Speak Wisely The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                                                Speak Wisely

The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 27, 2022

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

predmoresj@yahoo.com | 617.510.9673

Sirach 27:4-7; Psalm 92; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

 

          The sage Ben Sira writes about the importance of one’s speech as a window into a person’s character, and he likens it to the fruit of a tree. One’s speech reveals the extent of ones’ self-discipline and good manners. Ben Sira was a scholar of Jewish law and he taught young men about the faith, and he wrote a book of Wisdom that was incorporated into the approved Jewish teachings. His writings are instructions for young people who are setting out in life as a guide for right living.

 

          Many of us find that our words get us into trouble too often and they are the root of our relationship problems, which is the reason Ben Sira cautions his readers. We often think that our words hurt the other person, and they do, but they mostly have an adversarial effect upon us when we speak them. I cannot imagine people feel satisfied with their interactions at the end of the day.

 

          I think about the man who always derails the conversation and makes it about himself – missing the main point that the other person wants to convey. By being narcissistic, he makes himself unheard as people stop listening. I think about the woman with a nihilistic viewpoint in which no one or nothing is ever good. If people were only to listen to her and do exactly what she wants done in her own way, life would be successful. No one listens to her either. I think about the guy who speaks in profanity and uses a certain word as a frequent adjective to describe his forceful disgust. By speaking in such a way, no one pays attention to him or to his inarticulate thoughts. Too many people go to bed each night without feeling heard or adequately expressing what is most meaningful to their lives. It must be a lonely existence.

 

          In fact, I know it is. When I directed 8-day and 30-day retreats, some people would come to pray and to be listened to by someone without judgment or interruption. It might be the only time in their year when someone listens to them and helps them to articulate what they mean. They search for the words that accurately express what they think and feel, and it takes a great deal of time for them to understand what is happening inside of them. Having the language and the vocabulary to express what one is feeling and thinking is what Ben Sira is speaking about. Without it, we are just blind guides to ourselves, a fruitless tree. Our words are our fruits and our forward vision. 

 

          We are in an age in which dialogue is most important for our happiness. If we are the ones talking and the other person is not talking, we are not in dialogue. Dialogue requires a lot more listening than speaking, and it involves checking in with the other person to see if the two are comprehending each other and expressing what needs to be said. We better get some help soon if we want a meaningful and happy life. When we truly communicate and speak with great articulation, we can feel the rightness of it inside. We know we have truly represented ourselves well. When we do this in conversation with others or respectfully in prayer, we find our nobility, and this is what Christ wants us to see in ourselves. He wants us to know that we can be our best selves. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (1 Peter 1) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

 

Tuesday: (1 Peter 1) It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you with regard to the things that have now been announced to you by those who preached the Good News to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels longed to look.

 

Wednesday: (Joel 2) Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.

 

Thursday: (Deuteronomy 30) Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

 

Friday (Isaiah 58) Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God.

 

Saturday (Isaiah 58) If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the sabbath a delight, and the LORD’s holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice Then you shall delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Mark 10) “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments.”

 

Tuesday: (Mark 10) Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 6) Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.

 

Thursday (Luke 9) The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. 

 

Friday (Mark 9) “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

 

Saturday (Luke 5) Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them.

.

 

Saints of the Week

 

March 1: Katherine Drexel (1858-1955), was from a wealthy Philadelphian banking family and she and her two sisters inherited a great sum of money when her parents died. She joined the Sisters of Mercy and wanted to found her own order called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to work among the African and Native Americans. Her inheritance funded schools and missions throughout the South and on reservations. A heart attack in 1935 sent her into retirement. 

 

March 2: Ash Wednesday is the customary beginning to the season of Lent. A penitential time marked by increased fasting, prayer and almsgiving, we begin our 40-day tradition of sacrifice as we walk the way of Jesus that ends at the Cross during Holy Week. Lent is a time of conversion, a time to deepen one’s relationship with Christ, for all roads lead to his Cross of Suffering and Glory.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• February 27, 1767. Charles III banished the Society from Spain and seized its property. 
• February 28, 1957. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps began. 
• March 1, 1549. At Gandia, the opening of a college of the Society founded by St Francis Borgia. 
• March 2, 1606. The martyrdom in the Tower of London of St Nicholas Owen, a brother nicknamed "Little John." For 26 years he constructed hiding places for priests in homes throughout England. Despite severe torture he never revealed the location of these safe places. 
• March 3, 1595. Clement VIII raised Fr. Robert Bellarmine to the Cardinalate, saying that the Church had not his equal in learning. 
• March 4, 1873. At Rome, the government officials presented themselves at the Professed House of the Gesu for the purpose of appropriating the greater part of the building. 
• March 5, 1887. At Rome, the obsequies of Fr. Beckx who died on the previous day. He was 91 years of age and had governed the Society as General for 34 years. He is buried at San Lorenzo in Campo Verano.