A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday & Weekday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 22, n.27)
Corpus Christi – Week 9 in Ordinary Time: June 2-8, 2024
(The pastoral tool BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY & WEEKDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy from various perspectives. For the Lectio Divina on the liturgy of the past week: May 26 – June 1, 2024 please go to ARCHIVES Series 21 and click on “Trinity/Ordinary Week 8”.
Below is a LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY - WEEKDAY LITURGY: June 2-8, 2024.)
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June 2, 2024: THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD
OF CHRIST, YEAR B
(CORPUS CHRISTI)
“JESUS SAVIOR: He Gives Us His Body and Blood”
BIBLICAL READINGS
Ex 24:3-8 // Heb 9:11-15 // Mk 14:12-16, 22-26
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Mk 14:12-16, 22-26): “This is my body. This is my blood.”
I was a student in theology when I came upon an intriguing issue: the inculturation of the Eucharistic species. The visiting Scripture professor, a Belgian missionary, challenged us to look into the possibility of using bread and fish instead of bread and wine in the Mass. His thesis that fish could be used as a Eucharistic species is based on his study of the Gospel accounts of the multiplication of loaves and Jesus’ Easter appearances, which have a Eucharistic implication. I was tantalized by the idea of using fish as a Eucharistic species.
It was not until I studied in Rome’s Pontifical Liturgical Institute under Fr. Salvatore Marsili, a few years later, that I had better insight into this issue. Note that the Jewish rite of Passover involves two distinct moments – the lamb-unleavened bread, symbol of liberation, and the blood of the covenant-cup of wine, symbol of the constitution of Israel as God’s chosen people. Viewed in this light, it would be a betrayal of the meaning of the Eucharist, the Christian Passover, to substitute bread and fish for bread and wine. At the Last Supper, Christ uses the breaking and sharing of the bread and the drinking of the cup of wine as the sacramental sign of our liberation from the power of sin. We become God’s covenant people through the sacrifice of his body on the altar of the cross and the pouring out of his blood on the tree of life on Mount Calvary.
Indeed, the people that are nourished by Christ’s gift of bread for new life are the people of the covenant. All the readings today dwell on God’s covenant relationship with his people. The core of this Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 14:12-16, 22-26) is the account of Jesus’ actions and words at the Last Supper, which he shares with his disciples. He breaks the bread and shares the cup of wine, saying: “This is my body … This is my blood of the covenant which will be shed for many” (verses 23-24). The breaking of the bread signifies the saving event of the body of Jesus being broken and wounded at the paschal sacrifice for the life of the world. The drinking of the cup signifies the redeeming event of his blood being poured out on the cross – the blood of the eternal covenant - which ratifies God’s intimate relationship with the new, redeemed people he constitutes as his own. God’s Son, the only Savior of the world, pours out his life-blood for us on the cross and opens the way for a radical relationship between us and the Father. By receiving the bread of new life and the cup of the covenant in the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s self-gift for us, we declare our willingness to live this covenant.
B. First Reading (Ex 24:3-8): “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.”
When I was a student in the elementary grades, one of my favorite subjects was Social Studies. I enjoyed Philippine History and was enthralled when I saw a painting entitled, “The Blood Compact”. It showed the Spanish conquistador, Legazpi and a local chieftain, Rajah Lakandula seated at a table, with a cup and a knife lying on top of it. Their arms were bleeding. According to the explanation of our teacher, they were having a blood compact. They were sharing a drink, mixed with each other’s blood, from a common cup to ratify a compact or a covenant. They were to treat each other as blood brothers and share life at the level of intimate friendship. The succeeding events of Philippine history, however, would show that the meaning of the blood compact they made was not really respected. Spain subjugated the Philippines and made it a colony.
The Church invites us today to focus our attention on the meaning of the new and eternal covenant that Christ ratified with his sacrificial blood. The Old Testament reading (Ex 24:3-8) provides us with a deeper perspective on the meaning of the new, definitive and everlasting covenant in his blood.
The biblical scholar, Eugene Maly comments: “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you … When Moses pronounced those words at the foot of Mt. Sinai, they must have struck an awesome note in the minds and hearts of the Hebrew people standing about. They had just seen Moses splash half of the blood of the young sacrificed bulls on the altar that symbolized God. The rest of the blood he sprinkled on them. That strikes us as a strange rite, indeed. But it had a powerful meaning for those people. The blood, as always in the Scriptures, symbolized life. Sprinkled on the altar and on the people, it symbolized a community of life shared by God and Israel. God, moved only by love, was making a covenant with them. He shared his life; they responded by keeping his law. The religious experience was what constituted Israel as a unique people, God’s special people. Though they did not realize it at the time, that covenant was an anticipation of another and new covenant, whereby a new people of God would be constituted, this time with no restrictions as to race or nationality. Blood was to be a symbol of the new covenant, too. The new covenant is, of course, the one made by God through Jesus Christ with all people. And the blood of Christ, shed on Calvary, symbolizes the new life God shares with us.”
The salutary feast of Corpus Christi – of the Body and Blood of Christ – reminds us of the tremendous depths of our faith and helps us consider the challenging implications as a people of the new and eternal covenant. The celebration is an invitation to respond and to surrender ourselves completely to the loving God who had initiated this covenant and had brought it to fulfillment through the outpouring of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ.
The liturgical theologian Romano Guardini remarks: “Holy Mass is the commemoration of God’s new covenant with men. Awareness of this gives the celebration an added significance that is most salutary. To keep this thought in mind is to remind ourselves that Christ’s sacrificial death opened for us the new heaven and the new earth; that there exists between Him and us a contract based not on nature or talent or religious capacity, but on grace and freedom; that it is binding from person to person, loyalty to loyalty. At every Mass we should reaffirm that contract and consciously take our stand in it.”
C. Second Reading (Heb 9:11-15): “The blood of Christ will cleanse our consciences.”
In this Sunday’s liturgy and especially through the Second Reading (Heb 9:11-15), we are invited to contemplate the sacrificial outpouring of Christ’s blood to bring about the ultimate and unsurpassable New Covenant. The mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ, the ultimate High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies, atoned for our sins, cleansed our consciences from dead works, and sealed a New Covenant in his blood to make of us God’s privileged chosen people.
The letter to the Hebrews underlines the incomparable efficacy and superiority of the sacrificial act of Jesus, the High Priest. Eugene Maly explains: “The second reading describes the superiority of Jesus’ sacrifice over that of the bulls and of the new covenant over the old. The author says that Christ passed through a more perfect tabernacle and entered the sanctuary of heaven. He is referring to his passing from earthly life through suffering and death to a new life with the Father, a new life that would be shared with the new people of God. In doing this, Jesus did something that was foreshadowed by what the high priest did in the Old Testament. The priest entered into the sanctuary in Jerusalem and sprinkled the blood of animals on the altar and the Ark of the Covenant. This symbolized the new life effected by the remission of sins. The author of our reading asks how much more efficacious is the blood of Jesus in cleansing our consciences. Jesus did this once for all, as our reading puts it. The sacrifice of Jesus was so radically effective that the Father accepted it as valid for all ages. Jesus does not have to shed his blood anew every time the eternal covenant is renewed.”
Indeed, in this beautiful feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we delve into the profound depths of our Eucharistic faith and are impelled by the tremendous demands of charity and service it imposes upon us. Moreover, we are challenged to surrender ourselves completely to Jesus Christ, the eternal High Priest, who renews each day, and especially in the Eucharistic mystery, his everlasting covenant of love with us – his chosen people.
