The verse that struck a chord with me today is Luke 8:15. “Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance.” It fits in with the Bible study and reflection I am doing these days. Our pastor asked everyone in my congregation to read the familiar book of Luke this summer and to try to find new ways to grow in faith. I have been working on understanding the gifts of the spirit defined in Isaiah in the Old Testament and linking them to Gospels. I want greater understanding of my gifts so I can develop them to be a more useful companion of Jesus. The gift of fortitude aligns well with perseverance for me. Fortitude is never ending perseverance. It is the courage to overcome fear and take risks as a follower of Jesus. It means we can accept rejection, verbal abuse, or physical harm for our faith.
Fortitude is a big spiritual gift in this verse in Luke, but if we look carefully, there are two other spiritual gifts at work here. Keeping the word with a generous spirit is easy with the gift of the fear of the Lord. It strengthens our desire to not offend God and to serve God out of more than a sense of duty. It arises out of love. It that sense, it is like the gift of piety, which means the willingness to worship and serve God is motivated by a profound sense of reverence for a loving Father. It is not difficult, then, to see where this verse helps us understand the faith of Abraham and Sarah in the Old Testament story today and the faith of both Mary and Martha in the New Testament lesson. All were seeking to keep the word of God with a generous heart in one way or another. But Jesus reminded Martha that she should be motivated more out of reverence than a sense of duty.
As I reflect more deeply on what this means for me, I am challenged by this verse to strengthen my love for God more than growing stronger in my own resolve to become more useful. To avoid acting out of a sense of duty, I need to show more reverence and more generosity toward God in my heart first, and then I will no doubt be blessed with a greater harvest in the way that I keep the Word.
Barbara Dilly
I came to Creighton in 2000 and retired in 2020. My twenty years of teaching, research and service in the Jesuit tradition enhanced my own life. It was an exciting time of celebration. I loved teaching and interacting with Creighton students because they responded so eagerly to the Ignatian pedagogical emphasis on the development of the whole person. It is this spirit of whole person development and celebration of life that I hope to infuse in my reflection writings.
My academic background is eclectic, preparing me well for the Liberal Arts academic environment at Creighton. I earned my BA in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA in 1988 and my Ph.D. in Comparative Cultures from the University of California, Irvine in 1994. My research focused on rural communities in the American Midwest, Latin America, and Australia. I taught Environmental Anthropology, Qualitative Research Methods, Social and Cultural Theory, and Food Studies courses.
I retired to Shell Rock, a small rural community in Northeast Iowa where I enjoy gardening, cooking, quilting, driving my 65 Impala convertible an my 49 Willys Jeepster. I have lots of fun playing my guitars with friends from the Cedar Valley Acoustic Guitar Association. But most importantly, I am still working to make my community and rural America a better place. I host a community quilt studio and serve on the Mission Board of my church. I also serve as the Climate Committee Chair and on the Executive Board of the Center for Rural Affairs.
