Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

It is said that the First Letter of Peter once was as well-considered as St. Paul’s epistles.  However, in modern times its importance has waned.  The principal reason for reason its waning stature is the questioning of its attribution to Peter, Christ’s lead apostle.  Its polished Greek and its addressees -- Greek churches in Asia Minor – indicate that the apostle Peter was not its genuine author.

Still the message of the letter addresses the needs of Christians in the latter half of the first century.  It teaches Judeo-Christian mores to peoples who have not long believed in the one God.  It also urges perseverance in suffering, a reality for many if not most Christians in the latter first century.

First Peter, as the letter is often called, inspires as well as instructs.  Its opening section telling of the “new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” moves Christians across the centuries.  We have a new way of living which will crescendo in unimaginable blessing if we stay the course.

Tuesday. March 1, 2022

 Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

 (I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

 Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday.  In Europe and South America the day and period leading up to it is often called carnival, which comes from Latin words meaning plenty of meat.  Both expressions have the same implication. Christians gorge themselves on rich food as they contemplate the forty-day fast that lies ahead.  What was once done so that good food might not be wasted has become an orgy.  One might ask participants in today’s festivities if they plan to discipline themselves during Lent.

 The first reading today would view Mardi Gras revelry with a gaunt eye.  It warns readers to “live soberly” so that they do not shun the grace merited by Christ.  It further recommends that Christians strive for holiness – a quality of God that diverges from worldly decadence.

Our excitement today should not be limited to having a full meal at six and perhaps a nightcap before midnight.  We should be thinking of how we will show our love for the Lord in the weeks ahead.  He has given us life and sustained it in myriad ways.  We might fast from sweets or perhaps pray regularly in front of an abortion clinic.  These are time-tested ways to show God our appreciation.

 

 

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

Vatican II underlined what the first reading today proclaims.  Its Constitution on the Church called all Christians to holiness.  Perhaps because people mistakenly think that holiness precludes sexual ecstasy, they recoil at the thought.  But for the great majority of persons, marital love paves the way to holiness.

The reading from the First Letter of Peter points out that holiness is not an outcome of human effort alone but is aided by grace.  It shows how grace -- God’s favor -- is manifest in different ways.  First, it proposes the salvation of eternal life as the goal to which humans are to aspire.  Then it indicates that the Creator is the model of holiness as it quotes the Old Testament, “’Be holy because I am holy.’”

Trouble comes when we want to have our own way.  We insist on maintaining autonomy which makes us, not God, the ultimate ruler of our lives.  We will be surprised to learn that heeding God’s commands produces greater freedom than we can achieve with ourselves in control.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

Mardi Gras, of course, means Fat Tuesday.  In Europe and South America the day and period leading up to it is often called carnival, which comes from Latin words meaning plenty of meat.  Both expressions have the same implication: Christians gorge themselves on rich food as they contemplate the forty-day fast that lies ahead.  Of course, what may have once been an innocent way to see that no good food is wasted has turned into – at least, in some cases – an orgy.  One might ask if hardcore participants in today’s festivities will also really partake of the long penance to come.

The first reading today views Mardi Gras revelry with a gaunt eye.  It warns readers to “live soberly” so that they do not shun the grace that Jesus merited.  It further recommends that Christians strive for holiness – a quality of God that diverges from worldly decadence.

Our excitement today should not be limited to having a full meal at six and perhaps a nightcap before midnight.  We should also be thinking of how we will show our love for the Lord in the weeks ahead.  He has given us life and sustained it in myriad ways.  We might fast from sweets or perhaps pray regularly in front of an abortion clinic as a token of our appreciation.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

In his novel The Shack, William Young describes the Holy Spirit as a young Asian woman who like an electron in an atom seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Young’s Spirit differs remarkably from his portraits of the Father, a joyful hulk of a woman, and the Son, the classical Jewish carpenter. No doubt, the Spirit as a wispy maiden, as well as the Young’s conceptualization of the Father will offend sensibilities. But there is no way to adequately describe the central mystery of faith.

Today’s reading from the First Letter of Peter twice mentions the Holy Spirit. The Spirit inspires Old Testament prophets with indications of Christ’s paschal event. The Spirit also moves the apostles to preach the gospel to the people with insight into their needs. The reading might have added, but didn’t, that the Spirit enables Christian holiness by illuminating the world’s allurements.

We are wise to develop a habit of daily prayer to the Holy Spirit. The Father may seem distant at times, and the Son perhaps too righteous to approach with our persistent faults. But the Spirit, as sure to come as the morning sun, will see us through any trial.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

(I Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10:28-31)

Novelist Ann Lamott tells the story of a young tennis player who is prone to cheat. She calls balls that hit the line “out” in order not to lose a point. A man sees her doing this and tells her so. But more than correcting her, he befriends her and admits, “I did what you did....I cheated.” At the end of the story the young player overcompensates by calling balls that go beyond the line “in” so as not to appear dishonest. But then she summons the courage to call a long shot as out. With that the man stands up to leave the match which causes the girl’s mother to ask, “’Aren’t you going to stay and watch Rosie win?” The man answers, “’I already have.’”

Peter’s letter to the Christian community calls us to the same kind of integrity. We are to give up “the desires of our former ignorance” in order to live in accord with the holiness of God. Honesty needs to be as implicit with us as we expect a nurse to treat his patients with care. More than that even, we are to set a model example in whatever we do – whether people expect it of us as, for example, when we refrain from cursing and when it is most difficult as occurs at times when women are called to carry a baby to term despite danger to their own lives.