Today I would like to cite some episodes in the life of Saint Damien De Veuster, who offered himself as a “living sacrifice” for the exiled lepers in Molokai. Like Jesus, the Eucharistic victim and ultimate High Priest, his self-giving was complete. Saint Damien risked contagion and indeed became a leper as he endeavored to bring solace and comfort to the afflicted flock of a Hawaiian leper colony in the nineteenth century. The following passages are from Hilde Eynikel’s excellent book, MOLOKAI: The Story of Father Damien (New York: Alba House, 1999, p. 169-170, 196, 294).
CORPUS CHRISTI 1882: One of the ways in which social practice in the leper settlement differed from the world beyond was in the degree of co-operation and harmony among the different religious groups. The Corpus Christi procession of 1882 was an example of this. (…) Members of all the different creeds took part in preparing the festival and the feasting, and likewise participated in the processions and religious ceremonies. The procession was somewhat chaotic, with the various religious groups that participated joining in one another’s hymns and music, not always successfully. Damien and Montiton took it in turns to carry the holy sacrament, and they were careful to adjust the pace of the procession to take account of the invalids who found it difficult to walk. The whole event was a festival of respect for one another and Montiton expressed this when he said, in Hawaiian, “This celebration is unique. We Christians who are present here wish to demonstrate our belief in God, who is three in one. Today we worship Jesus Christ, our Eucharistic king, the Lord and Savior who is present in the Holy Sacrament. We worship his love for mankind and the Holy Sacrament that he instituted on the day before his death.”
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Damien had pain in his left leg. Sometimes a warm footbath helped. He put a kettle on the fire and poured water into a basin. He put his foot in and waited for the pain to ease. He looked into the basin and saw pieces of skin floating on the water. He drew his foot out of the basin, looked at it, and found it was badly scalded. Damien had not felt the scalding, so he must have leprosy. He screamed. Priests came running to him and asked what was the matter. Damien could say nothing, except, “I’ve scalded my foot” and “I’m a leper”.
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Damien was willing to pose for the photographer on this occasion and Bingham caught in his lens a frail man with a swollen face and a broad coat. He sat bolt upright, with his arm in a sling. He was surrounded by his boys. The next day, 20 February 1889, Damien visited Kalaupapa for the last time. Mother Marianne wanted him to come into the parlor, but he refused, because he was unclean. That evening, he did not have the strength to climb into the buggy. He did not dare to knock on any of the parishioners’ doors to warm himself, although he was very cold. He thought for a moment of asking Mollers for shelter, but the German priest was already so depressed and was not allowed to take in lepers. Evening came on. Lamps were lit in the windows and suddenly the wandering priest had an idea. He would just take a rest on the Sisters’ verandah and then he would have the strength to return to Kalawao. He lay down and dozed off. Sr. Leopoldina found him there the next morning. He awoke, looked astonished and then frightened and ashamed. “He is dying”, said a weeping Leopoldina over breakfast. “Death is in his look.” (…) Damien wrote, “I am trying slowly to complete my way of the cross and hope to reach Golgotha.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
How do we unite ourselves with the saving event of Christ’s ultimate saving sacrifice? What is our response to the tremendous gift of his Body and Blood? How do we translate into our daily lives the meaning of Christ’s sacrificial and covenant love?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Loving Father,
we thank you for the life-giving Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ,
the eternal High Priest and the mediator of the New Covenant.
Through his Eucharistic sacrifice on the cross,
he cleansed us of our sins
and brought us back to you as a reconciled people.
His body was “bread broken” for our healing and redemption.
His blood was shed as a “cup of sacrifice”.
By the blood outpoured in his passion and death on the cross,
he sealed the New Covenant
and we became your covenant people.
By your grace, we are privileged to share in your divine life.
In the sacrament of the Eucharist,
we proclaim this mystery of faith
and are brought deeper into its depths.
Help us to translate into our daily life
the covenant love that our communion in the Eucharistic meal signifies.
Give us the grace to incarnate
the self-giving of Jesus, our Eucharistic Master,
and his priestly ministry on the cross.
In celebrating the ultimate gift of the Body and Blood of Christ,
may we be “bread broken” and “wine poured out” for the life of the world.
We praise and thank you,
we adore you and serve you,
now and forever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“This is my body … This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” (Mk14:22, 24)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
Pray that our priests may be deeply animated by the spirit of the Eucharist and be strengthened for their ministry on behalf of the poor and suffering. By your own acts of service and charity, strive to bring God’s covenant love to the people around you, especially the poor and the needy.
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June 3, 2024: MONDAY – SAINT CHARLES LWANGA AND COMPANIONS, Martyrs
“JESUS SAVIOR: He Is the Beloved Son Finally Sent … In Him Is True Knowledge of God”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Pt 1:2-7 // Mk 12:1-12
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Mk 12:1-12): “They seized the beloved son, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.”
Today’s Gospel (Mk 12:1-12) presents the drama of man’s wickedness and God’s faithful and patient love. A “parable of contention”, it is directed against the smugness, vanity and self-seeking of the religious leaders of Israel. They have failed in their mission as stewards. They have persecuted and even killed those whom the Lord sent them. As a last resort, God sent not only his servants the prophets, but his own Son. But the wicked tenants seized his “beloved son” and put him to death, throwing his body “out of the vineyard”. The “beloved son” finally sent is Jesus, put to death outside the walls of Jerusalem. Cardinal Jean Danielou remarks: “God’s patience has been strained to its farthest limit in this tragedy of Christ, the Lord of the vineyard’s son, rejected by the tenants, crucified, treated by his own people as a stranger and an outcast. But from the lowest depths arises a sudden hope. He will let out the vineyard to other vinedressers, who will pay him his due when the season comes.” In this parable of the wicked tenants, we see God’s first covenant with his Chosen People Israel being transferred to all peoples of faith. As a result of the sacrificial death of the Son, peoples of all nations become tenants-producers in God’s vineyard.
We are called to be a productive part of the Lord’s vineyard. As workers in his harvest, we need to be responsible, dutiful and faithful. We need to overcome human tendencies to mediocrity, indifference and sloth in our service of God’s kingdom. The following story by Papa Mike McGarvin (cf. Poverello News, November 2011, p. 1-2) gives insight into some of the foibles and counterproductive attitudes that we need to overcome in our daily life.
Several years ago, just before Thanksgiving, someone donated a turkey to us that was over fifty pounds. It was an absolute monster, the biggest gobbler I’d ever seen. I figured that meat from that bird would take care of several families on Thanksgiving Day. We made a big deal about it; we thanked the donor, of course, but we also mentioned the turkey to some of the news outlets that make their way down here on the holidays, and at least one station took some footage and showed the prize turkey on the air.
We were curious to discover just how much meat this big boy would provide, so it was with great anticipation that it was prepared and placed in the oven. Later that day, I went to our chef to ask how it came out. He looked at me and sighed. “Well … the boys burned it.” “Whaddaya mean they burned it?” I asked stunned in disbelief. “They just … burned it up. Nothing salvageable. I guess they weren’t paying attention.”
