Yes, this post responds to more readings than my posts usually do. I won’t have much time for the blog in the next couple of weeks. That’s the reason for this change. So I’m going to handle this reality by reflecting on two weeks’ passages in one post. What will it be like to look at two weeks’ worth of passages in one week? Let’s see.
Readings for September 29 and October 6:
Numbers 11:25–29
Psalm 19:8, 10, 12–13, 14
James 5:1–6
Mark 9:38–43, 45, 47–48
Genesis 2:18–24
Psalm 128:1–2, 3, 4–5, 6
Hebrews 2:9–11
Mark 10:2–16
What this post’s readings say to me:
The action of the Spirit defies human categories and divisions. It brings us breath and clarity of vision that we don’t have without it. It makes us brothers and sisters of Christ who can speak and act as He does. It allows us to recognize one another as children of God. It allows us to recognize that we all need one another’s gifts. It allows us to recognize that we need the gifts of nature, and the grace of God’s love and mercy. The movement of the Spirit unites us to God and to one another. At the same time, it gives different gifts to each of us.
What I’m saying (to the readings and beyond) this week:
I’m saying to the readings, “I feel left out of your message. It’s not obvious how to find a way to apply your message to my life.” The readings for October 6th have a lot to say about marriage. I’ve never been married, so it doesn’t seem helpful for me to reflect on what the passages say about marriage. I encourage reading the passages for both weeks and reflecting on what they say to you and about marriage.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Lord, help us to honor the commitments that are not harmful to us. Help us to be loyal and compassionate in the relationships that are not harmful to us and those around us. Help us to celebrate each other’s differences and to remember that unity and equality don’t mean sameness. Grant us the grace to care for the resources around us and to use them wisely. Thank you for your providence, Lord, and for making us for relationship and communion. Amen.
The first thing this week’s readings say to me is something I heard in the homily last week: (I paraphrase here, even though I’m putting the following in quotation marks): “Read all Scripture in light of Christ.” If I apply this instruction, Jesus Christ is “the just one” and “the wicked” are those who crucified Him (The New American Bible, Wisd. 2:12) It also characterizes “the wicked” as:
finding it extremely distasteful when someone else takes a stand against the self-serving things they do and voices opposition to these activities, holding them accountable and wanting their actions to reflect the good they’ve been taught to do
trying to trap the person who does justice, make that person look untrustworthy and to stop others from doing what he does and says
taking the name of God in vain, in a way, by talking about God as if their faith in God excused them from acting with justice themselves
Plotting to break the resolve of just one through violence and then justifying their actions by saying that God would spare him from this violence if, in fact, God were on his side.
The psalm is written from the perspective of a person of faith who strives to act with justice. It acknowledges the power of God — even the power of God’s name. It calls out to that power for help. The speaker is frank with God about the suffering he’s experiencing. But after talking to God about his suffering, he reminds himself that God “is [his] helper, by resolving to give of himself to God and to just causes, and to recall God’s faithfulness even in the midst of circumstances that tempt him to doubt.
The epistle gives answers as to what leads to the “wicked” behavior described in the first reading: “jealousy and selfish ambition” (Wisd. 2:12; Jas. 3:16).
Behavior that’s inspired by wisdom from above, on the other hand, is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace” (Jas. 3:17).
Conflicts great and small come from “passions” — selfish desires, the passage says (Jas. 4:1). The footnote on James 4:1-3 in The New American Bible Revised Edition says:
Passions: the Greek word here (literally, “pleasures”) does not indicate that pleasure is evil. Rather, as the text points out (Jas 4:2–3), it is the manner in which one deals with needs and desires that determines good or bad. The motivation for any action can be wrong, especially if one does not pray properly but seeks only selfish enjoyment.
In the Gospel passage, I see the apostles struggling with letting their “passions” get the better of them (Jas. 4:1). When Jesus tells them he “is to be handed over to man and they will kill him” (Mark 9:31). I imagine the apostles’ primary response to have been fear. Maybe doubt and discouragement joined the fear.
