Mary M. McGlone

Scripture for Life: This feast day offers us individual and communal invitations to conversion. On the personal level, Zephaniah and Our Lady of Guadalupe invite us to hear the message of God's indomitable love and presence among us.

Scripture for Life: The thing about genuine conversion or metanoia is that we can't plan it. It is God's offer in a particular moment of history — a grace of insight that shakes us up and turns us around. All we can do is be open to it.

Scripture for Life: Scripture leads us to discover that prayer is like a boomerang: We launch it only to have it come back at us. When Jesus told people that their faith had saved them, he was saying that God works through us, never replacing human effort nor overriding our freedom.

Scripture for Life: We might wonder why the church should celebrate a solemn feast day honoring Jesus with a title that he avoided using for himself and that was the ultimate pretext for executing him as a seditionist.

Scripture for Life: We are living in apocalyptic times. Our moment calls us to a realistic assessment of our crises and a response that springs from the grace of believing that now is the time to lift up our heads and see that the Son of Man is at the gates. 

Scripture for Life: The widows of today's liturgy invite us to ask ourselves how we can allow our experience to lead us into solidarity. Rich or poor, we are all vulnerable, even if we are not courageous enough to admit it.

Scripture for Life: What it was like to be Jesus was to be hopeful, generous, capable of much, but able to do only as much as others would accept from him. That is how he was Godlike.

Scripture for Life: The nearer we come to God the more we will share in God's glory: passionate, self-giving. Then we will understand the invincible power of vulnerable love.

Scripture for Life: There's a trick in this story of inheritance. Like the wealthy man, we can forget that our inheritance is about genetics and biology, status and goods, things we did nothing to deserve.

Scripture for Life: Genesis 1 and 2 teach that God placed us in the midst of creation to enjoy and grow in communion with one another in the image of the Trinity. Jesus invites us to live into that truth for the rest of our lives.

Scripture for Life: Those who carry on Jesus' work are his co-laborers, no matter what disqualifications others might wish to put in their way. Disciples are recognized for how they serve others. That trumps everything else.

Scripture for Life: Today's liturgy invites us to assess our personal and communal relationships with God and one another. Are we willing to gamble that servant love is sufficient to transform evil?

Scripture for Life: Much as we resist it, the God we meet in Jesus, the Christ who is our savior, is thoroughly unlike the materialistic, political or militaristic gods the world urges us to worship.

Scripture for Life: The Gospels portray discipleship as a long apprenticeship that comes to fruition as Jesus' followers begin to comprehend their vocation in the light of his death and resurrection.

Scripture for Life: Jesus was scandalously ordinary, except in how he loved God and made God's love available to others.

Scripture for Life: Neither church nor society has probably ever been quite ready for Mary of Nazareth. Her Magnificat leads us to seek God in the times and places where the lowly are cherished and the hungry filled.

Scripture for Life: Today's Scripture stories dare us to risk an encounter with the living God who answers prayer in ever-new, life-giving, mind- and soul-transforming ways.

Scripture for Life: Jesus' sharing of himself as the bread of life illustrates the greatest potential of human life. The Son of God entered our history not to wow us with miracles, but to show us how we can live as Paul suggests: as new selves, people truly renewed in spirit.

Scripture for Life: When was the last time you considered the question, "What is my calling?" That's not a question of your job, although the hope is that any occupation we engage in becomes an expression of our deeper call. 

Scripture for Life: This week's Scriptures tell us that as followers of Christ the Good Shepherd, we must remember that the invitation to repose by restful waters is for refreshment, not permanent residence.