praying scripture

Using scripture readings as a source of prayer

Monday, Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings, February 3, 2025

Hebrews 11: 32-40, Psalm 31:20-24, Mark 5:1-20

The gospel today is clearly a story of transformation. A frightening transformation, at least for the people of the time. We have a man possessed by unclean spirits who has been repeatedly chained and fettered to no avail. He has lived in caves and done harm to himself. Everyone knows the situation.

When Jesus arrives the spirits that possess the man supplicate themselves to Jesus immediately. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God and are summarily dismissed into a herd of pigs that drown themselves in the lake.

That sounds to me like a good story, a possessed man truly freed from his chains and the spirits that bound him. A story about the power of God over the present evil. However, what caught my attention is how the towns people saw it. Mark says, “people came out to see what had happened … they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there properly dressed and in his full senses, and they were afraid … they began to beg Jesus to leave their district.”

I believe Mark’s story is more than a story of Jesus freeing a man from unclean spirits. I think this story is trying to demonstrate how big the change is when we let God’s presence be active in our lives. I think it can be frightening to face real, deep, substantive change in life. The man as possessed was the normal condition. The town’s people knew how to deal with that. That same person as free, at peace and looking like everyone else, was a threat to what they understood as the way the world was. To change how the world operates is frightening. But that’s what Jesus brings, a completely new way for this world to operate. That’s Mark’s message, that to accept Jesus as Son of God is to admit to a huge change, one that will upset our world view. If we want things to stay the same, then frightened, we send Jesus away. The question is, can we accept the kind of change in ourselves that is God’s call or is it too frightening?

Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings, January 30, 2025

Hebrews 10:19-25, Psalm 24:1-6, Mark 4:21-25

Sometimes I think we can reduce Christian and Catholic faith to a moral code. The thinking runs along the line that religion is primarily about setting up rules for human behavior. That thinking tends to see Jesus as someone who came to show us how to live. Now I’m not saying that generous, loving behavior is not part of Catholic faith, I’m saying it’s the biproduct of the primary purpose of Jesus’s life. His primary purpose: demonstrate that God is an active loving presence in our lives. That we are meant to have a personal, direct relationship with God simply because that’s what God wants … to be a loving companion with us. Isn’t it true that once you feel loved everything changes? Well, that’s the point, first you have to feel loved and that’s what today’s readings are trying to tell us.

Hebrews starts by pointing out that we have “entrance to the sanctuary” because of Jesus’ death and that “his promise is trustworthy.” To enter the sanctuary is to have access to God. In Judaism only the high priest could enter the sanctuary where supposedly God resided. Now this access is available to everyone.

It is this being in God’s presence that the author of Hebrews is saying provides the hope we long for. Coming together in our faith, in the assembly helps sustain our belief in what Jesus promised, that God is with us.

          Finally, Jesus in Mark’s Gospel has just told the story of the sower and the seed. How spreading God’s Word depends as much on the one who is listening as the person spreading the message. He explains that God’s loving message is not meant to be hidden but people need to listen and if they listen then more will be given to them than they would expect. There is also the warning that not paying attention has consequences. The story is not about behavior or being rich or poor but rather about opening oneself to the message of God’s love and care. It’s about hearing what Jesus’ life says about God with us and only then acting on that belief. We all need to hear the message and hold on to it over our lifetime. Holding on to a message of love is where behavior comes in: how we live day to day, being in conversation with other believers, recognizing the gift of life we have been given. The Psalmist says it directly, “Lord, this is the people who long to see your face.” What is love but the longing to be with our loved one.

Monday, Third Week in Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings, January 27, 2025

Hebrews 9: 15, 24-28, Psalm 98:1-6, Mark 3:22-30

          Is the world a good place or a bad place? Some days it’s hard to tell. As Catholics our faith says it’s a good place, God’s place. People familiar with the Bible might point to the creation story in Genesis as proof that God made everything good, very good. That’s one place you can go. I think today’s readings are another.

