Mary M. McGlone

Scripture for Life: Today's Scriptures invite us to lay claim to the freedom to live in love. We cannot control others, but we can choose how to respond to them.

Scripture for Life: The Sunday readings we will hear from now until Lent invite us to keep asking about the good life — about the reign of God in our midst.

Scripture for Life: Today, we are invited to remember our moments of metanoia and reflect on how we have integrated them into the project of our lives.

Scripture for Life: As we begin "Ordinary Time," John the Baptist invites us to learn over and over to recognize Jesus for who he is and what he offers.

Scripture for Life: The Magi knew that growth requires displacement, the uncomfortable process of venturing into an unknown that stretches and questions assumptions, all for the sake of a greater depth of being.
 

Scripture for Life: As Meister Eckhart explained, "We are all meant to be mothers of God." The Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary invites us to marvel at the God who comes to us in loving vulnerability and dependence.

Scripture for Life: All our Nativity stories include hints of the end — both the cross and resurrection, Jesus' rejection and love's triumph through him. Christmas reminds us that God remains among us weak and mild.

Scripture for Life: Perhaps the lesson of Advent is that it's not so much we who are waiting, but God who comes to our door and appears in dreams, asking, "Will you, like Joseph, adopt my plan? Will you make room for Emmanuel in ways you've never imagined?"

Scripture for Life: This Third Sunday of Advent invites us to join John in asking ourselves what we expect of God and, in turn, what God offers and hopes for from us.

Scripture for Life: John tells us to prepare, to ready ourselves for the coming of God's reign. Isaiah tells us that "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord." Now is the time to envision what that can mean and to begin to act as if it were true.

Scripture for Life: In the days to come, especially during these 28 days, we have a unique opportunity to wake up to Parousia, the myriad simple and spectacular ways in which God is present, drawing us forward together.

Scripture for Life: The title of this feast is superlative. The images we create for it are flush with symbols of royalty and high priesthood, greatness and grandeur. But the Gospel we hear today reflects none of that.

Natural and social catastrophes would make it seem that the world was coming to an end, and God's own people would be persecuted by enemies, former friends and even family members. The answer to their anxieties? Only this: "By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

Scripture for Life: Today's readings invite us to journey in reflection from the heroic to the ridiculous to the sublime, as Jesus invites us to perceive the infinite value of every relationship.

Only those who have begun to understand God's own humility, only those who understand that love is the one invincible power on earth, can begin to speak God's language.

Scripture for Life: In the end, it seems that the perseverance Jesus calls for has nothing to do with badgering God, reciting hundreds of rosaries or doubling down on novenas. The widow shows us that calling out for God's help is supposed to lead us to be unflagging in pursuit of the reign of God. 

Scripture for Life: We know this story only too well. Jesus healed 10 lepers. One, a Samaritan, came back to thank him. It's all about gratitude, right? Listen again, it's not quite that simple. 

Scripture for Life: Jesus' kind of faith, expressed through practices such as love of enemy and the hope that acts as if evil will never win, is grain-of-mustard faith; it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Scripture for Life: It's one thing to care about the poor and even donate for them — that goes a step beyond the rich man's blindness. But prayers and donations don't free us from being trapped among the insiders. 

Scripture for Life: There's no getting around it, as Luke moves toward the climax of his Gospel, his emphasis on reverence for the life and thriving of the poor only grows stronger.