XXV Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings:

• Wis. 2:12, 17-20. The just person, characterized by gentleness and patience, is tested, persecuted and even killed by the self-confident wicked.
• James 3:16-4:3. Jealousy and strife beget inconstancy, conflicts and vile behavior. Wisdom is innocent, peaceable, impartial and sincere.
• Mark 9:30-37. Jesus’ announcement of his passion and death leaves the disciples speechless. In the meanwhile they argue who was the most important among themselves. Jesus’ reply: whoever welcomes a child for my sake, welcomes me.

Thoughts for your consideration: By Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

There is a saying to the effect that, should a butterfly flap its wings in one part of the world, there will be repercussions of that infinitesimally small action elsewhere in the world.  This assertion is based on the principle that everything is connected, so that nothing happens in isolation.

There are concerns of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC) associated with this assertion.  And today’s biblical readings lend themselves to an illustration of this principle, and this example.

For instance, the gospel depicts Jesus in a teaching mode regarding His disciples.  Having just warned them about what lay ahead for Him (sufferings, death and Resurrection) He discovers, surely to His chagrin, that there was absolutely no linkage whatsoever between His remark and the disciples’ receptive capacity, as they focused on their advancement in His company.  So He decided to do some linkage of His own, advocating a sense of  lowliness on their part, by esteeming the value of an insignificant child whom He embraces, for  achieving status with Him and His Father by their doing likewise.  He suggests an interconnection here between their external behavior and an interior mindset.

St. James, likewise, focuses on relationships in the behavior patterns of his correspondents.  He notes the foul practices and disorders erupting in their midst, escalating into wars and conflicts.  In his opinion, they derive from within: their passions, their ambitions, and their jealousy.  Like Jesus before him, he appeals to a matter of the heart (the wisdom of prayer) as a solution for these external troubles.

The author of the book of Wisdom gives his own witness to the interconnections prevailing between the inner and the outer phases of our lives, by posing the case of a just person who criticizes others for their transgressions and violations of their training, thereby rousing their anger.  So they decide to try his/her gentleness and patience by violations and torture, to see whether such a one’s interior trust in God will suffice to sustain abuse from without.

Each of these scenarios is an instance of a butterfly flapping its wings, impacting another phase of life.  Such was the case when Jesus embraced a child so as to change the disciples’ conduct; and when James proposed to his correspondents that they secure a bit of wisdom so as to improve the way they acted; and when the Wise Man praised the example of the just person’s patient, trusting relationship with God before the persecution undergone for upholding righteousness.

There are JPIC issues at stake here: interpersonal rivalries threatening comradeship, disorders escalating into wars and conflicts, social disruptions deserving criticism.  None of these exist in isolated fashion, separated from the rest of life.  They emerge out of ambition, passion, and hatred.  They too resemble the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, but instead of initiating values of harmony, peace and order residing within they are initiating a negative set of values which will also have powerful repercussions. What we do here and how we behave in the moment is crucial. Immediate actions and attitudes may seem insignificant but whether we realize it or not, they are impacting our internal mindset and external surroundings.

Questions for your Reflection:

• What set of values dictate our behavior and attitude toward ourselves, each other and the world? Can we name these values? How do we maintain consistency in applying these values?
• None of us can claim to be impervious to negative attitudes. Prayer, solitude, meditation and retreats are organized ways to process these moments. How do we integrate these methods to specifically address our own negative attitudes? Should we consider promoting these methods within our own family and local community?  

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Corpus Christi Sunday

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

Thoughts for your consideration:
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 stand 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 stresses 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 (JPIC), 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 away 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. Ans so, as we might expect, the effect 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 JPIC 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.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How is the Eucharist important for your spiritual life?

• How is the Eucharist important for your work for justice in the world?

