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Mes: febrero 2024

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Lectio Sunday, february 25, 2024

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT, CYCLE B

First reading: from the Book of Genesis (22:1-2,9-13,15-18). This reading presents us with the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s only son, whom God asks to offer him as a burnt offering. It is a test of faith and obedience, which Abraham overcomes with trust and generosity. God rewards him with a great blessing and a promise of numerous and blessed descendants. This reading invites us to reflect on our own faith and our willingness to follow God’s will, even when we do not understand it or find it difficult.

Psalm 115:10,15,15,16-17,18-19. The psalm is a thanksgiving of a faithful person who has been delivered from death by the Lord. He expresses his gratitude and his commitment to serve God and to fulfill his vows in the presence of all the people. The psalm encourages us to recognize God’s benefits to us and to offer him our life as a sacrifice of praise.

Second reading: from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans (8:31b-34). This reading shows us the certainty of the victory of Christians over every adversity, thanks to the love of God manifested in Christ. If God is with us, who will be against us? If God has given us his Son, how can he not give us everything else? If God justifies us, who will condemn us? If Christ died and rose for us, who can separate us from his love? This reading strengthens us in our hope and trust in God, who loves and saves us.

Gospel: according to St. Mark (9:2-10). This reading narrates the episode of the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, before three of his disciples: Peter, James and John. Jesus appears glorious, clothed in white robes and surrounded by Moses and Elijah, who represent the law and the prophets. A voice from heaven proclaims that Jesus is the beloved Son of God and must be heard. The disciples are astonished and terrified, and remain silent until Jesus rises from the dead. This reading reveals to us the identity and mission of Jesus, the suffering and glorious Messiah, and invites us to follow and listen to him.

A new day begins and we wake up at dawn to listen and contemplate, both attitudes are fundamental to approach God and his will. Listening implies being attentive, receptive and willing to obey. Contemplating implies admiring, thanking and praising. Both attitudes help us to enter into communion with God and with others.

Listen

Today’s Gospel places us on Mount Tabor, the place where Jesus is transfigured before Peter, John and James. Let us contemplate this passage welcoming the depth of the experience of which God makes us witnesses; his clothes were glistening, very white as snow (Mk 9:4), Moses and Elijah appeared (Mk 9:4), a cloud covered them and from heaven a voice was heard saying. «This is my beloved Son, listen to him» (Mk 9:7b).

Contemplate

We continue the Lenten climb and the opportunity to allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit into the desert and accompany the Lord to a solitary place remains vital in today’s liturgy of the 2nd Sunday of Lent. Let us look at the text from four keys that will help for reflection:

1) Willingness to go up. The text begins by alluding to the ascent of the mountain where Jesus takes three of his friends (Peter, James and John). Like the disciples, it is important to make this route of ascent, because when we prepare ourselves for the journey we encounter the fatigue of daily life, where the need to return, to do penance, to listen to the pain of the heart that lives on spiritual rents is revealed. It is important to go up because the call to conversion is made to us by the Lord walking with us, being, working and listening in our daily life.

2) We are not alone as in the desert, but we are accompanied by Jesus and our brothers and sisters, because conversion arises from the encounter with others. To review the relationships with oneself, with God, with nature, with the neighbor, is the secret, because in that daily exchange Love and the firm purpose of serving the Lord is manifested.

3) Jesus also sets out on this journey because he needs to be reunited with his Father and with himself. On Mount Tabor, Jesus receives the confirmation of his Mission; not only does he see Elijah (the Prophets) and Moses (the Law), but he hears the voice of his Father who envelops him and gives him a foretaste of the glory and the cross.

4) This is my son, listen to him! The transfiguration is a gift for the believer, because we do not walk blindly but we know well what is the destination of our conversion process: the experience of the encounter with the glorious Jesus, who looks at us with love and consoles us, dispels our doubts, fears and disappointments. He shows us his shining face, which anticipates the glory of the resurrection and eternal life. He invites us to listen to his voice, which reveals his will and his word.

Invitation.

Pope Francis said, «the culmination is not only to attain the grace of forgiveness and the experience of the Father’s love, Lent also allows us to forge the will to put the means to keep the heart centered for inclined to sin we will always be, but we can choose to stay with HIM.» We ask ourselves:

  • How is your relationship with yourself, with others, with God, with creation?
  • What did Jesus need to hear according to today’s Gospel? What could Elijah and Moses have said to him?
  • What does the Father want you to hear from Jesus?