This wasn’t the first time that our drug program cooks had done something like this. I remember one time when lettuce prices were sky-high, and we received several crates of lettuce as a donation. I was elated, because it meant plenty for salads and hamburger trimmings at a time we couldn’t afford to buy this produce item. Our program cook at the time was a man who claimed to be a professional chef. I walked through the kitchen, and saw him happily washing the lettuce – in scalding water. By the time I caught him, he had washed over three-quarters of the supply, rendering it wilted and useless.
B. First Reading (2 Pt 1:2-7): “God has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.”
The Second Letter of Peter is addressed to a wide circle of early Christians. Its main concern is to combat the work of false teachers and the immorality which results from their false teaching. The answer to these problems is to hold on to the true knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reading (2 Pt 1:2-7) underlines the need to correctly acknowledge God who calls us to share in his glory and greatness. God’s call is made known to us by revelation and to respond to his call is to know God. Moreover, God gives us everything we need to respond to this call. His power brings about “precious and very great promises” resulting in all spiritual gifts. Through God’s promises and gifts, the believer is able to escape the corruption of this world and to share in the divine life. The Christian thus enters into a dynamic of “divinization”. He embarks on a path of ascent: from the acceptance of faith to brotherly love (agape) through disciplined behavior and virtues that are fruits of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Christian call “to share in the divine nature” needs to be authenticated and proven in daily life.
The following article on Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) gives insight into how to embark on a path of “divinization” (cf. Bert Ghezzi, “Meet Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati” in Our Sunday Visitor, June 14, 2-15, p. 12).
Pier Giorgio holds first place for me because he was normal. Like you and me, he was an ordinary human being. Pier Giorgio was outgoing, the heart of his circle of friends. They depended on him for encouragement, fun and support in Christian living. He was athlete who exulted in climbing the Alps near Turin. He smoked a pipe, he said because his mother smoked cigars when she carried him in the womb. Pier Giorgio was the life of every party. And he was a practical joker who once put a baby donkey in a friend’s bed because he was being a jackass by not studying.
But Pier Giorgio also exemplified the normal Catholic life because of his life-long devotion to Jesus and Mary. From his youth, he worshiped at daily Mass, rejoicing in the privilege of meeting the Lord in the Eucharist. He always had a rosary at hand and prayed it several times a day, often with his friends. And Pier Giorgio spent hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. A friend once reported seeing him give a little wave to the tabernacle as he left the church, a sign of his intimate relationship with Jesus.
Pier Giorgio’s family was wealthy, but he used all of his resources to serve the poor. At 17, he began to visit families in the back streets of Turin. Daily, he took them food, clothing, shoes, medicine and money. And he always made friends of those he served by spending personal time with them.
I especially admire Pier Giorgio because he faced difficult, painful circumstances with joy – the deterioration of this parents’ marriage, his dad’s frustration with his career plan to serve the poor as a mining engineer, and his inability to marry the woman he loved because of his parent’s resistance.
“Each day”, he said, “I understand a little bit better the incomparable grace of being a Catholic. Down, then, with all melancholy! … I am joyful. Sorrow is not gloom. Gloom should be banished from the Christian soul.” (…)
Pier Giorgio died suddenly of a virulent form of polio in July 1925.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
1. How do we carry out our task as “tenant farmers” in God’s vineyard? Do we try to overcome counterproductive tendencies and attitudes such as irresponsibility, indifference, incompetence, sloth, etc.?
2. How do we respond to God’s precious spiritual gifts so that we may be able to share in his divine nature? Do we endeavor to attain true knowledge of God and do we try to authenticate our faith by the way we live?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Lord Jesus,
you call us to be the new “tenant farmers”
in the Lord’s vineyard.
Give us the grace
to work with personal dedication and loving responsibility
so as to produce a rich spiritual harvest.
Bless all our toils and labors
for the coming of God’s kingdom.
We love and serve you, now and forever.
Amen.
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Loving Father,
we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ
who revealed through knowledge of you.
Help us to tread on the path of holiness
and let us prove our faith by the way we live.
Give us a share in your divine life.
May your grace and peace abound in us.
We give you glory and praise, now and forever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“He had one other to send, a beloved son.” (Mk 12:6) // “He has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.” (2 Pt 1:4)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
Today carry out your daily tasks with a greater spirit of love and personal dedication and with deeper awareness that we are called to be fruitful “tenant farmers” in the Lord’s vineyard. // Make every effort to substantiate your faith through the daily exercise of Christian virtues, e.g. self-control, devotion, fraternal love, etc.
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June 4, 2024: TUESDAY – WEEKDAY (9)
“JESUS SAVIOR: He Calls us Repay to Caesar What Belongs to Caesar and to God What Belongs to God … In Him We Await New Heavens and a New Earth”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Pt 3:12-15a, 17-18 // Mk 12:13-17
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Mk 12:13-17): “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Today’s Gospel (Mk 12:13-17) presents an insidious trap concocted by some Pharisees and Herodians against Jesus. Recognizing their hypocrisy and evil intent, Jesus eludes the trap by asking them to bring him a denarius. When they hand him the Roman coin, he asks them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They reply “Caesar’s”. Jesus then confounds them with a masterly retort: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”.
The great preacher, Fulton Sheen, comments on today’s Gospel episode: “Our Lord took no sides, because the basic question was not God or Caesar, but God and Caesar. That coin used in their daily marketing showed they were no longer independent from a political point of view. In that lower sphere of life, the debt to the government should be discharged … Once again he was saying that his kingdom was not of this world; that submission to him is not inconsistent with submission to secular powers; that political freedom is not the only freedom. To the Pharisees who hated Caesar came the command: Give unto Caesar; to the Herodians who had forgotten God in their love of Caesar came the basic principle: Give unto God. Had the people rendered to God his due, they would not now be in their present state of having to render too much to Caesar. He had come primarily to restore the rights of God. As he told them before, if they sought first the kingdom of God and his justice, all these things such as political freedom would be added unto them.”
Today we are reminded of our primary duty to render to God his rights as well as our obligation to render our due to the civil society. Jesus challenges us to be observant in paying our debts to God and to fulfill our duties to one another and to a larger society. I am a Filipino citizen, but because of the particular work that I do – spiritual ministry – I am not a wage earner. I do not pay income tax since I practically do not have any income. But I know the importance of paying taxes to the Philippine government. Taxes are needed to fund its community services and public works. Hence, I contribute my “little” to the civil society by paying my resident’s tax, travel tax, etc. not grudgingly but joyfully, and above all, by conducting myself in a manner that befits a citizen of our beloved nation.
B. First Reading (2 Pt 3:12-15a, 17-18): “We await new heavens and a new earth.”
In the reading (2 Pet 3:12-15a, 17-18), the apostle directs the attention of believers to “new heavens and a new earth”. Aelred Rosser comments: “The author of this letter is energetically appealing to logic. Peter is asking, ‘Since the world as we know it is going to come to an end, and since we do not know when this will happen’, is it not obvious that we should live in readiness and with devout attention? (…) The second coming is the final phase of the one great divine intervention, which is Jesus Christ. Are you growing impatient for the new heaven and the new earth? The writer tells us we can hasten the coming of this glorious event by leading holy lives. The Jews have a saying that if Israel lived God’s law perfectly for just one day, the kingdom would be restored … We Christians can hasten the second coming of Christ by leading holy lives … Or impatience with ourselves can be a very healthy motivation toward holiness. We become weary and intolerant of weakness and sin only when we forget that in eternity, the will of God to save the world has already been fulfilled and has always been fulfilled.”
