Mary M. McGlone

Scripture for Life: From the time that Jesus looked at his disciples and said, "Blessed are you poor" to the present time, Christianity has taught that the poor and those who work for justice represent the reign of God among us.

Scripture for Life: Fixing our hearts is a matter of will and grace. The grace is available through the law and the prophets, the Son and the communities led by his Spirit. Do we have faith that makes us willing to accept our need for help?

Scripture for Life: Are we ready to renew our deeply personal, public dedication to Christ? If so, we might use the profession of faith as a solemn reaffirmation of our commitment. 

Scripture for Life: Jesus' last words in today's Gospel offer the invitation to live forever. It's as though after five weeks of pondering the mystery of Jesus the bread of life, we are still not adequately prepared to come to a conclusion. 

Scripture for Life: Elijah's story seems to teach that God listens to the prayers of the beloved and answers by beckoning them toward all that life can offer. This is the message Jesus tried to convey to his companions as he described himself as the bread that comes from heaven.

Scripture for Life: Following the lead of our ancestors in the faith, we may slowly learn to see beyond what the Letter to the Ephesians calls the "futility" of our minds and begin to perceive what God is doing here and now.

“Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock!” This is a favorite theme of prophets, parishioners who are not happy with their pastors, and folks who want to bash the hierarchy or critique politicians who foment divisiveness. But pay attention! 

Scripture for Life: Christ's followers must look at our world and ask what deep and truly human hopes and hungers are being unconsciously expressed in the blind competition of sports fans, the addictions that plague every strata of society, supremacy movements and all the isms that divide our people. 

Our liturgy of the word begins with the Prophet Amos. As the priest in charge is evicting him from the kingdom for being a prophet of doom, Amos protests that he never had any intention of becoming a prophet. 

Scripture for Life: Ask yourself, "How different would my life be if I didn't know about or believe in Christ?" Ask too, "When have I gotten caught in the net of Christ and the vision he offers?"

In 2 Corinthians, Paul addressed a community he knew all too well. He loved them in spite of their petty competitiveness and pretensions to wisdom and holiness. When Paul wrote this passage, he had just finished a surprisingly brief description of his extraordinary experience of visions — what we would think of as mystical experiences.

Scripture for Life: Today's Scriptures together remind us that God's ways are not what we would expect, and that God offers us more than we are generally ready to accept. 

In January 2018, David Brooks of The New York Times wrote a column entitled “Now Is the Time to Talk About the Power of Touch.” In a wonderfully expressive phrase he spoke of the power of “disenchanting emotional touch,” a touch not grounded in love or commitment which, when abusive, has the power to cripple if not destroy the immeasurably positive potential of loving touch. 

Scripture for Life: The woman had started something when she touched Jesus, but she had only just begun. She had used her initiative and obtained the result she sought without being aware of how small her expectations in the light of what Jesus had to offer.

Scripture for Life: While we know the Christ he could only hope for, we too live an in-between time. Many aspects of the modern world to which we have been accustomed are changing or ending. The most we know about the future is that we cannot imagine it.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is going to challenge us with two puzzling parables.  He created these early in his ministry to summarize his teachings about the coming of the kingdom of God. The first is not good news for autonomous activists, loner cowboys or determined do-it-yourselfers.

Scripture for Life: Trusting God's plan and timetable may ask more of us than all the things we might think we should or could do to make God's kingdom come.

Teachers of deaf children explain that when a child with a severe hearing impairment closes her eyes, she effectively cuts off all communication from the outside. With a distinct advantage over hearing children who must just pretend they don’t see or hear, she can prevent any new information from penetrating her world. 

Scripture for Life: As Pope Francis said in July 2016, we are called to give up "all motives of personal pride, of careerism or hunger for power … becoming humble instruments of salvation worked by Jesus' own sacrifice." Only then will we be able to hear the Lord call us brother, sister, mother, friend.

Today’s Liturgy of the Word guides us through the religious developments that led to our Eucharist. We begin as Moses leads his people in a spectacular liturgy of sacrifice. In what was almost participatory theater, the people renewed their covenant with the God who had led them out of Egypt and gave them commandments to assure a good life.