Intention.

Let us ask the Lord that we may continue on the path of conversion.

S. Mariulis Grehan, tc

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Lectio Sunday, february 18, 2024

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT, CYCLE B

First Reading: Genesis 9:8-15. God establishes a covenant with Noah and his descendants after the flood, and establishes the rainbow as a sign of his faithfulness and of his promise not to destroy the earth again with water.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 24. It is a psalm of trust in the Lord, who is the guide, the savior and the forgiver of his people. The psalmist asks him to teach him his ways and make him faithful to his covenant.

Second reading: 1 Peter 3:18-22. The apostle Peter reminds us that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our salvation. He is the model of our faith and of our baptism, which unites us to him and makes us sharers in his victory over evil.

Gospel: Mark 1, 12-15. The evangelist Mark tells us how Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the desert, where he was tempted by Satan, but also assisted by the angels. After the imprisonment of John the Baptist, Jesus began to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, calling to conversion and faith.

A new day begins and we wake up at dawn to listen and contemplate, both attitudes are fundamental to approach God and his will. Listening implies being attentive, receptive and willing to obey. Contemplating implies admiring, thanking and praising. Both attitudes help us to enter into communion with God and with others.

Listen

We read in the Gospel «After this the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert» (Mk 1:12), «There he lived for forty days among the wild beasts, and was tested by Satan; and the angels ministered to him» (Mk 1:13). «After John was put in prison, Jesus went to Galilee to preach the good news from God» (Mk 1:14). He said, «The time has come, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Turn to God and accept in faith his good news» (Mk 1:15).

Contemplate

As we cross the threshold of Ash Wednesday, we enter into the midst of the Lenten season. Today’s Gospel is brief but profound in meaning. The opening sentence tells us, «The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert, and he stayed in the desert forty days.» This is Lent: 40 days in the desert. The word «Lent» comes from the Latin «quadragésima», which means precisely «forty». This time evokes ancient biblical events loaded with spiritual symbolism.

  • 40 years of pilgrimage of the people of Israel through the desert towards the Promised Land.
  • 40 days of Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai, where God renewed the covenant with his people and gave him the Tablets of the Law.
  • 40 days that Elijah traveled through the wilderness until he met the Lord on Mount Horeb.
  • 40 days that our Lord Jesus Christ spent in the desert praying and fasting, before beginning his public life that would culminate on Calvary, where he would bring our redemption to completion.

In this passage (Mk 1:12-15), we contemplate two fundamental aspects: the desert, where Jesus prepares himself for his mission, and the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, which demands conversion and faith.

The desert, in biblical literature, is not only a physical place, but also a spiritual symbol. It seems that God chooses this setting to carry out his works of salvation. The desert is arid and inhospitable, but it is also a place of encounter with the divine. It is a symbolic and profound place. It is the place where God’s people suffer, are tested and purified, but it is also the place where God reveals himself to his people and saves them.

It is a place of solitude, but also of encounter with God’s love. It is a place of desolation and also of Hope. It is the place where I want to go because «God will speak to my heart and win me back» (Hos 2:14). In the desert we see God as He is and He looks at us as we are. It is the place where I allow myself to experience weakness and recognize that «Mercy is the name of God» (Pope Francis).

Welcoming the call of the Spirit to the desert and conversion begins with accepting the call to holiness and to live the Gospel as St. Francis once expressed it: «This is what I want; this is what I seek; this is what I desire with all my heart to do» (cf. 1Cel 22). It is not an idea, it is the firm will to take the step to experience in order to configure one’s own feelings to those of Christ in such a way that prayer and one’s own life go from superficial foundations to the point of saying «it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me» (Gal 2:20).

Conversion is a demanding path, which implies renouncing and fighting against everything that distances us from God. But it is also a path of mercy, which brings us closer to Jesus and to following him. During these days, the Church invites us to practice the spiritual works of mercy (Teach those who do not know, Give good advice to those who need it, Correct those who are in error, Forgive injuries, Comfort the sad, Suffer with patience the faults of others, Pray to God for the living and the dead, and pray to God for those who are alive, To pray to God for the living and the dead) and corporal (To feed the hungry, To give drink to the thirsty, To give lodging to the needy, To clothe the naked, To visit the sick, To help those in prison, To bury the dead) as signs of our conversion.

Invitation.

