This Week’s Readings:
- Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
- Psalm 23:1-2, 2-3, 5-6
- 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
- Matthew 25:31-46
Carol Zinn, SSJ, offers a reflection that invites each of us to a reflection of our own this week.
Posts Tagged ‘Scripture Reflections from Others’
Questions to Guide a Look Back
Posted in Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Christ the King, Scripture Reflections from Others on November 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »
What Fruit Will I Eat?
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Gratitude, Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Reflections from Others, Thanksgiving on November 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Proverbs 31:10–13, 19–20, 30–31
- Psalm 128:1–2, 3, 4–5
- 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6
- Matthew 25:14–30
What this week’s readings say to me:
. . . [Y]ou shall eat the fruit of your handiwork . . .
Psalm 128: 2
This week’s readings say to me that the above fragment of a verse from the psalm could be a statement of theme for this week.
In today’s Gospel Acclamation, the Lord tells us:
Remain in me as I remain in you, says the Lord.
John 15:4a, 5b
Whoever remains in me bears much fruit.
Most of this week’s readings concern themselves with giving examples of the fruits that come from remaining under God’s metaphorical wing. The first reading says to me that someone who remains in God perseveres in the tasks that God calls her to every hour and every day. In my mind, going about one’s business well in this way is often appreciated only when someone else doesn’t go about the same duties with quite as much diligence and skill. Such work done behind the scenes makes the projects that are more widely visible come together more smoothly than they otherwise would. And as someone who remains in God, the woman in the first reading is indispensable to both her family and her community. Her life reflects God both privately and publicly.
The psalm offers a reminder that God offers life — in both human and plant forms — as a blessing. (Animals are blessings to, but they aren’t mentioned in this psalm.) It’s up to me to look for ways to see my life and the lives of others as blessings and by living with compassion and clarity to help others to experience their own lives as blessings.
The third reading, I’d say, reinforces that those who journey with God receive clarity and keep resetting their sights on their ultimate purpose — union with God and others who have sought and entered God’s embrace. Those who trust in the Divine embrace can go about the work and play that God invites them to despite life’s uncertainties. What matters isn’t certainty but remembering to look for, to invite, and to thank God as often as I remember to do so.
The parable in this week’s Gospel reading teaches that a person who trusts in God’s embrace and settles into it has a mindset of growth and possibility. Rather than comparing what he has to what someone else has, he makes the best of his gifts. He knows that the way he sees himself and his surroundings, circumstances, and limitations isn’t set in stone. Perhaps because he has a growth mindset, he’s not afraid of the master but rejoices in his connection to the master and the trust he has placed in his servant. Or perhaps he’s able to have the perspective on life that he does because he rejoices in her connection to the master and his trust.
The third servant doesn’t seem to have the same view of the master. He certainly doesn’t have the same response to what the master gives him the as the others do, and when I read the master’s reaction to the servant this time, it surprised me. The master doesn’t contradict what the servant says about his leadership style. He doesn’t respond by reminding the servant of the work he’s done to give his workers the opportunities they have.
Instead, the master’s response says to me that the servant isn’t acting as if he believes what he says about the master. If he did believe his own words, why did he behave as if the master wouldn’t ask for an accounting of his original coin? Maybe, like Adam in the garden, the third servant wants someone to blame for his being unhappy with the situation in which he finds himself. Maybe he wants someone to blame because fear, selfishness, and greed feel more powerful than trust and gratitude. Maybe this perception of life keeps him stuck on comparing what he has to what others have. Maybe it keeps him from doing what he can, from sharing whatever abilities and material goods he has to grow toward the best version of himself and to help others do the same. He’s “eat[ing] the [rotten] fruit of [his envy, resentment, and entitlement-fueled] handiwork.” He’s remaining in himself rather than in God. He is and does the opposite of the wife from the first reading.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Rosemary Johnston moves the characters from this week’s readings from their allegorical and historical settings into 21st-century life and into a place I didn’t expect. Check out her reflection to find out more.
Beyond this week’s readings:
It’s human nature to be some combination of the “worthy wife” and the “lazy servant,” to refer to this week’s contrasting characters the way the readings do. (Prov. 31: 10; Matt 25:26) I feel like there’s far more of the first character in me then the second.
