn a lesson from the Magi. Do we recognize
the coming of the Lord in our lives, and do we respond in adoration
and self-oblation? Or do we see in Him a threat to our
self-proclaimed kingship, and drive Him away into hiding?
The majestic truth about the light of Christ that began to
shine in the world in Bethlehem is that He is
not a light to be feared. He is a light for revelation – the
revelation of God, certainly, and also the revelation of “the sons
of God,” among whom are we. “Your light has come,” sings Isaiah,
“the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the
earth…but upon you the Lord shines…. Nations shall walk by your
light….” Christ, the light of the whole human race, does not merely
shine upon us; He shines within every Christian! We bear within our
souls the fire of His love, to be a light to the nations that cannot
be hidden. This is the mystery of salvation, that “God became man so
that man might become God.”
Do we allow Him to work this mystery in our lives? It is not
enough simply to enter the house where He dwells. We must also open
our treasures – the treasures of our hearts – and present Him with
the gift of our very lives, so that He can pour into us His own.
December 5th – 2nd Sunday of Advent
Reflection on Isaiah
11:1-10
Romans 15:4-9
Mt 3:1-12
We find the presence of the Holy Spirit prominent in each of
today’s readings, and in all of them He is revealed as
Paraclete, the divine comforter and encourager. Although we best
know of the Paraclete from Jesus’ promise in John 16, a word
study of today’s Epistle reveals that what the NAB translates as
“encouragement” is in Greek
paraclesis and
directly related to the Holy Spirit’s title. It can mean
“encouragement, exhortation, comfort, consolation,” and it is
made up of the words
clesis, “call, summons,” and
para, “to/at the
side of.” As Paraclete, God the Holy Spirit is one who is called
to our side to be a comfort and encouragement. This is
particularly meaningful when we realize that the word used for
“endurance” in early Christian literature (hypomone) is especially used for the enduring of toil and
suffering – the very time that we are most in need of the Holy
Spirit’s aid in our daily lives. It is this “God of endurance
and encouragement” whom Paul invokes to give the Romans (and us)
the grace to be truly one with each other and with Christ Jesus.
Amen!
The
Paraclete is also present in Isaiah’s beautiful prophecy of the
“shoot from the stump of Jesse,” upon whom shall rest the Spirit
of the Lord. This passage is famously full of comforting images
of the reconciliation of all creation: the wolf and the lamb,
the leopard with the kid, the calf and the lion, etc. We are
struck by the seeming impossibility of the reconciliation
prophesied here, until we realize that this is the paradox of
salvation, both on the cosmic scale and within the tiny
realities of our daily lives. God seems to shout joyfully, “I
delight in doing impossible things!” and He does so through the
power of His Spirit’s indwelling. With (and only with) the
Spirit of the Lord resting upon us, we can become the glorious
dwelling of Christ!
Finally, in our Gospel passage we read of John the Baptist’s
foretelling of the Spirit. While he baptizes with the often
bitter waters of repentance, the Messiah will come to baptize
with the Holy Spirit’s fire – the all-consuming fire of God’s
love. The contrast between John’s baptism and that of Jesus is
similar to the contrast between the liturgical seasons of
Advent, with its penance and preparation, and Christmas, with
its joyful celebration of the Christ coming into the world. Both
are necessary, but as we live this season of repentance, let us
always keep our eyes fixed upon the comforting and encouraging
presence of God With Us.
November 28th – 1st Sunday of Advent
Reflection on Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Mt 24:37-44
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” What is the light
of the Lord? When I think of the light of the Lord, I think of
His truth.
In the second reading for today, we are exhorted to cast off
deeds of darkness and to put on the armor of light. If you think
about it, people who feel afraid want to hide. Darkness is for
hiding. But we are told here that the darkness is actually not a
secure place to be at all. The security, or “armor” we need
comes from the revealing power of the light of truth, who is
Jesus. He comes to clothe us with Himself and penetrate us with
His light from within. When does He come? As Fr. John Corapi
likes to say, “We don’t know when He will come again at the end
of time, but we do know that He’s coming for you and me very
soon!” In other words, He’s coming for each one of us on the day
of our death. That’s where vigilance comes in.
