Light for the World

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate the response of people in our salvation history to the prompting of the Spirit to proclaim the Good News through their actions and, if necessary, their words.

Life and Light

In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Barnabas and Saul are commissioned and the apostles preach in Cyprus.

* [13:1–3] The impulse for the first missionary effort in Asia Minor is ascribed to the prophets of the Antiochene community, under the inspiration of the holy Spirit. Just as the Jerusalem community had earlier been the center of missionary activity, so too Antioch becomes the center from which the missionaries Barnabas and Saul are sent out. (Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 13 | USCCB, n.d.)

In Psalm 67 the Nations are called to Praise God.

* [Psalm 67] A petition for a bountiful harvest (Ps 67:7), made in the awareness that Israel’s prosperity will persuade the nations to worship its God.

* [67:2] May God be gracious to us: the people’s petition echoes the blessing pronounced upon them by the priests, cf. Nm 6:22–27. (Psalms, PSALM 67 | USCCB, n.d.)

The passage from the Gospel of John provides a summary of Jesus’ Teaching.

* [12:37–50] These verses, on unbelief of the Jews, provide an epilogue to the Book of Signs. (John, CHAPTER 12 | USCCB, n.d.)

Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries was not available at publication time.

Don Schwager quotes “Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father,” by Cyril of Alexandria, 375-444 A.D.

"[Our Lord] gradually accustoms their minds to penetrate the depth of the mysteries concerning himself, [leading them] not to the human person but to that which was of the divine essence. He does this inasmuch as the Godhead is apprehended completely in the person of God the Father, for he has in himself the Son and the Spirit. With exceeding wisdom he carries them onward, ... for he does not exclude himself from being believed on by us because he is God by nature and has shone forth from God the Father. But skillfully (as has been said) he handles the mind of the weak to mold them to godliness in order that you might understand him to say something like this: 'When you believe on me - I who, for your sakes, am a man like yourselves, but who also am God by reason of my own nature and because of the Father from whom I exist - do not suppose that it is on a man you are setting your faith. For I am by nature God, notwithstanding that I appear like one of yourselves, and I have within myself him who begat me. Forasmuch therefore as I am consubstantial with him that has begotten me, your faith will assuredly pass on also to the Father himself.' As we said therefore, the Lord, gradually trains them to something better and profitably interweaves the human with what is God-befitting." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 8.7) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 12:44-50 comments that when someone stayed with Jesus long enough, they saw beyond his unassuming appearance. They saw that he was more than a teacher or a healer or a prophet. His words of teaching, his look of love, his inner peace and joy all bore God’s own inspiration and went straight to their hearts. When they saw Jesus, they saw the Father!

Jesus is ready to surprise you today. He’s ready to reveal his Father to you. So as you read today’s Scripture passages, invite him to exceed your expectations. Ask him to show you something new. It doesn’t have to be momentous. Maybe it will be just a small insight or application you haven’t noticed before. Or maybe one verse will strike you in a new way. If you keep this up day after day, you’ll discover that God has revealed far more than you expected. And that revelation will fill you with joy!

“Lord, surprise me! Help me find your presence today.” (Meditation on John 12:44-50, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the continuance of the ministry related in Acts as John Mark, probably the author of the Gospel of Mark, is consecrated by laying on of hands to him and Barnabas and Saul for this mission work. The Holy Spirit guides the Church and at this time led preachers first to the Jews and then after rejection to the Gentiles. Friar Jude reminds us of the very dualistic theme in John’s Gospel that implores us to make a choice for Christ and live in that choice.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Barbara Mahany who writes of the converting experience the Book of Nature had on the Christian mystic Brother Lawrence.