Lord, help me to understand how to grow and to help others grow with what you give me. Help me to put this understanding into practice. Also help me to appreciate my opportunities and gifts and to recognize that they come from the ultimate generosity, which is Your nature. Amen
P.S.: This week’s readings are not those assigned to Thanksgiving in the U.S. Nonetheless, I’ve noticed that their message is fitting for the holiday. Part of that message might be that gratitude makes a person experience what they have as more and to grow what he or she has by putting it to work, investing it, and sharing it. Perhaps, on the other hand, ingratitude makes what a person has seem like less. Perhaps it also makes a person disposed to increased fear of losing what here she has and as a result, to hide and to hoard what she has.
I suppose living the Thanksgiving spirit means looking at life and living it with gratitude. So how do I do that? I’ll start with the prayers I’ve just offered. Next, a lot of people would recommend making a gratitude list or keeping a gratitude journal. I’ll move in that direction by simply calling to mind what I have to be thankful for.
Then I might try the mental version of an activity you might not expect me to pursue if I want to grow my gratitude. It’s an activity I heard about on a podcast yesterday — creating it ingratitude list or journal. The point of this activity isn’t to dwell on the things I can’t change that frustrate me or that I think are unfair or aren’t going right. The point is to name these things, with the idea being that getting them out can start the process of letting them go. This is a process I definitely want to work through.
When I think of this process, I think of all the psalms that bring anger, frustration, and sorrow to God. Some psalms express praise and thanksgiving, but not all do. If the psalmists can express all facets of their experience to God, so can I, and so can you.
I was going to wind this post down by wishing you a happy Thanksgiving. I do wish that for you, but I also wish you an honest and authentically peaceful Thanksgiving. I have faith as I write this that honesty founded on God’s wisdom will light the way to gratitude.
I share these Thanksgiving desires for myself and for you in this post because while, in an ideal world, I would at least post the readings for next weekend and for the holiday, I’m not sure I will manage to do either. After all, my plans for next week and the weekend after won’t fit into my usual routine. So in case I don’t get in touch with you again until the week after next, I wanted to wish you well now. Every blessing to you and yours until we meet again here again.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 19 November 2023 33rd Sunday in Ordinary time: 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.
The Character and Source of Wisdom
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Doubts, Encouragement, Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Reflections from Others, Wisdom on November 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Wisdom 6:12–16
- Psalm 63:2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
- Matthew 24:42a, 44
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings say to me that God’s wisdom, born of God’s unconditional, self-emptying love transcends gender, time, and even death. It’s alive, a guiding light and a relationship sought and found through alertness, preparation, perseverance and patience. It can’t be faked or borrowed and returned. It has to be kept and nurtured. The path to it cannot be rushed, and the process of encountering and journeying with it comes with a cost that’s worth paying to make it my own. Knowing and not knowing it affect my mind, body, and soul. Being open to it, living with it, and following words leads would make me the undistorted version of myself, while closing my mind, body, and soul to it would leave me lonely and unrecognizable to anyone acquainted with the best version of me.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Paula Rush explores what the symbolism of this week’s readings has to say. I found her perspective on the parable in the Gospel reading particularly refreshing and inspiring. I would say her reflection ends with a twist. Go to this page out to find out what her hope-filled perspective on the foolish virgin is.
Beyond this week’s readings:
Until the evening two days ago, I was traveling, and I got sick at both the beginning and the end of my trip. Then I came to my desk to work on this post yesterday. I didn’t feel like moving a muscle, and congestion meant talking to my dictation software wasn’t as comfortable as usual, not to mention that the software probably wouldn’t have understood me as well as it usually does. I set my timer, and when it went off, only the headings and the locations of the Scripture passages had been added to this post. I decided to spend the rest of the day catching up on shows I missed while I was gone and playing games on my phone. And when I got up this morning, I still felt like I had nothing to offer.
Then I let Hallow app guide me through an imaginative prayer session and a St. Jude novena centering around the feeding of the 5,000, a.k.a. the multiplication of loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; and John 6:1-15). When the apostles thought there was no way they had enough food to feed the crowd who had been listening to Jesus was so long, that’s when I realized I could relate, in a way.
