Tag Archives: Passionists

Now and at the Hour of our Death

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In the Hail Mary we ask Mary to pray for us sinners, “now and at the hour of our death.” These are the two most important moments in life. We have the past and the future, for sure, but they’re far less important than now and the hour of our death.

“Now” is the time we live in, the present moment. Whether it’s a time of joy or sorrow, a time of satisfaction or disappointment, a time of sickness or health, it’s the time we have to love, to give, to endure, to act, to live.

“The hour of death” is God’s time, when God brings us from this life to the next. It may be instantaneous or prolonged, but it’s the time when God who gave us life takes this life away.

Both of those moments benefit from faith. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was a believer who trusted in the power and presence of God through these same moments of life. They’re challenging moments.

After the angel left Mary in Nazareth, no other angel came; she walked by faith from the Child’s birth to the death and resurrection of her Son. As we face the mysteries of life, we ask her in our weakness to be with us as a believer and a mother, who knows the goodness and power of God as it is revealed in Jesus Christ her Son.

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Faith, a Ticket to Success? Jeremiah 26:1-9

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You can’t listen to the story of the Prophet Jeremiah, our first reading these days,  without thinking about the passion of Jesus.  In fact, readings from the Book of Jeremiah are common readings for Holy Week. We see Jesus in Jeremiah.

God tells Jeremiah to “hold nothing back,” but speak the truth to those in power and the false prophets of the day, no matter how unpopular it is.  Jesus did the same.

Like Jeremiah, Jesus was innocent, but was framed by the powerful as guilty. They questioned his authority, but he would not deny his mission.

Only a few voices seem to stand up for Jeremiah and only a few stood up for Jesus. Neither had many faithful followers at their time of trial. Yet both were carried along by God’s power and their names vindicated.

Jeremiah, like Jesus and  John the Baptist who suffered a lonely death at the hands of Herod Antipas belonged to a brave company.

Some would have us see our faith as a ticket to success, an inoculation against failure or suffering.  Believe and nothing bad will happen to you. Yet, as you look at Jesus, the prophets and the saints, you see a more realistic profile of faith. We’re promised victory, yes, but only by accepting the mystery of the cross.

Keep an eye on Jeremiah and John. Keep an eye on the passion of Jesus. Follow them.

Don’t Look Down on Yourself?

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July 30th is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, a bishop of Ravenna in Italy, who died around 450 AD. The prayer for his feast describes him as “an outstanding preacher of your Incarnate Word.”  You can see why in this excerpt from one of his sermons:

“Why do you look down on yourself who are so precious to God? Why think so little of yourself when you are so honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created, and don’t want to know why you were made?

“This entire visible universe is yours to dwell in.  It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for you the night was regulated and the day was measured: for you the heavens were brightened with the brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, trees and fruit; lovely living things were created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest you lose the joy of God’s creation in sad loneliness.

“And the Creator is still devising things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative.

“Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in men and women, to be revealed in them as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he was in symbol.”

Seed on Tough Ground: Matthew 13:1-9

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Teaching by the Sea. James Tissot

“A sower went out to sow. some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots.Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.” ( Matthew 13:1-9)

Jesus tells the crowd at the lakeside the parable of the sower after the Pharisees, the towns where he taught and worked wonders and his own family from Nazareth oppose him. (Matthew 11-12) Previously, Jesus sent his own disciples out to proclaim his life-giving message but he tells them:   “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 10:

When they proclaimed his message to the lost sheep of Israel the seed fell on tough ground. They found the same opposition that Jesus did, more than they expected. .

Our reading today is an example of how an evangelist like Matthew used what Jesus experienced as an example for the church of his time. Matthew’s gospel was written around 90 AD with an eye on the religious conditions then in Galilee. The area had changed since the time of Jesus. After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, many Jews influenced by the Pharisees moved into Galilee seeking to rebuild Judaism. They strongly opposed the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

Matthew’s gospel reflects the increasing tension between Christians and Jews in his day. The parable Jesus originally taught throws light on this new situation. The ground is hard, rocky, with little soil. Still, the seed must be sown, however it’s received. Don’t give up on the tough ground, don’t judge it hopeless, Matthew’s gospel insists: Some seed falls on good ground.

A lesson for us today? Seems so. The soil was unwelcoming then, Matthew’s gospel says. Our soil seems unwelcoming now… Still!

A Harvest Nearby: Matthew 9:38

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In our readings this 14th week of the year from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls for laborers for a harvest: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” He gathers twelve disciples following that call. When we think of laborers in the vineyard we think of priests and religious. They are certainly needed for the harvest in our own church.

But they’re not the only laborers needed for God’s great harvest. What about laborers for places where priests or religious will never be? And what about the harvest itself, where does that happen?