Brother Lawrence [1611–1691], the seventeenth-century barefoot friar who found God in the pots and pans of his monastery kitchen in Paris, told one such story. In his one published work [1], a collection of fourteen letters, a wisp of an eighty-page volume I once unearthed from a library’s musky archives, he wrote how a tree in winter, stripped of its leaves, played the pivotal role in his uncanny conversion. It seems the good brother absorbed the tree’s stark emptiness, and, in that way that saints and wise souls do, he saw beyond it. He imagined the possible. As it’s recorded in his little book’s preface, the soon-to-be-friar stood before the naked tree picturing its branches soon filled with tiny leaves as if clasped in prayer. And thus he was hit, head-on. The surging sense of the immensity of the Holy One all but knocked him down, realizing the life force, the beautiful that would burst from the barren. In his little book’s preface, I was struck most of all by how strange it is that divine attributes can sometimes be seen in something so common. And how we’ll miss the whole of it if we refuse to be stopped in our tracks. (Rohr, n.d.)

We experience the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when events on our journey reveal truth, love and goodness that reflects Jesus' proclamation that He and God are One.

References

Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 13 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/13 

John, CHAPTER 12 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/12?44 

Meditation on John 12:44-50. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://wau.org/meditations/2024/04/24/942032/ 

Psalms, PSALM 67 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/67?2 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). The Preaching of the Trees. CAC Daily Meditations. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-preaching-of-the-trees/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=apr24 

Generosity of the Righteous Servant

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Feast of Deacon Saint Lawrence, resonate with the prompting of the Spirit to live as generous servants addressing the needs of others. I am grateful for the deacons among my friends who have lived as generous servants. 

Generosity and Righteousness

The reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians describes God’s indescribable gift.

* [9:8–10] The behavior to which he exhorts them is grounded in God’s own pattern of behavior. God is capable of overwhelming generosity, as scripture itself attests (2 Cor 9:9), so that they need not fear being short. He will provide in abundance, both supplying their natural needs and increasing their righteousness. Paul challenges them to godlike generosity and reminds them of the fundamental motive for encouragement: God himself cannot be outdone. (2 Corinthians, CHAPTER 9, n.d.)

Psalm 112 praises the blessings of the righteous.

* [Psalm 112] An acrostic poem detailing the blessings received by those who remain close to God by obedience to the commandments. Among their blessings are children (Ps 112:2), wealth that enables them to be magnanimous (Ps 112:3, 5, 9), and virtue by which they encourage others (Ps 112:4). The just person is an affront to the wicked, whose hopes remain unfulfilled (Ps 112:10). The logic resembles Ps 1; 111. (Psalms, PSALM 112, n.d.)

The Gospel of John shares the coming of Jesus’ Hour.

* [12:24] This verse implies that through his death Jesus will be accessible to all. It remains just a grain of wheat: this saying is found in the synoptic triple and double traditions (Mk 8:35; Mt 16:25; Lk 9:24; Mt 10:39; Lk 17:33). John adds the phrases (Jn 12:25) in this world and for eternal life. (John, CHAPTER 12, n.d.)

George Butterfield comments that the psalmist speaks of the person, like Lawrence, who is gracious and lends to those in need. “His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth.” Who is celebrating the Roman Empire today? Lawrence’s posterity is singing his praises. “The just one shall be in everlasting remembrance.”

Lawrence’s life was described by Jesus as a grain of wheat. That grain fell to the ground and died. Almost eighteen hundred years later it is still producing fruit. Lawrence lost his life; thus, he preserved it. He served and followed Jesus. Jesus said “where I am, there also will my servant be.” Could anything be better for Lawrence than to simply be with Jesus? We honor Lawrence today and rightly so. However, I quite imagine that this means little to Lawrence. Better than that is what Jesus said about honor: “The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

St. Lawrence – honored by Almighty God. Could it get any better than that? (Creighton U. Daily Reflection, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “The seed must die before being resurrected,” by Irenaeus, 135-202 A.D.

"A cutting from the vine planted in the ground bears fruit in its season, or a kernel of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed rises and is multiplied by the Spirit of God, who contains all things. And then, through the wisdom of God, it serves for our use when, after receiving the Word of God, it becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time. The Word of God grants them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:53). This is so because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness (1 Corinthians 15:43; 2 Corinthians 13:4) in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, or become exalted against God with ungrateful minds."(excerpt from AGAINST HERESIES 5.2.3) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 12:24-26 comments that we may not be facing arrest or martyrdom, but each of us has many opportunities to “die” for our faith in the course of our day. Saying no to a particularly strong temptation, being patient or generous with a difficult person, maintaining honesty in a dishonest climate, or just facing a dreary day with hope in the Lord—these are just a few of the ways we can lay down our lives and choose God above our immediate desires.

