Category: Franciscan Footprint

Five Important Spiritual Thoughts from the Liturgy of the Word

…and follow up for the Secular Franciscan

February 9 – February 15

 

1 — “He has done all things well.” (Mk 7:37)

…Certainly, we admire the Lord; are we trying to think as he does?

 

 

2 – “We speak God’s wisdom.” (1 Cor 2:7)

…Am I conveying the wisdom of God in my speech?

 

 

3 — “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd.” (Mk 8:2)

…Is my heart being moved with care and concern for ALL others?

 

 

4 — “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” (Mk 8:15)

HYPOCRISY

 

“Beware
of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.” (Luke 12:1)

 

“This people honors me with their lips, but
their hearts are far from me.”

(Mark 7:6)

 

“Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

(Mark 8:15)

 

“Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.”

(Matthew 23:13)

 

There was a popular song out a number
of years ago by the rock group Genesis that was entitled “Jesus He Knows Me.”
Some of the lyrics are these:

Do you see the face on the TV screen, coming at you every Sunday? That
man is me. You buy a piece of paradise, you buy a piece of me. Don’t need to
believe in hereafter: just believe in me. ‘Cause Jesus he knows me and he knows
I’m right. I’ve been talking to Jesus all my life. I believe in the family with
my ever loving wife beside me, but she don’t know about my girlfriend. Won’t
find me practicing what I’m preaching, won’t find me making a sacrifice. But I
can get you a pocketful of miracles. I’ve found true happiness ‘cause I’m
getting richer day by day. If you wanna get closer to him, get on your knees
and start paying. [emphasis mine]

It is a song obviously lashing out at TV evangelists especially with their pleas for money.

The song is not far from the thought of
Jesus concerning the evangelists of his day—the scribes and the Pharisees. But
it was not money they were after—it was power, power that came by way of honor and authority. And so Jesus
says:

Do and observe all things whatsoever
they tell you, but do not follow their example. … All their works are performed to be seen.

Or in other words: do not be hypocrites.

Hypocrisy is an interesting phenomenon
to talk about. It is an automatic trap or problem area for anyone who gives
direction to others: priests, ministers, teachers, parents, legislators, anyone
showing leadership of others. In our case, it is anyone who chooses to do
something good that others see, and therefore anyone going to Church. For
whatever reason, we go to Church, and in doing so, we say to the world: “I
believe in God through Jesus Christ.” We must listen to Jesus in the Gospel
today. It is possible to say ‘I believe’, and not put it into practice.

We should be very interested in what we
say in Church. We say strong words during the service, words like, we believe,
we will, we do. We must truly listen to what we say and do. We
receive the Lord in the words of the Gospel and in the Eucharist. How can someone
receive the Lord and with the same mouth tear down someone else or allow foul
language to come out of it? How can someone receive the Lord and continue a
life-style that makes a shambles of a marriage or parenting? How can we miss
the sacredness of life itself by being bitter and angry most of the time? Or
refusing to see the good in life?

How? — According to Jesus, we have
allowed religion to be nothing more than something to be seen or performed.

What’s the antidote to hypocrisy, how
do we stay away from it? Jesus says:

The greatest among you must be your servant.

Service—the way to keep ourselves from the hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another is to
work on behalf of others. Serve people, give to them without expecting anything
in return, make others feel important because they are—really.

By the very fact that we go to Church,
we are making a statement to the world outside that we believe in Jesus Christ.
We must realize that we could be hypocrites… or if we carry through, we could
be people who are helping this world.

 

 

5 – “He saw clearly.” (Mk 8:25)

…The blind man finally saw clearly. Is it clear to me that the Lord is truly acting in my life

2-8-23.pdf

(pdf copy attached for printing)

Five Important Spiritual Thoughts from the Liturgy of the Word

…and follow up for the Secular Franciscan

February 2 – February 8

1 – “My eyes have seen your salvation.” (Lk 2:30)

…The Lord has been so good to us. We should thank Him often.

 

 

2 — “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (Mk 6:31)

PRAYER

 

“Come away by yourselves to a
deserted place and rest a while.”

(Mark 6:31)

 

“Jesus spent the night in prayer to God.”

(Luke 6:12)

 

“Mary has chosen the better part and
it will not be taken from her.”

