February 7, 2017

Feb. 7

February 7, 2017:  Tuesday, 5th week, Ordinary Time

See 18 connections with today?
Legend below
Listen

+ Hear yesterday's "creation" tracks
Pope Francis homily
God's 1st gift to us in creation is his 'DNA':  He made us children, created us in his image, like him.  When you make a child, you can't take it back.  Whether or not he resembles the parents, he's a child, having received his identity.  If the child is good, the parents are proud; if he's bad, they wait for him; Jesus taught us how a father waits for his children.  We're "like gods," because we're God's children.
God’s 2nd gift in Creation is a task:  God ‘gave us the earth’ to ‘dominate’ and ‘subdue.’  God gave us a certain ‘royalty’; he doesn't want a ‘slave’ but ‘a lord, a king’ entrusted with that task.  "As God worked in Creation, he gave us the work of advancing Creation:  not to destroy it but to make it grow, care for it, make it carry on.  He gave us everything, all Creation to preserve and care for.  And finally, "God created mankind in His image; male and female he created them."
God's 3rd gift is love, beginning with the love between a man and a woman.  “It is not good for the man to be alone.  And He made his partner.”  In love, God gives man a "dialogue of love," which must have been the first between man and woman.
Thank God for these gifts:  identity, duty, and love.  Ask for the grace to preserve the identity of a child, to work with the gift he's given us, and to love more each day.
Read
Wordle: Readings 2-10-15
  • Gn 1:20—2:4a  God:  “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly.”  God created sea monsters, swimming creatures, and birds and blessed them:  day 5.  “Let earth bring forth creatures:  cattle, creeping things, and animals.”  God made animals, cattle, and creeping things and saw how good it was.  “Let us make man in our image.  Let them have dominion over fish, birds, cattle, animals, and crawling creatures.”  God created man in the divine image, male and female.  “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth.  I give you plants and trees with fruit as food.”  God looked at everything and found it very good:  day 6, completing heavens and earth.  Finished with the work, he rested on the 7th day; God blessed the day because on it he rested from the work of creation.
  • Ps 8:4-9  "O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!"  When I behold your heavens, moon, and stars—who are we that you should be mindful of us?  You've made us little less than the angels, crowned us with glory, and put everything under our feet.
  • Mk 7:1-13  The Pharisees and some scribes, observing some disciples ate with unwashed hands, asked Jesus why they didn't follow tradition.  Jesus:  “Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites:  They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they worship in vain, teaching human precepts as doctrine.  To uphold your tradition, you've set aside God's commandment!
Reflect
    • Fr. Jim Clarke homily video:  What do I do with the goodness of creation?

    • Creighton:  Sometimes I let knowledge, rules, and doctrine overshadow my experience and relationship with God.  We don’t have to choose heart or head; both are important.  My spirituality is about my relationship with God and experience, but it can be facilitated by head knowledge, doctrines, Tradition.  The 1st reading reminds me of the relationship of Creator to the created.  I feel the Creator's love as creation blossomed and the goodness that flows from it.  It brought me back to one of my favorite prayers.  How is God inviting me into deeper relationship today, into Love?
      Creation Day 5 Sky and Waters
      Teaming (sic) with Life
      Bargmann
    • One Bread, One Body:  "The Good News":  God created the light and saw it was "good."  He created dry land, sea, plants, the sun, stars, and animals and called them "good."  When God created people, he found it "very good."  God takes great delight in people!  Before people knew what was good, we were "very good."  But the man and woman preferred to know what was good rather than to be good, so they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  They believed they knew what was good, but they lost God's grace, fell from their original nature, and could no longer distinguish good from evil.  But Jesus came to proclaim the good news of God and re-create us.  Now, in Jesus, we can know what's good and in the Spirit can be good.
    • DailyScripture.net:  "Rejecting the commandments of God":  The Jews took pains to ensure their worship conformed to the instructions God gave Moses on Sinai.  God called his people to holiness, but in their zeal for holiness many developed burdensome traditions.  The Scribes and Pharisees, upset with Jesus because he allowed his disciples to break with their traditions, sent a delegation to accuse Jesus face to face.  Jesus went to the heart of the matter:  God's purpose for the commandments.  Jesus gave an example of how their use of tradition excused them from the commandment to honor one's parents; he said they voided God's command because they let their own notion of religion cloud their hearts and minds.  He accused them of hypocrisy and of replacing God's word with their own arguments and interpretations, referring to Isaiah's prophetic accusation of honoring God with their lips while their hearts went astray.  If we listen to God with faith and reverence, it will enlighten our mind, purify our heart, and enable us to understand how he wants us to love and obey him....
      Dress legend
      • 'Clock' tie bar:  Days of creation (1st reading)
      • 'Fish,' 'bird' tie pins:  God created swimming creatures, winged birds (1st reading)
      • 'Abacus' tie pin:  God blessed them, saying, "Be fertile, multiply..." (1st reading)
          • 'Animal' pins:  God made wild animals, cattle, creeping things...  (1st reading)
          • 'People' tie:  God created people in his image, male and female...  (1st reading)
          • 'Plant,' 'tree,' and 'fruit' pins:  “I give you every seed-bearing plant and every tree with seed-bearing fruit...”  (1st reading)
          • 'Hands' pin, 'star' tie pin:  I behold the work of your fingers,... the stars you set in place (psalm); Pharisees noticed disciples ate with unwashed hands (gospel)
          • 'Angel' pin:  You made us little less than the angels... (psalm)
          • 'Crown' tie bar:  ...and crowned us with glory and honor (psalm)
          • 'Precious feet' pin, 'sheep' tie bar:  You put everything under our feet:  sheep, birds, fish... (psalm)
          • 'Hearts' suspenders:  "Their hearts are far from me" (gospel)
          • Green shirt:  Green plants (1st reading), Ordinary Time season
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