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We are winding down the church year. Next Sunday, the feast of Christ the King, is the last Sunday in our liturgical year. After that, we begin again with Advent. As is usual for this time of year, the readings for this Sunday are about the end-times. The readings for today use apocalyptic language, the language of the end-times: Daniel’s vision, Jesus’ warnings. Apocalyptic language is marked…
Jesus has been teaching in the temple courts. Now, on his way out, he pauses over and against the treasury to watch as offerings are made. Each person would walk up to one of the thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles, which were lined along the wall of the Court of the Women. As they tossed in their offering, the person was expected to say aloud the amount and purpose of the gift in order to be…
Love is the only law we are to live by. And love is the fulfillment of the Law that God reveals through Moses in today’s First Reading. We love Him because He has loved us first. We love our neighbour because we can’t love the God we haven’t seen unless we love those made in His image and likeness, whom we have seen. When Jesus was asked by members of his community, “ Which is the first of all…
Today’s Gospel turns on an irony—it is a blind man, Bartimaeus, who becomes the first person outside of the Apostles to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. And his healing is the last miracle Jesus performs before entering the holy city of Jerusalem for His last week on earth. The scene on the road to Jerusalem evokes the joyful procession prophesied by Jeremiah in today’s First Reading. In Jesus…
Beginning in Mark 8:22 and continuing to the end of chapter 10, we find Jesus making his way to Jerusalem. The question throughout the journey is the one Jesus puts to the disciples . After first asking the twelve who people are saying he is, he puts the question directly to them, and in turn to all of us: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter appears to be on the right track, answering, “You are the…
It is no great revelation to say that we live in an age of manifold crises. Crises of earth and society and spirit, each one intertwined and evolving, inviting us into postures of denial or determination depending on the day and, perhaps, whether we’ve had our morning coffee. But we would be forgetful indeed to think that the task before us—to live and to bear the weight of living—is a new one.…
This Sunday’s gospel has words that’s likely to hear them as good news! First, we need to think about the readings we have just heard. In the Hebrew Scriptures we heard about how God created man and woman to help and to care for each other. And that their relationship should be primary and permanent. This is the ideal for relationship created by God for us. And when we prepare for commitment to…
This doesn’t seem to be a good day for anyone in the scripture readings today. God has Moses gather the elders so that they might learn to share some of the responsibility of leading the Israelites. God took some of Moses’ spirit and placed it on the gathered elders, who then prophesied. But there were two men, Eldad and Medad, who stayed in the camp. They too received part of Moses’ spirit…
Hearing today’s Gospel from St Mark, we are confronted with the story of Jesus’ disciples grappling with the question of greatness. Having just heard Jesus speak about what is referred to as the second passion prediction, they are afraid of the implications of his impending death. The version of the story in Mark tells us that the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying. The author of…
In today’s Gospel, after weeks of listening to His words and witnessing His deeds, along with the disciples we’re asked to decide who Jesus truly is. Near the end of his public ministry, Jesus sought an evaluation of its effectiveness. And he needed his closest allies to understand, what God was doing in and through him, to know where it all led. He asked the disciples what people were saying…
The story is told of Saint Francis going down to a village with one his brothers. Their purpose was to preach the Gospel. When they arrived at the village, they quickly engaged the local folk in conversation and passed their time helping the villagers with their work, sharing stories, entering into the life of the community. As the end of the day drew near, Francis said to one of his companions…
Ritual is essential in life. All of us have rituals that we remember and cherish. Some are simple habits; others are tied to memories of love and affection from our earliest years; a few, like the Eucharist, are holy. Our readings today are centred around ritual, but with strings attached. In Deuteronomy, as in the prophets, the promises given by God, as reported in the Bible, always…
This Sunday’s Mass readings conclude a four-week meditation on the Eucharist. The Twelve Apostles in today’s Gospel are asked to make a choice—either to believe and accept the New Covenant He offers in His Body and Blood or return to their former ways of life. Their choice is prefigured by the decision Joshua asks the Twelve Tribes to make in today’s First Reading. Joshua gathers them at…
“ Wisdom has built herself a house, she has erected her seven pillars.” The first few generations of Christians, attempted to describe Jesus theologically, leaned heavily on this Wisdom tradition and attributed to him many of her characteristics. The connection between the reading from Proverbs and the continuing discourse in John’s Gospel, where we are now in about the third week of the…
The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary proclaims that at the end of her earthly life Our Lady was taken to the glory of heaven. What is the evidence for this doctrine and why does the Church teach it? Although there is no direct description of the end of Mary’s life in the New Testament, it is significant that no early tradition sprang up or remain to us reverencing a grave or…
What would you give someone so they could understand that we do not live by bread alone? What God gave Elijah, and Jesus gave the crowd in John’s gospel, was bread. Why give the one thing that seems to prove that you can live by bread alone? The key to all of this is that God gave Elijah – and Jesus gave that crowd – bread in such a way that the bread was pure gift. They didn’t make it,…
Jesus said he came that we might have life and that abundantly. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus has met the immediate needs of a host of people. Those remaining after he fed 5,000 with a little fish and bread seek out Jesus. Jesus tells them, “ Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you.” The…