(Luke 10:42)

 

“My house shall be a house of prayer.”

(Luke 19:46)

 

“Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off
to a deserted place, where he prayed.”

(Mark 1:35)

 

The local Student Council was scheduled to provide the opening entertainment for a
leadership program that the Kansas State High School Activities Association was
sponsoring. It traditionally consisted of the band playing or a choral group. Instead,
they put their student council on stage, and acted as if we, the audience, were
the school, and they were having student council president elections. As I watched, I remember being totally lost as
to what they were doing.

There were four candidates: an academic-type, a cheerleader-type, an athletic-type,
and an off-center-type. As they lined up across stage, there were nominating and acceptance speeches. Everyone invariably said that if they were
elected, they would listen and they promised great things for the students of the school.

During the speeches, there was a young boy who wandered around the stage, looking at
each person. His hat was on crooked, and evidently confused. I thought he should
not have been in the skit, thinking that he was handicapped in some way, and
the group on stage seemed to be embarrassed by his presence. Everyone on stage pushed him away. He walked around the whole time of the
speeches, and finally, he was pushed off stage. Someone won the election. There was cheering, then sudden silence. The actors froze and the young man came back
on stage and said one line: “Even as they promised they would listen to me,
they pushed me away.”

There is a great lesson there: before we act and do something for anyone, we have to
first of all listen.

In one of the Gospels, Martha and Mary are both giving of themselves to Jesus. The reason why Jesus is partial to what Mary
did is the same lesson of the high school skit: Mary listened before she acted.
Martha was just the opposite—she was acting without listening first.

The lesson is both a psychological and a spiritual one. If we truly want to serve someone, to give to
someone, we must listen first, then act. When we listen first, the other person is in
charge of the agenda. When we start doing right away, we may have missed what the other wants because we are merely
doing what we think the other wants. And therefore it is nothing more than what we
want.

If we apply this psychological/spiritual principle to the spiritual life, we come up
with this: before we become a Christian who does things, we must become a
Christian who listens to Jesus’ ideas. If we do not do that, we run into contradictions. A person gives a lot of money to the Church or
a charitable cause, for example, while at the same time cheating or hurting
someone else; the married person professes to be a good follower of Jesus, but
at the same time, will only “selectively listen” to his/her spouse; or people
go to Mass, even daily Mass, and tear down another in their speech during the
day.

Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus himself in prayer several times, always with the idea of listening to his
Father.

In the Gospel story of Martha and Mary, Jesus reminds Martha that Mary has chosen
the “better part” because she was able to listen to Jesus before she acted. That is a great thought for us as well.

 

 

3 — “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”  (Mt 5:13,14)

…Are we? [salt=knowledge of God; light=knowledge put into action]

 

 

4 – “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Mk 7:6)

…Am I hypocritical in my life?

 

 

5 — “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles.”  (Mk 7:20)

…Especially in my speech. How is my speech toward others?

1-25-23.pdf

( A PDF copy of this article is attached)

 

Five Important Spiritual Thoughts from the Liturgy of the Word

…and follow up for the Secular Franciscan

January 19 – January 25

1 – “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Heb 8:10)

…the Solemn Promise of our God. Are we the type of person who keeps a promise to God?

 

 

2 – “ That there be no divisions among you.” (1 Cor 1:10)

…Do I deliberately problems for others for no good reason?

 

 

3 — “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:17)

…Have I taken the time to confess my sinfulness to the Lord?

 

 

4 – “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mk 3:35)

WILL OF GOD

 

One way of looking
at what
Jesus did as he redeemed us is to consider Jesus following the will of God
perfectly in his life. He was following
his chosen way of living which was nothing less than the good of humankind, as
best as he could. Jesus says in the
Gospel: Here are my mother and brothers (pointing to those in the
circle)—that is all of us and all of humankind.
That was what he was called to do—touch every human being with his
redeeming power.

That notion of the will of God is
important for us as well and for us, what is will of God?

Each of us have chosen a way of life. A number of factors went into the choice, but
whatever we have become, we are choosing some way of spending our time on this
earth. We are called to live that way of
life following the principles of Jesus Christ.
So the concept of following the will of God means nothing more or less
than actually following Jesus’s directives as we are living the way of life
that we have chosen for ourselves.

