Tag Archives: Bible

Stewardship as a Way of Life

Leave a reply

By Fr. James Price, C.P.

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” Today’s gospel image of the generous widow emphasizes the attitude of biblical stewardship that is not based on surplus but on sacrifice. Most of us live this kind of stewardship. We call our offertory collection a “sacrificial offering.” Biblical stewardship goes far beyond the material because something behind that spirit of giving comes from having values, namely the values of sharing, support, and trust. Sharing is not a programmatic gift. It comes from seeing our parents and grandparents sharing a home, their love, shelter, food, and themselves with us so we could grow into generous human beings. Jesus is not advocating financial irresponsibility; he is asking for the freedom to give out of love, not out of calculation.

The early Church put a great emphasis on the care of widows and orphans. It wasn’t a safety net that gave the widow in today’s gospel the strength to give, it was the church that she knew as a family that cared with compassion for those who were in the greatest need. 

I remember when I was in Jamaica, West Indies, we had a group from a parish in Pennsylvania visiting. We went to see a woman in a very rural area. She told us that some of her crops from her small plot of vegetables were stolen. We spent an hour with her and as we were leaving, she handed us a bag of beans from her garden. The visiting pastor was speechless and immediately protested knowing her garden was depleted because of a theft. But she smiled, “Father, you cannot come to my home and not receive a gift to take back to your home.” He took the beans and was shocked but said, “I just met the widow from the gospel.” He witnessed the living gospel. 

May our eyes be open to those generous hearts who renew our hope in the way God provides and never tires of giving himself to us in his Son whose sacrifice is the ultimate act of generosity.



Fr. James Price currently serves as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Jamaica, NY.  

Citizens of Heaven

2 Replies

It’s good to be reminded in these days following our contentious election on Tuesday that “ our citizenship is in heaven.” Paul tells that to the Philippians in today’s reading, but we should hear it too. 

But our citizenship is in heaven, 
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified Body 
by the power that enables him also 
to bring all things into subjection to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters,
whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, 
in this way stand firm in the Lord, beloved.  

We ‘re citizens of heaven; we belong somewhere else. We’re temporary, not permanent  residents here. In that place “ the Lord Jesus Christ will change our lowly bodies to conform to his glorified Body by the power that enables him also to bring all things  into subjection to himself.” (Philippians 3:17-4:1)

The responsorial psalm today tells us that even now we’re standing within the gates of a heavenly Jerusalem, the destiny of the tribes of the Lord. Our destiny.

St. Augustine wrote “The City of God” as barbarian armies sacked Rome and were invading North Africa. The world is coming to an end, some were saying, and they blamed Christianity for the critical times. But God is at work beyond human time and events, Augustine wrote. 

Go rejoicing to the city of God and the house of the Lord, we hear today. There is something beyond the politics of today at work. 

“Stand firm in the Lord, beloved. “ 

Letter to the Ephesians

1 Reply

It’s so easy to see a world out of control these days, and to believe that nothing can be done. We’re going nowhere. 

The Letter to the Ephesians, read this week at Mass, says that’s not so. It’s written, not just to the  church at Ephesus, but to other churches as well, commentators says. So it’s written to our church too.

A great plan of God is at work from “the foundation of the world,” a plan for the “fulness of time,” a “mystery made known to us” in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We have this “word of truth” this gospel of our salvation, from Jesus himself. The Spirit he promised is the “first installment of our inheritance.”“First installment,” That’s what we working with now, It may not seem like much but it gets us where we’re going.

It promises more than we think or expect. “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of [your] hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, (Ephesians 1)

Every Monday of the four week cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours we read Ephesians 1, 3-10 at evening prayer, a reminder to see the day, however small and confusing it may be, as part of the great unfolding plan of God in Christ, our Lord.

Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
to the holy ones who are in Ephesus
and faithful in Christ Jesus:
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.

In Christ we have redemption by his Blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us
the mystery of his will in accord with his favor
that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.

St. Vincent of Lerins Speaks to the Modern Church

2 Replies

By Gloria M. Chang

As the Synod on Synodality proceeds in Rome, we can all participate as the listening Church, the Bride of Christ, sitting at Jesus’ feet like Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:38). Enveloped in his peace, we can attune our hearts and minds to the Spirit of truth sent to us from the Father by the Son (John 15:26). 

In a world of distracting noise, the Lord invites us to listen to his voice in Sacred Scripture, the Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and personal prayer. Heard in the silence of the Spirit, the ancient words resonating from centuries past speak to the present generation with striking relevance. May the Lord grant us “ears to hear” his voice amid the din of the latest buzz (Matthew 11:14).