Maybe their desire to counteract these uncomfortable feelings tempts them to be jealous and selfishly ambitious. The passage tells us that after Jesus warns them that he won’t resist the violence of his opponents, and this lack of resistance will lead to his suffering and death, they discuss “among themselves…who is the greatest” (Mark 9:34). Jesus tells them that the one who is “the greatest” is the one who doesn’t wish or strive to be and instead serves everyone else, especially those who are humblest and most vulnerable.
What I’m saying (to the readings and beyond) this week:
I’ve heard or read most of the passages often enough that I accept their teachings as truth, even though my desires don’t always counteract what the first reading describes as “wicked[ness] (New American Bible, Wisd. 2:12). The first reading feels less familiar. It also uses the sharpest language. Maybe that’s why I reacted most strongly to it.
The passage prompts me to ask myself when someone rubs me the wrong way, why is that? Is he or she mirroring my flaws, and some part of me knows that? Sometimes that’s what’s going on.
Am I tempted to highlight or to bring out someone else’s flaws to avoid confronting my own flaws and to make me feel better about myself? Too often.
How often do I think of prayer as a substitute for doing something to solve a problem rather than as a way of discerning how I can take part in solutions? Sometimes – because I like comfort. I get extremely anxious about the cost of taking stands. At other times, the problems just seem too big, and I can’t see how to break them into small parts, to take part in the small steps.
Are my decisions based on wanting to be a minister of justice? What does being a minister of justice means to me? It means being fair and merciful, seeking to take part in righting wrongs. As I’ve written on this blog before, the quest to right wrongs must be about more than punishing the person who makes poor choices and harms others.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
While often translated as “betray,” the meaning of “to be handed over” [in the Gospel passage] can be understood—as one scripture scholar notes—“as the idea of God’s plan unfolding.”
Ms. Wright explores what the way we translate that phrase means for our understanding of God and the roles in bringing about God’s vision.
This week’s prayer:
Lord, You know I’m neither totally wicked nor perfectly just. Thank You for allowing me and everyone around me to bear Your image. Grant us the grace to become better and better servant-leaders. Thank You for the servant-leaders among us, of which You are the foremost. Amen.
I’m used to hearing that this week’s readings are about the following:
God’s providence
God’s power over nature, demonstrated differently than in the calming of the storm
Christ feeding His spiritual family members his own Body and Blood, an ongoing act of love that comes to us from His apostles because He extended it to them on the night of his Last Supper.
And it is all of the above, but I feel prompted to highlight what else stood out to me as I read the passages this time around:
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God, twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits, . . . . Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.” But his servant objected, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” . . . . And when they had eaten, there was some left over, as the LORD had said.
2 Kings 4:42-44
This passage and the New Testament one tell me that questions and doubts are only obstacles to God to the extent that they keep a person from acting with faith. In both passages, people act as God inspires them to do, and God works with what they give. God keeps his promises and gives more than the people hope for.
The eyes of all look hopefully to you, and you give them their food in due season . . .
Psalm 145:15
This verse reminds me that God’s timing may be different from mine. It doesn’t say God will give me what I want right now. Instead, it says God will give me what I need indue season — when the timing is best for me and for the overall plan.
Brothers and sisters: I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience . . .
Ephesians 4:1-2
This excerpt relates to how God provides for us by giving Himself because we need God’s humility, gentleness, and patience to allow God to provide for us in other ways. God doesn’t force-feed us. Instead, God waits for us to be open to receiving Him.
Trusting in God, who isn’t limited by our sense of time and timing also takes patience.
Feeding others from the gifts we have received, in other words, making Christ visible in what we do, requires the virtues mentioned in this excerpt as well.
“’Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.'”
John 6:12
In addition to reinforcing the lessons of the Old Testament passage, the New Testament passage includes the above instruction. Not only does God give us more than we hope for in due season, but also we must be careful not to waste the abundance we receive. What we don’t waste can meet future needs.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Dr. Alice Prince points out that the virtues highlighted in this week’s epistle don’t just make room to receive God’s abundance. God’s abundance is one of those proverbial two-way streets. Receiving God’s abundance helps us experience and practice those virtues.
Beyond this week’s readings:
It’s easy enough to quote Scripture passages as evidence that God provides. I even posted last week about the ways I’ve noticed God providing for me lately. Even so, I know there are plenty of situations in which it doesn’t seem like God provides. I listed some of those situations at the end of last week’s post. I find myself asking, “Lord, if you can use five loaves and two fish to feed more than 5,000 people, why aren’t you making sure everyone in Gaza, the U.S. or everywhere else in the world has enough to eat right now? Don’t you care about food insecure and starving people anymore?
