Sometimes I got bogged down in the stories of the Old Testament. It often seems to be same story told over and over and over again:
“God speaks through the prophet, the people repent, God promises to reign prosperity upon the people forever if they remain faithful to him, the people do good for a while, then they turn their backs on God, God get’s angry and promises them only tragedy until they repent, they don’t, Israel get’s plundered, God speaks through the prophet, the people repent. And the cycle starts over.
The easy assumption to make is that God is vengeful and punishes us when we do wrong.
But I think the message is much more profound than that. We need to remmeber that as many times as the Israelites got it wrong, God forgave them and let them try to make it right again. In the dark times, I wonder, was God really saying “You’ve done wrong and now you have to suffer!” so much as he was saying “Come back! Come back! You’ve wandered away from me and I can’t help you unless you come back to me!
In our lives we experience Spiritual Highs and Spiritual Lows. At times we feel very close to God, but at others we seem to have fallen away and God appears to be very distant. Perhaps, at those times, we’ve lost track of what it really important, we’ve taken our trust from God and placed in the hands of something, or someone else. Then things start to go wrong. We feel like God is punishing us.
He isn’t.
We have simply wandered away and he can’t help us unless we come back. We learn of our total dependence upon God. At these times, through all the muck, we hopefully hear God saying “Trust Me, look HERE, come back, and we’ll get through this together.
As many times as we screw it up, God will call us back and forgive us. And through his Grace, we may just get it right for once.
One way that I was taught to pray with scripture was to imagine myself in the story and find a character or group with whom I could identify.
In today’s two readings, there are two central characters cast in the roles of good and bad: Solomon, who behaves as the protagonist in the first reading; and the Pharisees and scribes, cast as the antagonists in Mark’s Gospel.
Of course, we easily can see that if the Pharisees and scribes were only open to Jesus’ teachings, all would be well!
While we would like to align ourselves with Solomon, it should not be too much of a stretch to imagine that, at some point in their lives, the Pharisees and scribes were also like Solomon—one of the “good guys.” After all, as leaders of a worship community, they must have earned that honor somehow.
So what happened to them? How did they lose focus in living the true nature of their faith in favor of practicing rote traditions? When did following established customs become more important than an openness to discerning new insights? When did a single interpretation of expressing faith become “baptized” as the one, correct and absolute standard by which others are judged?
How ironic is it that these questions are posed by the one person in community who has been described as “someone whose schedule you can set your clocks by.” I have to admit that I prefer to have my schedule set a specific way to provide structure and perceived sense of efficiency in my life.
After all, having a set way of doing things helps me to settle, feel efficient and become comfortable. It’s efficient and works—why try a different way?
Although this attitude isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this mindset offers little room for flexibility, openness to variety and new ideas. My years in formation and spiritual direction have taught me to try and temper my strict adherence to established ways with a disposition of openness; in other words, while diligence and efficiency are great, don’t be closed to discerning the variety of other ways that God can be active in life…and I’ll honestly admit, that is the one area that I’ve struggled with and will have to continue working on over the years.
So, when Jesus points out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes, I easily can imagine that Jesus reminds me that, sometimes, my own personal actions do not match with the words that I speak.
Fortunately, the “basics” our lives as Marianist religious offer us many ways to grow in that area: centeredness in prayer; listening to God’s response as spoken through the voices of others, particularly our brothers in community; understanding how God is working through our strengths and weaknesses; and how our shared life calls us to be accountable to one another in being faithful to our vocation.
Brothers, we are given the gift of another new day and opportunity to live those values and put them into action as concrete expressions of our faith. Let us strive to make the words we speak in chapel match up with our lived actions so that we continue to grow personally and spiritually, and as community.
May the eucharist that we receive this morning renew our commitment to the vocation that we are called to live as Marianists.
February 2nd is a date that holds significant meaning for many throughout history. Despite the rich diversity of stories and events associated with this day, they all have one thing in common. Let’s see if you can figure what that is.