As we wait for the advent of the “new heavens and a new earth”, we must continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is due glory, now and for eternity. The following article, “Five Important Lessons in Life”, circulated through the Internet, gives an idea on how to promote and hasten the advent of God’s kingdom.
First Important Lesson: “Cleaning Lady”
During my second month of college, our
professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed
through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of
the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had
seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her
50's, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last
question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last
question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely", said the
professor. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are
significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is
smile and say "hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her
name was Dorothy.
Second Important Lesson: “Pickup in the Rain”
One night, at 11:30 p.m., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960's. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away... God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Nat King Cole
Third Important Lesson: “Always Remember Those Who Serve”
In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked. "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. "Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.
Fourth Important Lesson: “The Obstacle in Our Path”
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the King's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
Fifth Important Lesson: “Giving When It Counts”
Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save her." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away". Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood to save her.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
1. Do I render to God his rights as well as my duty of service to humanity? Am I animated with love and zeal as I carry out my obligation to God and neighbors?
2. How do we prepare ourselves for “new heavens and the new earth”? How do we hasten the definitive advent of the kingdom of God?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
O loving Jesus,
you came into the world to uphold the divine majesty
and to promote the total integrity of the human person.
Help us to be totally dedicated to God
and fully involved
in the pursuit of justice and peace in today’s world,
in giving preferential care for the weak and vulnerable,
and in promoting the good of individuals and the society.
Bless our endeavors
to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God”.
Make us channels of your peace and healing love.
We love you and serve you;
we glorify you and give you praise, now and forever.
Amen.
***
Loving Jesus,
we yearn for salvation
and dream visions of “new heavens and a new earth”.
In faith we believe that these are fulfilled in you
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Help us to live holy lives
that we may hasten the advent of your glorious kingdom,
To you be glory, now and forever!
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” (Mk 12:17) //“We await new heavens and a new earth.” (2 Pt 3:13)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
Participate actively, consciously and fruitfully in the Sunday worship and be honest and responsible in paying your dues to the State. // Spend some quiet moments contemplating the miracle of “newness” and thanking God for the gift of “new beginnings” in your personal life. By your acts of justice, charity and compassion to the poor and needy, let the people around you experience our promised destiny of “new heavens and a new earth”.
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June 5, 2024: WEDNESDAY – SAINT BONIFACE, Martyr
“JESUS SAVIOR: He Calls Us to Faith in the Living God … With Him We Suffer for the Gospel”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Tm 1:1-3, 6-12 // Mk 12:18-27
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Mk 12:18-27): “He is not God of the dead but of the living.”
This story is told by one of our Italian Sisters. Her father died of a massive stroke. Her mom was crying heartily at the funeral. She tried to console her with the thought of the final reunion in heaven. Her mom wailed: “But Jesus said in the Gospel that in the next life we will be like angels … no more matrimony. In heaven, I will no longer be your dad’s wife!” Of course, the widow’s fear of losing her husband in heaven is unfounded. True love never ends and nuptial love is perfected in heaven.
Today’s Gospel passage (Mk 12:18-27) introduces us to the Sadducees, a group of religious leaders who deny the existence of resurrected life. They are bent on engaging Jesus in a reduced-to-absurdity argument against bodily resurrection. The Divine Master’s first rebuttal to the scheming Sadducees also uses a reduced-to-absurdity tactic. He argues that in the next existence, which has no place for death, the issue of marriage is irrelevant. Jesus refutes the basic premise of the Sadducees that the life of the age to come is a continuation of this life and therefore needs human propagation lest it die out. The second rebuttal of Jesus is derived from the Torah. Since the Sadducees hold only to the Law of Moses, Jesus utilizes it to bolster his argument about the resurrection. The opponents of the resurrection have quoted the Torah to justify their case, but Jesus also quotes the Torah (Ex 3:6) to prove that death does not end human existence. When God says: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” this implies that the patriarchs are living.
The main object of human existence is to live for God and God’s glory. It is through the resurrection of the Son of God that we are brought to true and eternal life. Our belief in our resurrection is based on our faith in the resurrected Christ. Harold Buetow remarks: “Christian belief in immortality is unique and special. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Good News of fullness of life in this age, and of the resurrection in the age to come … Someone has compared death to standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the open sea. She fades on the horizon, and someone says, ‘She’s gone.’ Just at the moment when someone says, ‘She’s gone’, other voices who are watching her coming on another shore happily shout, ‘Here she comes’. Or to use another metaphor, what the caterpillar calls ‘the end’, the butterfly calls the ‘beginning’.”
B. First Reading (2 Tm:1-3, 6-12): “Stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the laying on of hands.”
Saint Paul was martyred at Rome in the year 67. His second letter to Timothy represents his last will and testament. Paul exhorts the young pastor Timothy “to stir into flame” the gift of God that has been given to him through the “imposition of hands”. The “gift of God” that Timothy received at ordination implies dutiful service to the faith community. The gift received needs to be continually exercised and rekindled for the common good. Timothy is likewise called to an enduring faith. Timothy needs to give witness to our Lord. He must endure sufferings for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God. Saint Paul himself, appointed by God as apostle and teacher, suffers for the sake of the Gospel. But Paul is full of confidence because God is “trustworthy” and is able “to guard what has been entrusted to him until that day”. By the grace of God, the entire content of the Gospel that has been entrusted to the apostolic Church will be preserved until the day of the Lord’s final coming at the end time. Indeed, faith, the greatest force in the world, is the richest deposit possible and the most sacred of trusts.
The following inspiring article illustrates what it means “to stir into flame” the divine gift received through ordination and gives insight into a faithful Gospel witnessing (cf. David Aquije, “The Bicycle Disciple” in Maryknoll, April 2010, p. 24-31). Fr. McCahill manifests his faith and shares this wonderful gift as he serves the sick poor in Bangladesh.
The day Maryknoll Father Robert McCahill arrived in Narail it was raining. The thin, 72-year old priest was physically exhausted and tired of looking for the place where he could begin a new phase of mission. Narail “was kind of miserable”, says the missioner who for more than 35 years has been living in different villages of Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, with a population of 150 million in a land the size of Iowa. Narail, a small, underdeveloped village without infrastructure in the southeast of the country, seemed to the missioner like “a good place to make a mark of Christianity, not for the purpose of conversion but simply for the idea of showing what a Christian is and does.”
McCahill was one of five Maryknoll priests who arrived in Bangladesh in 1975 to begin a ministry of Christian witness. For eight years, the missioners lived together, forming a Christian fraternity in Tangail, near Dhaka, the capital. Afterward, McCahill focused his mission on traveling to the interior of the country to help people, particularly children, who were in urgent need of medical assistance. Finding a place to begin his next stay can take McCahill months of research. He has his own criteria: the place should be poor, have no other foreigners or Christians and some of the people must be willing to allow him free use of a small piece of land where he can build his own shack.