          The Psalm says it most clearly, “The LORD has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.” We believe that the person, Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and lived among us to demonstrate what salvation, joy and the kingdom of God really looked like. Everyone could see and experience him and what he did. Today even more than in his own time, the entire world knows about Jesus and what he stands for. So God certainly has revealed his justice and salvation for all to see.

          However, that doesn’t mean that recognizing the Kingdom of God is obvious for everyone. It hasn’t been obvious at any point, including when Jesus was alive for all to see. That’s what the story in the Gospel today is all about.

          The scribes who had come from Jerusalem had seen and heard about the miracles that Jesus was working and they came to the conclusion that what he was doing couldn’t be explained on natural grounds alone. These religious leaders who had an entire faith tradition of God’s saving actions and who were explicitly waiting for a messiah, came to the conclusion that what they were seeing was the work of the devil. That should tell us that recognizing God’s presence among us is not obvious. If seeing Jesus cure people, give people sight and drive out demons makes some people think it’s the devils work we should not be surprised that it isn’t obvious that the world is a good and holy place.

          We, however, believe that Jesus is the Son of God which means we accept that God is here, in this life making a difference just as Jesus did when he was physically here on earth. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus points out that the good he does couldn’t be the devil’s work or the devil would be working against himself. More importantly, Jesus makes a remarkable statement of how the strong man of the house must be tied up. The point is that Jesus has tied up the strong man, the devil, so that Jesus can plunder his house, so that he can change what has gone on in the world. Which is to say that there are bad things, evil things in the world but that in the end God wins, whereas the devil, evil is vanquished. The only thing that stands in the way is to blaspheme against the Spirit. Meaning that if you don’t recognize the work of the Spirit you can’t enjoy the benefits of what that means.

Recognizing the holiness of life means being able to see God in all of God’s creation. The Spirit of God can change lives, heal wounds, give us new life but we have to be open enough to recognize it as God’s gift. Think of all that has changed in two thousand years: medicine to cure diseases, indoor plumbing, airplanes, phones to talk to anyone, anywhere in the world instantly, better understanding of human behavior, individual freedom, you could go on and on. The world is a more human friendly place than it was two thousand years ago. We should be able to say the world is good, we should be open enough to recognize God’s love all around us.

Thursday, Second Week of Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings, January 23, 2025

Hebrews 7:25-8:6, Psalm 40:7-9,10,17, Matthew 3:7-12

I always wondered about the demons and evil spirits in the Gospels recognizing Jesus as the Son of God. Seems out of place. Shouldn’t his disciples recognize and name who he is. But in today’s Gospel, Mark again tells us that unclean spirits “shout, ‘You are the Son of God’” and Jesus warns them not to make him known. This phenomenon in Mark’s Gospel is called the Messianic Secret.

It’s suggested that Jesus didn’t want his Messiahship to be misinterpreted by people who were looking for a “savior” to overthrow the Romans and restore the Jewish kingdom. People wouldn’t be able to understand the kind of Messiah Jesus was until after he was crucified and died. It’s also possible that Mark is the one who is trying to make this point about Jesus. Perhaps he is writing to people who are having a hard time with death on the cross as a sign of the expected Messiah, so no one in Mark’s Gospel recognizes who Jesus is until after he’s died.

Then again maybe that’s exactly what took place. Jesus did all this wonderful stuff. He cures people and people flock to see him and are cured. Just like Mark is saying in these verses. However, maybe even at the time nobody got it. Mark himself points out repeatedly how the Apostles themselves don’t understand or misunderstand what Jesus is trying to tell them or is doing.

“He said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable?’” (Mk 4:13)

“They were utterly and completely dumbfounded, because they had not seen what the miracle of the loaves meant; their minds were closed.” (Mk 6:52)

“But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him” (Mk 9:32

Maybe it’s really hard to recognize God’s presence even if he’s changing people’s lives right in front of you? How often do people in twelve step programs emerge changed because they talked to others just like themselves and it opened up a new possibility? How often do doctor’s save people’s lives in surgery? How often do vaccine’s prevent death and disability around the globe? How often do people donate organs to save another? How often do hundreds, even thousands, of people walk/run/bike for a charity? How often do neighbors simply help a neighbor?  How often do people learn to forgive themselves? What do we have to see before it becomes apparent that God lives in this world with us?