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Trinity Sunday

Readings:
Deuteronomy 4:32-34,39-40
Romans 8:14-17
Matthew 28:16-20

Thoughts for your Consideration: by Fr. Phil Paxton, CP

One night this past week I was watching a TV program. It was entitled “2100,” and aired on ABC. It was basically a program that tried to shed light on what would happen to the world for the rest of this century, based on the choices made by individuals, communities, and nations. On the program there were many opinions and projections given by various scientists. But what I found most engaging was the approach used to tie all these forecasts together. The program used the form of a narrative, following the life of a fictional character named Lucy, born in 2009. Not surprisingly, there was no mention of God or faith or spirituality in Lucy’s story.

Is there a faith dimension when discussing ecological issues? Yes! In fact, there are many theologians and spiritual writers who have dedicated themselves to these very issues for many years. One of them is Tom berry, a passionist, who just recently died. He had written much on the Passion suffered by the world. As you may remember last month, there was an announcement about the U.S. Catholic Bishops encouraging people to take the “St. Francis Pledge” with regards to climate change and its effects on the world, especially the poor.

I am neither a scientific expert nor a theologian on ecology, but it seems to me that the mystery of the Trinity has much to say about these issues. When we think about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are led to the conclusion that God is a God of love and relationships. This is how God chose to reveal the Divine Self to us. When we look at our Scripture readings for today, we see that out of love, God chooses to be in relationship with us.

In our first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people of all that God has done for them, leading them out of slavery in Egypt. In our second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, St. Paul reminds his fellow Christians that in the Spirit they can cry out to God just as Jesus did: “Abba, Father!” He also tells them that they are children of God, “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” And in our Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus sends out His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus also promises them (and us) that he will be with them always, “until the end of the age,”

As one of my professors in the seminary said to us, if we believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that we are made in the image and likeness of God, we are meant to live in community. He could have said that we are meant to live in relationship. In fact, we are created that way; created in relationship with God, with each other, and with all of creation. It is in recognizing our connectedness to God and to all of creation that we can be willing to make the necessary choices for peace and justice and the sustainability of our environment. And it is in the love of Christ for us that we can be willing to make the sacrifices necessary for the good of all. For sacrifices will need to be made.

The doctrine of the Trinity, like all the tenets of our faith, calls us outside of ourselves to love God and the world. As we recognize more and more our connectedness in Christ, we will find ourselves more and more willing to forego the ways of violence and exploitation. Instead, we will seek the ways of the Gospel: peace, justice, reconciliation and cooperation.

 
Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How do you see relationships that are “out of whack” or unhealthy in our global world?  
• What needs to be renewed?
• Paul in Romans reminds us that we are children of God and heirs with Jesus Christ.  What experience has helped you to realize that we are all children of God?  What experience has shown you that we still have things to do to make sure that everyone is treated as a child of God?
• How has God’s Spirit called you into being part of a community?  
• How does the Spirit of God help you to live in community with others?  
• How is your community called to connect to other communities?

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Third Sunday of Easter

Readings:
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
1 John 2:1-5a
Luke 24:35-48

 

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez

I find the readings during the Easter Season fascinating. Here the disciples of Jesus just experienced an amazing tragedy with the death of the Messiah at the hands of the authorities. Afterwards they experience the amazing intervention by God in raising Jesus from the dead. The disciples and followers of Jesus have been shaken to their very core, now they struggle to make sense of all this.

 

In Luke’s gospel Jesus helps his disciples understand what took place and what this means for the mission that God is giving the early Christian community. This week we take a break from Paul’s epistles to hear about how John and Peter came to understand this mission of being witness to the reconciliation of God and humanity.

 

Peter continues the miraculous power of Jesus by healing a cripple beggar. The Jerusalem community is again mystified but this time they nervously have to contend with their collaboration in having the Messiah crucified. Peter announces God’s message of mercy and reconciliation but he also corrects them for acting out of ignorance and again invites them to repent.

 

Likewise John also preaches on how Jesus has forgiven the sins of the whole world and how he is now our advocate as we struggle to atone. But if we are to accept Jesus as our advocate in this worldly struggle we “ought to walk just as he walked.” We must struggle to follow the commandments in the spirit of love as we journey to reach the state perfection that God calls us to.