A disciple of our times, McCahill arrives alone – with only a bag with a change of clothing and the essential elements to celebrate his own Mass – in any community where he might live for the next three years. There he sits in any tea shop – “tea stalls” he calls them – where men generally congregate to drink cha, sweet tea with milk that is the national drink, the way coffee is in the United States. Noting the presence of a foreigner, the rustic shop quickly fills up with people and McCahill responds honestly to all their questions. “I am Brother Bob, a Christian missionary”, the priest from Goshen, Indiana, tells them. “I am here to serve seriously sick people who are poor.” In the predominantly Muslim nation with a large Hindu minority, the questions that McCahill receives are many: has he come to convert, how does he finance the help he offers and why had he no family? He responds that the medical help he offers depends completely on the financial donations of his extended family and not on an organization; that his purpose is to live among people who are not Christian and treat them with love, respect and brotherhood; and that his family is all of humanity. McCahill describes the three years that he lives in each town this way: “The first year many are suspicious of me. The second year trust begins to build. The third year people’s affection is felt. They say, ‘He said he only came to do good and that is what he does’.”
In Narail, a short while before finishing his three years, McCahill continues getting up very early in the morning to dedicate time for prayer and meditation before beginning his mission work. This morning in October, he leaves his shack of jute-stick walls, a dirt floor and a corrugated roof and mounts his bicycle that will carry him over windy dirt roads through the beautiful countryside of Bangladesh’s fertile farmland, where ironically millions of people live in extreme poverty. The missioner pedals some miles to the next village of Bolorampur, where he visits Mehenaz, a 3-year-old girl who suffers from cerebral palsy as a result of a poorly handled delivery by a midwife in the village. Mehenaz’ grandmother brings the girl out of her hut and puts a mat on the ground. The missioner squats down in the style of the Bangladeshis and observes and assists the grandmother with the recommended physical therapy for the child. The girl’s mother isn’t there and McCahill is happy that someone else in the family has learned the exercises.
Afterward, amid the songs of wild birds and the smell of burning firewood, McCahill again mounts his bicycle and pedals several more miles to the village of Buramara. In Buramara, McCahill visits Liza, a 2-year-old who suffered serious burns on her left arm before her first birthday. The burns were so grave that her entire hand was fused to her forearm. McCahill was able to take the girl to a hospital in Dhaka where surgeons separated her hand from the forearm. Liza wears a brace so that the hand stays straight. The missioner explains that the child needs another surgery to straighten out two fingers that are bent. Liza cries easily and McCahill thinks it is because she is still in pain, but he tries to console her and make her laugh.
That is McCahill’s ministry. He mounts his bicycle and rides miles to his destination. It doesn’t matter if the roads are full of mud during the monsoon season in this tropical Asian land, east of India, on the Bay of Bengal. He arrives in a village and looks to help people who would otherwise be disabled and burdened for a lifetime by their physical conditions. With a small camera he takes photos of their conditions: cerebral palsy, burns, muscular dystrophy, cleft lips, hernias, tumors and broken bones caused by accidents. Every week he goes to Dhaka, traveling the same as the poor, in the old buses that are part of the complicated and dangerous Bengali transportation system. At a hospital in the capital, McCahill shows the photos to doctors who make their provisional diagnosis. With this information the missioner arranges for free treatment at one of the government hospitals in the city and eventually makes the eight- or nine-hour trip again with the children and their parents. “Not a great expense”, McCahill says. “I afford them their tickets. I usually provide the medicine. It’s not a matter of money; it’s a matter of love, the heart.”
Because he lives in a poor and predominantly Muslim country, McCahill relies on only a modest budget that comes from donations by his extended family for his ministry. “If I had lots of funds at hand to use, and lived apart (in a parish), people’s attitude to me would differ”, he says, adding the people would be tempted to wheedle money out of him. “People here understand I’m using more money for their needs than I use for my own needs. No one can look at my life of service and say ‘he can only do that because he’s a rich American’.” For that reason McCahill shares the donations he receives through Maryknoll with other Christian communities that serve the poor in Bangladesh, especially communities of apostolic Sisters.
His is a life of service that he says began on Oct. 31, 1956. He was 19 years old and was interested in a career in political science. But that day as he was returning home from Seattle University, where he was studying, “I received – I can’t even describe it – an attraction to God like I had never felt before nor have needed since. The motivation I received in that moment was sufficient to keep me for life, as long as I continue to remember it.”
For years, McCahill has described his mission in a journal that he types every month on an antique Olivetti typewriter and shares with friends and family. “My mission”, he says, “is to show the love of Christ, the love of God for all people of all faiths; to be with them as a brother, to establish brotherhood by being a brother to them.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
1. What is our concept of death and dying? Is this concept illumined by faith in the living God, in whom all are alive?
2. Do we keep in mind our ordained ministers and pray for them that the divine gift they have received through the “imposition of hands” may be stirred into flame and keep alive for the good of the Church? Do we put our faith in God and believe that he will be able to guard the faith that he has entrusted to the apostolic Church?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Loving Father,
you are the God of the living, not of the dead.
In Jesus, your Son and our Savior,
we live and move.
We love you and your only begotten Son
for he is the way to eternal life.
We believe that death
is a door to infinite beauty and wondrous glory.
We proclaim in the great assembly
and in our life of service to the poor and needy
that you are indeed the font of life.
May the Risen Christ whom we celebrate in every Eucharist
bring about more and more
our daily resurrection and transformation.
In our work for justice and truth in today’s wounded world,
may we always give glory and praise to the triumph of life.
You live and reign, forever and ever.
Amen.
***
Lord Jesus,
we trust in you.
We pray for the ordained ministers
that they may keep alive the grace they have received
for the good of the Church.
Help us to be faithful to the Gospel.
Let the faith you have entrusted us
be kept alive until the day of your coming.
You live and reign, forever and ever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“He is not God of the dead but of the living.” (Mk 12:27) // “Stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.” (II Tm 1:6)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
Pray for widows/widowers who have lost their partners and are grieving for them. Pray for the grace of a happy death and a deeper experience of trust in Jesus’ almighty Father, the God of the living. Unite the struggles and challenges of your daily life into the great Christian paschal mystery of dying that leads to eternal life. // See in what way you can help the ordained ministers proclaim the Gospel and serve the Christian community faithfully.
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June 6, 2024: THURSDAY – WEEKDAY (9); SAINT NORBERT, Bishop
“JESUS SAVIOR: He Calls Us to Love God and Neighbor … If We Have Died with Him, We Shall Also Live with Him”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Tm 2:8-15 // Mk 12:28-34
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Mk 12:28-34): “There is no commandment greater than these.”
The social ills of our time that cry out for healing challenge us to incarnate the love command presented in today’s Gospel reading: (Mk 12:28-34): “Love the Lord your God with all your heart … Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus Christ’s assertion of the primordial importance of the twofold love-command can be understood in the light of the Old Testament reading (Dt 6:2-6), which underlines the obligation of the people of Israel to love God wholeheartedly. But Jesus imbues the “love of God” command with a new meaning by adding “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, from the Book of Leviticus (19:8).
Harold Buetow explains: “What is new is that Jesus went further: For him there’s an extremely intimate bond between love of neighbor and love of God. In Christian charity, people and God are not merely side by side; they are inseparably one. That idea was new. Another facet of newness was that Jesus gave a completely new interpretation of neighbor. In the time of Leviticus it meant Hebrews only. By the time of Jesus, it included resident aliens as well. For Jesus, the word has the widest meaning possible: It includes every member of the human race: He died for all of us. This was a much greater depth and breadth than ever before imagined.”
The true meaning of love of God and neighbor is crystallized in the very life and person of Jesus, especially in his self-gift and sacrificial love on the cross. Because God, in his Son Jesus has loved us so much, we too are empowered to love. The commandment to love God and neighbor flows from the love that the Lord has for us. In accepting God’s love, it is possible to love God and neighbor in a wholehearted way.