Faith tells me the answer is “yes.” But I wonder how often humans get in the way of God’s providence. I know that too often what’s left over gets wasted and doesn’t make it to the people who need it.
This week’s prayer:
May we never interfere with God’s providence. May we participate in it instead. And may we never waste what we have to share, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Note: I won’t have much time for the blog for the next two or three weeks. Until I have more time to devote to Sitting with the Sacred, I’m planning on keeping this section brief, perhaps by pointing out an overall theme or lesson that stands out to me. So, what’s going to come to me this week?
On my first read-through of the readings for June 23, I noticed lots of imagery relating to stormy seas, the Lord having power over them, and as a result, people being kept safe amid destructive forces.
But the passage from 2 Corinthians doesn’t immediately seem to fit in with this theme. I’ve struggled to unpack it’s meaning, but I think the gist of its meaning is familiar: because Christ withheld nothing from us — not even His life so that he could conquer death and stop it from having the final say, we should withhold nothing from Him. We must instead ask for the grace not to see others only in terms of what is transitory, such as looks and abilities, or in terms of what they can do for us. All of these can and do change.
We are also being encouraged to ask for the grace not to view others in terms of the harm they’ve caused. Looks, abilities, what we can do for each other, and the ways we can hurt each other — none of these things remain as they are. They’re transformed by Christ’s resurrection. So are understandings of what it means to be saved and to die. I suppose that’s why, in the Gospel passage, Jesus is able to sleep while the apostles are terrified of drowning in the storm. He knows that neither the storm nor death have ultimate power over anyone in the boat. He and our free will have the ultimate power — because He and God are one, and it is God’s love that gives life and the freedom to receive God’s love or reject it.
It’s not trusting that love that brings about spiritual death. At one time or another, each of us will undergo physical death. But whenever we trust in God’s love and share it, we receive new life in our spirits.
This week’s prayer:
Lord, protect us as we face the literal and figurative storms of life on Earth. Thank You for being with us in the midst of the storms of all kinds that life sends our way. Help us to experience that storms don’t have the final say — no matter how much they hurt us. Help us to experience that it’s okay to have questions and be angry and afraid when they hurt us.
This week especially, we bring to prayer residents of coastal communities, seafarers, police, firefighters, healthcare workers, lifeguards, pastors, ministers, counselors, aid workers and many others who offer rescue in all its forms. Amen. We offer this prayer in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The theme I’m getting from this week’s readings is that authentic, nurturing strength comes from God. Like last week’s passage from 2 Corinthians, this week’s Old Testament reading reminds me that nothing visible will remain as it is forever. The passage says branches of a cedar tree can break off and become shoots that will grow into a new tree able to shelter everything. A towering tree can also be struck down, a green tree can wither, and a withered tree can bear fruit. All of the above can happen because God allows it. The passage closes by reminding me that God keeps God’s word. God is trustworthy.
This week’s psalm excerpt begins with the following words:
It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praise to your name, Most High, to proclaim your kindness at dawn and your faithfulness throughout the night.
Psalm 92:2-3
It says that those who are just will “flourish” (Psalm 92:13-14). It says those who have deep roots of faith in God will remain with God eternally. They’ll never cease to bear fruit. They can sway in high winds without breaking. They proclaim the perfect love of the Lord without hesitation.
The epistle, like the psalm, presents the ideal attitude and behavior of someone who places his or her trust in God. This person is “courageous,” always seeking to live the life God has called him or her to live with the help of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 5:8). He or she lives this way despite the struggles and obstacles involved in living this life and despite desiring to be free of these troubles and obstacles. Why? Because the person has faith that on the other side of death, he or she will reap what he or she has sown, “whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).