The original Latin translation of this week’s Gospel has Jesus
using the word “Vigilate” as He tells us to stay awake and keep
watch. Our waiting for His coming therefore requires the
attention and awareness of a true vigil. Perhaps it is awareness
of how He is coming to us in the NOW of today that can be
challenging for us to see.
Lord, grant us a heart vigilant heart that will recognize these
moments of Your coming!
November 21st - Christ the King Sunday
A Reflection on 2 Sm 5:1-3
Ps 122:1-5
Col 1:12-20
Lk 23:35-43
On this Christ the King Sunday, we find that each of our readings
direct our attention to our Eucharistic King, specifically to the
celebration of Holy Mass. So many concepts central to our understanding
of the Eucharistic celebration are touched upon today: Calvary,
thanksgiving, body, blood, remembrance, reconciliation, and food are the
ones that we specifically picked out.
In the Gospel, the thief speaks those words that have been repeated by
countless Christians down through the ages: “Jesus, remember me when you
come into your Kingdom.” This faith-filled plea touches our hearts –
hardly daring to ask a share in the Kingdom for himself, this condemned
man nevertheless professes his belief in Jesus as the King of the Jews,
the Messiah foretold, and his belief that despite appearances, Jesus
will rise again and take up His rightful reign. The thief asks only for
remembrance, and his prayer has been granted more abundantly than ever
he could have dreamed. He and his words recalled and repeated around the
world by the members of the Body of Christ, the Church, Christ’s Kingdom
on earth. Not only that, but his prayer closely parallels Christ’s own
words in the Gospel of Luke as He institutes the Eucharist at the Last
Supper. The thief says, “remember me;” Christ says, “do this in
remembrance of me.” The thief says, “when you come into your Kingdom;”
Christ says He will not eat or drink this Pasch again until theKingdom
of God comes.
Both the remembrance and the Kingdom are fulfilled in the Mass! Each of
the Eucharistic prayers is explicit in remembering Christ and in praying
that God remember us, His people; to celebrate the Eucharist is to enter
with Christ into a mutual remembrance. (As Passionists, we are exhorted
by this knowledge to renew our vowed commitment to a continual
remembrance of Christ Crucified – let us live the Mass ever more fully
in our daily lives!) The Eucharistic celebration is also a beautiful
manifestation of the coming of God’s Kingdom into the world, as it
renews the triumph of Christ and the reconciliation of the world with
God.
St. Paul opens up to us the glorious side of the Sacrifice in the
passage from Colossians. “Let us give thanks "eucharistontes!” he says,
inviting us to the celebration with the very Greek verb that gives us
“eucharist.” And what do we give thanks for, what do we celebrate at
Mass, if not Christ’s reconciling all things in Himself through the
blood of His Cross? The fullness of His Kingdom begins on Calvary and is
among us every time His Sacrifice is made present upon the altar, every
time we give thanks as He commanded us to do. In the psalm, too, we see
the foreshadowing of the Eucharistic celebration at the Jerusalem
temple: “Here the tribes have come […] as it was decreed for Israel, to
give thanks to the name of the Lord.”
Let us renew our zeal in remembering and giving thanks to our Crucified
and Risen King throughout our days, and let us do so especially at the
altar where we enter into His Sacrifice itself.
November 7th - 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
A Reflection on
2 Thess 2:16-3:5
The witness of the Jewish martyrs recorded in our Old Testament
reading is a powerful one. The fortitude, courage, and nobility of the
mother and her seven sons who choose death rather than violation of the
Lord’s covenantal law resonates deep within our hearts, as does their
unwavering hope in a future resurrection. “It was from Heaven that I
received these [hands],” proclaims the third brother, “for the sake of
His laws I disdain them; from Him I hope to receive them again.” How can
we but marvel at the majesty of the sacrifice he implies, disdaining
lesser gifts – life and limb – in favor of the greatest gift of all, the
covenant between God and His beloved people. But couched within the
sacrifice itself is the faith of Abraham, the hope and trust that
nothing sacrificed to God is lost forever, but will received again in
the loving faithfulness of the Father who loves us.