The student follows what Jesus taught
as she/he studies. The retired person
accepts the virtues that Jesus set up as she/he sets her/his own pattern of
living in retirement. The married person
lives the message of Jesus as she/he interacts with her/his spouse, indeed
something that is quite difficult at times.
The person involved in her/his chosen work in order to make money does
so using the guidelines that Jesus taught us during his time on earth. In short, doing the will of God means that as
we direct the line of activity in our lives that we have chosen–that we do it
with the directives of the Lord as guidelines.

The will of God was uppermost in
Jesus mind, leading him to redeem us The will of God should likewise be
uppermost in the follower of Jesus’ minds—you and me, leading us to truly live
our different chosen careers with Christian principles.

 

 

5 – “I asked, ‘What shall I do, sir?’” (Acts 22:10)

…Asked of our spiritual lives, Paul’s question is what we should ask of the Lord in our own set of circumstances.

(pdf copy attached for printing)

 

Five Important Spiritual Thoughts from the Liturgy of the Word

…and follow up for the Secular Franciscan

January 12 – January 18

1 – “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” (Ps 95:7c-8)

…How well do I listen to the words of Scripture?

 

 

2 — “We have never seen anything like this.” (Mk 2:12)

…Jesus is still a force in Christians’ lives. Has Jesus’s doctrine permeated everything I do?

 

 

3 – “The word of God is living and effective.” (Heb 4:12)

…Do I live by the word of God?

 

 

4 — “The Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27)

Extended meditation:

THE IMPORTANCE OF PEOPLE

 

‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the
least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

(Matthew 25:40)

 

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

(Mk 2:27)

 

There is little doubt that one of the great Popes of all time was a most recent one,
St. Pope John Paul II. He was known for trying to bring the whole world
together by his many travels. Perhaps the most inspiring visit that he ever
made was on December 27, 1983 and not to any country, but to an Italian prison.
He made it not to a multitude of people, but to one man by the name of Mehmet
Ali Agca who had tried to kill Pope John Paul two and a half years before. Pope
John Paul, recognizing Jesus in him, completely forgave him. Pope John Paul was
living out what Jesus said in the Gospel. Other people may not act like Jesus,
but they are Jesus. Whatever you do to others, you do to me. These may
be the most radical words that Jesus ever spoke.

One of the best ways to improve our spiritual lives is to think about what should
be guiding our behavior at the moment of our deaths. The Hebrew religious mind
would expect Jesus to say that at the judgment at the end of our lives we
should be following the Law of Moses that which was the criterion of everything
the devout Jewish person did in Jesus’s day. When Jesus spoke of the judgment,
he did not mention the Law of Moses.

The religious person might expect Jesus to say that we should be thinking of God in
some form, the God whose name was so sacred to the Hebrew people that they
would not even pronounce it. The religious people would have thought that at
the end of our lives, Jesus would say something about that God, their
approaches to God, their lives with God, the name they used for God. Jesus did
not mention God.

In fact, Jesus did not mention the Law; he did not mention tradition, he did not
refer to the prophets, the patriarchs, religious practices and prayers,
synagogue, church, none of these. Instead, when it came down to the final
analysis of a person, when judgment had to be made concerning what a person had
done, at that moment, the most sacred of all moments in a person’s whole life,
Jesus says everything depends on how much the person has given to others.
The whole after-life depends on giving to people. That is, how a person gives
to others will be the measure that a person will be measured with for all
eternity. That was an absolutely incredible statement for a Hebrew religious
leader to make.

And, as if that was not enough to shock people, Jesus even goes further than that.
He talks about the least brothers and sisters. Perhaps we can define “least” to be the way we view “least” in our
view of things. That is, those who criticize us, those who do not like us,
those who refuse to understand us, those who are evil, those who do bad things,
those who are terrorists, those who are unable to understand the evil of their
actions, those who have serious addiction problems, those who hate our
families, those who are so sick that they do not know what they are doing,
those who have no homes and look so helpless. We must give even to the least
brothers and sisters.

 

 

5
– “Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart…”
(Mk 3:5)

…In his human nature, Jesus was very upset with those who would not listen to his words… Am I listening and following the way I should?