Category Archives: daily scripture

The Gift of Faith

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Click here for today’s Scripture readings.

2 Samuel: 1, 1-4; 11-12; 19-20; 23-27
Mark: 3, 20-21

I was born, baptized, and raised Catholic.  Jesus has always been central to my life.  For many years, I knew no other way.  In the joys and difficulties of my adult life, I’ve been able always to turn for strength to the accounts of Jesus’ everyday life and to the drama of his Passion and Resurrection.  Jesus is pure love.  Jesus makes sense. Jesus takes me seriously.  Even in war, Jesus loves every person.  That’s what I believe.  How have I come to believe it?

Freud speaks of the inestimable impact of one’s formative years, our very earliest years.  My parents and all our family, almost everyone I knew in my youth was Catholic.  From my earliest years, I was immersed in the Catholic faith, where Jesus is front and center.  It was the only way of life I knew and it seemed to me in every way to be good.  That’s the beginning of how I came to believe.

Sometimes, though, in my childhood, I used to wonder, “What if our family had lived in Jesus’ town and time?  What if my dad would have been like Jesus’ relatives in today’s Gospel?  If my father and many of the people around me would have dismissed Jesus as out of his mind, not to be taken seriously;  or worse, if my family and those close to us would have joined the crowd who said that Jesus was possessed by Beelzebul, what then for me?  That could have been.  But it wasn’t.

Why me?  Why now, in the Christian era, in a Christian community?  By God’s loving design . . . God’s freely given gift. . . God’s protecting me from the social and political influences which would have been too strong for me to second guess or resist . . .

It’s this mystery of God and God’s ways – that God has gifted us, you and me, to be His own, to be among those who receive Him.  God has invited us to be among those who may have never even questioned that Jesus is from the Father, not from Beelzebul.  May we never take this Gift from God for granted; may we always be open to it, and ever faithful.

- Sister Mary Clark SC is a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill.  She lives at Elizabeth Seton Convent in Pittsburgh, PA

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Auld Lang Syne

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I John 2: 18-21
John 1: 1-18

Our responsorial psalm today begins with the words “Sing to the Lord a new song”. And we celebrate our liturgy today on the eve of a new year.  But the song for that is old – in fact, Auld Lang Syne means “the good old days”.

Our gospel reading goes back even further – to the beginning of time when God in his Triune being brought everything into existence.  This prologue to John’s gospel echoes the creation account in the book of Genesis – when God looked at all the things he had made and rejoiced in their goodness.  God’s unconditional love for humanity was always there from the very beginning.

Even when we sinned God didn’t abandon us.  He sent a Redeemer, his only begotten Son, the Word made flesh to live and to die and to rise from death that he might lead us to everlasting life.  Jesus Christ himself is the Good News we celebrate today and every day.

So, by all means, let’s sing Auld Lang Syne, and remember the good old days and be grateful for them, but let us never lose sight of what lies before us – life eternal with our loving God and that calls for a new song of great joy.

- Fr. Damian Towey, CP is a member of the community at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center, North Palm Beach, Florida.

Dancing in Faith

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2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Lk 1:67-79

Our first reading today presents King David contemplating a desire to build a fit house for God.  He thinks the ark of God deserves more than a tent in which to reside.  One might think that this is an admirable act of love on David’s part, yet God rejects David’s plan and promises to establish a house for David which will “stand firm forever.”  It is in this house that God has raised up a savior who is Christ the Lord, as we read in the passage from the gospel of Luke.  In him and through him we will walk “into the way of peace” and we will live in the house of the Lord all the days of our life.

The real gift of Christmas is to surrender, to “let go and let God.”  Our desire is to be worthy of the gift we are awaiting.  However, we often stumble and fall short of this goal.  The Scripture readings today remind us to look into the future and believe that God will rescue us. God will provide for all peoples and bring peace and healing to the nations.  So often, like David, we think our relationship with God rests in our hands. Ruben Alves, a Latin American liberation theologist wrote:  “Hope is hearing the melody of the future; faith is dancing to that melody today.”

Lord, let us hear the melody of our future and dance in your presence today.

Alice Smith has been a part of Holy Family’s women’s retreat ministry for many years. She lives with her husband on Cape Cod.

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