We find echoes of these martyrdom themes in the reading from St. Paul’s
letter to the Thessalonians. Throughout the passage, the apostle lists
gifts of our loving God to each of us: everlasting encouragement,
strength, the love of God, the endurance of Christ. With such gifts, the
power of God truly dwells in us – the same power that dwelt in the
Jewish and Christian martyrs who have gone before us! Indeed, since God
has so loved the world that He gave us His only Son (our “everlasting
encouragement and good hope”), we are able to say with St. Paul when
faced with our own martyrdoms, “I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for
us” (Rom 8:18).
October 31st - 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time
A Reflection on Wis 11:22-12:1
Ps 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14
2 Thess 1:11-2:2
Lk 19:1-10
In our reflections on this Sunday’s readings, we focused on God as
“Lord and lover of souls” from a number of different angles. We first
wondered at the connectedness between the power and the mercy of the
Creator and Ruler of the entire universe. “You have mercy on all,” sings
the wise man, you can do all things,” and the psalmist praises the
goodness and compassion of a great God who wields fearsome power over
all His mighty works.
To our minds this simultaneous – almost
synonymous – power and mercy seems paradoxical, but it is not so. Our
God is a Lover, and the reason behind all His deeds of power is His
everlasting love. Even His chastisements in the form of sufferings stem
not from cold justice as from the ardent mercy of a Lover who desires
our conversion, “that [we] may abandon our wickedness and believe in
[Him]!
October 24th - 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
A Reflection on LK 18:9-14
Sometimes I wonder if some of the most powerful prayers are prayed in
the back pews of churches. It is interesting that during the times when
we can barely find the courage to raise our eyes to heaven (perhaps
because of our sins or personal failings), we are moved to pray “the
prayer of the lowly” that “pierces the clouds” of heaven and closes the
distance we may feel between God and ourselves.
The thought often
comes to me that God must rejoice in giving us the gift of a humble
heart through what can appear to be just another failure. Thanks be to
God! Do we see in our failings the opportunity to receive the gift?
Lord, teach us how to pray the prayer of the lowly.
Do we ever feel like the tax collector in today’s reading? Sometimes we
just feel more at home in the back of a church—perhaps more so during
the times when we feel a distance between the Lord and ourselves. Maybe
we have a lot of unhealed sin in our lives. Maybe we repeatedly fail to
practice the particular virtues the Lord asks us to practice at certain
points in our lives.; Maybe at the end of the day the best and most
honest prayer we can pray is “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
(Interestingly enough, both the Confraternity translation and the Greek
translation of the Scriptures say, “O God, be merciful to me, THE
sinner”!
Sometimes I wonder if some of the most powerful prayers are prayed in
the back pews of churches. It is interesting that during the times when
we can barely find the courage to raise our eyes to heaven (perhaps
because of our sins or personal failings), we are moved to pray “the
prayer of the lowly” that “pierces the clouds” of heaven and closes the
distance we may feel between God and ourselves.
The thought often comes to me that God must rejoice in giving us the
gift of a humble heart through what can appear to be just another
failure. Thanks be to God! Do we see in our failings the opportunity to
receive the gift?
Lord, teach us how to pray the prayer of the lowly.
October 17th - 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
A Reflection on Ex 17:8-13
2 Tim 3:14-22
Lk 18:1-8
Moses the hilltop, raising his hands in prayer as Joshua leads the
Israelites in battle below, evoked for us the image of Christ Calvary,
stretching His hands between heaven and earth in order to obtain for us
the victory over death. We were even more vividly reminded of Christ’s
priesthood through the ages, as each priest is called upon to hold up
the cross of Christ in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which is our most
powerful weapon in the spiritual battle. How much we must rely the
strength of God, brought to us daily by the outstretched hands of the
priest celebrating the Eucharist! With it, all things are possible, but
without it, we quickly are overcome by the modern Amaleks in our lives.