The Gospel reading uses a parable to remind me that I’ll reap what I sow. I find the way the Gospel passage shares this message to be more relatable and encouraging than the way the epistle teaches the same. The Gospel passage says to me that I don’t have to know every step of the path forward for the journey to be worth taking and to bear fruit. The smallest seed can grow into a tree that will serve so many good purposes. And God gave that seed the innate ability to grow when it’s cared for and to become so much more than it appears to be able to become.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Kathleen O’Brien acknowledges that it’s natural for all of us to imagine the end results of processes we begin and journeys we set out on. At the same time, her reflection on this week’s readings uses the lifecycle of the mustard seed to invite us to recognize God’s presence in each stage of the process or journey. She encourages us not just to focus on imagining the end result we want but also to recognize that each stage is important for growth and contributes to the end result. Furthermore, she invites us to recognize that the end result may be different from what we had imagined, but differences don’t reduce the value of the result.
Beyond this week’s readings:
“. . . I want to . . . invite you to recall and reflect on something you have or are tending to. . . .Now, when you reflect here, what do those different stages in consistently tending to something look like for you? How did you feel when you first started your big project . . .? Maybe your feelings would swing from feeling confident and in control to then feeling inadequate and not enough. What were your imagined expectations of the end result?
When it comes to tending the current iteration of my novel manuscript, the first stage feels like knowing something no one else does yet. It’s an exciting experience because it’s the experience of starting something new. It’s a journey no one can get in the way of yet because no one else knows about it yet. What grows out of my seat of an idea can’t yet fall short of resonating with someone else the way it does with me. It’s good enough for me, and that’s all that matters. The seed feels safe cocooned in darkness.
In the second stage, the drafting stage, the seed of an idea struggles to break the surface of the soil, which in this case, means it struggles to transform from the dialogue-and-image snippets in my mind to sentences, paragraphs, and pages in my word processor, And I want so much for those pages to describe a coherent and satisfying series of events experienced by empathetic characters. This stage means relying on determination — faith by another name — in the face of frustration.
In the third stage, my seed will be exposed to the elements. The elements, in this, case will be the feedback of others and of editing software. The plant may be pruned. It will likely have more done to it than pruning. It will have branches removed from it. It may even be cut back to the point of being no more than a seedling again. It may need to be planted elsewhere and to grow into a different shape than the one my constantly shifting vision had of it as a mature plant.
Only a couple of my fictional plants have ever grown beyond their first exposure to the elements. None of my ideas for novels have ever grown beyond the third stage. I’ve felt overwhelmed by the feedback, the revision process it necessitated, and the time the process required of me. I couldn’t figure out how to make my seedlings for novels hardy enough to survive, let alone thrive. I couldn’t see how to manage their networks of roots that grew, seemingly, in every direction. Their sprawling root systems tripped readers and blocked their paths so that no one, not even I, could get close enough to benefit from what they might have had to offer.
This week’s prayer:
Lord, help me to trust that You are at work in both the consolations and desolations I experience on this journey of life. With the power and guidance of Your spirit, I can allow both joy and pain to bring me into union with You. I can become and do more than I imagine. Help me trust in Your vision and that You have a plan for achieving it, even though I can’t see the plan or the realization of it yet. I pray this prayer in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This week’s readings tell me that the Trinitarian nature of God means that God is more intimate with everything that is than human understanding can conceive of. And even though this is the case, God’s intimacy doesn’t mean that God is too small or too close to us to have a view with more dimensions than we can imagine. God so intimate as to dwell within us and to be discoverable in everything around us while being the source of all that is. God is the ultimate mother, father, sibling, partner, and inspiration.
What concerns us can neither be too big nor too small for God, and with God’s help, what concerns God is neither too unmanageable nor too insignificant for us to be concerned with. God invites us to open ourselves fully to the Trinity and the gifts — relationships, talents, and resources — that come from a God who is both so like and unlike us, a God who is without limits, except to the extent that God limits God’s self.
The following quotations from the readings for May 26 encapsulate for me what The Most Holy Trinity means:
. . . fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below. . . [Italics mine]
Deuteronomy 4:39
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:16-17
Does the second quotation mean that we should seek out suffering? No, but it acknowledges that to live as Jesus did during his time on earth, will have to allow ourselves to be inconvenienced at the very least. And we may be asked to endure more than inconvenience. If we never find ourselves inconvenienced by our efforts to follow and imitate Christ, how closely are we following and imitating him? Where are we on the path to becoming the people God can see is becoming if we follow and imitate Christ? Where are we on the journey to becoming undistorted versions of ourselves?
Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:16-20
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Julia Erdlen reflects on the mystery of the Trinity as both comforting and confounding.
Beyond this week’s readings:
When I grappled with what words of my own to use to summarize Julia Erdlen’s reflection, I used “confounding” because it started with the same letter as comforting, which would make the summary memorable and because I thought “confounding” meant “mysterious.”
However, the Oxford Languages dictionary that the Bing search engine defines confounding this way: “cause[ing] surprise or confusion in (someone), especially by acting against their expectations” Considering this definition, “confounding” and is an unintentionally fitting adjectives to use when describing a God who is three persons in one, a God who had us and all that’s good in mind before everything began, who has been with all that’s good in every way since it came into existence, and wants to bring us to be with Him if we’re willing to come and to let go of the work of our hands and let God free us from the clutches of what stands between us and Him. It takes a God who is both indwelling and who was before everything and will be after everything to accomplish all that. It takes a God that we can’t fully understand or describe an entirely accurate way. It takes a God who surprises us by “acting against our expectations” and working beyond our limitations. This Trinitarian God helps us recognize which limitations are real but only temporary and which are illusions God is waiting to help us see through once we ask for and we cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
This week’s prayer:
Lord, thank You for giving us today is a reminder of how surprising, how incomprehensible, and yet how familiar You are. Help us always to grow in familiarity with You until, when we pass from this life, we can fully embrace and understand You and all You have brought into being. We offer this prayer in the name of God who is one in three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’ve heard of the stages of grief, and after revisiting this week’s readings, I’m wondering if any professionals have ever identified stages for processing guilt. The narrator in the first reading seems to begin processing guilt by blaming God for misdeeds. Why do you allow me to sin, he asks? Come stop me.
Upon making this request, he seems wary about having it granted. And why wouldn’t he be? God’s gaze isn’t a social media filter that can erase any blemishes. It doesn’t allow him to delude himself into thinking he can escape the truth of the life he lives in its combination of ugliness and beauty. Taking an honest look at his life brings him to the next stages in the process of addressing his guilt: asking for God for the grace to become the best version of himself and being open to the possibility of receiving this grace.
The psalmist asks for these graces, and the psalm concludes with an expression of trust that the speaker will receive what he asks for.
The third reading expresses faith that those who live with Christ and in Christ receive all the graces they need to find unending union with God and with other partakers in that union.
I find it difficult to trust in the promises of the third passage. Contrary to its message, I experience that I am, in fact, “lacking in [plenty of spiritual gift[s]” (1 Cor. 1:7). Furthermore, my memory tells me that I haven’t been kept “firm” in any of them in the past, so I find it difficult to believe that I will be firm “to the end” and will be found “irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8). Paul concludes the promises of the passage by reminding us that “God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1-9). The implication of these reminders seems to be that God will complete the journey toward union among all who are connected to the divine.
Yet we’ve seen in wedding feast parables that symbolize that union that not everyone who is invited accepts the invitation and not even everyone who accepts it is prepared for it. These parables suggest that neither those who reject the invitation to the feast nor those who are unprepared for it are able to enjoy the feast.
And even those who accept and respond to the invitation cannot prepare themselves for the celebration. They need God’s help.
I need God’s help — to accept the invitation to the feast, to light the way to it, and to make room for it within. I can trust in this help, but it often doesn’t feel like I can. I often don’t recognize it being extended, so I reject the invitation. I don’t always lead others along the path to it by letting God’s light shine through my words and actions. I let fragile imitations of that Light block its reach, its warmth and radiance. My choices and the choices of others mean that sometimes I can’t sense its radiance and warmth. At these times, I’m spiritually asleep and need the Gospel passage’s wake-up call.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
I want to share three podcast episodes that gave me additional perspective on the Sunday readings for the three weeks before today. You may want to have headphones on when you click the play buttons on the pages where the following links lead:
The third link not only looks back at past weeks’ readings but also offers some considerations for how we might look at the weeks ahead.
Lord, may the material world awaken us to Your presence and to Your coming in the past, present, and future rather than numbing us to the reality that You have come, are here, and will come again. Amen.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “1st Sunday of Advent: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.183, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 31 October 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Sitting with the Sacred 