As I write, I’m wrestling with doubts that anything I put in this post will feed you intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally. If something I’ve included here does resonate with you, I’d be interested to know what, if you’d like to share a comment.
But also as I write this after sitting with the readings, I’m reminded that it isn’t I who do the feeding. It’s God. I have only to desire God’s wisdom and to take one step at a time to prepare for and to receive its movement.
Come to me, Oil for my lamp, Wisdom of God. Give me the wisdom to recognize You so You can recognize in me the person I am in You. Amen.
A Lesson in What to Praise and Prioritize
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged Environmental Concerns, Ordinary Time, Scripture Reflections from Others, Social Justice, Trinity on October 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Isaiah 45:1, 4–6
- Psalm 96:1, 3, 4–5, 7–8, 9–10
- 1 Thessalonians 1:1–5b
- Matthew 22:15–21
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings praise and honor God and advocate for my never ceasing to do the same. They also remind me that everyone and everything exists because of God’s power and with God’s consent. Without this power and consent, nothing would exist and nothing would be held together. But there is life, and there is relationship because God is life and relationship. There is life through relationship to God and one another.
The third reading continues to praise God while also highlighting the relationality of life in God. It also highlights how virtues are related to one another, saying:
We [Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy] give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen.
1 Thessalonians 2-4 [italics mine]
While nothing exists without God allowing it to, God wants us to love freely, and anything not done freely isn’t done in the love, so God doesn’t force us to bend to the Divine will. God gives us the freedom to be co-creators. The result of this freedom is that God isn’t the creator of everything. Some things are created by the tempter and accuser. Others are created by humans. We can use the things humans have created for good or ill.
Upon this reading of the Gospel passage, I feel like Jesus is asking me to think about what I value and to ask God to help me value my life-giving relationships more than the things I can use to benefit those relationships. It also challenges me to discern how the things I use affect my relationships with God and others. To what extent are these effects positive and negative?
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Chanelle Robinson’s reflection offers one possible response to the question with which I ended the previous section.
Beyond this week’s readings:
Lord, grant me the grace to recognize what belongs to you and to employ it to bring myself and others into union with you. Give me a deep awareness that this union is the source of all beauty, growth, and peace. Help me to remember to thank you for inviting everyone to share these gifts. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Five Lenses through Which I Find Hope
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged Encouragement, hope, Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Reflections from Others on October 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Isaiah 25:6–10a
- Psalm 23:1–3a, 3b–4, 5, 6
- Philippians 4:12–14, 19–20
- Matthew 22:1–14
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings and Casey Stanton’s reflection on them offer me five different lenses through which to find hope. I’ve heard the spiritual understanding of hope defined as “joyful expectation.” I’m not sure who I received this understanding from — maybe my spiritual director. So if you’re reading this, and you shared this understanding with me — thanks — because that understanding of hope comes to mind as I read this week’s readings.
The Old Testament reading gives me a glimpse of the future — when everything reflects nothing but God’s nature, which is love, and which I sometimes grasp partially — as justice and mercy — with the line between the two virtues being indistinct because one can’t be separated from the other. This reading contains one of those verses familiar both to people with a lot of background in Scripture and without that background. The verse says:
The Lord GOD will wipe away
Isaiah 25:8
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.
The psalm this week is also familiar favorite, Psalm 23. As I’ve written in a series on this blog, I see this psalm as a proclamation of faith and a promise, and faith and promises are founded on the joyful expectation that is hope. If you’d like to visit or revisit that series, it starts here.
The third reading tells me that holding onto hope allows a person to maintain trust in God’s love regardless of what his or her circumstances are. The third reading also includes a verse that can be helpful for inspiring hope:
I can do all things in him who strengthens me.
Philippians 12:13
Now no one is called to do everything. Rather, we’re called to have hope and faith that we can do what each of us is called to do. Each of our vocations involves some activities and experiences that others also share in and other activities and experiences that are unique to each of us. So the third reading urges me to have confidence that when I trust in God, I’ll be able to do and be what I’m called to do and be, whether I find myself in pleasant or unpleasant circumstances. This message gives me hope.