The life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta exemplifies what love of God and neighbor means in our world today (cf. Mother Teresa: Her Essential Wisdom, New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006, p. 20-23). The following thoughts from her are very insightful.
Sometime back, a high government official said, “You are doing social work and we also are doing the same. But we are doing it for something and you are doing it for somebody.” To do our work, we have to be in love with God.
***
Charity begins today. Today somebody is suffering; today somebody is in the street; today somebody is hungry. Our work is for today; yesterday has gone; tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today to make Jesus known, loved, served, fed, clothed, sheltered. Do not wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will not have them if we do not feed them today.
***
I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain.
***
The sisters care for forty-nine thousand lepers. They are among the most unwanted, unloved, and neglected people. The other day one of our sisters was washing a leper covered with sores. A Muslim holy man was present, standing close to her. He said, “All these years I have believed that Jesus Christ is a prophet. Today I believe that Jesus Christ is God since he has been able to give such joy to this sister, so that she can do her work with so much love.
B. First Reading (2Tm 2:8-15): “The word of God is not chained. If we have died with Christ, we shall also live with him.”
The reading (2 Tm 2:8-15) is marked with tenderness and pathos. The passage highlights the intense suffering of Paul for the sake of the Gospel. Because he preaches the Gospel, he is “chained” like a criminal. But he is willing to endure the trial of his imprisonment and all sufferings because he is impelled to proclaim the Gospel. Indeed, though the apostle Paul is “chained”, the word of God is not “chained” and cannot be “chained”. Saint Paul likewise exhorts Timothy to be conformed to Christ’s paschal mystery so as to share his victory. Citing a baptismal hymn, Saint Paul declares: “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him.” Reinforcing the meaning of these statements with his life witness, Paul - the great apostle to the Gentiles - suffers for others: that they may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus and share his eternal glory. In his spirituality and mission, Saint Paul thus crystallizes the truth that participation in the paschal suffering is redemptive. As a great spiritual mentor to Timothy, he advises the young pastor to correctly teach the message of God’s truth, the saving truth that is centered on Christ’s paschal mystery.
The life of Saint Philip Neri gives insight into what it means to share in Christ’s life and to be a true pastor-teacher (cf. Barry Hudock, “500 Years Later, Philip Neri Still a Witness of Joy” in Our Sunday Visitor, July 12, 2015, p. 14-15).
Philip Neri was born on July 22, 1515, in a working class region near Florence, Italy. He grew up there with his father and stepmother (his mother had died when he was very young). At age 18, he moved to the small town of San Germano, where he got to know the Benedictine monks at the nearby Monte Cassino abbey. From them, he developed a profound love of the liturgy, the Bible and the ancient Church Fathers.
By the time Philip moved to Rome a year or so later, he was burning with a desire to introduce others to God and the Scriptures. And Rome needed him. Vices and temptations of all kinds fought for the attention of citizens and visitors alike. Even many of the clergy there were more interested in luxury and worldly concerns than in prayer or pastoral work.
From the start, young Philip led an effective ministry of drawing people to Christ by the power of his own vibrant witness. At the heart of this witness was joy … But Philip’s gregarious demeanor was fueled by a profound spirituality. He lived a life of intense communion with God through prayer. He spent long hours of silent prayer in churches, in the Roman catacombs and in his tiny apartment. “This astonishingly human saint”, the great theologian Louis Bouyer once wrote, “was saturated with the supernatural.” (…)
In 1948, Philip helped found a group of laymen dedicated to serving pilgrims to Rome, and by the Holy Year of 1550, when huge crowds of pilgrims streamed through the city, they were running a hostel serving about 500 people a day. Following the advice of his spiritual director, Philip was ordained a priest in 1551. He began to spend long mornings in church to hear confessions, a practice he continued for decades. In the afternoons, he continued to host meetings of laypeople who gathered to talk, pray and sing together. (…)
By the time he had reached his 70s, still meeting regularly with lay Christians and hearing confessions for long hours, Philip was renowned for his holiness and wisdom. In his final years, laypeople, priests and cardinals came from all over Europe to visit him and seek his guidance. Father Philip died in Rome on May 25, 1595, the feast of Corpus Christi, just before his 80th birthday. He was canonized in 1622.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
1. What is our response to Jesus’ great command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … You shall love your neighbor as yourself”? How do we try to put this twofold command into practice? Are we capable of wholehearted love and service? If not, what do we do to improve our capacity for loving and giving?
2. What do we do to proclaim the saving word of God, knowing that it is not “chained” and that it cannot be “chained”? How do we participate in Christ’s redemptive suffering? Are we deeply imbued with pastoral care for God’s “sheep”?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Lord Jesus,
you loved the Lord your God with all your heart
and loved your neighbor as yourself.
In the Eucharist you are present to us
as the One who loved his own “to the end”.
O Divine Eucharist,
flame of Christ’s love that burns on the altar of the world,
make the Church comforted by you,
even more caring in wiping away the tears of suffering
and in sustaining the efforts of all who yearn for justice and peace.
Let your love triumph,
now and forever.
Amen.
***
Lord Jesus,
we believe that if we have died with you,
we shall also live with you.
You are faithful and true.
Give us the grace to proclaim to your saving Gospel truthfully,
knowing that your Word cannot be “chained”.
Grant us a pastoral heart
to serve your people
and nourish them with the bread of the Word,
the message of truth.
You live and reign, forever and ever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mk 12:30-31) // “If we have died with Christ, we shall also live with him.” (2 Tm 2:11)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
Pray that Jesus’ twofold love-command may truly impact and shape our daily lives. Let the words of Jesus and his Eucharistic sacrifice challenge you to love and embrace the poor and vulnerable in today’s fragmented and wounded world. // Consider giving your family members or friends the gift of a personal Bible.-
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June 7, 2024: FRIDAY – THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS, Year B
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE SANCTIFICATION
OF PRIESTS
“JESUS SAVIOR: From His Pierced Side Flowed
Blood and Water”
BIBLE READINGS
Hos 11:1, 3-4,8c-9 // Eph 3:8-12, 14-19 // Jn 19:31-37
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Jn 19:31-37): “One soldier thrust his lance into his side and immediately blood and water flowed out.
(Gospel Reflection by Sol Tiotuico, ASSOCIATION OF PAULINE COOPERATORS- Friends of the Divine Master, Antipolo Unit, Philippines; Illustrative Story provided by Sr. Mary Margaret, PDDM)
When we meditate on the Gospel of today’s feast of the Sacred Heart (Jn 19:31-37), we see a story of deliverance and penance, redemption and atonement, pardon and freedom, justification and sanctification, and cleansing and expiation. But the greatest story of all is the story of LOVE.
In the busy-ness of their preparation day, there was an urgency to bury the bodies of those dying on the crosses, before the evening when the Passover was to begin, so as not to contaminate the festivities. Pilate ordered that their legs be broken and they be taken down. When the soldier saw that Jesus was already dead, he pierced Jesus' side with a lance to make sure he was indeed dead.
The blood and water that flowed out of the pierced side of Jesus were prophetic signs of the two things that benefit us all: blood for the atonement of our sins and water for our purification - to be worthy again of His love.
