Sunday Weekday Readings and Sunday, February 21st Reflection:

Reflection on Weekday Readings:

Monday, February 22, 2010

1 Peter 5:1-4; Psalm 23; Matthew 16: 13-19

Today’s psalm is so familiar, that on this feast of Peter’s chair (cathedra in Latin) in Rome, we might pray for the hierarchy in terms of our need for good shepherding. But our eyes are fixed on Jesus. How might he have prayed this psalm in the wilderness? Read the whole psalm slowly, praying it with Jesus in the desert. If a word or phrase catches your heart stop there, and savor it until the juice is absorbed. Read/pray it again. We ask you, Jesus, to break down any barriers between the hierarchy and the people they serve. Melt our hearts, and theirs, that we might be one in you. Thank you!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Isaiah 55: 10-11; Psalm 34; Matthew 6: 7-15

God through Isaiah assures us that the Word which goes forth from God’s mouth will not return empty. “It shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” The Word is scripture. When we read/pray scripture, what we are reading is happening to us, for example: Jesus heals a deaf man and our deafness is more healed. The Word is also incarnate in Jesus. Can success be found in the wilderness? Ask the Spirit to show you the wildernesses in your life, your relationships, the depths of your own heart. Don’t rush this. Wait, listen. When something arises from your memory, share it with Jesus. You have lots of time to talk together in the wilderness. How does he feel about your “success”? Listen. You are close to the broken-hearted and those crushed in spirit, you save. (Ps 34). Set us free, powerful Word of God, from all that crushes or enslaves us, we beg.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Jonah 3: 1-10; Psalm 51; Luke 11: 29-32

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…” God is faithful even when we are not. God does not give up, neither on Jonah nor on this large city of sinners. The English says “God changed God’s mind,” but in Greek it would be, God repented of the planned calamity. Would God ask us to do something which God wouldn’t do first? God calls us to repentance this season, a change of mind, of attitude, of heart. God goes first. What city of sinners irks you? What do you want God to do about them? As Jonah did, share your feelings with God. Listen. “A broken, humbled heart you will not spurn” (Ps 51). Thank you for taking our brokenness into account. Make us humble, not judgmental, in our dealings with others.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Esther 14: 1, 3-5, 12-14; Psalm 138; Matthew 7: 7-12

“Ask…search…knock…” These are Lenten penances enjoined by Jesus. How hard it is for some of us to ask, and so a change of mind, attitude and heart that will grow our humility is to ask God and to ask others for help. Searching for God; seeking God, desiring God is the core of the spiritual life, and what Jesus is about out in the wilderness. Knock and tell God what door you need opened this Lent. Is it a relationship that has gone sour, a weariness that makes daily service a chore and a bore, is it your own heart, shut tight against some idea or person? Jesus promises, “How much more your Father will give good things to ask!” So ask, search, knock! “Listen to our groaning, hear our cries!” (Entrance antiphon). So much groaning in our world, and you promised to be close to the broken-hearted. We are begging you!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Ezekiel 18: 21-28; Psalm 130; Matthew 5: 20-26

God’s desire for us is that we turn from our ways and live. What might that mean in your life? Now? “If you should mark our iniquities, who should stand? but with you is forgiveness and abundance of mercy.” (Ps130) What does your guilt look like, that you bring to God’s abundant and unconditional mercy? Not sin, but guilt, the residue for which we often cannot forgive ourselves. The gospel (which is always love) instructs us to lay our gift at the altar if we find someone has something against us and go to be reconciled with that person. It is not enough to go to God in a dark confessional. Go, talk again to the one who has something against you. Or you against that person. We want to trust your mercy, that a humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn. We trust your mercy for others. We beg to share your heart of mercy and reconciliation.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Psalm 119; Matthew 5: 43-48

Guilt? The gift of forgiving ourselves as God forgives, abundantly? Here is the verse that has bedeviled so many Christians: “Be you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Law, as Moses portrays it, is part of a covenant; we obey and God “treasures” us. Jesus goes beyond the Law which says, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I [Jesus] say: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What did perfect mean to you as a young person? What does it mean now? How can you be perfect as God is? A losing situation? It begins by loving our neighbor and then loving our enemies. When Luke found this text he changed it to “Be you compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate (Lk 6:36).” Even that is impossible, but it is at least human, something most of us want to do. Ask for this gift. You treasure all that you have created, and you welcome the just and the unjust. Help us to accept “the perfect” and to offer compassion to all who are outcast.

Sunday, February 28, 2010
Second Sunday of Lent

This Homily Helper comes from Washington Theological Union's The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood (www.jknirp.com).

Luke 9:28b-36

Gospel Summary

Luke's version of the transfiguration of Jesus is more personal than the accounts of Mark and Matthew. Thus, for example, Luke alone tells us that Jesus was at prayer when this occurred. And he alone informs us concerning the subject of Jesus' conversation with Moses and Elijah, that they "spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem" (v.31). Moses and Elijah represent the Old Testament (the Law and the Prophets) which is centered in the exodus of God's people from the bondage of Egypt. Correspondingly, the exodus of Jesus in Jerusalem, which is his death and resurrection, will be a new exodus initiating a new covenant between God and all the people of the world. This new exodus must happen on the anniversary of the exodus from Egypt and will be the fulfillment of that pivotal event. The liberation of the Hebrew slaves from the bondage of the Pharoah was the effect of a divine initiative revealing God's true nature as one who loves and who wishes that all in bondage should be free. This same revelation is at the center of the definitive exodus, which is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Moreover, just as the Passover meal in Israel kept alive the power of the original exodus, so also does the Eucharist of Christians make present among us the love of God as one who offers true and lasting freedom.