As I read this week’s Gospel passage with the theme of hope in mind, its words remind me that authentic hope comes from accepting God’s invitation to a healthy relationship with God and one another. Hope comes from viewing whatever I do in terms of how it contributes to the health of those relationships. Nothing I do or want can replace a healthy relationship with God, and I can’t have healthy relationships with others, or with my goals if I don’t have healthy relationship with God.
The passage also tells me that an authentic — a.k.a. healthy — relationship with God can’t be faked. Hope can’t be faked either — at least not in the eyes of God. This is important to keep in mind because it’s authentic hope that solves problems and allows for harmony with one another and with God.
Lord, please strengthen my hope; help me cling to it regardless of my circumstances. Amen.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
While I looked at the Gospel passage as I considered the theme of hope, I’ll be honest — I’m bothered by the amount of violence the featured parable includes. So was Casey Stanton. Then some current events inspired her to relate to the parable differently than she had before. Click here to find out how.
Beyond this week’s readings:
Ms. Staton reflects on events unfolding in the Catholic Church. Her reflection prompts me to ask how a listening and sharing approach to relating to others, how an attitude of stillness and openness with regard to my circumstances, can be lived outside those events. Lord, open my senses, my heart, and my soul. Amen.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 15 October 2023 28th Sunday in Ordinary time: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.181, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Aug. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Freedom Can’t Reign While Fear Does
Posted in Disability, Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Holy Spirit, Mental health, Mind-Body Connection, Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Reflections from Others, Spiritual Freedom, Surrender, Who Am I in God on September 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Jeremiah 20:7–9
- Psalm 63:2, 3–4, 5–6, 8–9
- Romans 12:1–2
- Matthew 16:21–27
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings say to me that the room within me created for faith by humility and perseverance is not a comfortable space. It’s a space the Holy Spirit fills with its fire, and fire burns, and this fire cannot be contained. So it doesn’t let people who carry it be still in the place where they were before the fire sparked. People within whom it burns cannot help but move as it moves. They can’t help but spread it because their movement feeds it, and they give it room to spread. Spreading it means the next person who makes room for and fuels the fire can’t stay where he or she is either. As we witness this these effects of the spread, our inclinations toward convenience and self-preservation tell us to stop it. We don’t want to move. We don’t want to change. We don’t want to be different from earlier versions of ourselves or from the people around us. And we can’t stop these processes. We can increase our discomfort with the Spirit’s transformative power by resisting it, or we can find a peace that comes from freedom by accepting and participating in its transformative power.
The Good News is this transformative power. Its burning isn’t one that destroys but one that gives life. That life just won’t look the way our desires for convenience and self-preservation want it to because it changes us from the inside out and changes our relationship with our surroundings, including how we think about them, see them, and interact them. This change won’t let a person blend in, and the reading from Romans encourages us to ask for the grace not to want to blend in — at least not just for the sake of blending in. Any blending a person might do must be done for the Spirit. And any work done for the Spirit can only be done in cooperation with the movement of the Spirit.
The Gospel tells us not even to let fear for our lives get in the way of the movement of the Spirit. It says caving to such fear won’t save us, even though we may feel as if listening to fear will save us.
I used to think of this reading as being only about the importance of living faith and sharing it regardless of any risks that living it and sharing it might pose to my life. Of course, this is the literal message of the reading. However, I’ve come to want to apply it more broadly to life’s difficult situations. I wonder if my broader understanding will relate to someone else’s reflection on these readings. Let’s find out in the next two sections.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
These days, I interpret the Gospel reading as telling me “to be and to do what God calls [me] to be and to do,” as Dr. Phyllis Zagano says. Follow this link to read or watch her reflection on how Sts. Phoebe and Gregory did just that and how their stories relate to this week’s readings.
Beyond this week’s readings:
God called Phoebe and Gregory to bring the Gospel to others in word and action. We are called to do the same, though not always by using the texts and trappings of our faith.
There are people all over the world for whom living their faith costs them their freedom and even their earthly lives. I hope none of us seeing these words ever have to pay those prices.
But even if we never have to, each of us dies and finds life regularly, but if we don’t surrender to these smaller deaths, we miss opportunities to find life.