 

The message of scripture is that God loves all of creation and he invites us to repent in order to abide in his love. Because we struggle with our own self-interest God breaks into human history with powerful moments that shake us all to the very core so that we can reassess ourselves based on these amazing moments of divine revelation. Peter and John share this powerful intervention by Jesus Christ in giving us a template for incarnational living. Now we are called to free ourselves from the same social ignorance which blinded the Jerusalem community and which continues to blind many of from the love of God. This love is expressed in the compassion that God has for all of humanity, especially for the poor and marginalized members of our society. From this compassion flows justice which God asks us to provide to all members of creation through the application of the commandments in the Spirit of divine love.

 

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• Are you aware of any social ignorance you may have had or that you may be struggling with now? Consider your own Easter journey, when have you allow the love of God to break into some aspect of ignorance during the Lenten and Easter season.
  
• Can you identify some aspect of social ignorance that blinds society from the love of God? What social institutions promote this blindness, and why? What can we do to move our society and our community towards the love that God has for all of creation?

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Lectionary Reflection: Fifth Sunday of Lent

Readings:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 5:7-9
John 12:20-33

Thoughts for your consideration: by Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP

JPIC concerns are universal ones, expressing themselves differently in particular settings.   Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation continually attract our attention.

They emerge in today’s biblical readings.  Jeremiah, the prophet, for instance, celebrates a new moment in the history of the Jewish people, by noting a major development in  their covenantal relationship to God.  Throughout their history they have had to renegotiate, usually unsuccessfully, a series of covenantal arrangements with God.  Humanity has never been able to execute these arrangements very well.  As a result, God was forever formulating another version of His relationship with us.  Today represents a new wrinkle in this age-old institution.  The covenant, from here on in, is no longer an external device or instrument, but it’s to be an internal phenomenon-something fashioned within the very flesh and blood of the human community.

In this highly creative gesture, God incarnates a token of justice between Himself and His people, enfleshing a hint of equality between Himself and the Jews.  Covenants are always efforts at equality between parties, like contracts.  But past efforts at this equality have been hard to come by. But this time, as Jeremiah graphically points out, it becomes an embodied achievement, as God refashions the very hearts of this people so that a semblance of equality is within them.  At long last, something approximating justice prevails in this new covenant.  The people’s self-esteem is uplifted.  A certain equality prevails between them.

JPIC further engages the day’s scriptures in the spelling out of peace (P).  We note this in the letter to the Hebrews.  We usually think of peace as a combination of well-being and harmony with others, providing a sense of serenity.  The author of this letter, in describing what Christ achieves through His sufferings, observes that they help Him achieve perfection, while securing salvation for us who believe in Him.  Salvation is appropriately described as a state of safety and security, or, in other words, an instance of the peace that is so meaningful to us all.  The letter to the Hebrews traces this elusive quality of life to the death of Christ for us on the cross, from where it works itself out into various segments of life.  The violence so visibly evident in the viciousness of crucifixion to the wood of the cross recalls the blood-letting practices of physicians long ago, which were credited with healing and saving results: salvation.  Faith helps us share in the saving procedure provided by Christ Jesus on the cross, offering the remedy of peace we desire for our corporate body.  By sharing this faith with others, we make this remedy available on a large scale, and so stem the spreading contagion of war and violence.

The integrity of creation is a not-to-be-overlooked element in the formula, JPIC.  This integrity is evident in the restorative cycle of nature around us.  Jesus reminds us, in the day’s gospel, to heed the role of nature’s rhythm in regulating our lives.  He points to the grain of wheat falling into the depths of the earth, and dying, then re-emerging.  He suggests this familiar process to the Greek visitors, inquiring of Philip about Jesus.  In doing so, He makes a point about the cyclical rhythm of nature, which death does not conclude.  Rather, death is part of a process enabling new growth to occur again.  Nature’s capacity to “come back to life” is its God-given charter that Jesus finds useful in offering a human counterpart of the cycle of life and death, to be so powerfully illustrated in His own death and resurrection.  The grain of wheat conveys Jesus’ message to the inquiring visitors, knowing they will appreciate it.  It conveys the message of our co-existence with nature as well as our life of faith in God.  How often Jesus would have been hampered in imparting His message to us without the opportunity to appeal to the skies, the earth, the depths of the sea, as explanations of His mission on behalf of His heavenly Father.