In a recent passage from the Office of Readings (October 11, 2024), St. Vincent of Lerins, a fifth-century French monk, seemed to jump out of the pages to address the Synod in Rome during its second week. In his vision, the organism of the Church grows and matures like a child to an adult, but preserves her essential form. Human skeletal structure, facial features, limbs, and organs develop with maturity but do not evolve into another species. The Body of Christ, the Church, in its heavenward journey also grows in the Holy Spirit into the perfect image of the Incarnate Son of God and not a distortion (2 Corinthians 3:18). May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, guide her sons and daughters in the Spirit to her Son, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

From the first instruction by Saint Vincent of Lerins, priest

The development of doctrine

Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.

Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.

The understanding, knowledge and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning and the same import.

The religion of souls should follow the law of development of bodies. Though bodies develop and unfold their component parts with the passing of the years, they always remain what they were. There is a great difference between the flower of childhood and the maturity of age, but those who become old are the very same people who were once young. Though the condition and appearance of one and the same individual may change, it is one and the same nature, one and the same person.

The tiny members of unweaned children and the grown members of young men are still the same members. Men have the same number of limbs as children. Whatever develops at a later age was already present in seminal form; there is nothing new in old age that was not already latent in childhood.

There is no doubt, then, that the legitimate and correct rule of development, the established and wonderful order of growth, is this: in older people the fullness of years always brings to completion those members and forms that the wisdom of the Creator fashioned beforehand in their earlier years.

If, however, the human form were to turn into some shape that did not belong to its own nature, or even if something were added to the sum of its members or subtracted from it, the whole body would necessarily perish or become grotesque or at least be enfeebled. In the same way, the doctrine of the Christian religion should properly follow these laws of development, that is, by becoming firmer over the years, more ample in the course of time, more exalted as it advances in age.

In ancient times our ancestors sowed the good seed in the harvest field of the Church. It would be very wrong and unfitting if we, their descendants, were to reap, not the genuine wheat of truth but the intrusive growth of error.

On the contrary, what is right and fitting is this: there should be no inconsistency between first and last, but we should reap true doctrine from the growth of true teaching, so that when, in the course of time, those first sowings yield an increase it may flourish and be tended in our day also.

Reference

The passage from St. Vincent of Lerins can be found in the Office of Readings for Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time.

Hosea 11: The Bands of Love

Leave a reply

Thus says the LORD: When Israel was a child I loved him,  out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me,Sacrificing to the Baalsand burning incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like onewho raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.

My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again; For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you; I will not let the flames consume you. Hosea 11:1-4,8-9

Today’s reading from Hosea reminds us why we read the Old Testament prophets. In an extraordinary way they capture the image of God in simple human terms, whether it’s the love of man and woman or parents for a child.

“When Israel was a child I loved him.” And God’s love is no abstract love. “I taught him to walk, I took him into my arms. I raised him to my cheeks, I stooped to feed him.”

The prophet describes God’s love through the simple “human cords and bands of love” a parent has in raising a child. How easily we forget those  “bands of love” by which we were brought up. We forget them, and we also forget the myriad ways God has been with us.

We may forget, but God does not forget. God’s love is like a mother and father who cannot forget, the prophet says:

“ My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger,I will not destroy Ephraim again; For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you; I will not let the flames consume you.”

Lonely Prophets: Elijah

1 Reply
Elijah mcarmel
Elijah


The powerful sculpture of the Prophet Elijah with sword in hand stands on Mount Carmel in northern Israel, where he defeated the false prophets of Ahab –today’s reading, (1 Kings 18:20-39) We will be reading about him this week.

I must confess I like better his picture below where Elijah is huddled in his cloak facing death while a raven behind him offers God’s food. He’s a prophet on a lonely journey. Yes, the powerful prophet forbade the rain to fall and raised the dead, but according to the Book of Kings he spent most of his time on the run, hiding in caves and wadis, depending on someone like a poor widow for food and shelter. He had no support from other religious or political leaders. He was a lonely prophet.

The compilers of our lectionary knew what they were doing when they pared his story with the readings from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, also read this week. Some of Jesus’ listeners saw him as Elijah returned. He too had little support from the religious and political leaders of his day.

The Passionist community celebrates today Blessed Lorenzo Salvi, a Passionist priest who lived at the time of the Napoleonic Suppression of the church in 18th century Europe, when most of the religious communities in Italy where disbanded and their places taken over by the government. Lorenzo took part in rebuilding the church in Rome by his constant preaching. I think of him as a lonely prophet and I also see him as an example for the Passionists today. We have a role in rebuilding our church. You can read the story of Lorenzo Salvi here.