Jesus promises that every time we “die” in this way, we bear fruit. Our witness might inspire a person facing a battle we know nothing about. Our humility might defuse a tense situation. Our faithfulness might move someone to seek the Lord for themselves. And over all of this, we will bear the sweet fruit of a deeper relationship with God.

“Lord, I offer you my day. I trust you to make it fruitful.” (Meditation on John 12:24-26, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the exhortation in 2 Corinthians to share generously. Saint Lawrence is credited with a sense of humour as he was martyred after a life of service to the poor in Rome in the third century. Friar Jude reminds us that dying to self is the Way of the Gospel to bear fruit daily in our lives.

The Franciscan Media article on Saint Lawrence comments that the esteem in which the Church holds for Lawrence is seen in the fact that today’s celebration ranks as a feast. We know very little about his life. He is one of those whose martyrdom made a deep and lasting impression on the early Church. Celebration of his feast day spread rapidly. He was a Roman deacon under Pope Saint Sixtus II. Four days after this pope was put to death, Lawrence and four clerics suffered martyrdom, probably during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian.

Once again we have a saint about whom almost nothing is known, yet one who has received extraordinary honor in the Church since the fourth century. Almost nothing—yet the greatest fact of his life is certain: He died for Christ. We who are hungry for details about the lives of the saints are again reminded that their holiness was after all, a total response to Christ, expressed perfectly by a death like this. (Saint Lawrence, n.d.)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that we need to understand kinesthetic, bodily knowing. We must learn to recognize our physical responses—be they fear, arousal, pleasure, or pain—because they reveal additional and important information. It may take a few minutes of intentional focus to become aware of tension in our shoulders, churning in our gut, a pounding heart, or goosebumps. The Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue (1956–2008) says this well.

Your mind can deceive you and put all kinds of barriers between you and your nature; but your body does not lie. Your body tells you, if you attend to it, how your life is and whether you are living from your soul or from the labyrinths of your negativity. . . . The human body is the most complex, refined, and harmonious totality. . . .

Your body is, in essence, a crowd of different members who work in harmony to make your belonging in the world possible. . . . The soul is not simply within the body, hidden somewhere within its recesses. The truth is rather the converse. Your body is in the soul, and the soul suffuses you completely. [1] (Rohr, n.d.)

We are prompted by the Spirit to die to self and thereby release the action that makes generous response to the needs of others possible.

References

Creighton U. Daily Reflection. (n.d.). Online Ministries. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/081022.html 

John, CHAPTER 12. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/12?24 

Meditation on John 12:24-26. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/08/10/465646/ 

Psalms, PSALM 112. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/112?1 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Daily Meditations — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-source-of-vital-information-2022-08-10/ 

Saint Lawrence. (n.d.). Franciscan Media. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-lawrence 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). If It Dies, It Bears Much Fruit. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=aug10a 

2 Corinthians, CHAPTER 9. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 10, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/9?6 

Giving of self for full life

Sow the seed generously

The Texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today are chosen for the celebration of the feast of the third century deacon, St Lawrence. According to legend, he was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church in Rome and with the distribution of alms to the poor. The climate of persecution, at the time, and Lawrence stubborn support of the poor instead of turning over money to support the Empire brought him a martyr’s death. FriarJude Winkler reflects that the texts today call us to be generous in our giving. The appeal to the Corinthians by Paul in the passage today was to support the poor and desolate in Jerusalem. We need to be generous with our material goods to help others. Friar Jude notes that one benefit which generous people realize is that they live better without the material and wealth which can come to own us. The giving heart experiences the ever deepening capacity of the Lover to give. The practice of giving by putting to death our desires and passions in favour of the needs of the other will be the realization of the advice in the Gospel of John that the seed must die to bring forth the harvest of life in the wheat.