Imagine what it must be like for a young, teenaged girl to have her whole world turned upside down in the past year with the following experiences: being visited by a ghost who predicted many extraordinary things that are starting to come true; gotten pregnant out of wedlock knowing that is punishable by stoning; almost got dumped by her fiancee; finally got married while keeping the pregnancy secret to the public; setting out on a difficult road trip while about to give birth; finally having the child in a stink, smelly barn; having stranger visiting you and wanting to see your child—although some did bring wonderful gifts, which isn’t all that bad!; having to get up and move out of harms way; and now bringing this child to the temple, only to be told by an old man that more challenges await.
What keeps Mary going? What keeps her faithful? True, she has the big advantage of being born without sin, but what about Joseph? Imagine what he must be going through watching this unfold.
Perhaps there are enough lights of hope through all these difficulties—the visitation of the angel; the brightest star guiding the way; the affirmation of three kings and now these wisdom figures at the temple.
Fast forward several hundred years to the middle ages and another scene related to this date. We are now in eastern Europe. It is the dead of winter. Dark and stormy. No lights or electricity. At Church, beeswax candles are blessed and sent home and placed in the windows to ward off the storm and light up the home throughout the year. After all, it’s the feast known as Candlemas. Notice, once again, the symbol of light as protection, faith and hope.
Jump a few hundred years to 1801 in Bordeaux, France. A little French priest named William Joseph witnesses the commitment of a dozen lay people to the vision of Church as given to him by the Blessed Mother just a few years ago while on exile in Saragossa, Spain.
Although province directories and liturgy guides were yet to be invented, I imagine that light and candles were involved, somehow, as they professed their commitments to the Marianist way of life. Imagine what Chaminade must have felt as the candles were lit on this day—when only four years ago, he was banished from his own country on account of his faith.
We move a few years later, mid-1800s, into the new world, across the Atlantic ocean, to the United States. It is a cold, dark morning in the northeast. You awaken, wondering to yourself how much longer this cold, dark weather will last. You vaguely hear voices outside calling your name. As you rouse yourself out of bed, you see a faint glow of light. Excitedly, you run outside to see it is finally, a sunny day. All of a sudden, you see your shadow and run back inside your house. Unfortunately, there will be no early spring this year! You are Punxsutawney Phil, and the light of the sun is an important part of your life.
Finally, we move about 200 more years into the future, to south-central Texas—San Antonio, to be exact. We are gathered here at Mass in Casa Maria. The candle with the Marianist logo is lit, and it says, “The Marianist Flame: Pass it on.”
We are given the gift of a new day and another opportunity to be messengers of light. Fueled by the eucharist we are about to receive, let us pray that we use this day to honor the spirit of our founder’s vision by being and bringing Christ, the light of the world, to others.
This first verse begins to describe the story of King David who was had an intimate relation with God and from his childhood was a talented musician. Pleasing the Lord could refer both to King Saul and literally the Lord.
David was blessed by God. After the mourning of Saul and winning the civil war, God promised David four things:
That he would have a son to rule after him
That his son would build the temple
That the throne that occupied his lineage would be established forever
And that God would never take His mercy from David’s house.
David truly wanted to follow God and was in turn blessed by God. But, we see in the first reading today that anyone can fall, even someone as blessed as him.
The second verse describes today’s reading of David and Bathsheba.
This story about David can be told in three simple sentences.
Walking on the roof of his house he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. He sent and inquired about her. And then he took. In those three sentences you have a pretty good description of the processes of temptation. Any temptation in your life and mine could follow this pattern. It starts first with desire stirred in us simply because of human nature. There is nothing wrong with this but the desire is there, and it must be dealt with when it arises.
It can be dealt with properly at that point or it could be formed into something else. David saw the beautiful woman, desired her and then started to work out a way that he could take her. He sent and inquired about her. Then David, the one blessed by God, finds himself committing adultery. This weakened his relationship with God as we hear described in the song as the “broken throne.”
When it was accomplished, he refused to face the music, like so many of us try to do. Instead of openly confessing and acknowledging what he did wrong, and trying to make it right, he committed another sin to cover up. This is always the process of sin. If you commit one sin, you commit another to cover that one up, and then more to cover up the second one. And so on and so on as we later find David eventually responsible for murder. David’s sin with Bathsheba shows us how anyone can fall to temptation.
