Mitch Pacwa - Praying the Gospels with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ: Jesus Launches His Ministry

PRAYING
the
GOSPELS

WITH
FR. MITCH PACWA, SJ

WITH
FR. MITCH PACWA, SJ

Jesus Launches
His Ministry

Copyright 2015 by Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ

All rights reserved

Published by The Word Among Us Press
7115 Guilford Drive, Suite 100
Frederick, Maryland 21704
www.wau.org

19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

Imprimi potest: V. Rev. Brian G. Paulson, SJ

Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus

March 20, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-59325-268-7
eISBN: 978-1-59325-269-8

Scripture texts used in this work are taken from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates
Cover icon of the Wedding at Cana Monastery Icons
Used with permission.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934606

by Bishop Kevin W. Vann

During my years as Bishop of Fort Worth, I was blessed to be able to come to know Fr. Mitch Pacwa personally through our ministry at Our Lady of Lebanon in Lewisville, Texas, during Holy Week. Particularly on Holy Thursday, Fr. Pacwa and I would assist our good friend Fr. Asaad with confessions on Holy Thursday into the wee hours of the morning. It was a blessed time of the Triduum for all of us!

These days in the Diocese of Orange, we have been spending a lot of time and reflection on intentional discipleship, meaning that all we do and seek to do flows from a personal encounter with the Lord and a personal relationship with him. This is no program but a way of life.

Fr. Pacwas book Jesus Launches His Ministry, as a part of the series Praying the Gospels with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, certainly calls us to do just that: have an encounter with the living Lord so that we are disciples first before all else! To illustrate this point precisely, I turn to the conclusion of the second meditation: Ask Jesus for the grace to humbly integrate all that we have been and all that we are into all that he wants us to be in the future. Speak as a friend to a Friend who is able to include each of us, with our real background and actual personality, into his mission to invite all people into the kingdom of God ().

I believe this book will help me, and all of us, have that conversation with the Lord, hear his voice clearly, and follow him!

Most Rev. Kevin W. Vann, JCD, DD

Bishop of Orange, California

My earlier book, How to Listen When God Is Speaking, outlined some basic principles underlying our life of prayer and some ways of how to pray. This book builds upon that one by presenting the life of Jesus Christ as a source for the content of meditation. The style is modeled on that recommended by St. Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises.

However, this book is not a presentation of the four weeks of the Spiritual Exercises as he intended them. Rather, it is a series of meditations on various events in the public life of Christ, such as one might choose to consider in the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises. The goal in this book is to spend more time on specific events in the life of Christ so that we can get to know him better.

Because we need to savor the Gospel texts, I have purposely limited the number of verses in each meditation. Each chapter deals with a specific Gospel event, and each event is broken into short passages that are the subject of the meditation. Sometimes I use the same verse for more than one meditation in order to reflect on all its implications. I have chosen to focus in this book on the beginning of Jesus ministry, and I will continue in a second book to offer meditations on Jesus time in Galilee.

After the verses are a few paragraphs describing some of the background of the textfrom the geography and scenery to the Jewish customs and ideas that lie behind the event. These are meant to help situate the events of Jesus life and aid the imagination in entering the scenes. Jesus lived in a Middle Eastern society of two thousand years ago. The customs and language may be strange to modern people, so it is useful to try to understand these ancient ways of life and thought. However, the other goal is to see that through these cultural differences shines the humanity common to us all. The specific words and customs may differ from the modern worlds ideas and expressions, but we can discover connections with the deeper truths of humanity once we better understand the context. This may help us relate our own experiences to those of the people in these stories and then discover important elements about our own relationship with Jesus Christ.

More than simply discovering Jesus personality, we can also seek to understand his vision for the world, for salvation, and for us today. Many of the comments on the texts and the questions for meditation are rooted in Jesus own mission to the world and his summons to his very human disciples to come, follow him, and take up his mission. However, the goal is not for this book to challenge you, but for you to bring these questions to your prayerful conversation with Jesus so that he can challenge you. Letting the readers relationship with Jesus deepen and develop is my top priority.

May the Lord Holy Spirit guide your prayer and direct you to Jesus Christ, so that with him, you may give glory to the heavenly Father.

Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ

MATTHEW 3:1-17

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

Now John wore a garment of camels hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:1-12)

Consider Matthew 3:1-12 and the way in which John the Baptist was clearly in control of events and words. He boldly spoke the message that would be Christs: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (3:2). He identified the Pharisees and Sadducees as You brood of vipers! (3:7) and ordered them, Bear fruit that befits repentance (3:8). He warned of a coming judgment against all who choose any form of evil: The axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (3:10).