Catholic Daily Mass Reading & Meditation for Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Catholic Daily Mass Reading & Meditation for Tuesday, 30 September 2014
Meditations: Luke 9:51-54 When it came close to the time for his Ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead. They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for his hospitality. But when the Samaritans learned that his destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality. When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, “Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?”
55-56 Jesus turned on them: “Of course not!” And they traveled on to another village.
Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
He resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51)
The young teacher dragged herself into the faculty lounge one day. To no one in particular, she sighed, “I can’t get through to my class. I try everything, from fun games to dire warnings, but I can’t get these kids to listen to me. Some days they drive me crazy.” An older teacher, well regarded and perceived as the staff’s strictest disciplinarian, nodded and said, “Don’t forget to love them.”
Jesus never forgot to love us. His love is so radically different from what we conceive love to be that it’s impossible to fathom it without the grace of the Holy Spirit. For our sakes, Jesus “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), even though he knew that horrible suffering and an agonizing death awaited him there. He knew that he would face rejection from those he had taught and loved and that even his closest friends would abandon him. Still, he went. And he went ready to forgive all of them—and all of us.
Too often our approach is like the inexperienced teacher’s. We take on some service project, or we do something special for our family with the notion that we will receive thanks, respect, and honor for our dedication. But when things fail to materialize as we had hoped, we feel hurt. Have you ever known the bitter sting of ingratitude or rejection from someone in your family or community? How did you react? Contrast this with the way Jesus reacted to the “unclean” Samaritans in today’s Gospel. His disciples, who should have known better by that point, were the only ones to receive a rebuke!
God’s Son became flesh and died on the cross so that we could learn how to love each other as his Father loves us. We are all called to love the people in our lives with Jesus’ love. And we can do that only as we yield to the Holy Spirit’s grace. If we open our hearts to the Spirit, who fills the Church with every good gift, we can learn to serve humbly and selflessly. It is not always easy, but we should never forget that Christ is in us. We can do all things through him who strengthens us!
“Lord, a harvest of souls is ready. Send me out as a laborer filled with your love and compassion.” Amen!
Job 3: What’s the Point of Life?
1-2 Then Job broke the silence. He spoke up and cursed his fate:
3-10 “Obliterate the day I was born.
    Blank out the night I was conceived!
Let it be a black hole in space.
    May God above forget it ever happened.
    Erase it from the books!
May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness,
    shrouded by the fog,
    swallowed by the night.
And the night of my conception—the devil take it!
    Rip the date off the calendar,
    delete it from the almanac.
Oh, turn that night into pure nothingness—
    no sounds of pleasure from that night, ever!
May those who are good at cursing curse that day.
    Unleash the sea beast, Leviathan, on it.
May its morning stars turn to black cinders,
    waiting for a daylight that never comes,
    never once seeing the first light of dawn.
And why? Because it released me from my mother’s womb
    into a life with so much trouble.
11-19 “Why didn’t I die at birth,
    my first breath out of the womb my last?
Why were there arms to rock me,
    and breasts for me to drink from?
I could be resting in peace right now,
    asleep forever, feeling no pain,
In the company of kings and statesmen
    in their royal ruins,
Or with princes resplendent
    in their gold and silver tombs.
Why wasn’t I stillborn and buried
    with all the babies who never saw light,
Where the wicked no longer trouble anyone
    and bone-weary people get a long-deserved rest?
Prisoners sleep undisturbed,
    never again to wake up to the bark of the guards.
The small and the great are equals in that place,
    and slaves are free from their masters.
20-23 “Why does God bother giving light to the miserable,
    why bother keeping bitter people alive,
Those who want in the worst way to die, and can’t,
    who can’t imagine anything better than death,
Who count the day of their death and burial
    the happiest day of their life?
What’s the point of life when it doesn’t make sense,
    when God blocks all the roads to meaning?
Psalms 88: A Korah Prayer of Heman
1-9 God, you’re my last chance of the day.
    I spend the night on my knees before you.
Put me on your salvation agenda;
    take notes on the trouble I’m in.
I’ve had my fill of trouble;
    I’m camped on the edge of hell.
I’m written off as a lost cause,
    one more statistic, a hopeless case.
Abandoned as already dead,
    one more body in a stack of corpses,
And not so much as a gravestone—
    I’m a black hole in oblivion.
You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit,
    sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.
I’m battered senseless by your rage,
    relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger.
You turned my friends against me,
    made me horrible to them.
I’m caught in a maze and can’t find my way out,
    blinded by tears of pain and frustration.
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