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In my house, not everyone comes for dinner when called. “It’s dinner time! Come for dinner!” I’ll call up the stairs, but only a spattering of children materializes in the kitchen—maybe three or four, but where are all the others? So I have to search the house to find them in various corners, engrossed in some activity—reading, building something, or typing something on their laptop. They’ve ignored my summons, or didn’t “hear” it. A wave of frustration sweeps over me, tempered by memories of having been the same way when I was their age. Then the words pass my lips:...

George Lucas concocted an interesting religion for his Star Wars film series by combining elements of Christianity and eastern religion. Ultimate reality, or “God,” in Star Wars turns out to be “the Force,” an impersonal power with a “dark” and “light” side, similar to the way many forms of eastern religion conceive of the divine. So, instead of the Christian farewell “May God be with you,” Star Wars characters say, “May the Force be with you!” Is that the ultimate nature of reality? An impersonal force which is neither good nor evil but somehow combines both? Or does nature ultimately...

The Christmas season is just one joyful feast after another. We are scarcely past the glow from the Holy Family and Mary, Mother of God, when Epiphany is already upon us! The word “Epiphany” comes from two Greek words: epi, “on, upon”; and phaino, “to appear, to shine.” Therefore, the “Epiphany” refers to the divinity of Jesus “shining upon” the earth, in other words, the manifestation of his divine nature. The use of the word “epiphany” for the revelation of divinity predates Christianity. The Syrian (Seleucid) emperor Antiochus IV (reign 175-165 BC), the villainous tyrant of 1-2 Maccabees, named himself...

The Sunday that falls in the Octave of the Solemnity of Christmas is dedicated to celebrating the Holy Family. The Readings for this Sunday focus on the rights and responsibilities of family members toward each other, and the Gospel focuses on the role of the “most forgotten” member of the Holy Family, St. Joseph, who cared for and protected the Blessed Mother and infant Jesus through the dangerous early years of Jesus’ childhood. The Lectionary provides different reading options for this Sunday: the celebrant may opt for the “standard” (ABC) readings, or choose the more recently proposed readings for Year...

T.H. White wrote a fantasy novel about King Arthur in the 1950s called “The Once and Future King,” which my English class was assigned to read in 8th grade. The title comes from the legendary Latin inscription on Arthur’s tomb, Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus: “Here lies Arthur, king at one time, and king to be.” For the ancient Israelites, David was their “Arthur”: a king of fame and renown, to whom God had made great promises, and whose return they expected. The Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent are strongly set up to show Jesus of...

The basic four-week structure of Advent remains the same throughout the three years of the Lectionary cycle; the first week of Advent focuses on the Second Coming of Jesus; weeks two and three meditate on the figure of John the Baptist, the herald and forerunner of the Lord; and week four zooms in on the days just prior to the birth of Jesus. Here, in the second week of Advent in year B, our readings introduce, or reintroduce, us to the bigger-than-life figure of John the Baptist, a man of immense importance to salvation history and to the world history...

The last month of the liturgical year was spent reflecting on the Last Things, culminating in the Feast of Christ the King last week, when we pondered the Final Judgment, the separation of the “sheep” and the “goats.” There is actually a fairly smooth transition from the end of the liturgical year to its beginning, because the first week of Advent is spent meditating not on the First Coming of Christ, but on his Second. By next week, the perspective will shift, and the liturgy will anticipate the coming celebration of the incarnation. In any event, although it is a...

Congratulations, everyone! God has seen fit to let us live to complete another liturgical year! We have journeyed with Our Lord from his birth through his ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and into the growth of the Church and the spread of the Gospel to all the nations. Now, at the end of the year, we reflect on the Final Judgment, when Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, will pass sentence on each and every human being, establishing justice, punishing evil and rewarding love and self-sacrifice. The Feast of Christ the King is a profession of our faith that ultimately there...

According to Wikipedia, “riffraff is a term for the common people or hoi polloi, but with negative connotations. The term is derived from Old French ‘rif et raf’ meaning ‘one and all, every bit.’” My ancestors are Dutch, and—like many other ethnic groups—think they're pretty special. The typical saying is, “If yah ain’t Dutch, yah ain’t much.” However one may assess the muchness of the Dutch in modern times, from the perspective of the people of Israel in ancient times, the Dutch were mere riffraff, nameless illiterate Germanic tribes eking out a living on the cold shoreline and humid forests...

Does God reveal himself in nature? Many public intellectuals are intent on denying this, even as increasing evidence pours in from disciplines like astrophysics and biochemistry that point to a creative mastermind behind the complex beauty we observe all around us. The relationship between divine self-revelation and the power of nature is a motif that runs through the readings for this weekend’s Lord’s Day. As a reminder, in this period of Ordinary Time we are doing lectio continua of Romans in the Second Reading and Matthew in the Gospel Reading. The First Readings are being chosen week by week from...