Moses on the hilltop, raising his hands in prayer as Joshua leads the
Israelites in battle below, evoked for us the image of Christ on
Calvary, stretching His hands between heaven and earth in order to
obtain for us the victory over death. We were even more vividly reminded
of Christ’s priesthood through the ages, as each priest is called upon
to hold up the cross of Christ in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which
is our most powerful weapon in the spiritual battle. How much we must
rely on the strength of God, brought to us daily by the outstretched
hands of the priest celebrating the Eucharist! With it, all things are
possible, but without it, we quickly are overcome by the modern Amaleks
in our lives.
The symbolism does not end with the figure of Moses, however. On his
own, he does not have the strength to persevere in his intercessory
role, and neither do our priests. Moses is given a rock to sit on and
two helpers, Aaron and Hur, to support his arms, lest he fail in his
vocation and the whole people of perish. In God’s loving providence, we
are called to play the role of Aaron and Hur to our priests, helping and
supporting their weakness in many (often hidden) ways. Regardless of
whether our help is seen or known, we are as essential to the priesthood
as the two men were to Moses on the hilltop – without our prayers and
sacrifices, perhaps they would be unable to persevere.
Isn’t the Mystical Body of Christ marvelous? United with Christ our
head under the one banner of the Cross, seated firmly on the foundation
of the Church, supporting the other members of the Body by being
ourselves faithful to our own vocation, we shall be victorious!
October 3rd - 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time
A Reflection on Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4
Ps 95:1-2, 6-9
2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14
Lk 12:11-19
The prophet Habakkuk’s cries for help recalled for us the Holocaust and other tragedies of the 20th century – “destruction, violence,
strife, and clamorous discord” he laments to God – and we listened in
wonder to the Lord’s reply. He assures us that relief will come, that
even if it seems to delay, His promise is trustworthy and will be
fulfilled.
We noticed that in the midst of the strife and sorrow
and suffering, God is speaking, and it is our task to heed the words of
the Psalmist and not to harden our hearts in hearing His answer. What is
the Lord’s answer to our cries of suffering? He calls us just as "on"
St. Paul calls to Timothy: “ Enter into my sufferings with the strength
that comes from God.” Christ renders human suffering redemptive by
Himself suffering and then calling us into a sharing in His Passion. In
the light of this call, we understand the inclusion of such a joyful
Psalm 95 with our other, more somber readings; the psalmist invites us
into God’s Presence, and our participation in His sufferings becomes our
way of entering into that Presence.
May we never harden our hearts to
the voice of the Lord, calling us into His Presence in order to become
co-workers of his Redemption! May His grace transform us, unprofitable
servants as we are, into members of His glorious Body.
September 26th - 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time
A Reflection on 1 Timothy 6:11-16
In this letter of St. Paul to Timothy, St. Paul
exhorts Timothy to “Compete well for the faith. Lay hold of eternal life, to
which you were called when you made the noble confession in the presence of
many witnesses”— A strong command! It surprises us in a way. He’s not
merely asking us to try to “make it” to eternal life. He’s saying, “I charge
you before God…to keep the commandment..."
And what about “the noble confession ? What noble confession is He
referring to? We discovered that in the original Greek translation the verb
“to make a confession” and the noun “witness” have the same root: martyr. We
know that a martyr is one who gives testimony (or witness) to God by giving
his or her life.
Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called when you “martyred”
the noble confession in the presence of many “martyrs”. Interesting, is it
not? We are commanded to become living witnesses, or martyrs. Maybe this is
what St. Paul means when he tells us to compete well for the faith. Quite
the task! However, we are also told to pursue love, patience, and gentleness
as we compete and lay hold.
Apparently, the competition for holiness includes all temperaments!