Mary M. McGlone

Scripture for Life: Today may be the most overwhelming day of the overwhelming holy week to come. Palm Sunday takes us step by step through Jesus' last days and then leaves us holding emptiness, seeing only death.

Scripture of Life: What would it mean to allow our eyes to be Christified? Jesus of Nazareth is no longer walking through our streets. But we do believe in his promise to remain with us until the end of time. 

Scripture for Life: What is it we most desire in life? When and how do we drink from the font of living water? How are we called to invite others to the well?

Scripture for Life: Jesus told his friends not to talk about their experience until after his resurrection. That's because in that moment they were like people who had just fallen in love; in their exuberance, they thought they understood it all clearly. 

Scripture for Life: The time has come to march into the desert with Jesus. This trek is designed to teach us to assume the power we have been given as people made in the image of God, free of the insecurity that makes us selfish, free to become the lovers we were created to be.

Scripture for Life: People who turn the other cheek are asserting their own dignity and subversively challenging despots to become more human.

Scripture for Life: Although we have no control over another's feelings, Jesus tells us that we must do what we can to create reconciliation in our social world before we think we have something to offer God.

Scripture for Life: This Sunday, Jesus says we are the salt of the earth. We are like the light of a city on a hill. Whether we are salty or insipid, we cannot hide. Everything we do gives witness to our faith.

Scripture for Life: Like all parents, each of us is called to labor together with God. We may be young, enthusiastic and optimistic. We might be middle-aged or old enough to have learned that hope is not about expectations but discernment.

Scripture for Life: We might say that prudence is the prophetic virtue Jesus exhibited at the beginning of his ministry. Prudence is audacious and can be disturbing.

Scripture for Life: John points us toward the one he called the Lamb of God who can take away the sin of the world. Following the Lamb of God will give us the grace to evaluate the stuff of our lives.

Scripture for Life: Jesus' baptism tells us that God's chosen way of being with us is not as an awesome ruler of the universe, but as one who chooses solidarity with us in all our weakness.

Scripture for Life: The account of pagan seers seeking the newborn Jesus fits right into Matthew's plan to open his parochial-minded audience up to the fact that the Gospel is universal.

Scripture for Life: Matthew's story tells us how God gambled on Joseph. Luke's Nativity reveals how God gambled on Mary. In reality, God gambles on all of us. In return, our faith is a gamble that God's love will lead us in times of confusion and doubt.

Scripture for Life: If we allow today's Scriptures to guide us, we will ask more questions and give fewer answers about the Christ of Christmas present.

Scripture for Life: What's not to love about John the Baptist? Frankly, just about everything if you happen to be the object of his acidic critiques.

Scripture for Life: The Advent season combines penitence and hope. It reminds us that our hope is little more than childish wishes until we recognize how we have failed to live up to our human vocation. 

Scripture for Life: Christian art is graphic theology. The Christian community makes theology experiential. The life of the baptized can never be neutral. We who pray, "Thy kingdom come," are always presenting an image of Christ to the world.

Scripture for Life: The Gospel tells us that we can accept today's crises — from the personal to the cosmic — as God-given occasions of grace and opportunities to give witness. 

Scripture for Life: Sometimes, it seems that facing a fiery furnace once and for all is easier than overcoming the incessant enticements of society's promotion of shallow meaning, oppressive power, and self-serving relationships.