From our Redeemer on the cross flowed forth the great LOVE that caused Him to offer up His life for our everlasting and perfect salvation. This great LOVE should put to rest the doubts of some Christians, give them HOPE and inflame their FAITH in the just and forgiving Lord who, from His pierced side, flowed out WATER to cleanse our sins and BLOOD to expiate those very same sins. We are saved, we are sanctified, and we are loved!
Illustrative Story: The following account from “Stories of Eucharistic Miracles”, circulated on the Internet, illustrates the beautiful mission of being a missionary of the loving Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In Valpariso, Chile, at the beginning of the 20th century, Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC., well known as the great Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was a young priest. Fr. Mateo told this story wherever he preached and he found that where people were prepared to earn "three golden coins" with love, many graces were obtained and many conversions followed.
He relates that one day an 8 year old girl told him that Jesus spoke to her every time she received Holy Communion. Father was somewhat skeptical and requested her to ask Jesus to give him proof. The proof Father requested was the sudden conversion of a certain man who was a big sinner, a fallen away Catholic, and enemy of the Church ... and also that this man should come to him for Confession.
About a week later when Fr. Mateo was hearing confessions, the young girl told him that this sinner was coming up to the church. As the priest was leaving the confessional, the fallen away Catholic came into the church and walked over to Fr. Mateo and asked him to help him with his confession. He said that it was the first one since he was baptized. He did not know what came over him that morning but he suddenly understood the necessity of going to confession. Father realized that he had received the proof he requested.
The young girl told the priest that Our Lord revealed to her that He would give the graces to repent and mend his ways to this fallen away Catholic, and also to many other souls. He said, "Always ask Me for souls and I will give them to you, and tell Father Mateo to ask Me for souls. I will give them to him, too, but first you must become My missionary.”
She thought she was too young to be a missionary. Our Lord assured her that He would make her His missionary and that she would have to pay a certain price for souls. "I want you," said Jesus, "to earn three golden coins a day." Our Lord then explained what He meant by golden coins.
- The first golden coin was her prayers to Him for souls.
- The second golden coin was her little sacrifices, especially acts of obedience.
- The third golden coin was a promise: "never to miss Mass or Holy Communion through your own fault and to visit Me often in the Blessed Sacrament.”
B. First Reading (Hos 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9): “My heart is overwhelmed.”
The reading (Hos 11:1-4, 8c-9) is a masterpiece of beauty and grace. It is most fitting for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, font of forgiveness and love. Hosea’s description of God as a doting parent is one of the highpoints of revelation of divine love in the Hebrew Scriptures. Israel can self-destruct by her evil choices, but God is a loving parent. He does not give up on a wayward child. God has cared for his people since he called them out of Egypt and continues to teach them to walk in his ways. God cares for Israel like a mother who tenderly draws her child with love and affection. Israel however is an ungrateful child who needs to be disciplined and brought to his senses. The disobedient people may be subjected to a rigorous divine pedagogy, but God’s basic and ultimate stance is loving mercy: “My heart is overwhelmed … my pity is stirred … I will not give vent to my blazing anger … I will not destroy Israel again … for I am God and not man.”
The following story illustrates a remarkable response to God’s forgiving and unmitigated love (cf. Anne Nolan, “Just When We Think All Is Lost” in Alive! June 2014, p. 6).
On 1st October 1957 Jacques Fesch, the son of a wealthy banker, was guillotined for killing a policeman in Paris. The police officer, aged 35, was a widower with a 4-year-old daughter. But in a strange twist, it’s the murderer who could end up being declared a saint.
Born in April 1930, the son of an atheist father and Catholic mother, Fesch idled his way through school, spent a short time in the army, then in a bank, before adopting a playboy lifestyle, living off his parents’ wealth.
At the age of 21, in a civil ceremony, he married a neighbor’s daughter who was expecting his daughter. Yet he continued to see other women. With one of these he had a son, whom he abandoned to state care. Soon after, he and his wife separated, but remained friends.
At this point he decided to buy a boat, sail off to the South Pacific and begin a new life in the sun. Tired of his antics, however, his parents refused to fund his venture. Fesch then came up with the idea of robbing a currency dealer, Alexander Silberstein. On 25 February he and a friend arrived at the dealer’s office. He pointed a gun at the dealer and demanded the cash from the till. His companion, meanwhile, had fled.
Silberstein tried to reason with him, but Fesch hit him twice across the head with the revolver butt, grabbed a small amount of cash and ran. Outside he tried to calmly mingle with the passers-by, but Silberstein arrived, shouting that he has been robbed.
Chased by the crowd Fesch was cornered. A policeman, Jean Vergne, drew his revolver and ordered him to raise his hands. Instead Fesch pulled out his own gun and shot the officer through the heart and wounded one of his pursuers in the neck. But the crowd overcame him. He knew he would face the guillotine.
Having abandoned his faith when he was 17, he mocked the many efforts to bring God back to his life. “No need to trouble yourself about me”, he told the prison chaplain. But one year after the murder, on the night of 28 February 1955, Fesch experienced a dramatic change of heart.
“I was in bed, eyes open, really suffering for the first time in my life”, he wrote shortly before his death. “Then a cry burst forth from my breast, an appeal for help, ‘My God’, and instantly, like a violent wind which passes over with nobody knowing where it comes from, the spirit of the Lord seized me by the throat. It was a feeling of infinite power and kindness and, from that moment, I believed with an unshakable conviction that never left me.”
The experience changed the remaining two and a half years of his life. He apologized for all the suffering he had caused and led a holy, prayerful life. To a young Benedictine he wrote: “In prison there are two possible ways: You can rebel against your situation, or you can regard yourself as a monk.”
In the journal which he now kept he wrote: “The last day of struggle, at this time tomorrow I shall be in heaven! May I die as the Lord wishes me to die … In five hours I shall see Jesus.”
When his journal and letters were published after his death they created widespread interest in France, touching young people especially. Not everyone, however, wants him to be canonized: “a patron saint for gunmen”, said one newspaper.
But in 1987, Cardinal Lustiger of Paris explained: “Nobody is ever lost in God’s eyes, even when society has condemned him.” He believed that Fesch as a saint would “give great hope to those who see themselves irredeemably lost.”
C. Second Reading: Eph 3:8-12, 14-19: “To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”
The reading (Eph 3:8-12, 14-18) underlines the divine grace received by Saint Paul to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ and to reveal the saving “mystery”, once hidden, but is now made known to Paul and to the apostles and prophet by the activity of the Holy Spirit. Paul is a minister of this “mystery” and an instrument to bring the infinite riches of Christ to all peoples. Like Paul, the Church has a mission in the breaking down of barriers and the coming together of people. In union with Christ and through our faith in him we have the boldness to go into God’s presence with all confidence.
Today’s reading also contains the apostle’s beautiful prayer of adoration and intercession. In a contemplative mood, Saint Paul prays that the faithful may be strengthened inwardly by the Spirit, that Christ dwell in their hearts through faith, that they be rooted in love so that they may have insight into the full extent of Christ’s love that surpasses all understanding. He prays that they may be filled with the fullness of God, who by nature is “love”.
On this feast of the Sacred Heart, we are called to be like Paul in manifesting to the world the infinite riches of God’s love. We need to prove our grateful love. The following story gives insight into how to incarnate the love of God (Anthony De Mello, Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations, New York: Image Books, 1988, p. 160).
It was time for monsoon rains to begin and a very old man was digging holes in his garden. “What are you doing?” his neighbor asked. “Planting mango trees” was the reply.
