Free Republic

On The Wonder of the Word of God -- A Homily for the Third Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope- January 23, 2016 - The gospel for this Sunday is continued next week, so I will postpone the analysis of it until then. Instead, I will focus on the first reading, from Nehemiah 8. It is a wonderful meditation on the glory and wonder of the Word of God and it deserves our attention.The background of the text is that in 587 BC, Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians and the survivors of the war were led...

Archdiocese of Washington I Keep So Busy Workin’ for the Kingdom, I Ain’t Got Time to Die – A Homily for the 3rd Sunday of the Year By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe readings of “Ordinary Time” (Tempus per annum, in Latin) focus a lot on the call to discipleship and the living of the Christian Faith. The readings for today’s Mass are no exception, as they present us with a number of disciplines for disciples. These disciplines free us to serve Christ and His Kingdom joyfully, energetically, and wholeheartedly. We can group these disciplines into three broad areas, such that discipleship is...

In these early weeks of “ordinary” time we are increasingly introduced to Jesus and to the beginnings of his public ministry. In Matthew’s Gospel today we hear described how Jesus began his public ministry in the wake of the arrest of John the Baptist. And Matthew tells us Four things regarding this ministry of Jesus: its Context, its Content, its Call and its Comprehensiveness. Let’s look at each in turn.I. The CONTEXT of Jesus Ministry - The text says, When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum...