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Message of the Day
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Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that
space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
. . .
This is the core of the human spirit ... If we can find something to live for - if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives - even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.
- Viktor Frankl
(Are you in touch with this inner freedom these days? What is the deepest meaning of your
life?)
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Readings of the Day
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2 Tm 1:1-3, 6-12; Ps 123:1b-2ab,
2cdef
Mk 12:18-27
Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,
came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying,
"Teacher, Moses wrote for
us,
If someone's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.
Now there were seven brothers.
The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants.
So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants,
and the third likewise.
And the seven left no
descendants.
Last of all the woman also died.
At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?
For all seven had been married to her."
Jesus said to them, "Are you not
misled
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When they rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but they are like the angels in
heaven.
As for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac,
and the God of Jacob?
He is not God of the dead but of the living.
You are greatly
misled."
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God bestowed when my hands were laid on you. The Spirit God has given us is no cowardly Spirit.” —2 Timothy
1:6-7 At the first Christian Pentecost, 120 disciples of Jesus received the Holy Spirit at 9:00 AM (Acts 1:15; 2:15). They reached 3,000 people with the Gospel that day (see Acts 2:41). The 120 were not only the recipients of Pentecost but also immediate participants in Pentecost. Jesus said that it is better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). At Pentecost, we understand that it is better to receive the Spirit so as to give the Spirit as soon as possible. For example, Mary received the Holy Spirit and conceived Jesus (Lk 1:35). “Thereupon Mary set out, proceeding in haste into the hill country” to share the Spirit, and the Baby she was carrying in her womb (Lk 1:39ff), with her cousin, Elizabeth. St. Boniface, whose feast we celebrate at Mass today, was martyred as he shared the Holy Spirit in preparing people to be confirmed. Like St. Boniface, we need to share the Holy Spirit right now because today may be our last chance. We need Christians who will stir into flame the gift of the Holy Spirit and join the original 120 who began and continued Pentecost without delay. Join in the mission of the 120 now. Prayer: Father, may I move in the Spirit. Promise: “When people rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but live like angels in heaven.” —Mk 12:25 Presentation Ministries
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Spiritual Reading
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Readings from Jesus Alive in Our Lives, by Philip St. Romain. Ave Maria Press, 1985. Contemplative Ministries, Inc. 2011. Part Three, Gift of the Spirit Chapter 5: Charismatic (Ministry)
Gifts - Selected quotes
The kind of knowledge and appreciation of charisms shared by Paul and evidenced in the early Church seems to have become diminished through the ages. I daresay that if you went into almost any Christian Church and asked individuals a few questions about spiritual
gifts, you would be greeted with a puzzled look in reply. Ask them what their particular charisms are and you’d see more evidence of bafflement. They might begin to share an inventory of their natural talents and aptitudes, but that’s not really the same thing.
I’ve been fortunate through the years to have been involved in the charismatic renewal in the early 1970s, and, in
recent years, through a second wave of appreciation for charisms catalyzed by the Catherine of Siena Institute (henceforth: CSI). Through the Institute’s teachers-primarily Fr. Michael Sweeny, OP and Ms. Sherry Weddell, a sound, updated theology of spiritual charisms is once again made available to all Christian churches, with resources to help individuals discover their own charisms. CSI emphasizes the ancient teachings—that if we have been baptized in Christ, then we belong to him
and are gifted by the Spirit to help build up the Church. The problem for many is that they haven’t ever taken this very seriously, and haven’t done much to investigate what their charisms might be. Almost equally manifest is the phenomenon of people who are habitually exercising spiritual charisms but have never identified them as such.
CSI defines charisms or spiritual
gifts as special abilities given to Christians by the Holy Spirit to enable them to be powerful channels of God’s love and redeeming presence in the world. They distinguish these charisms from natural talents by emphasizing that “charisms are not ‘in-born’ or inherited from our parents, but are given to us by the Holy Spirit.” We possess our talents all the time, but a charism seems to manifest only when the need presents itself.
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