Monday, Second Week of Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 20, 2024

Hebrews 5:1-10, Psalm 110:1-4, Mark 2:18-22

 At first glance these two readings can appear to be pretty far removed from our experience. At least that’s what I thought when I first read them. The Hebrews reading is about Jesus as priest and few of us are priests. Second, Mark’s Gospel is talking about how Jesus’ life on earth creates a special situation. His disciples don’t fast because of it. Since we live 2,000 years after Jesus of Nazareth walked among us it would seem the situation is long past being useful to us.

However, closer examination reveals that the two readings are more about the kind of relationships Jesus had with God the Father and with those around him. Let me explain.

In Hebrews the relationship is identified as a priestly relationship. The reading says, priests were understood as the people’s “representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices to him.” It’s still that way today. We expect priests to be the people with a special relationship to God. Although Hebrews is about being chosen as a priest it reminds us that every priest is chosen from among the people and that Jesus too “learned” and only over time was he “made perfect.” In other words, the topic is priesthood but the subject is Jesus who came as one of us, a human being just like us. Sometimes we can be tempted to think of Jesus as God, kind of temporarily, acting as a person. But that isn’t what Catholic teaching says. It says Jesus was a human being, with two natures. Christmas wouldn’t mean what it does if God were only pretending to be a person. The wonder is that the second person of the blessed trinity became a human being, born just like the rest of us, subject to the same difficulties and in need of the same learning and discipline as the rest of us. If that is true, then Jesus can more easily be seen as a model or representative of us as Christians and the readings as examples of the kind of relationship we can have with God.

Mark’s Gospel tells of the time of Jesus’ own ministry and how it was unique. Jesus identifies himself as the bridegroom and he invites us all to this feast. He is being criticized because his life was an open invitation, like the meals he and his followers enjoyed. Like the meals, he told stories about the King who invites the ordinary people out in the streets to come to the wedding feast. By doing this, Jesus is changing the way people could expect to relate to God. Jesus, the ultimate priest, in Hebrews, is extending the invitation to all us to have that same priestly relationship with God. We are to be as it says in 1 Peter, “a kingdom of priests.” It is this extravagant welcoming behavior that raises the questions among those who follow John the Baptist and the Pharisees in the Gospel.

I think Mark is trying to remind us that Jesus came to bring Good News, which is what the word Gospel means. Jesus didn’t come to ask us to fast, suffer or feel guilty about our mistakes. Jesus came to invite us to a great feast that God offers. Using the marriage analogy opens to a great wealth of interpretation. It isn’t that being married is always easy but rather that the two people are happy together, share a life together and can say over time, we are good for each other and as a result we are better individuals because of it.

This world is not a perfect place, but unless we begin by acknowledging that we are blessed just to be here, that life is a gift that opens to wonderful possibilities we will have a hard time coming to the kind of close personal relationship that God wants to have with us. Together these readings suggest that the relationship with God can have the power and wonder we have thought of in terms of priesthood, but extended to be a banquet for all. This world, this life is God’s gift to us. The first thing we should do isn’t to give up something or restrict our behavior. The first thing we should do, is say thanks.

Thursday, First Week in Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 16, 2025

Hebrews 3:7-14, Psalm 95:6-11, Matthew 1:40-45

Today’s readings are stories of compassion. The story from the Old Testament is familiar. God has led the Israelites out of Egypt, freeing them from oppression. This is recounted ironically in the complaints voiced both in the Hebrews reading with a quote from Psalm 95 and then in today’s Psalm. Finally, the Gospel tells another story of how a person with leprosy asks for help and Jesus compassionately cures him. Both stories are examples of God taking care of God’s people in everyday life saving situations.

