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Daily Scripture

+ 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Be wise but don’t be a ‘wise guy!’

Readings: I Corinthians 3:18-21 Psalm 24:1-4, 5-6 Luke 5:1-11

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: “God catches the wise in their own ruses,” and again: “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that are vain.”

Wisdom (Sophia) is a feminine attribute of God. True wisdom is rooted in deep faith and an abiding confidence in God’s abiding presence in all of creation and in the depth of our being. Wisdom comes from study, prayer and from the daily effort to live in God’s grace with Jesus as our mentor. Reason without faith leads to rationalization of our wants and desires. Reason combined with faith moves us to contemplation and moves us to probe and ponder the greatest mysteries of life that exceed the power of the human intellect to explicate or explain. That’s why poets, artists and composers are enable us to comprehend the qualities of God in nature, in the human body and in the qualities of a life lived in union with ultimate truth and beauty.

So we need to go to our prayer chair for at least twenty minutes at the beginning and end of every day. We need to walk among the trees and along the sea. We need to listen to music that stirs the soul and sing songs that touch the heart.

Only then can we be thoughtful people of measured speech and positive deeds.

Feast of Mary Mother of God

Thursday January 1, 2009

Where do we go from here?

Readings: Numbers 6:22-27 Psalm 67 Galatians 4:4-7 Luke 2:16-21

May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth reverence God! [Psalm 67:5-6]

At the ‘sign of peace’ at Mass, I invite the congregation to “extend to one another and to the world through one another, some sign of peace and blessing.” I don’t recall what occasioned that phraseology but I believe it makes a great deal of sense. Our weekly or daily participation at Eucharist is a privilege that is not just for our own spiritual wellbeing. We participate in order to be sent forth. The word “Mass” is rooted in the old Latin words sending forth the congregants back into the world: “Ite, missa est.” Go, be sent…”

On this first day of 2009, we honor Mary as the Mother of God. Strange title, for sure. How can Mary be the Mother of the infinite God who exists from all eternity? It is a title based on theological reasoning that if Mary was the mother of Jesus and Jesus was the Son of God, Mary must also be the Mother of God.

Why not honor Joseph as ‘foster father of God?’ After all, it was through Joseph that Jesus was born “in the line of David.”

And if Paul’s letter to the Galatians be theologically sound, then as ‘coheirs’ with Christ, we must also be sons and daughters of God. Awesome thought, isn’t it?

But today is also New Years Day and the readings are also appropriate for new beginnings. I like new beginnings because they provide an opportunity to put the past to rest.

Today I will clean my refrigerator and dispose of ‘junk foods’ that have accumulated over the holidays, scan the closets, bookshelves and storage areas of my apartment and dispose of items that have outlived their usefulness. It’s a therapeutic exercise, to be sure but with spiritual ramifications.

Would that we could scan the globe and cast away words of hate, weapons of war and engage one another—person-to-person, nation-to-nation, religion-to-religion—in a dialogue that would lead to a new truth that all might accept. God is truth!