Life Implications

The luminous aura that surrounded Jesus on that mountaintop was an external manifestation of his ecstatic recognition that God's plan of salvation--God's ultimate exodus--will be brought about by his own loving sacrifice. His loving vulnerability thus becomes the surprising vehicle for God's power to save the world. In effect, loving concern for others is revealed as the only power with beneficent and lasting results.

This kind of loving vulnerability does not mean that we are called to be passive or compliant. In fact, this kind of loving is persistent and relentless at the same time that it is gracious and sensitive. For it results from a passionate commitment to the ideal of love received and then offered to others. The only true source of freedom is unselfish love, and the only valid purpose of such freedom is to enable one to love others so that they also may be free.

This equation is clearly implied in the command of God to Israel in Deuteronomy 24:17, where the now liberated Israelites are told to care for the vulnerable ones, for example, the widow, the orphan and the wayfarer. They must do so simply because they were once themselves desperately weak and vulnerable and God loved them into freedom and self-confidence.

The transfigured Jesus represents the full awareness of this incredible wisdom of God. And when the voice from heaven commands us to "listen to him" (v.35), we are challenged to be transfigured by our own recognition of this wisdom as we become more and more ready to use our freedom so that others also may be free--free from fear and guilt and poverty and pain.

Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.

Meet the Board of Trustees

Fr. Frank Donio, S.A.C.

Fr. Frank is Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Washington Theological Union. He has served on the board since 2002. He is Vicar Provincial and Director of Formation for the Immaculate Conception Province of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines) and is also Rector of Pallottine Seminary at Green Hill in West Hyattsville, MD. From 1997 to 2006 he was Pastoral Director of St. Jude Shrine in Baltimore, MD. Prior to that assignment he was Chaplain of Bishop Eustace Preparatory School in Pennsauken, NJ.

Fr. Frank holds provincial, national and international positions in the Society and in the Union of Catholic Apostolate, an international public association of the faithful which was founded by St. Vincent Pallotti in 1835. His ministries for both are primarily in administration, formation, development and finance.

He has an extensive background in young adult ministry, particularly at the collegiate level and has assisted at various universities in Maryland and the District of Columbia over the last thirteen years. Currently, he regularly assists at University of Maryland and The Catholic University of America. He is also significantly involved in chaplaincy with the Knights of Columbus in the District of Columbia at various levels of the organization. He also serves on several other boards.

Fr. Frank holds a B.A. in History and a M.A. in Church History from The Catholic University of American and a M.Div. (1994) from the Washington Theological Union. He is currently a candidate for a Doctor of Ministry at CUA and also is in the M.S. in Church Management program at the Villanova University School of Business.

Born in 1966, Fr. Frank is originally from Hammonton, New Jersey, the oldest of four sons of Frank and Angela Donio. He made his first consecration as a Pallottine in 1986 and his ordination to the priesthood was in 1994.

Dr. Julia Upton, R.S.M.: "Worship in Spirit and Truth"

On Thursday, February 18th, Dr. Julia Upton, R.S.M., Provost of St. John's University and a member of the Washington Theological Union Board of Trustees discussed the importance of Fr. H. A. Reinhold's work for liturgy today. "It started with a paragraph" Dr. Upton began, "and became a ten year project." Dr. Upton discussed her long labor over the book, giving encouragement to all in the audience to persevere in writing. The book, "Worship in Spirit and Truth: The Life and Legacy of H.A. Reinhold" is not merely a biography, it is an accounting of the unique gifts Fr. Reinhold brought to liturgy and, thus, to the life of the church. Fr. Reinhold believed that we must always make a connection between Justice and Liturgy. His work with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement exemplified his belief that our active engagement in worship should result in active engagement with the world.

After the Nazi's forced Fr. Reinhold from his native Germany, he emigrated to the United States where his work met with resistance. A staunch supporter of Farm Workers both in Poland and Washington State, Father Reinhold was often accused of being a communist. His support of the use of the vernacular in liturgy began in the 1930's and continued through his life. He was a fierce advocate of published missals believing that understanding the Mass would lead to greater participation in the life of the church and social justice in the world. His advocacy for the vernacular in Mass led him to many hardships, including struggles with the bishops in the diocese in which he worked.

Dr. Reinhold died in the late 1960's, but Dr. Upton believes he would have had a strong message for the church in terms of the new translation of the liturgy due to be introduced in the 2011 Advent season. She believes Fr. Reinhold would ask us to collaborate with each other as we read the new translations and to look at the essence of what we are doing. The liturgy must always bring about a personal inner transformation that inspires the listener to work for justice. The root of of justice is Baptism and liturgy reminds us of our baptismal call.

Dr. Upton's Book, "Worship in Spirit and Truth, the Life and Legacy of H.A. Reinhold" is available at the Newman Bookstore at the Hecker Center.

Jerry Hall Scholarship Fund Still Growing!

In March of this year, the Union very unexpectedly lost one of its full-time faculty, Assistant Professor of Word and Worship Jerry Hall, S.J., who passed away following a brief illness. This wise and unassuming scholar of liturgy was also an accomplished singer whose gentle and compassionate demeanor made him a wonderful colleague, mentor, and friend to so many. In a desire to celebrate Jerry’s life and to honor our community’s memory of him, the Rev. Jerome Hall, S.J. Memorial Scholarship fund was established.

To date, 31 alumni, faculty, and staff have made donations to the scholarship fund totaling $4,480. The Union continues to encourage donations to the fund, which must grow to a minimum of $250,000 before it can be endowed, and before it will be possible to draw income to award the first student scholarship. If you wish to make an online donation to this fund, please use the online donation form.