Elijah, the lonely prophet, makes me also think of a man who visited us from China about 40 years ago. He had been a seminarian in our seminary in China in the late 1940’s when the communists came to power and began the Cultural Revolution. John was sent for three years to a hard labor camp for “reeducation” because he was a Christian. But when they learned he knew English, government officials made him an English teacher in a Chinese high school.

I asked John what he taught. English literature, he told me. He taught Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth” because the Chinese loved Pearl Buck. He also taught bible stories, particularly the Old Testament stories about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and Elijah confronting the evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel.

Bible stories I asked? Didn’t the officials question him? You can’t understand English literature without knowing the stories of the bible, he told them.

Whenever I hear the story of the lonely prophet Elijah in a country completely controlled by a powerful regime, yet still faithfully proclaiming the truth, I think of John. I also think of Lorenzo Salvi. Our society, held strongly now in the grip of a deaf secularism, needs lonely prophets to speak.

Earth Day: God So Loved the World

Leave a reply

Today is Earth Day. As Christians we see the earth through eyes of faith. The earth is God’s creation

God created and cares for more than the human family. You are the “hope of all the earth and of far distant isles”, Psalm 65 says. “You uphold the mountains with your strength, you still the roaring of the seas…The ends of the earth stand in awe at the sight of your wonders. The lands of sunrise and sunset you fill with your joy.

“You care for the earth, give it water, you fill it with riches. Your river in heaven brims over to provide its grain. And thus you provide for the earth; you drench its furrows; you level it, soften it with showers; you bless its growth. You crown the year with your goodness. Abundance flows in your steps, in the pastures of the wilderness it flows. The hills are girded with joy, the meadows covered with flocks, the valleys are decked with wheat. They shout for joy, yes they sing.” (Psalm 65, Tuesday. Morning Prayer, week 2)

Along with the human family, the earth praises God, its creator,. The natural world, as a vital part of God’s creation, shouts for joy and sings. There’s even surprise in the psalms that God, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, could have a special care for the human family. “When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?”  ( Psalm 8, Saturday Morning, week 2, 4 )

The view of God’s close engagement with the natural world proclaimed by the psalms and the scriptures fell into disfavor when science became the primary way of looking at the natural world with the age of the Enlightenment. Science became our guide and the human world became the center that controls everything. God’s engagement with the natural world and the human world came into question. The scriptural accounts were just poetry.

But poetry can also be true.  

As we hear the Risen Jesus in the Easter season using the great images of bread from heaven, the shepherd, the vine, we shouldn’t miss their cosmic import. Images point out many things. Certainly “bread from heaven” points to the sacrament of the Eucharist; the shepherd and vine point to the life of the church and the intimacy we enjoy as branches grafted into the vine that is Jesus Christ.

But let’s not forget God’s rule over the whole world. We know so much more about it now. We also know how endangered it has become because of human neglect. More than ever, we need to acknowledge its dignity before God, who still covers the meadows with flocks, “the valleys are decked with wheat.” The natural world shouts for joy and sings during the Easter season. Its Shepherd guides it; it receives daily bread.  It shares in the promise of the Risen Christ.  

Does God Care About Politics?

3 Replies
Story of David. Morgan Library, NY

Watching the fierce wars and political fights in our confused world today we ask if God cares about it all? Does he keep out of it and want us to keep out of it too? Our reading from the Book of Samuel these days tells us God is involved in what happens here and now more than we realize.

“Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way,” God says to Samuel, “I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons.” Samuel goes through all of Jesse’s sons, but none fit the bill. “Not him, not him, not him,” God says as one after another are brought to Samuel. “Are these all the sons you have?” Samuel asks.

Jesse replied, “There is still the youngest, who is tending the sheep.” “Send for him,” Samuel says, “we will not begin the sacrificial banquet until he arrives here.” So David is brought to them, ” ruddy, a youth handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance.”

The LORD said, “There–anoint him, for this is he!”

Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anoints him in the midst of his brothers;   ‘and from that day on, the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.” (I Samuel 16,1-13)

“Anoint him, there he is,” God says. The prophet pours the horn of olive oil on David. What does the oil signify? A power not his own, a power that is God’s grace, to lead his people. The grace of God is needed to lead.

We can’t block out the world we live in. The messy, uncertain, brutal, sometimes going nowhere world we read about in the Book of Samuel reminds us that God never abandons the world as it is. It’s not Saul’s world or David’s world; It’s God’s world and God’s plan.