JPIC is a window opening into our lives, and into our faith in God.  As justice, it points out a semblance of equality with God gained through His covenantal arrangements with us (J); as peace, it traces our well-being and serenity to the blood-letting of the cross (P); as integrity of creation, it provides an incessant circle of death and life that describes our way to God (IC).  Justice, peace and integrity of creation can combine with prayer, fasting and almsgiving as Lenten practices helping us to celebrate the Easter event.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How often do you hear about our Church’s social teachings?
• What thoughts or feelings surface as you consider the acronym JPIC? How does a spirituality of JPIC help deepen your own relationship (contract) with God and Christ?
• How does a spirituality of JPIC help you reflect on the financial crisis and unfolding scandals that we hear about almost daily?

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Lectionary Reflection: Third Sunday of Lent

Readings:

• Exodus 20:1-17 or 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17
• 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
• John 2:13-25

Thoughts for your consideration: by John Gonzalez, CPP

The lectionary readings for this Sunday remind us of the social contract we have with God. In many ways the heart of Jewish and Christian Scripture is the story of God’s social contract with humanity and the early development of this saga. The Jewish Scriptures offer the earliest phase of this development in which God chooses the community known as the Israelites and develops this contract in the form of the Ten Commandments. As we know from the rest of scripture the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) are never dissolved or rescinded. Jesus tells us that he does not abolish the law but rather he fulfills it. Therefore, it seems worthwhile to reflect on the nature of this contract and what it means for us.

I had learned in my theological studies that the Ten Commandments, especially as they were written in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, very much follow the prescription of a legal social contract in the way it was written back in the 6th century BCE. Such a contract requires two active agents, God and humanity. This means that God has certain expectations of us. Those of us who have children are familiar with having expectations. Yes we will provide basic needs for our children and they will inherit what we have worked for, but, as responsible agents of the home, we require that they fulfill specific expectations. They are to behave and demonstrate kindness, do chores, be good stewards of their rooms, help their younger siblings and develop their talents responsibly by going to school and engaging in social activities. In a similar way God calls us to be His children and to inherit His Kingdom, but God expects us to be responsible and loving agents of our neighborhood and global community.

The details of this contract are revolutionary compared to the typical association that tribal groups in the fifth century had with their deity. Instead of demanding sacrifice and rituals that appease the deity God asks the Israelite community (and us) to promote social justice. To worship and be in relationship with God is directly related to our social responsibility. The Decalogue presents the first three laws as some basic expectation of sacred respect that we owe our God. The remaining seven laws list some pretty basic expectations with regard to the global human community. All of this is ultimately summarized in the greatest commandment “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:37,39)

Paul reminds us however that this contract is beyond the wisdom of the world and our responsibility towards fulfilling these divine expectations cannot be measured by social metrics. In this case Paul has to explain to the Corinthian community the social paradox that Jesus, who is the ultimate expression of God’s love and justice, was executed by the “wisdom of the world” and the social structures that governed his society. Whenever our own society attempts to achieve social peace by focusing simply on the legal dimensions of the Decalogue despite preserving its social structures, it usually ends up sacrificing the spirit of the law which is to build up the human community.

So the Romans and the Chief Priest saw Jesus as a disturber of the peace instead of a divine reformer who was establishing a right relationship with God and the human community through incidents such as the cleansing of the Temple. And they had him crucified as a criminal. Yet “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Now is a time for us to review the “wisdom of the world” based on the spirit of the contract we have with God. How do our financial institutions, corporations and governments address the negative spirit that supports stealing and coveting when so many human needs are being unmet? How do global militarism, terrorism and civil conflict address the spirit that prohibits killing? How do our domestic laws protect the spirit of family respect and how do they support the responsibility of parents? And finally how does our society and its dysfunctional partisan discourse honor the spirit of our sacred relationship to one God and our responsibility to one human community?

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• What are the things that need renewal or reform in our world?
• What policies based on the former wisdom of this world need to revised for not promoting the spirit of Divine wisdom?
• What would Jesus do if he entered one of the “temples of our financial system” today?

 

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Lectionary Reflection: Second Sunday of lent

Readings:

• Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
• Romans 8:31b-34
• Mark 9:2-10

Thoughts for your consideration:

This Sunday we are asked to see things in a new way. Although the apostles have been with Jesus for a while now there is nothing that can quite prepare them for the ultimate cosmological experience of the Resurrection. It is not an accident that Mark places the transfiguration story right after Jesus makes his first announcement that he will die. No sooner does he make this announcement when Peter balks at the idea. Jesus realizes that asking his disciples to follow him in what appears to be an absolute social tragedy is going to be a hard sell. In the case of the apostles their limited human perspective was going to require some divine intervention if the gospel story of God’s ultimate love of humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus was going to make any sense.

As expected Peter, James and John were dumbfounded by the experience. They know not what to do and Peter awkwardly offers to build tents. But the experience fulfilled its purpose. It allowed the three leaders of the disciples to be open to the great divine mystery that was unfolding. They accepted a new cosmology whereby God would reconcile himself with our humanity, even though they could not understand this. But whenever Jesus again discusses the mystery of his death and Resurrection, the apostles (probably looking toward Peter to speak up as he did the first time) accept what they obviously do not understand.

Abraham goes through a very similar story. He is faithful to the one God and through God’s intercession his only son was born. But now God begins to act like the other Canaanite gods. He demands blood sacrifice from his first-born son. This is a typical ritual, tribal covenants and divine allegiances were often sealed through the blood sacrifice. So Abraham goes to fulfill his social responsibility. But at the moment where Abraham, who is at this point full of sorrow, is ready to deliver the blow the angel of the Lord stops him. Abraham is challenged to see his relationship with the Divine author of creation from a new lens.

Ultimately God is a God of life and that is what we believe through faith. However, because of the reality of sin and injustice in our world, this new life will come after a painful journey where we purge ourselves from the social and material values of our world. Catholic social teaching describes to us the lens of the common good, solidarity and Care for the Earth. Philosophically many of us can accept these principles as good and worthy of pursuit, but can we really know the full impact of what they mean. Can we accept the implied sacrifices that it will take for us to live our lives in a way that truly consistent with these principles. Can we really see the world as a global community and can we identify the entire human community as our brothers and sisters.

In his message on January 1 Pope Benedict XVI wrote “The recent crisis demonstrates how financial activity can at times be completely turned in on itself, lacking any long-term consideration of the common good.” Maybe we have to see our economic system in a new way (especially in light of the current fiscal problems) as something more directed to the common good of all and not the enrichment of the few.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How has your awareness and commitment to Christian values changed over the years?
• How have you grown in your commitment to social issues?
• To issues of peace and justice? 
• This Lent, how is God calling you to see things in a new way – from a new point of view?
• What is your experience of working with immigrants and refugees?
• Do you know any? How have they taught you to know or see?

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Lectionary Reflection: March 1, 2009

Readings:

• Gen 9:8-15
• 1 Pet 3:18-22
• Mark 1:12-15

Thoughts for your consideration:

Covenants are a social contract. In many ways the scripture is an ongoing saga of the social contract between God and his Creation. For some Christians this notion of a covenant is understood to be very passive. God is the only active participant and only through His grace can we possibly be expected to actualize our part of the bargain. In this sense the idea of a contract is very misleading because by its very definition a contract freely involves two active participants.

We Catholics do not dismiss grace, in many ways grace is like our divine lawyer who can help us navigate the difficult details of this contract. But our tradition has also emphasized the importance of free will. God very much expects us to perform. The infamous Babylonian captivity of ancient Israel is a reminder of what happens when we break from our part of the agreement.

The theme of the covenant is prominent throughout the readings for this Sunday. Genesis starts us off very directly by reminding us of the covenant God made with humanity to never flood the world again. The first letter of Peter takes us back to this incident and connects our baptism into the Body of Christ with the covenant that saved Noah and his descendents. Christ is the new covenant for us so that through the powerful grace of His life, death and resurrection we can freely engage in the responsible administration of this contract. Baptism into Christ can grace us “as an appeal to God for a good conscience.” Baptism into Christ is a powerful tool that can aid us in following the covenant.

So then what is our part of the bargain? What is our responsibility under this new covenant? In the gospel Jesus tells us to “repent, and believe in the good news.” Being human Jesus takes on the temptations we face. Jesus goes through this episode but emerges as a reformed person that follows not his own passion and desires but that of God his father. The word repent mean to reform from our past life to a new life that is consistent with the good news. The good news is that the Kingdom of God is arriving and Jesus lives as a citizen of this Kingdom. We are called to follow his actions in becoming citizens of the Kingdom of God. Jesus demonstrated this reformed lifestyle by:

• healing the sick
• feeding the poor
• forgiving sinners
• socializing with the outcast
• comforting the heartbroken

And throughout all this Jesus teaches us about the great love and mercy that God invites us to share with the rest of creation. This is the Kingdom of God. This is the social contract that we Christians have been called to fulfill.

Questions for your reflection:

• How does the gift of free will strike you? How do you take personal responsibility in being a Christian?
• What temptations keep you from living out your baptism? Do you use the tools of grace (such as prayer and scripture) to aid you with these temptations.
• How does our society address the issues of temptation? Does it seek what is comfortable and materialistic or is it willing to serve God and the common good of all creation? How can we be agents of reform to the social sins of our world?

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Lectionary Reflection: Ash Wednesday

Readings:

• Joel 2:12-18
• 2 Corinthians 5:20—6:2
• Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

Thoughts for Your Consideration: by Fr. John Bucki, SJ.

Lent is a time to make faith real in practices which are a source of growth, life and even joy. Growth and new life are possible. It is possible to move beyond earning religious credits or spiritual merit badges to freedom, joy, justice, peace and new life. It is possible to move beyond a spirituality of showing off to a spirituality of awareness and new life for the whole community. It is possible for the whole community to be renewed with a spirit committed to the common good of all God’s people – a spirit dedicated to justice and peace.  It is possible to live a spirituality which is in touch with the real world and its problems – especially the poor. The prophet Joel calls the whole community to renewal and writes: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart…”

What type of “return to God” is called for this year – in our generation – in this time and place – in the midst of our world’s issues?

• Is it a call to live more simply as we deal with the realities of our economic problems?
• Is it a call to change our way of living, so we stop human activities that are destroying the earth with global warming?
• Is it an end to greed?  An end to the greedy practices that created the “sub-prime mortgage crisis” and the “financial collapse of our banking system” and the loss of jobs and income for so many people?
• Is it an end to the practices that pay executives hundreds of times more than the average worker, even when their companies are not doing well?  [In his message for Lent last year, Benedict XVI writes “According to the teaching of the Gospel, we are not owners but rather administrators of the goods we possess. … In the Gospel, Jesus explicitly admonishes the one who possesses and uses earthly riches only for self.”]
• Is it an end to the use of torture and other such practices by various governments?  An end to practices like “extraordinary rendition” or “torture by proxy?”
• Is it creating policies and practices that give all men and women access to quality health care?
• Is it bringing to an end the excess power of lobbyists and wealthy special interests in and around our government?  Is it working to be sure that the needs of ordinary people are heard by our Congress?
• Is it bringing to an end the excessive spending for war and preparation for war by our nation and almost every nation in the world?  Is it working to bring to an end the wars in the Middle East?
• Is it changing the way we live so as to respect the environment and limit our over consumption of limited resources?
• Is it becoming more reflective and prayerful as we experience our world?
• Maybe returning to God will involve moving toward putting the common good before our own good!

