The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate how our relationship with God has taught us to act with compassion and love for others.
Formed in the Faith
The reading from the First Letter of John proclaims that God Is Love.
* [4:7–12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God.1
Psalm 72 is a prayer for guidance and support for the King.
* [Psalm 72] A royal Psalm in which the Israelite king, as the representative of God, is the instrument of divine justice (Ps 72:1–4, 12–14) and blessing (Ps 72:5–7, 15–17) for the whole world. The king is human, giving only what he has received from God. Hence intercession must be made for him. The extravagant language is typical of oriental royal courts.2
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus feeds the Five Thousand.
* [6:35–44] See note on Mt 14:13–21. Compare this section with Mk 8:1–9. The various accounts of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, two each in Mark and in Matthew and one each in Luke and in John, indicate the wide interest of the early church in their eucharistic gatherings; see, e.g., Mk 6:41; 8:6; 14:22; and recall also the sign of bread in Ex 16; Dt 8:3–16; Ps 78:24–25; 105:40; Wis 16:20–21.3
Susan Naatz comments that a person who deeply invested in Catholic education in the United States was St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. The liturgical Christmas season will soon come to an end. It is appropriate to celebrate Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s feast day during this season of love.
My Catholic education from that first day of kindergarten through graduate school shaped me. I taught in Catholic schools, answered a call to serve in parish ministry for 25 years and transitioned to university ministry where I currently serve. All along the way, I was mentored by and partnered with sisters in religious communities. I continue to celebrate several close relationships with women religious friends. Their dedication and incredible leadership for our church and our world can never be matched. Today we approach the end of the Christmas season and celebrate a New Year. In memory of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, I encourage you to join me in thanking a woman (or women) in a religious community who may have made an impact on your life or the lives of others. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, pray for us.4
Don Schwager quotes “The Lord fills all things with blessing from above,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"So that by every means the Lord might be known to be God by nature, he multiplies what is little, and he looks up to heaven as though asking for the blessing from above. Now he does this out of the divine economy, for our sakes. For he himself is the one who fills all things, the true blessing from above and from the Father. But, so that we might learn that when we are in charge of the table and are preparing to break the loaves, we ought to bring them to God with hands upraised and bring down upon them the blessing from above, he became for us the beginning and pattern and way." (excerpt from FRAGMENT 177)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 John 4:7-10 comments that one of the best ways we can love another person is by taking the time to get to know them and allowing them to get to know us. Such a friendship can grow as we try to anticipate a need they might have or show them in some other way that we care for them. As we build a loving, trusting relationship with that person, he or she will be more open to hearing about how much our faith means to us and how Jesus has worked in our lives.
Even if you don’t see any change in a person, don’t give up. While you may never see that person profess faith this side of heaven, you can still trust that you have in some way connected them to God through your love and prayers. Never underestimate the effect this can have on someone’s life. God is love, and through his Son Jesus, he lives in us. May we always be looking for opportunities to become bearers of Christ’s love to those who most need it! “Jesus, show me how to touch other people with your love.”6
Friar Jude Winkler discusses Love in the choice of Jesus that models for us living and dying for others. Expiation is featured in the Letter of John but John’s Gospel highlights the expression of Love in Jesus' death for us. Friar Jude shares the allusion to the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 in the Gospel text.
The Franciscan Media article on Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton comments that while in Italy with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action through family friends. Three basic points led her to become a Catholic: belief in the Real Presence, devotion to the Blessed Mother and conviction that the Catholic Church led back to the apostles and to Christ. Many of her family and friends rejected her when she became a Catholic in March 1805. To support her children, she opened a school in Baltimore. From the beginning, her group followed the lines of a religious community, which was officially founded in 1809.
Elizabeth Ann Seton had no extraordinary gifts. She was not a mystic or stigmatic. She did not prophesy or speak in tongues. She had two great devotions: abandonment to the will of God and an ardent love for the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote to a friend, Julia Scott, that she would prefer to exchange the world for a “cave or a desert.” “But God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.” Her brand of sanctity is open to everyone if we love God and do his will.7
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, teaches that we are transformed by our suffering—not by bearing it apart and alone, but by recognizing our universal connectedness with each other and God.
When we carry our small suffering in solidarity with the one universal longing of all humanity, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together, and it is just as hard for everybody else. Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don’t know it. When we can make the shift to realize this, it softens the space around our overly defended hearts. It makes it hard to be cruel to anyone. Shared struggle somehow makes us one—in a way that easy comfort and entertainment never can. Some mystics even go so far as to say that individual suffering doesn’t exist at all—and that there is only one suffering, it is all the same, and it is all the suffering of God. The image of Jesus on the cross somehow communicates that to the willing soul. A Crucified God is the dramatic symbol of the one suffering that God fully enters into with us—much more than just for us, as we were mostly trained to think.8
The memorial of St. Elizabeth Seton is an occasion to recall the many interconnections with her legacy that affected my life. Women of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph taught at St Anne’s School in Glace Bay. I was a pupil there from Grade Primary to Grade 8. From the mid 50’s to the mid 60’s the Church began to respond to the direction of the Second Vatican Council. The instruction of the sisters helped me learn the practices and catechism of Catholicism. In my 30’s our community worshiped at St Elizabeth Seton Parish and my spiritual development was aided in great measure by involvement with the Cursillo Movement that was regularly welcomed to the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity in Rockingham. I am grateful for the experiences that brought me into contact with the followers of the religious order founded by Elizabeth Ann Seton. We learn to act with love and compassion toward those we meet on our journey through our experience of the Love of Christ.
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