We ask ourselves:

Are asceticism, almsgiving, fasting, prayer, penance and confession means that help you to deepen and live meaningfully Lent, which is a time of grace and gift? What is my purpose at the beginning of Lent? What does it mean for you to live in an attitude of permanent conversion?

What do you think of this phrase of Pope Francis? «Without recognition of your own sin you cannot receive Mercy». 

Intention.

Let us contemplate today’s liturgy from the desire to be with Jesus, to know his heart, to love him and to follow him. Let us ask the Lord to impel us with his Spirit into the desert.

S. Mariulis Grehan, tc

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Lectio Sunday, february 11, 2024

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, CYCLE B

 

  • First Reading (Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46), we are presented with the terrible existence of leprosy sufferers in Old Testament Judaism. The priest declared the leper unclean, who had to live in isolation outside the camp.
  • The Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 31) shows us a merciful God who erases our faults. Just as the leper confesses his illness, we too must acknowledge our faults and turn to the Lord for forgiveness.
  • Second Reading (1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1), Paul exhorts us to follow Christ’s example. By following his Christian standards, we can reflect God’s compassion and mercy in our daily lives.
  • Gospel according to St. Mark (1:40-45). In this passage, Jesus encounters a leper who comes to him in humility and supplication, «Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.» Jesus’ response is moving: «I will, be cleansed» and integrates him back into the life of his people.

A new day begins and we wake up at dawn to listen and contemplate, both attitudes are fundamental to approach God and his will. Listening implies being attentive, receptive and willing to obey. Contemplating implies admiring, thanking and praising. Both attitudes help us to enter into communion with God and with others.

Listening.

The Gospel recounts the last passage of chapter 1 of the Gospel according to Mark in verses 40-45 entitled «The Healing of a Leper». I invite you to break down the text which will allow us to become part of the scene, to imagine, to listen and to involve the rest of the senses. We find Jesus on the outskirts of a village (Mk 1:40), he meets a leper who asks to be healed if it is his will (Mk 1:40b), Jesus expresses his desire to see him healed (Mk 1:41), he sends him to fulfill the prescriptions of Moses so that his health may be established (Mk 1:44) and people come to him from everywhere (Mk 1:45).

Contemplate.

In the reflection of this passage the context is important. According to Jewish law, the priest was the one who could declare a person impure, who from that moment on was excluded from the social and religious life of his people, having to go to live on the outskirts of the town among other sick and possessed people. In this context we place a leprous man who approaches Jesus carrying in himself the marginalization, the exclusion, the repudiation, the unworthiness, the worry of being even rejected by God and with the weakness of the one who has banished from himself every reason to live, he puts himself in Jesus’ hands without demands «If you want, you can cleanse me».

Jesus had compassion (Mk 1:41a), he approaches him, he does not remain indifferent, he allows himself to be involved and wounded by the pain, by the sickness of the one he meets on the road; he touches him with his hand (Mk 1:41b), he does not turn back, his goal is the man, to heal his wounds; and says to him (Mk 1:41c) «I will, be cleansed», words that reintegrated him not only to the social but also to the religious life of his community, so Jesus sends him (Mk 1:44b) as established by the Law, go and present yourself before the priest so that it may be recorded before all that you are now cleansed of your sickness.

The passage continues Mk1, 45b and says that Jesus stayed in the outskirts because he could no longer enter freely into the villages, a significant fact that brings us closer to the essence of God for whom borders do not exist, Jesus remains in this theological place thus fracturing the differences of the old law that separated the cursed from the blessed. There he received the sick from many places, so this place must become for everyone a call to personal and pastoral conversion, and for this let us not be afraid to go to the peripheries of the other worlds and our own, where we are all one with the Father, the Son and the Spirit. There where we are all Church in going out, Church on the way.

Invitation.

The Lord is waiting for you in the peripheries where you learn to look at life in many colors, where life hurts, where there are only equals and where you can feel your vulnerability, discover your own despair, bare your heart, not be an appearance, be reconciled with yourself, with others, build bridges, give and receive mercy.

To approach the personal and pastoral conversion implicit in this biblical passage, it is important to give answers to these questions:

  • Who are the lepers of today?
  • Do you have any leprosy that prevents you from living in fraternity, reconciled and hopeful? Today you can ask Jesus to be cleansed.
  • What are the peripheries where you can meet the Lord?

Intention.

In the contemplated context we ask the Lord to see him in order to know him internally, to love him, to accept his will and to refresh the memory of our own salvation history.