I’m sure at one time or another you have overheard people at a restaurant or on a bus or at some gathering discussing religion. “What do you think of the pope?” “Do you think there’s life after death?” “Do you think Jesus is really God?” Often the questions go unanswered or wrongly answered because there’s no laborer there to speak the truth.

The harvest is waiting in a lot of places..

Jesus spoke about the laborers for the harvest as he moved from town to town in Galilee and saw  “troubled and abandoned” crowds, Matthew’s gospel says. We need to ask for laborers among crowds like those of today. Maybe we need to recognize there’s a harvest not far from where we are, “troubled and abandoned,” at a table nearby.

Hosea: “I will allure her.”

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Hosea and Gomer , from the Bible Historiale, Wikipedia Commons

Commentators say the Book of Hosea, the 8th century Jewish prophet we’re reading at Mass in the 14th week of the year, is one of the most difficult books of the bible to understand. Its language and its references are often obscure. But one part of Hosea’s story you can recognize in any television soap opera or romantic novel today: It’s a story of marital infidelity, a broken marriage.

Hosea had trouble with his wife, whose name is Gomer. He was very much in love with her; they married and had some children. But Gomer’s not satisfied with Hosea and her family and she leaves them. She wants something else– romance, freedom, new things to see and to do, a new life. Who knows what?

So Hosea is heartbroken and crushed when she leaves him. He doesn’t understand why it’s happened, he’s bewildered and angry and feeling rejected.

Yet he still loves her and tries to win her back. He wants to renew the love they had for each other. Eventually, Gomer comes back, but we’re not really sure if she will stay. What we do know is that Hosea wants to have her back and have their love renewed.

Hosea’s story is an example of God’s relationship to humanity. God loves the world and its people. Yet, we can be unfaithful.  But God’s relationship is like the marital relationship, or as we also see in the Book of Hosea, the relationship of a father or mother to their children. God always wants us back.

You can hear the yearning of Hosea for his wife and the love of God for his people in Monday’s  reading:

Thus says the LORD:

I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.

On that day, says the LORD,
She shall call me “My husband,”
and never again “My baal.”

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.

(Hosea 2:6, 17-18,21-22)

Hosea is a wonderful prophet paired with Jesus’ call for preachers for the harvest, which also read from Matthew’s Gospel this week. God always wants us back.

Voice of the Faithful

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Apollos is mentioned  in Saturday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (18,23-28).   He reminds us that Peter, Paul and the other apostles were not the only teachers in the early church. Others brought the message of Christ to the cities and towns of the Roman Empire. Apollos was one of them.

He’s an eloquent, learned teacher who came to Ephesus from Alexandria, one of the great centers of Jewish and Christian learning, and he drew a following by preaching about Jesus. But Apollos doesn’t know everything, so a Jewish couple, Priscilla and Acquila, “took him aside and explained to him the Way of God more accurately.”

They were disciples of Paul who supported him with a job in their tent business. They traveled with Paul and certainly listened to his teaching, but I don’t think they were ever considered teachers as he and Apollos were. They were considered “hearers of the word,” more likely. Well informed, for sure, but still among those we would call today “the faithful.”

Yet, let’s not forget what important teachers “the faithful” are, as Priscilla and Aquila remind us.

I remember a story a brilliant priest told me long ago about a baptism he was conducting for an infant born to a member of his family. His father was the baby’s sponsor and according to the rite then was expected to recite the Creed.

“Can you say the Creed, Dad?” the priest said to his father.

“Who do you think taught it to you?,” the father sharply replied.

Faith can’t survive in this world without the faithful, ordinary Priscillas and Aquilas explaining it and  passing it on. It begins with parents, godparents and family passing on the faith to children. It continues in daily life as ordinary Christians share their faith with others. The church today needs to strongly acknowledge this key mission of the laity.

Pope Francis is urging the laity to speak out in his call for a synodal church.

Reinterpreting Life

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Reinterpreting life is at the heart of the Easter mystery. It calls us to see life differently. Like the artist who reinterpreted the Cross on Calvary and made it the glorious sign we see above, we’re called to reinterpret the Calvary of our world today. Listen to the 4th century Saint Ephrem the Syrian:

Glory be to you, Lord,
You raised your cross like a bridge to span the jaws of death, that we might go from the land of death to the land of the living.
Glory be to you, Lord,
You took on a human body that every human being might live.

You are alive. Those who killed you sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, and it sprang up and brought forth an abundant harvest of human beings from the dead.

Come, brothers and sisters, let’s offer our love. Pour out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered himself on the cross to enrich us all.”