In a verse from Corinthians we read, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.” David’s sin with Bathsheba should be a warning to us that we need to be careful to not let our pride take over our spritual maturity and ability to withstand temptation in our own strength.
So, in preparing for today, as is my tendency, I focused completely on the Gospel first. Thoughts of middle school when I started my Catholic education were brought back. At that time we used this parable to describe something like love and goodness, and all the other fluffy stuff.
So, the other day when I shared the Gospel with a co-worker, I was totally confused with her take on it. She brought a different view on it that, at first, given the Gospel alone, made no sense.
She said, “Well, we’re planting seeds all the time. It’s the seeds you plant early in your life that will affect you later. In our younger years, we are trying to find who we are and that’s when we pant a lot of seeds. Sometimes we plant good seeds that turn into something beautiful and sometimes we plant seeds that come back to bite us. We don’t usually realize what we planted until were older.”
In my head, I was like, “What are you talking about?” I thought that she was totally off-base and that what she was saying was great; but, as far as an interpretation to the Gospel, she was really far from it. Now again at the time I hadn’t even looked at the first reading about David and Bathsheba, but later on in the day when I did, her words actually made some sense.
Tying the Gospel to the reading, I wonder what kinds of seeds David planted. Before he became king of Israel and Judah, what were those seeds that grew to eventually lead him to all of his triumphs. Also, what were those seeds that grew to eventually lead him to adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, and all of the other troubles we find in the second half of the second book of Samuel.
This could be something we could think about today. What are those tiny seeds that we are planting? Are these seeds, when fully grown, be ones that we will be thankful for or ones that will come back to bite us. What kinds of seeds will we plant today?
When celebrating Mass on the day when the lives of saints are commemorated, the Church, in all her wisdom, strives to incorporate the best of all worlds—and today is a perfect example.
Today is the feast of Sts. Timothy and Titus which adds a number of options to choose from when selecting scriptures for Mass. As suggested in Living with Christ, today’s readings are drawn from the 3rd Tuesday in Ordinary Time as well as the Saint’s feast.
As expected when such an event happens, a unique combination of scripture results. For those who prepare daily reflections, this presents an interesting challenge that compels one to discover the hidden wisdom that we can reflect on and apply to our daily lives.
So, here’s one possible perspective…
In the first reading, Paul affirms Timothy’s faith as passed to him by his grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice. The other option for today’s first reading—Paul’s letter to Titus—includes the phrase, “Titus, my true child in our common faith.”
In the Gospel, Jesus states that those who do the will of God and are his family—mother, brother and sister.
Perhaps this combination of scripture reveals a theme about who we are and how our actions define that identity.
Not only do we take on the name of Christians, we also are Marianists—specifically, Marianist religious brothers. So what does it mean to be a “brother to all people”? How does this identity compel us to action?
An obvious area where we serve as a brother to all is in our public ministries. It’s easier to see how we serve as brothers in ministry together at our various institutions. We, like many who have done before us in our rich history, excel in our ministries, do great work, are committed to the mission, and are hard-working professionals—wonderful examples of selfless giving to our world.
When we come home, we are spent! But, we are reminded that when we come home, our role as brother doesn’t stop when we leave our ministry. Our gifts of presence, patience and openness to one another is need much more here in our home.
I often wondered why the theme for our province assembly in 2007 was “Becoming Brothers.” For a religious congregation who professes that community life, discipleship of equals and mixed composition are sacred values, becoming “brothers” to one another is expected to be a reality. Or, perhaps it is because that becoming “brothers” to one another in community can be one of the most difficult challenges of religious life that requires a lifetime of faithfulness in seeking that goal.
We are blessed with numerous gifts, talents and personalities. Our diversity is rich. Yet, it is that same diversity that challenges us to be faithful to our identity of being a community of “brothers” to one another in one heart and mind.
Doing the little things for one another is what makes for good community. Trusting that we will be present for one another at prayer, work, play, community and calling each one of us to be more than we think we can become supports one another in being faithful.
