Daily word, 22 Feb 20

Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle (22 Feb 2020) 

1Pt 5. 1-4; Ps 23; Mt 16. 13-19

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Weekend Retreats

Three Suggestions For Us

Professors come and go from endowed chairs at universities: a chair of applied ethics; Asian history; nuclear medicine, for example: each has its focus. The occupants of the chairs serve the lives of learners. Today’s feast lets us celebrate the pastor of the world church. We celebrate the Bishop of Rome’s authority in service of the church in all its variety. Guiding, teaching, worshiping, forming: all serve its unity. More Christians recognize the service of unity catholics have celebrated very early in the church’s history.

We also celebrate ourselves and our baptismal gifts. St. Paul reminded Christians that our transformation in Christ empowers us to identify with the feelings and conditions of others: rejoice with those who are rejoicing; weep with those who are weeping.¹ Our death and rebirth in Christ causes our rejoicing. Human weeping of tears shed as well as tears others do not know they shed; and one’s groaning for relief and redemption as well the groaning of the entire creation,² throw us onto our baptism into Christ and his eucharist that sustains our baptisms. Baptism, eucharist and the entire Christian life is a shared life. That means the witness to the sufferings of Christ does not alone share in the glory to be revealed. The witness assures all of us are heirs to our blessed hope and the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.³ Baptism endows us with gifts to interpret ways Christ is already present and ways to live in hope as we expect Christ’s glory to be revealed.

Baptism also gifts us with power to discern spirits; and to note the variety of ways scripture discloses our triune God at work for us, in us and all creation. Retreats especially nourish our baptismal gift of discernment.

Finally, we celebrate the church’s unique service to the world: all that exists harmonizes …with the [desire] of the Creator [who]…endowed…all things…with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order.⁴ Our baptisms empower us to respect others and everything; and to do the more challenging task of returning good for evil done to others and to our planet.⁵ It is God’s way.

This unique service, another baptismal gift, is not always welcomed by others. We may say we die to Satan’s pattern of evil for evil and are born to Christ’s pattern of good for evil. Christ’s pattern is no less a gift than expecting Christ’s glory to be revealed and the discernment offered us as we live our expectation. As you come to know more clearly and deeply who Christ is for you, let Christ renew your baptismal gifts and enlighten you to feel and know more clearly the way Christ invites you to live your role in Christ’s church today.

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1. Romans 12.15.
2. Romans 8.22.
3. Conclusion of words recited by priests after the assembly prays the Lord’s Prayer. Roman Missal, #124.
4. Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, 36.  
5. Scripture is replete with this. Jesus encouraged it esp. in Matthew 5.44 || Luke 6.35.

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Wiki-image: Dnalor 01 Chair of Peter. CC BY-SA 3.0

Sunday word, 16 Feb 20

6th Sunday of the Year (16 Feb 2020)

Sir 15. 15-20; Ps 119; 1Co 2.6-10; Mt 5. 17-22a, 27-28, 33-34a, 37

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Close of Spiritual Exercises

“Deepest Loves”

Jesus reformed torah to be more humane. For Jesus interior states are more godlike than visible actions. Wednesday we heard Jesus: from within, from the heart of a person, come evils [that] defile one.¹ Today Jesus invites “to high holiness that we have…not seen or heard about.”² We personally have received from our triune God that same invitation—as each of us needed to hear it.

The late Jesuit John Kavanaugh revealed he had received it from the same Spiritual Exercises. He noted that

The Sermon on the Mount…is an excavation into our deepest loves, so that seeing what we love most, we will finally be given our heart’s desire. But it is a harrowing trip down into the mines of our motivation.³

Christ Jesus who announced his reformed torah constantly accompanies us. We neither excavate nor journey alone. Before we part let each of us share the singular grace we received from making these Spiritual Exercises.

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1. Mark 7.21-23.
2. “The Revolution Jesus Announced,” The Word Embodied.
3. Ibid.

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Wiki-images: Sermon of the Beatitudes. PD-US

Daily word, 10 Feb 20

Memorial of St. Scholastica  (10 Feb 2020)

1Kg 8. 1-7, 9-13; Ps 132; Mk 6. 53-56

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Spiritual Exercises, 8-day directed retreat

Sharing Favour

Listen closely. Imagine yourself in a room with the person making this self-description. I will ask you one question.

For me, [people are] important because [they] exist[]. [They] carr[y] within [themselves]…problems and difficulties trying to recount them, often with mistrust because of…failures. I am there with…neither magic solutions nor answers. I listen attentively…without judging. I do not have to decide whether [one] is right or wrong; I am there to accept [people] as [they are]. This permits the beginning of that wonderful miracle; a transformation process, a change.¹

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What would you say is that person’s day job? || The woman who “permits the beginning of that wonderful miracle [of] transformation” is a counsellor and current president of Italy’s Association of Professional Counsellors.² Maria contributed her remarks to the newsletter of a worldwide missionary congregation of women.

Maria’s convictions reminded me of you, of me, of every Christian, of every friend of Jesus. Christians are convinced that a wonderful miracle happens to us and makes us “servants of Christ’s mission.”³ We Christians serve one another and the world when we wake each day and expect to see Holy Spirit at work. I know someone who calls this expectation of God’s unexpected energy bursting miracle watching.

Miracle watching bestows freedom: all is God’s gift to me; I am free to welcome God’s lavish love; I need “neither magic solutions nor answers.”; I am free to be who God creates me to be this day, this hour, this moment. I freely welcome my share of Christ’s work for the world; and I’m equally free to rest with Christ and feel filled with his presence.

Retreat affords us time to rest in Christ un-disturbed and feel filled with Christ’s presence. Our interior senses notice it. Christ communi-cates to us who we are. More aware of who I am as Christ beholds me consoles me with my true, healed, transformed self. I am energized, guided, joyfully propelled into life, into action, into service beyond myself.

We cannot give ourselves Christ’s consoling presence. We can welcome Christ’s commissioning in the world and we can trust it. Christ’s commissioning is no less a miracle than his healing touches sick people experienced when Christ walked the land of Gennesaret. Christ’s commissioning of us favours us as it favours our world. Let St. Scholastica and her twin keep that alive in you.

The twins Benedict and Scholastica visited each other once a year in a farmhouse, [common ground for the monk and nun]. [The church has treasured] their last day together….  Scholastica sensed her death was close at hand and she begged Benedict to stay with her until the next day.

He refused her request because he did not want to spend a night outside the monastery—he would break [the] Rule [of life Benedict had written for monks. It must have been a weighty decision for him.] Scholastica asked God to let her brother remain and a severe thunderstorm [arose], preventing Benedict and his monks from returning to the abbey.

Benedict cried out, “God forgive you, Sister. What have you done?” Scholastica replied, “I asked a favor of you and you refused. I asked it of God and he granted it.”⁴

Christ told Scholastica who she was. Christ is telling you who you are and favouring your corner of the world by returning you to it. Relish that twin favour; ask to keep it aglow within you; and freely share its light.

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1. Maria Cristina Falaschi [Counsellor, President of the Association of Professional Counsellors REICO], “The beauty of the Word in the Women who nurture life,” WOMEN OF THE WORD Voices from the world, VITA PIÙ n. 10 JANUARY/APRIL 2020, p. 14.
2. Its Board of Directors.
3. The phrase is the self-understanding of Jesuits. Countless people help us extend Christ’s mission to others throughout the world.
4. Saint of the Day, February 10.

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Wiki-images by: The sick were presented to Jesus. PD-US; © Ralph Hammann—Wikimedia Commons Sts. Scholastica and Benedict CC BY-SA 4.0