Reinterpreting life through the mystery of the Cross is at the heart of the charism of my community, the Passionists. In our Mary Garden here at the monastery, Mary stands with her Son on the stump of a cedar tree. A dead tree, yet brought to life by the presence of Jesus carried in Mary’s arms.

The Cross of Jesus helps us see life in our world, a “Faithful Cross” it’s called in an ancient hymn. And it is.

There is so much death in our world today. We need to reinterpret our time by the light of the mystery of the Cross of Jesus.

Life Comes from His Wounds

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The Passionists celebrate the Feast of the Glorious Wounds of Jesus on Friday of the second week of Easter. The four gospels tell the great story of the passion of Jesus, each in its own way. More than the others, John’s gospel focuses on his wounds, unlikely signs revealing the mystery of the Word made flesh.

On Calvary  a small symbolic group stands beneath the cross of “the King of the Jews”– Mary, the mother of Jesus, the disciple whom he loved, and a few others. A gentile soldier joins them.

This group represents the “new Jerusalem,” “the inhabitants of Jerusalem who look on the one whom they have pierced…and mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child.” (Zechariah 11, 10 )

They receive a precious gift. “It is finished!” Jesus declares, and bowing his head, he pours out his spirit on them. A Roman soldier thrusts a spear into Jesus’ side. “Immediately blood and water flowed out.” (John 19, 34)

Blood, a sign of his life, flows on those standing beneath his cross. Water, signifying the Spirit within him, is poured out on the world they represent. Far from ending his life, his death is the moment Jesus shares his life.“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.” (I John 5,6)

Artists afterwards picture the wounds of Christ as cosmic signs. They place the grave of Adam beneath the cross — generations wait for the new life Jesus brings. Creation, symbolized by the sun and moon, looks on expectantly, for Calvary is where creation too is redeemed. Angels collect the blood and water from Jesus’ wounds in cups representing the mystery of the Eucharist. All days are found in this one day. On Calvary, the glory of the Lord is revealed in his wounds.

St. Paul of the Cross in his letters often wished the one to whom he’s writing to be placed in the “wounds of Christ” or the “holy Side of Jesus” or his “Sacred Heart.”  “I am in a hurry and leave you in the holy Side of Jesus, where I ask rich blessings for you.”

These expressions may seem pious phrases until we read the story of Thomas from John’s gospel. Jesus shows the doubting disciple the wounds in his hands and side, and Thomas believes.

Belief is not something we come to by ourselves. God gives this gift through Jesus Christ. We all stand beneath the life-giving Cross of Jesus. May his life give new hope to us and our world.

Rembrandt and the Woman at the Well

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Samaritan woman
Though he’s known best for his portrayal of the Dutch world of his time, Rembrandt was very interested in stories from the Bible, both from the Old and New Testament. Possibly one third of his work is devoted to biblical subjects, about 700 drawings among them.

What led him to paint and draw biblical events? It wasn’t mainly a patron’s commission, as was the case of his contemporaries– Rubens, for instance. Rembrandt seems genuinely attracted to the bible and felt compelled to draw from the biblical narrative, not because he could make money on it, but because it spoke to him and his situation in life.

“Rembrandt’s relation to the biblical narrative was so intense that he repeatedly felt impelled to depict what he read there. These sketches of Rembrandt have the quality of a diary. It is as though he made marginal notes to himself…The drawings are testimonies, self-revelations of Rembrandt the Christian.” (Rembrandt’s Drawings and Etchings for the Bible. p. 6)

It seems this interest in the bible came, in part, from his mother, a devout woman, who had a Catholic prayerbook that featured the Sunday gospels with illustrations on facing pages. As she prayed from this book, did she show them to her little boy growing up?

His portrayal of scriptural stories are so insightful. Just look at his portrayal of Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman, which is found in John’s gospel. Jesus deferentially asks for a drink of water, bowing to the woman as he points to the well. And she stands in charge, her hands firmly atop her bucket. She’s a Samaritan and a woman, after all. He wont get the water until she says so. Jesus looks tired, bent over by the weariness of a day’s long journey.

Certainly, this is no quick study of a gospel story. Obviously, Rembrandt has thought about the Word who made our universe and humbled himself to redeem us. Perhaps he’s also thinking of the way Catholics and Protestants at the time were clashing among themselves, their picture of Jesus a strong, vigorous warrior. But here he stands humbly outside a little Dutch village that the artist’s contemporaries might recognize. Some of them may be pictured looking on at the two.
Artists have a powerful role in relating truth and beauty.
And what about Rembrandt’s mother? A 19th century French Sulpician priest, Felix Dupanloup, who had a lot to do with early American Catholic catechetical theory said to parents:
“Till you have brought your children to pray as they should, you have done nothing.”
Looks like she did her job.