Hard to see in the constant blast of news and political commentaries we get from the media. We think like humans do.We can throw up our hands and turn it all off, but this is our world to understand and care for and pray for.

We’re told to pray for our world, our leaders and ourselves that we may receive God’s wisdom and grace to see and hear God here and now

Almighty and eternal God,
you have revealed your glory to all nations.
God of power and might, wisdom and justice,
through you authority is rightly administered,
laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.

Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude
the President of these United States,
that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be useful to your people over whom he presides.

May he encourage due respect for virtue and religion.
May he execute the laws with justice and mercy.
May he seek to restrain crime, vice, and immorality.

Let the light of your divine wisdom
direct the deliberations of Congress,
and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed
for our rule and government.
May they seek to preserve peace, promote national happiness, and continue to bring us the blessings of liberty and equality.

We pray for the governor of this state 

for the members of the legislature,
for judges, elected civil officials,
and all others who are entrusted to guard our political welfare.
By your powerful protection, may they discharge their duties with honesty and ability.

We likewise commend to your unbounded mercy
all citizens of the United States,
that we be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your holy law.

May we be united in that peace which the world cannot give and, after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

We pray to you, who are Lord and God,
for ever and ever. Amen.

(Adapted from a prayer for the inauguration of George Washington by Archbishop John Carroll, first Catholic bishop in the United States)

The Genealogy of Jesus

Leave a reply

Advent began two weeks ago with Isaiah’s promise that all nations, along with his chosen people in exile, would hear God’s call to dwell in peace on God’s holy mountain. On December 17 our liturgy turns to Matthew’s gospel and the account of the genealogy of Jesus, “son of David, son of Abraham.” Matthew’s gospel traces his ancestry back to his Jewish beginnings. ( Matthew 1,1-17)

Whenever we read this gospel, filled with so many hard to pronounce names I am reminded of my mother.  She had a remarkable memory for relationships, whether her own family relations or others. Honestly, I often tuned out as she probed with delight family trees. After she died I realized I had lost my connection with countless relatives and people she had firmly in mind.  She would have appreciated the genealogy above.

This is not a superfluous project the evangelists are engaged in. They’re intent on describing the Incarnation of Jesus. He wasn’t isolated from humanity, above it all, but  he was part of the human family. And his family tree was not an army of saints; sinners are there for sure.

We will hear from some of his saintly forbears in the next few days, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and Zachariah. But let’s not forget the others.They are his family too. He loved them all.

In our family tree above Mary points to Joseph. Like her his ancestry goes back to David and Abraham. Appearing to him in a dream the angel says “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.”

Lectio Divina, Sacred Reading

2 Replies

Simon Rubens
Recently, a priest in my community, Father Theophane Cooney, CP, gave me this short instruction on prayerfully reading the scriptures. The latin term for it is “lectio divina,” sacred reading. Something good should be shared. Here it is:

What is Lectio Divina (Sacred Reading)?

It is a spiritual, rather than academic, reading of the Bible. It enables the reader to get to know Jesus in a more personal way, through reading, above all through listening.

It is to experience a personal meeting of an intimate kind with the God who loves you and comes to meet you in the sacred reading. You should not feel obliged to read a complete passage, you are there to listen. God can say an awful lot in a few words.

Avoid opening the gospel at random: choose rather the gospel of the previous Sunday, or the coming Sunday.

Preparation

Time: set aside 10 or 15 minutes when you will be free from interruptions.
Place: somewhere free of interruptions, no telephone, no television, no computer.

1. Take some moments to calm down.
2. Invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Pray to be enlightened with an inspiration that may inspire your life.
3. Read calmly, very slowly, the biblical text. Read it again. Take the time to listen to the Lord and the message he wishes to share with you from this reading. Don’t expect blinding revelations. God is teaching you to listen and seek him in silence.
4. Meditate: ask yourself–“What does this word of God, which I have read carefully say to me.”
5. Pray. Speak to the Lord who has spoken to you in the text you have reflected on. Let your attitude be that of the Virgin Mary: “Be it done onto me according to your word.”
6. Contemplate in silence. Remain fascinated and impressed as you calmly allow the word of God to inspire you as though it were the heat of the sun.
7. Act. Make a commitment that springs from this encounter with the Lord. Inspired and filled with the word of God you return to daily life with a renewed attitude.

If you are faithful to this practice, your life will begin to change. The word of God will lead you to a change of attitudes, values and feelings. Love the word of God. Study it and allow it to form your personality.

(Fr. Theophane Cooney, CP)