“Do you expect to eat mangoes from those trees?”
“No. I won’t live long enough for that. But others will. It occurred to me the other day that all my life I have enjoyed mangoes planted by other people. This is my way of showing them my gratitude.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
How does the image of the “blood and water” flowing from the pierced side of Christ impinge on us? What is our personal response to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus and his burning love for us?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
Prayer to the Sacred Heart (by Blessed James Alberione)
Jesus, Divine Master,
I thank and bless your most meek heart,
which led you to give your life for me.
Your blood, your wounds, the scourges, the thorns, the cross,
your bowed head tell my heart:
“No one loves more than he who gives his life for the loved one.”
The Shepherd died to give his life for the sheep.
I too want to spend my life for you.
Grant that you may always, everywhere, and in all things
dispose of me for your greater glory
and that I may always repeat:
“Your will be done.”
Inflame my heart with holy love for you and for souls.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, make me love you more and more.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“One soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” (Jn 19:32)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
By your acts of mercy and compassion to the needy, suffering and grieving persons, let the love of the Sacred Heart console them and give them the strength of salvation.
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June 8, 2024: SATURDAY – THE IMMACULATE HEART OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
“JESUS SAVIOR: A Sword Pierced His Mother’s Heart”… He Awards the Crown of Righteousness”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Tm 4:1-8 // Lk 2:41-51
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS: A Pastoral Tool for the LECTIO
A. Gospel Reading (Lk 2:41-51): “Your father and I have been looking for you.”
When I was in India, I gained an insight into the “sword” that pierced Mary’s heart as indicated in the reading (Lk 2:41-51). I came into contact with the pain and anxiety of a parent who lost a child. The Italian lady, Sarah, and her adopted girl, Saraji, the six-year old daughter of a leper couple, were guests at our convent in Bangalore, India. One afternoon, they went downtown to shop. An hour later a very distraught Sarah came back. Saraji had wandered away and was lost. We prayed in earnest for her return. The deeply anxious Sarah, accompanied by some Sisters, searched for her. They found Saraji at the police station calmly eating an ice cream cone. Sarah was overjoyed to find her again.
The first words of Jesus ever recorded in Luke’s Gospel are full of meaning. To his mother Mary’s legitimate reproach: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety?” the boy Jesus responds: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” With these astonishing words Jesus makes a pronouncement about the meaning of his life and mission. He declares that the heavenly Father’s will is his priority. His life and mission transcend the relationship of his human family. This episode confirms Simeon’s prophecy of a sword piercing Mary’s heart. The bible scholar Carrol Stuhlmueller reflects on this Gospel episode: “Mary finds Jesus at his work; he is not simply her son, but the heavenly Father’s Son, sent on a mission in which she finds him totally involved; at this she sorrows for it means separation.”
B. First Reading (2 Tm 4:1-8): “I am already being poured out and the crown of righteousness awaits me which the Lord will award to me.”
In the reading (2 Tm 4:1-8), Saint Paul confirms Timothy’s task as pastor of the Church entrusted to his care. Invoking the witness of God and of Jesus, the Judge of the living and the dead, the great apostle Paul exhorts Timothy to endure suffering, to do the work of a preacher of the Good News, and to perform his whole duty as a servant od God. Saint Paul then confesses that he has opened himself completely to the grace of God. He has trusted fully in the Lord who stood by him and gave him strength so that the Gospel may be proclaimed to the nations. Indeed, Saint Paul has competed well, has finished the race and has kept the faith. Humbly and trustingly, he awaits the crown of righteousness that the faithful Lord keeps for him. The biblical scholar, Enrique Nardoni remakrs: “The Apostle sees his death as a sacrificial libation of his blood, a departure for the final harbor. He feels the satisfaction of an accomplished mission and an unwavering loyalty to Christ. Therefore he is fully sure of his glorious reward.”
On October 17, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Blessed Andre Bessette, known as the “Miracle Man of Montreal”. Like Saint Paul, Brother Andre exemplifies how “to compete well … to finish the race”. His pastoral life merits “the crown of righteousness” that the Lord, the just judge, awards to those who have kept the faith. The following homily was delivered by Pope John Paul II at the beatification of Brother Andre (cf. A.A.S. 74, 825 f., May 23, 1982).
We venerate in Blessed Brother Andre Bessette a man of prayer and a friend of the poor, a truly astonishing man.
The work of his whole life – his long life of 91 years – was that of “a poor and humble servant”: Pauper, servus humilis, as is written on his tomb. A manual laborer until the age of twenty-five years on the farm, in workshops and factories, he then entered the Brothers of the Holy Cross, who entrusted to him for almost forty years the task of porter in their school in Montreal; and finally for almost thirty years more he was custodian of Saint Joseph’s Oratory near the school.
Where then does his extraordinary influence, his renown among millions of people, come from? A daily crowd of the sick, the afflicted, the poor of all kinds – those who were handicapped or wounded by life – came to him. They found in his presence in the school parlor or at the Oratory a welcome ear, comfort, faith in God, confidence in the intercession of Saint Joseph. In short, they found the way of prayer and the sacraments and, with that, hope and, very often, manifest relief of body and soul. Do not the poor of today have as much need of such love, of such hope, of such education in prayer?
But what was it that gave Brother Andre this ability? It was God who was pleased to give such an ability to attract, such a marvelous power to this simple man who had himself known the misery of being an orphan among twelve brothers and sisters, of being without riches and education, of having poor health, in short, of being deprived of everything except a great confidence in God. It is not surprising that Brother Andre felt himself close to the life of Saint Joseph, that poor and exiled worker who himself was so close to the Savior and whom Canada and especially the Congregation of the Holy Cross have always greatly honored.
Brother Andre had to put up with misunderstanding and mockery because of the success of his apostolate. Yet he remained simple and joyful. Turning to Saint Joseph or in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, he himself prayed long and earnestly, in the name of the sick, doing as he had taught them to do. Is not his faith in the power of prayer one of the most precious signs for the men and women of our time, who are tempted to resolve their problems without recourse to God?
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART: A Pastoral Tool for the MEDITATIO
1. Do we truly appreciate the vital role of Mary in salvation history? Do we treasure her immense love for Jesus and for us? Do we have devotion for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and imitate her loving compassion?
2. Do we proclaim God’s saving word, with persistence, whether it is convenient or inconvenient?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the ORATIO
A Prayer to the Blessed Mother (by Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
Mary, mother of Jesus, be a mother to each of us,
that we, like you, may be pure in heart,
that we, like you, love Jesus;
that we, like you, serve the poorest
for we are all poor.
First let us love our neighbors
and so fulfill God’s desire
that we become carriers of his love and compassion.
Amen.
***
Loving Jesus,
you will judge the living and the dead.
Help us to faithfully proclaim your saving word,
whether convenient or inconvenient.
Give us the grace to keep our faith,
to compete well and to finish the race
so as to merit the crown of righteousness
that you award on that day to your faithful ones.
You live and reign, forever and ever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD: A Pastoral Tool for the CONTEMPLATIO
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the day. Please memorize it.
“His mother kept all these things in her heart.” (Lk 2:51) // “I have kept the faith.” (2 Tm 4:7)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION: A Pastoral Tool for the ACTIO
When you experience some trials and difficulties, present them to Mary and unite them with her most Immaculate Heart for the salvation of souls. // Give moral, spiritual and material support to the ordained ministers in your parish/community.
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Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US