In the first three or “synoptic” Gospels, the Transfiguration marks a pivotal point in the ministry of Jesus, the point at which he begins his “death march” to Jerusalem to suffer his Passion. It is “the beginning of the end.” In these three Gospels, too, the Baptism and Transfiguration are paired. At these two events, the voice of the Father is heard from heaven, “This is my beloved son.” In this way, the Baptism marks the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and the Transfiguration the end of it, at least in the sense that, from the Transfiguration on, the focus...

When I was a kid, the phrase “Get wise!” was a provocative taunt—essentially, a way to start a fight. It meant something like: “I invite you to act like a smart aleck, so I will have an excuse to assault you physically.” My elementary school career was a bit rough. But what does it really mean to “Get wise” or “Gain wisdom”? The Readings for this Sunday’s Mass teach us about this issue. During this part of Ordinary Time in Year A, the Church is pursuing a lectio continua (continuous reading, i.e. reading in order) of both Romans and Matthew....

Our Readings for this upcoming Lord’s Day involve a meditation on both God’s mercy and his justice, and the complex way both virtues of God are expressed in his government of human affairs in general and his people in particular. We see that God’s apparent tolerance of evil in the short-term is an expression of his mercy and desire that all should repent; yet ultimately God can and will establish justice. 1. Reading 1: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19:There is no god besides you who have the care of all, that you need show you have not unjustly condemned. For your might...

Ordinary Time focuses on the growth of the Church. I would prefer we called it “Extraordinary Time,” because there is nothing ordinary about the Second Person of the Divinity becoming en-fleshed in our presence through the Sacrament. Be that as it may, the Readings for this Lord’s Day are clearly united by the motif of sowing the seed of God’s Word. 1. The First Reading (Isaiah 55:10-11) is one of the earliest passages in Scripture where an explicit analogy is drawn between the natural cycles of agriculture and the fertility of God’s Word: Reading 1: Isaiah 55:10-11Thus says the LORD:...

We are currently in Cycle A of the Lectionary, reading through the Gospel of Matthew. This Sunday we find Jesus more or less in the middle of his earthly ministry (Matthew 11), and the Readings are marked by a strong theme of the restoration of the world-wide Kingdom of David. 1. Our First Reading is Zechariah 9:9-10: Thus says the LORD: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall...

God is generous, and he rewards those who help his servants as generously as he rewards his servants themselves. That is the message of the Readings for this 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time. We begin with an account from 2 Kings concerning the reward of a wife of the town of Shunem, who was consistently gracious to the prophet Elisha. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus proclaims a blessing on all those who give succor, refuge, and assistance to those he sends out to proclaim the Good News. This Sunday’s Readings complement last Sunday’s, which emphasized the violent reaction that the...

After the celebrations of Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, this Sunday finds us transitioning back to Ordinary Time, and the transition is a bit painful. The Readings for this Sunday shift right back into the reality of persecution in the Christian life, as we read about Jesus advising the apostles to be prepared for the opposition they will encounter as they do the work of evangelization. You would think that following the Prince of Peace would lead to a peaceful life, but sadly that’s not how it usually works out. Those who follow Jesus often find themselves hated, because they...

This weekend is another great liturgical feast, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, otherwise known as Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi is one of a handful of feasts that celebrates the very gift of the Eucharist itself. It is one of my favorite feasts, because the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was instrumental in my becoming Catholic. Back in the Fall of 1999 I was reading through the Apostolic Fathers and came to this passage in Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrneans (c. AD 106): “But consider those who are...

The Easter Season usually ends with a sort of “trifecta” of major feasts: Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, as the Church celebrates the central mysteries of the faith before entering into Ordinary Time once more. This weekend is Trinity Sunday, a meditation and celebration of the central mystery of the Christian faith, the dogma that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Christians alone believe in one God, who nonetheless exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Strangely, our Readings for this Sunday tend not to be classic “proof texts” for the idea that there is more than one...

Pentecost Vigil Readings: Gen. 11:1-9 (Babel); Ex. 19:3-8a; 16-20b (Sinai); Ez. 37:1-14 (dry bones); Joel 3:1-5 (old men will dream, dreams…); Romans 8:22-27 (Spirit prays for us); John 7:37-39 (rivers of living water).The Readings for the Mass of the Pentecost pick up, as it were, where the Readings for the Vigil left off.First Reading: Acts 2:1-111When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. 2And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. 3Then there appeared to them tongues as...