I think it is important to recognize the emotional component in Jesus’ actions. Mark says Jesus was “moved with pity.” Jesus operates out of a personal concern and care for people he meets. He is not a miracle making machine out to light up the country side. Hence, the admonition to just go see the priest and perform the rituals that the Law of Moses requires. He is doing this for this person but otherwise things are expected to stay the same. He’s not trying to break the mold, or issue some kind of challenge to the religious establishment. At least not in this action for this man. It’s a personal response. I think that is very important for us to recognize. Because it opens a better way of understanding God’s relationship with us at all times. I suspect that we can think of God’s saving history with humanity as, “what God does.” As in the first reading when God may be angry but God doesn’t abandon God’s newly freed people.

I certainly don’t want to shake the idea that God acts to give us better lives as part of who God is. But I think we need to nuance it somewhat. I think we need to see God’s action, as unbelievable at this may sound, as a personal, emotional response to the one being helped. This is not about building a highway so we can all get around better. It is laying one stone in the water so this person can cross.

God’s gifts are personal, individual to each of us, heart felt offers to make a life better. That is why the Psalmist calls out, “Oh, that today you would hear his voice.” We are asked to be in conversation with this God. God is saying, “Let’s be friends.” Too often we can’t believe or accept that such an offer is real. We do what the Psalmist deplores, we “harden our hearts” like the Israelites in the desert. Having been saved from their Egyptian oppressors they complained about conditions in the desert, they tested God.

The man with leprosy offers a better model. So giddy with being cured he goes off and tells everyone. The trick is to do what the author of Hebrews advises, “hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end.” If we are blessed enough to see and hear what God has given us then we must hold on to that reality in today’s world for each of today’s situations. Isn’t that was we do with a friend who cares for us?

It’s also why prayer is so important. Like a conversation with another person, prayer is specifically a time when we adopt a one-on-one stance towards God. By praying, we acknowledge the personal relationship just as the leper did by asking for help and, in fact, as the Israelites did by complaining to God about their situation. God already considers the relationship personal. The issue is, will we?

Monday, First Week of Ordinary Time

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 13, 2025

Hebrews 1:1-6, Psalm 97:1, 2, 6-7, 9, Mark 1:14-20

          After I spent some time reading and thinking about what is said in today’s two readings I came to the conclusion they are trying to tell us about the time of fulfillment. Hebrews is written to people who are having doubts about whether they should continue to follow Jesus or go back to following the Jewish law. In Mark, we hear about the very beginnings of Jesus’ ministry after John the Baptist was arrested.

The introduction to the letter to the Hebrews is establishing who Jesus is because the author is going to say that because Jesus is the Son of God what comes from him is more important than any other source of information about God. For me, what is important is that Hebrews says Jesus has arrived therefore we are in the last days. Now we are in the final era when God no longer speaks in partial ways but shows us the complete picture through His Son.

This fits quite nicely with Mark’s Gospel because there Jesus says explicitly, “This is the time of fulfillment.” My question is, if both Hebrews and Mark say that Jesus’ arrival signals the time of fulfillment, what does that mean for us? What’s different from what existed before Jesus? Especially since we’re now two thousand years into this fulfillment and I’m not sure how fulfilled we all feel.

The easy part of the answer is to say that Jesus is God’s final word. That’s what Hebrews is saying to readers and it’s what all the Gospel’s tell us, especially John’s Gospel which talks about Jesus as the Word of God. It’s why the Church often talks about having the truth. Meaning that if you look at Jesus you have God’s ultimate message to us. Don’t go anywhere else. The person of Jesus is the expression of God, the truth about God, the truth about the universe. The problem, of course, is that different people see different things in Jesus. So it’s usually not self-evident what the truth really is.

But for the moment let’s put aside those conflicts and see what the beginning of Mark’s gospel has to say about Jesus and fulfillment. The first thing I see is that Jesus is out gathering disciples. Now in New Testament times teachers never go recruiting students, students go looking for teachers and ask to study with them. Jesus is reversing that custom. If we accept that Jesus is the expression of God then this behavior suggests that God is out seeking us. We ought to expect that God wants us to be part of what God is trying to do. We shouldn’t have to be searching afar for life’s meaning. Rather God’s presence in life is trying to call us to what is meaningful and important.

In other words, this story about the calling of Andrew, Peter, John and James is not just about calling people to ministry in the Church. It’s not just for those who think about being priests or nuns or humanitarians. It’s about how God operates.

The other part of this story is how it affects the four brothers. Without hesitation they leave family and the security of the family business which owned boats, nets and had employees. For me this suggests that when we hear God’s call it changes our lives. It changes our lives in a way that needs little or no explanation or evaluation. The brothers take off and go with Jesus without hesitation. When we hear God’s call it may take us from what is familiar and secure but it’s likely to be clear to us that it fits who we are. Notice Jesus calls fishermen to become fishers of men. The path they are asked to follow is analogous to what they are currently doing. So I think God’s call is consistent and affirming of who we are. God’s call takes us to where we become our best selves. You might say, to hear God’s call, is to be called to fulfillment. I think that’s the fulfillment Jesus and Hebrews is talking about, a fulfilled life. The only question remaining is, are we paying enough attention to life and therefore listening so we can hear our call?

Wednesday, after Epiphany

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 8, 2025

1 John 4:11-18, Psalm 72:1-2, 10, 12-13, Mark 6:45-52

Actually I think today’s Psalm sums up the message in today’s readings.

For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
… the lives of the poor he shall save.

God will rescue us if we are willing to ask for help. However, if we don’t see ourselves as poor and needy we don’t ask. We often have a little too much desire to go it alone. We can be driven by fear and anxiety instead of by love.

Mark’s Gospel uses the disciples out on the Sea of Galilee to illustrate the problem. The disciples trying to do what Jesus asked of them are out in the middle of sea, on their own. They are having a tough time because the wind is against them. How often are we trying to do something but the prevailing attitudes, maybe our own habits are against us? Then out of the blue a figure of some kind, a ghost maybe, something they don’t understand is terrifying them. The wind and waves are bad enough but now this unforeseen, inexplicable thing adds to their fear. Amazingly, however, the very thing that was a source of their fear, the unknown, identifies himself and calls out that they don’t have to be afraid. What’s more, when he gets in the boat with them even the wind and waves subside. All that has made their journey difficult is brought under control. Jesus is with them and his presence changes everything.

With a different circumstance 1 John is talking about a similar problem, human fear. Fear caused by doubt, he mentions possible punishment, perhaps it’s loss of respect or friendship or not knowing how things will turn out. In John’s community, some of the people they knew had left and it was unsettling. They worried, perhaps the Spirit of God wasn’t with them anymore? John was able to tell them that the very act of loving one another was a demonstration of God’s presence. What’s more they believed in Jesus and that belief was another marker that God’s Spirit was with them. No need to fear. Wonderfully he says, “There is no fear in love.”

For me that is such a key understanding. It can be a basis for measuring our motivations, for reviewing our choices and evaluating what faces us. Is this about love or is this coming from fear? God is in the love. Fear comes from somewhere else. John stresses over and over, four times in this short section that “God remains in us.” In terms of Mark’s story, Jesus will stay in the boat as we make our journey. We certainly have to keep rowing but we shouldn’t have to fear.

Monday, after Epiphany

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 6, 2025

1 John 3:22-4:6, Psalm 2:7bc-8, 10-12a, Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25

I think we need to begin with what Jesus says as he begins his public life, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This has been a strong influence on my own understanding of what Jesus was trying to do. The question for me focuses on what you mean by “at hand.” In my opinion it has too often been interpreted as some undefined future, perhaps when the world ends and God reigns over heaven and earth. Perhaps it just means it’s not here yet and someday life on this earth will be idyllic. Each of these responses is strongly influenced by ideas of what “the Kingdom of heaven” means. These are often images of life after death or God’s final victory in the end times, i.e. the end of the world.

However, I have come to believe that Jesus had something else in mind. That Jesus saw the Kingdom as a present possibility. It was “at hand” because it was available here and now. This view matches with Jesus own behavior. Today’s reading gives us a very nice summary:

“Teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.”