 

S. Mariulis Grehan, tc

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Lectio Sunday, february 4, 2024

First Reading: Job 7:1-4.6-7. The book of Job presents us with the drama of a righteous man who suffers for no apparent reason and who questions God about the reason for his situation. In this passage, Job expresses his anguish and despair before a life that becomes unbearable for him.

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 146:1-6. The psalm contrasts Job’s attitude with that of the psalmist, who praises God for his goodness and power. The psalm reminds us that God is the creator and sustainer of all that exists, and that he is especially concerned for the poor and the afflicted.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23. The Apostle Paul shares with us his experience as a preacher of the Gospel, which for him is not a source of pride, but an obligation and a vocation. Paul does everything for everyone, adapting himself to different circumstances and persons, in order to win them to Christ.

Gospel: Mark 1:29-39. The evangelist Mark narrates the beginning of Jesus’ public activity in Galilee, where he performs signs of healing and liberation, and where he withdraws to pray in solitary places. Jesus shows his compassion for the sick and the possessed, and his fidelity to the will of the Father, who sends him to preach the Kingdom of God.

A new day begins and we wake up at dawn to listen and contemplate, both attitudes are fundamental to approach God and his will. Listening implies being attentive, receptive and willing to obey. Contemplating implies admiring, thanking and praising. Both attitudes help us to enter into communion with God and with others.

Listen

We approach a day with the Master where daily life is woven of Celebration, Service, Fraternity, Prayer, Mercy and Mission as we confront it in the Gospel proposed for the contemplation of this day: Mk 1:29 they leave the synagogue (Celebration); Mk 1:30 to meet Peter’s sick mother-in-law (Service); Mk 1:31 in Peter’s house Jesus cures his mother-in-law who sets about serving them (Fraternity); Mk 1:32 in the evening he cures the sick crowded at the door (Mercy); Mk 1:35 in the early morning he withdraws in silence to be with the Father (Prayer) and in the face of the restlessness of the people who are looking for him at dawn he responds to his disciples, let us go to other places (Mission) Mk 1:38 .  Each of these words shows us a facet of the love of Jesus and his self-giving, and invites us to imitate him in our concrete reality.

Contemplate

We could continue reflecting and delving into each gesture of Jesus from the six words that outline his day, but there is a detail that helps us to enter into the heart of God and be with Him, which is the goal of every prayer space. We fix our gaze on the verse Mk 1, 31 how Jesus not only works miracles but the particular way of relating with trust and predilection with the sick whom he cured; he approached her, took her by the hand and lifted her up. Later the story speaks of other healings, but this one in particular characterizes the gestures of Jesus which are those of the Father. We wonder what Peter’s mother-in-law could have seen or felt? There were no words, we only know that Jesus’ eyes and hands connected with her weakness and in his gestures the woman found the strength and support that made her get up to welcome, attend and serve Jesus and the disciples.

There is another implicit reality in this Gospel and although it is not entirely exposed, it is born as an irrefutable consequence, and it is that every person who meets Jesus and the face of the Father cannot keep silent about the joy of salvation, the announcement of what has been lived, the beating of the heart made words. It was a reality for Peter’s mother-in-law, her healing focused her, empowered her and turned her into a sacrament of God, testifying with her life the joy of having regained Hope and the meaning of life. Not only did she open the doors of her house to God and serve Jesus, but she also announced, invited and welcomed her neighbors. This tells us that Jesus not only restored her physical health, but also gave her a new spiritual life. This incorporation of Peter’s mother-in-law challenges us to renew our faith and our commitment because listening to the Master implies being willing to learn from him, to follow his teachings and to do his will. Allowing ourselves to meet his gaze implies recognizing his presence, his love and his action in our lives and in the lives of others.

Invitation:

Anyone who listens cannot remain silent. Recover your joy, listen to the Master and let yourself meet his gaze. Jesus met the gaze of the Father and his way of living helps us to question ourselves:

  • Is prayer the space where you find strength, consolation and the impetus to live the mission?
  • Does the surrender of Jesus in the daily life animate your daily life and is it necessary for you to live the celebration, prayer, fraternity, mercy, service, mission as aspects that we cannot neglect if we want to follow the example of Jesus?
  • What do you think of the statement he who listens to Jesus cannot remain silent?

Intention:

Ask the Father through the intercession of Jesus Christ that during this week you may feel his voice lifting you from fever and the joy of the encounter with him and the intimacy with the Father give you Comfort and Hope.

S. Mariulis Grehan, tc

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