Praying with Sunday's Scriptures

Editor's note: To help small faith-sharing groups, couples, individuals and others continue the Renew 2000 experience of praying with the Sunday Scriptures, a Diocesan Faith Sharing Writing Team has prepared a monthly series using the Renew model. The series is being distributed to parish leaders and will appear in The Compass the week before that Sunday.

	Feb. 15, 2004 -- Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading I: Jeremiah 17:5-8 Reading II: 1 Corinthians 15:12,16-20 Gospel: Luke 6:17,20-26

By Jackie Staley

Focus: Jesus' Beatitudes guide us to happiness.

Opening Prayer: Psalm 1:1a,2a,6

Side one: Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.

Side two: But delight in the law of the Lord.

Side one: On his law they meditate day and night.

Side two: The Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.

Scripture Sharing: What thought, line or image from the Scripture readings caught your attention?

Reflection: The Beatitudes of Jesus, so familiar to us, are a love song of support for our daily struggles. The melody carries God's fourfold message of how to be happy: through living poorly, hungering for God, grieving with others and accepting rejection and persecution for the sake of Christ.

The four woes included in Luke's version of the Beatitudes make clear that living the opposite way of the Beatitudes leads to spiritual death. Following Jesus is not for the lukewarm.

Faith Sharing:

1. How would you explain poverty of spirit to a friend?

2. How do you deal with hungering for God in your daily life?

3. Why would Jesus place grieving so prominently in the path to happiness? What kinds of grieving could be included?

4. What are some experiences in your life when you needed to stand up for your Catholic Christian beliefs and endure painful opposition because of them?

Action Response: How do you live stewardship as your way of life?

1. Assess your own poverty of spirit. Donate extra time, talent or treasure to those in need.

2. Support friends or family who are grieving with calls or visits. Spend time with your own personal grief.

3. Read about and be inspired by persons today who endure persecution and rejection because of their beliefs. Examples: martyrs of El Salvador, Abp. Oscar Romero, Christians persecuted today in anti-Christian regions.

Closing Prayer:

Individuals offer their intentions to bring to prayer.

Jesus, source of all true happiness, open us to receive your joy. Help us embrace your gifts for powerful personal change. Transform our hearts with your love. We ask this in union with the Father and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

(Staley is a member of the Diocesan Writing Team for Faith Sharing Sessions, 2004.)