In his message for Lent this year, Benedict XVI reminds us that “At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium).”

For Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• What kind of fasting will help you get your values in order this Lent?
• What kind of prayer will help you be more aware of those in need?
• What kind of almsgiving and good works will help you move away from selfishness?
• In May of 2000, John Paul II said, “Solidarity is learned through ‘contact’ rather than through ‘concepts,’ and should permeate the sphere of being before that of acting.”  What events have helped you to have contact with those in need?  What events during this Lenten season will help you have a healthy contact with those who are in need?

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Lectionary Reflection for February 8, 2009

Readings:

• Job 7:1-4, 6-7
• 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
• Mark 1:29-39

 

Thoughts for your consideration:

 

The gospel of Mark depicts Jesus getting His public ministry underway in dead earnest.  In doing so, Jesus shows it “pays” to be His friend, for He does a special favor for Simon Peter.  On Simon’s behalf, He cures his mother-in-law, ill in bed.
 
Jesus is trying to gain peoples’ attention, so He decides to address a major concern of theirs, which is the presence and power of evil among them.  He realizes that most of us first prefer to handle the problems and difficulties of life, before turning our attention to procuring a better life for ourselves.  Or, to say it differently, He knows that we are free to achieve the good life only after putting behind us the bad life.  So, as He looks over the situation, He realizes that a major instance of evil in peoples’ lives, then as now, is ill health.  So He rolls up His sleeves, so to speak, and confronts this evil by curing Simon’s mother-in-law.  It worked.  By evening, the gospel recounts that word had gotten around, and a large number of townspeople gathered at Peter’s front door, with their infirm and sick.  And Jesus proceeded to stymie the inroads of this particular misery among them.
 
And He did more.  He noted another form of evil infesting their lives: demonic possession.  Following through on His conviction that eliminating evil is the best way to gain peoples’ attention, He commences to expel the demons from the possessed, further showing His mastery over the forces of evil in their lives.
 
Only after winning this initial campaign against evil does He commit Himself to the pursuit of the good: His fundamental purpose.  In this instance that amounts to time for prayer to His Heavenly Father, and for preaching the Good News He came to proclaim.

 

It is understandable why Jesus so vigorously engages the power of evil in peoples’ lives: evil is paralyzing and debilitating.  We have only to recall Job’s lament in today’s first reading: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?…I have been assigned months of misery.”  Job is not a hypochondriac.  The poor man has undergone major problems.  Evil is no joke.
 
We also note St. Paul picking up on Jesus’ penchant for preaching as a favored way of promoting goodness, once the ravages of evil in peoples’ lives have been corralled.  As he explains to his Corinthian converts: “If I preach the gospel, there is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me…”  These are the words we just heard at mass.
 
These reflections hint at how to go about our own Passionist vocation, whether we be vowed or lay.  Given the concern of our Constitutions with the distress (evil) people are suffering, our recent General Chapter (2005) takes its cue from Jesus by surveying the  evils facing us, and realizing “…that the power of the Cross offers us the strength to discern and to alleviate the burden of suffering experienced by the poor and the marginalized of our world.”  And it then becomes specific by citing “the ecological crisis of the world”.   We might recollect too that Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday we celebrate this week, had the gift of seeing slavery as the neuralgic evil afflicting the American society of his day, and deciding to put an end to that, before anything else.

 

We note the linkage the Chapter sees between the cross and the power of discernment.  This leads to a focus on the poor and the marginalized.  The provincial, Donald Webber, has just circulated remarks of Adolfo Lippi, CP, the scholarly provincial of the (Pieta?) province in Italy, which acknowledge the appropriateness of contemporary Passionists centering their concerns on issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation.  And, as Jesus before him, he situates the suitability of addressing these issues through our traditional pursuit of our mainline commitments to prayer and preaching.

 

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• When in your life have you felt the need for healing or when did your community need healing? How did healing come about?
• How does our nation need healing?
• How are we being called to promote such healing?

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