For me, as a person with anxiety and cerebral palsy, one of these smaller deaths can mean doing things my mind says are not safe to do, such as:
- Joining a group with whom I might share an interest or a goal when I don’t know any of the members or when I don’t know how accessible the place where then be is going to be
- Having the courage to be who I am and share my perspective when I don’t fit totally into one camp or another in a world that’s divided and subdivided into camps.
- Having the courage to get to know someone whose experience is different from my own and may make me uncomfortable and encourage me to ask myself questions about my own views.
- Not avoiding situations that remind me of difficult ones I have faced in the past. Please understand that with this example, I’m not advocating that anyone stay in abusive situations. I’m saying that there’s a difference between an unpleasant or uncomfortable situation and an unhealthy or unsafe one. I’m also saying that anxiety likes to lie to me and tell me that these two types of situations are the same. They aren’t.
I’ve also come to believe that losing my life to save it encompasses surrendering control and ideas of what I want various situations and people to be like. I think this is such a difficult thing for all of us to do. I don’t know whether the difficulty of doing this increases depending on how great a sense of independence a person is used to having or if the desire and frustration are equally strong regardless of a person’s circumstances.
Either way, I can think of a few different ways to express the ironic truth in this week’s Gospel passage:
- However tightly I cling to life on earth I cannot make it last forever.
- Surrounding myself with different types of walls or with metaphorical bubblewrap might save my body, for a time, but these actions won’t save my soul. In fact, they might kill it. Furthermore, a withering soul withers the body, eventually – in one way or another. (I’m pretty sure too much isolation and too few contacts are unhealthy for the body and the soul. And eating one’s emotions, an attempt at treating the pain of the soul, I’d say, can kill the body if it isn’t moderated.)
- Staying alive is not the same as living; surviving is not the same as thriving.
Lord, help me neither to fear my death to earthly life, nor the precursors to this death that I face each day so that I can live in the freedom of the life you have planned for me. Amen.
Another Source of Faith’s Power Is Humility
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Encouragement, Faith, Humility, Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Reflections from Others on August 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Isaiah 22:19–23
- Psalm 138:1–2, 2–3, 6, 8
- Romans 11:33–36
- Matthew 16:18
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings say to me that the power of faith comes not only from perseverance, as I was reminded last week, but also from humility. A person in with a humble mindset is able to trust even when he or she doesn’t understand a situation. Trust isn’t rooted in knowing all the details. It’s rooted in hope, and not speaking and acting on behalf of oneself but on behalf of God. Not speaking and acting on behalf of God as if we have God’s perspective — more like making room in and around us for God to speak and act through us, for it is God who “builds up strength within” us — if we allow the construction (Psalm 138:3). “For from him and through him and for him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). The “servant” in the reading from Isaiah understands this (Isa. 22:20). His understanding of this must be why God gives the trappings and responsibilities of authority to him, after apparently having removed it from someone people recognized as a leader (22:21-22)
From what I understand about Jewish culture when Jesus walked the earth, the family, friends, and community of the man eventually called Peter wouldn’t have seen spiritual leader material in him. Before Jesus called him, he wasn’t studying with a rabbi. He must not have been considered a skilled enough student to do that. He was working in his earthly father’s business. And yet, the Holy Spirit gives Peter the heart knowledge that Jesus is the Christ and gives him the grace, the humility, to acknowledge who Jesus is.
Outside of the grace of humility, he can’t acknowledge needing a Messiah — the Messiah — knowing him, or trusting in him. When Peter doesn’t have room for the gift of humility because his fear and/or pride crowds it out, Jesus doesn’t refer to him as “the rock on which [He] builds [His] church” (Matt. 16:18). Instead, Jesus tells Satan to “get behind” Him (16:23). At these times, he knows Peter is relying on his own mind to make sense of the world around him — not God’s — as the Holy Spirit allows him to do when his fear and pride don’t get in the Spirit’s way.
When he doesn’t start to think that his fear is more powerful is than God is, he not only can recognize Jesus as the Christ, but also he can walk on water, and he can share the message of Jesus’s ministry and his resurrection despite the risk to his earthly life, a life that he will eventually hand over as a result of the mission that Jesus gives him. It’s a mission that, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in him and his spiritual siblings and descendants, we can be bound together by what gives life and freed from what doesn’t.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
While this week’s readings spoke to me about humility as another fuel for faith, for the ability to recognize Christ, along with perseverance, Mary Margaret Schroeder invites us to explore how each of us recognizes Christ personally. She invites us to recognize Christ in our everyday experiences rather than by relying only on knowledge and ways of talking about that knowledge that have been handed down to us.