Let us pray that we make this new day another opportunity where we can be faithful to our role of being a “brother to all people” and reveal that identity through our actions.
Mass, Tuesday, January 19, 2010
First Reading: 1 Sm 16:1-13 Responsorial Psalm: 89
Gospel: Mk 2:23-28
As we begin the week when many of our schools celebrate Marianist heritage and the life of our founder, I find it quite providential that the readings of today’s Mass connect with issues of discernment and being chosen, and how our commitment to Marianist religious life binds us to abide by our most important set of “laws”: the evangelical vows.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus explains to the Pharisees, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” In essence, he challenges all of us to look beyond the letter of our religious laws and rituals and consider the values promoted by the spirit of those laws.
Applying this to our own lives as Marianist religious, we see something quite similar when our founder writes about our most important laws—the evangelical vows—in his letter to the retreat masters of 1839.
Chaminade writes, “The letter kills but the spirit quickens.” He warns about the dangers of living only the letter of the vows—where we know the practical boundaries so that we can maximize personal gain within those limits—and not the spirit, where we can miss out on reaching the blessed state of holiness promised by living the spirit of the vows.
For example, living the vow of poverty not only means following the practical limits of our budgets, knowing what can and can’t be done within those limits, but always putting all of our gifts (time, patience, talent and disposition of openness) at the service of our brothers and our world—being good stewards of our treasures.
Living the vow of chastity not only means we can’t get married, have a active dating life or maintain preferential relationships, but always seeking to love unconditionally all people, particularly our brothers in community.
Living the vow of obedience not only means doing something because “I’m told to do this,” but also to seek the wisdom of God as spoken through the voices of out brothers in mutual discernment about our lives shared in common.
Living the vow of stability not only means, “I’ve got tenure now!” and “I don’t have to do all those initial formation pieces anymore!” but also living a Marianist life with the same happiness, joy, passion and enthusiasm of when we first entered the Society of Mary.
In other words, we must move beyond the letter of the vows and conform our attitudes to the spirit of the vows.
Just as David was chosen to follow his vocation in the first reading and responsorial psalm, we, too, are asked to follow our vocation—wherever that might lead. As we prepare ourselves to receive the Eucharist, let us pray that we grow in faith to conform our attitudes not just to the letter, but to the spirit of the vows that govern our lives as Marianist religious.
In the first reading, we follow the saga of Hannah, the barren wife of Elkanah, who goes to the temple to pray, only to be accused by a priest of being drunk!
In the Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry, impresses listeners and casts out unclean spirits, yet, eventually, is rejected and condemned by religious leaders.
So, what can these readings teach us about our faith? Perhaps, the more appropriate question is:
What are some areas in our lives where we fail to seek understanding before passing judgment? Where we determine what is right or wrong without being open to other possibilities?
As people of “faith,” when we pray, the words we say reflect a disposition of openness that allows the mystery of God’s presence to pervade all aspects of our lives.
While it’s a good thing to be self-confident in knowing what is “right” and “wrong,” we need to remember that we must remain open to the possibility that we might not know everything! That, somehow, God might be working through those situations which we find as contradictory or might not make sense.
Perhaps those are those moments we are called to grow in faith.
Why a message like this at the start of a new year? Perhaps it’s an appropriate time so that we remember to be open to all of the moments of potential growth that we will encounter in this calendar year.
It is this attitude of openness that will determine how we respond to opportunities for personal and spiritual growth, how we live our life in common, how we negotiate the healthy tension of living a vowed life and, perhaps most appropriate in this point of history in the Society of Mary, how we view the strategic plan as a way to move into the future.
As we continue our Eucharist and begin our day in ministry, let us pray that we respond with openness in understanding signs of contraction in our lives as a way to grow in faith.
¡Bienvenidos! Welcome to the official Casa María Marianist Community blog. This work-in-progress serves to document our events and activities—much like traditional community annals, but in electronic form.
We also hope that through the witness of our lives shared with the larger online community, visitors may participate in discovering the gift of the Marianist charism through this blog.
Casa Maria Marianists 