The construction of this summary puts proclaiming the Gospel in the center of two actions, teaching and curing. So in the style of the time the author is telling us the point of both actions is proclaiming the Kingdom. So Jesus spent his efforts not just telling people about the Kingdom but bringing it into being by curing people then and there. The good news (Gospel) is the Kingdom starts here with lives made whole. We know that Jesus cures people again and again throughout the gospels. Today’s scripture scholars admit that he was probably a wonder worker. The result is pretty clear, “great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan followed him.”

It may be easy to go along with the idea of Jesus bringing the Kingdom into being for his contemporaries because we believe he is the Son of God. But history makes it harder for us to see the Kingdom as “at hand” for us. Too much bad stuff goes on to believe that God’s Kingdom could be part of our lives now. I think some of the answer is in our first reading where John is concerned about the anti-Christ or those people and things in the world which are opposed to Jesus and therefore the Kingdom he preached. The anti-Christ is often seen as a signal of the end of the world and John mentions this explicitly, “This is the spirit of the antichrist who, as you heard, is to come.” But then, significantly for my argument, says, “But in fact is already in the world.” This letter comes from around the time of the John’s Gospel, about 100 A.D. Already very early in the Christian tradition a sacred writer has to admit that end time events are already taking place. My point is, images and statements that can be interpreted as dealing with the final days of the human race are often also valid as statements about significance and meaning for human life. The Kingdom of heaven may well not be fully formed until the end of time but that doesn’t mean it can’t make a real difference for us right now. I believe that’s how Jesus saw it. The Kingdom is “at hand.” It is available to us if we act as John’s letter tells us, “we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.” This belief and resulting behavior can change us and the world we live in.

Christmas Weekday

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for January 3, 2024

1 John 2:29-3:6, Psalm 98:1, 3-6, John 1:29-34

Twice in today’s Gospel, John the Baptist says he didn’t know Jesus but he recognizes him as Son of God because he did see the Spirit come and stay with him. Well, to me that sounds a lot like our circumstances. We don’t really know Jesus either. By which I mean the presence of God right here in this world. As I have often suggested, we too easily think of God as distant, a divine entity off in heaven somewhere to whom we prayer when our life situation turns in the wrong direction. We haven’t been effectively taught that the God of Jesus, his Abba, is present to us here and now. Yet that is exactly what the Christmas story is all about. The divine born as a child, helpless, dependent on the people around him for his every need. God sanctifying human life by being present in it.

Can we, like John the Baptist, recognize the Spirit in the people we meet? That’s really what the author of 1 John is trying to help us do. He’s exhorting his community to stay true to their belief in Jesus as Son of God. He makes the case that once a person has come to know Jesus and what Christian life is all about that person wouldn’t go back to his or her former way of life. I think our challenge isn’t that much different. We need to recognize the Spirit’s presence in ourselves and others. We know people aren’t perfect but surely we recognize that all of us are trying to do the right thing, care for others, love our children and live a good life. That’s what the Church means when it says we are the Body of Christ in the world today. It isn’t just a nice platitude but rather the way of seeing the world as a place of God’s presence and activity. Aren’t we all trying to make the world and our lives better? Isn’t everyone regardless of religion or background, hoping for a better future. Don’t we feel a desire for life that is good and could be even better. That’s the Spirit John the Baptist could see in Jesus, a divine presence, that signaled a real change from the norm of his time.

1 John makes that point by saying, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” This is the time to live out that reality as the Psalm says by not being “lawless” but, “sing to the Lord a new song” recognizing that Jesus has taken away our sins and the guilt that weighs us down. We are beloved children of God and can forge new paths. We just have to recognize the Spirit that stays with us, as it did with Jesus. The Spirit John the Baptist saw in Jesus we can see too, in ourselves, in others and accept that Spirit as the life God gives us each day. As children of God we too can baptize with the Holy Spirit, by bringing new life to ourselves and others in how we approach and conduct daily life. As the first letter of John says, “what we shall be has not been revealed,” but “we are God’s children now.” We are the people who can make God’s Spirit active in this world. Let’s do it.