Beyond this week’s readings:
So who do I say Christ is:
- the ultimate storyteller, the hero of that story, and the author of my story within that master story.
- the One who walks ahead of me, beside me, stands behind me, and lives within me.
- the One who carries me
- The experience I have when I read a book and
- relate to what we find there — pain, joy, fear, and every mixture of emotion
- don’t relate to what I read, but what I read makes me appreciate what I have
- long for the friendship, love, transformation, and growth I find there
- the experience of driving alone in my neighborhood — not in a car, but in my wheelchair — and I feel the sun warming my neck, back, and shoulders. I feel the breeze, too, and I see roses blooming in front of my neighbors’ houses. Flowers spill over the brick retaining walls between the sidewalks and the streets.
- the experience of my family and my neighbors throwing a surprise party for my birthday
- the experience of wanting to say something that, at best, won’t help a situation, and might make it worse and actually succeeding in not saying it.
- the experience of seeing a task through rather than putting it off for another day and instead playing games on my phone
- the experience of not pretending to be somebody someone other than God wants me to be
- The relief of being able to acknowledge to myself and God that I’m not the person God plans to love me into becoming, and yet experiencing that God loves me anyway
Now I have this list. Maybe I’ll revisit these memories when God feels distant. Maybe I’ll think of things to add to this list over time. Help me, Lord, Amen.
Who is Christ to you, personally? Maybe you’d like to journal or to pray about this yourself. Share your thoughts here, if you’d like.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 27 August 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.181, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Aug. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Return and Persevere to Learn that God’s Has No Limits
Posted in Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Divine Mercy, Love, Ordinary Time, Reflections on the Mass Readings, Scripture Reflections from Others on August 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Isaiah 56:1, 6–7
- Psalm 67:2–3, 5, 6, 8
- Romans 11:13–15, 29–32
- Matthew 15:21–28
What this week’s readings say to me:
This week’s readings say to me that God’s love knows no limits. It plays no favorites. It operates to the extent that trust in it allows it to operate. Therefore, because both the Canaanite woman in this week’s Gospel and Jesus trust in it, it works through both of them. No geopolitical border or cultural distinction can limit this love. Only lack of trust born of human frailty can.
But this week’s readings remind me that Good News can be found in the midst of this unfortunate reality. People’s egos and fears give God an opportunity to show just how boundless divine love is. When I see this love causing barriers to disappear, when I see it at work around me as it is in the Canaanite woman of this week’s Gospel, persevering in a life that reflects faith feels possible.
The third reading tells me Paul understands this relationship between love and growth. It’s why he has hope that the people who nurtured him, who taught him and with whom he studied and worshipped would come to reap the rewards of the covenant God had with them, even though his ministry had taken him far from them.
Lord, I ask you for this hope for myself and for the people in my life, especially for the people who have shaped and continue to shape me. I also ask that the people who seem furthest from me, the most different, also receive this hope, the hope that is the reassurance of God’s mercy. Amen.
What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:
Prof. Margaret Susan Thompson reminds us that we ask God for mercy at every Mass. She also helps us understand the Gospel reading in light of the cultures that gave birth to it, as well as helping us find inspiration in the reading for the cultures in which we find ourselves today.
Beyond this week’s readings:
I told you I was eager to see where the Spirit would lead, and as you can probably tell based on the fact that the content of this post doesn’t relate to the book I recommended last week, that Spirit is already leading me somewhere I didn’t expect.
When I heard last week’s readings, I wished I had at least briefly written about what they said to me. They included some of my favorite passages. The readings were:
- 1 Kings 19:9a, 11–13a
- Psalm 85:9, 10, 11–12, 13–14
- Romans 9:1–5
- Matthew 14:22–33
The truth is, other commitments mean that I’m just not able to spend as much time working on this blog each week that I have in the past. This reality is the reason it makes sense not always to reflect on the weekly readings. I’m giving myself permission to publish posts that are influenced by the calendar. I still want to publish a post every week, but that may not always happen, and I need that to be okay with myself and with you. It means so much to me that you’ve taken the time to follow this blog, whether by subscribing or by checking in occasionally. Whatever interaction with this blog works for you, I’m glad that it does.
I’m wrestling with the relationship between acceptance and action in the spiritual journey. In future weeks, I may sometimes use God, I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel by Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, as a guide in this process, or I may write about some quotations relating to the subject. I may also post my general reflection on Scripture readings, or I may link to someone else’s more developed reflection on them. Thank you for coming along with me while I work on keeping an open mind and heart about the ways we can find grace in this space on the web that we share.
God’s Love Has More Power than Fear and Pain
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Anger, anxiety, Cross, Holy Spirit, Love, Ordinary Time, Pain, Scripture Reflections from Others on August 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Sara Fairbanks, OP, reflects through this week’s readings on love’s power to sustain us in the midst of fear and pain.
Yet pain can feel consuming and take so many forms – physical and emotional, yes. But emotional pain can be named more specifically. I tend to name it resentment, envy, anger, frustration, anxiety, and negativity-filled longing. These are the names I’ve learned to give my spiritual struggles. So that these struggles don’t overwhelm me, I need clarity, renewal, and strength the Holy Spirit can provide when I’m open to receiving these gifts.
I’m going to turn to Fr. Mark E. Thibodeaux’s God: I have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel to shine the light of the Holy Spirit on the feelings I listed above. In doing so, I trust that with time and persistence, I will more often recognize light and love as more powerful than any emotion darkness tries to use to make me unable to recognize its opposite.
I also trust that making this book a companion to this blog for the time being will remind me to invite God into and recognize God’s presence in my pleasant, joyful, and simply routine experiences as well as my unpleasant ones.
Fr. Thibodeaux’s book is a guide to living and praying through the gamut of human emotions. Each chapter is dedicated to a different emotion or life experience and begins with a story from the author’s life about when he experienced or shared in someone else’s experience of that emotion.
After each introductory story, which is imbued with relatability and often humor. comes a long list of related scripture passages taken from both the Old and New Testaments.
After this list comes the “Prayer Pointers” section. I’ve consulted this book on and off for years, and while I’m not offering a professional perspective here, I would say that this section combines the wisdom of counseling, meditative, and pastoral approaches. Fr. Thibodeaux often suggests imaginative prayer and visualizations. This section also makes clear that the issues each chapter touches on are not resolved in one day. They are wrestled with in a healthy way by praying to be open to a shift in perspective and practice and by giving helpful habits a chance to become deeply rooted in daily life.
After the “Prayer Pointers” come inspirational or thought-provoking quotes. These are from sources other than scripture.
At the end of each chapter is a list of other chapters that might be related to the one I’ve just worked through. This section acknowledges that emotions are complex. (For example, grief can involve a mixture of sadness, anger, and guilt.) The index is also helpful when I’m not sure which chapter is most relatable to whatever I’m currently experiencing. In it I can look up experiences that weren’t used in the chapter titles.
Maybe in some future posts I’ll share a story of my own that the author’s story made me think of. Maybe I’ll share how his story got me thinking. Maybe I’ll reflect on one of the suggested scripture passages using approaches similar to those of used in the past. Or maybe I’ll share my experience with a visualization. Whatever happens, I’m eager to see where the Spirit leads and to hear what God has to tell me — and us.
Work cited
Thibodeaux, Mark E. God, I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005.
God’s Invitation to Do a “Gut Check”
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Holy Spirit, Ordinary Time, Scripture Reflections from Others, Transfiguration, Who Am I in God, Who is God on August 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
That’s what the Transfiguration is, according to Julie Vieira, IHM, MA. Click here to read her explanation and reflection on this week’s Gospel passage.
The question I’m currently wrestling with, courtesy of the daily spiritual writing prompts from the Hallow app is:
Where do you need the light and grace of the Holy Spirit in Your life today? Write to yourself as if you are God. What does He tell you? What do you want to say back?
I’m going to copy these questions and paste them into a blank post, so I can begin using writing to reflect on them there. Perhaps you’ll find it helpful to reflect on this prompt and/or to journal about it along with me.
Sitting with the Sacred 