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Usually we think of men of prayer and men of war as complete opposites. A monk in a habit—such as St. Francis—is a man dedicated to peace, a total contrast to one clad in armor brandishing weapons. Yet the Readings for this Sunday combine the imagery of war and prayer in interesting ways that provoke our thoughts about the nature and reality of supplicating God. 1. Our First Reading is Exodus 17:8-13: In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel. Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, "Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle....

The themes of the Readings for this Sunday focus on the gratitude for God’s salvation. Gratitude is an important psychological and spiritual disposition. Dr. Daniel G. Amen, the popular brain researcher and public health spokesman, identifies gratitude as a key character quality of persons with physiologically healthy brains. That’s right: gratitude affects your physical health, including the shape and functioning of your brain. This Sunday’s Readings focus particularly on gratitude to God, and how it should be expressed. 1. Our First Reading is 2 Kings 5:14-17: Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of...

Our readings this week take up the theme of faith, both Israel’s faith under the old covenant and the faith to which we are called in the new. Jesus urges us not to despair even if we feel our faith is pitiful. God can work wonders using small material. 1. Our First Reading is a famous passage from Habakkuk: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4:How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and...

Does it matter how we treat others? What does my neighbor’s suffering have to do with me? Can I continue living in comfort while bypassing those around me who are in misery? These are questions that the Readings for this Sunday raise, and to which they provide uncomfortable answers. Let’s read and let the Holy Spirit move us outside our comfort zone. 1. The First Reading is Amos 6:1a, 4-7: Thus says the LORD the God of hosts: Woe to the complacent in Zion! Lying upon beds of ivory, stretched comfortably on their couches, they eat lambs taken from the...

As Jesus continues his “death march” to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 9–19), he challenges us this Sunday to choose, in a clear and conscious way, our goal in life: God or money. The First Reading reminds us that wealth was a seductive trap for the people of God throughout salvation history. 1. The First Reading is Amos 8:4-7: Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! “When will the new moon be over,” you ask, “that we may sell our grain, and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will...

This upcoming Sunday marks one of only two times in the main Lectionary cycle that we hear the Parable of the Prodigal Son proclaimed (the other being the 4thSunday of Lent [C]). The Readings are marked by the theme of repentance and forgiveness. 1. Our First Reading is Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14: The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing...

One of the most famous German opponents of Adolf Hitler and Nazism was the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom the Nazis executed by hanging in April 1945 for his involvement in a plot against Hitler himself. Bonhoeffer’s most famous work was a meditation on the Sermon on the Mount entitled (in English) The Cost of Discipleship. In it, Bonhoeffer parted ways with a Protestantism that understood “salvation by faith alone” as some kind of easy road to heaven. Bonhoeffer criticized “easy-believism” as “cheap grace”: Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline,...

In 2005, a quasi-remake of the famous 1967 movie “Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner” was released. Entitled “Guess Who?” it starred Bernie Mac as an African-American father who struggled to deal with his daughter’s Caucasian fiancé (played by Ashton Kutcher). Much of the comedy of the film revolved around the clash of cultures at the dinner table. Usually we only share meals with people like us, family members or friends from our own “circle.” When someone from “outside” comes in, it upsets the balance. If anything, Jews of Jesus day were even more careful than contemporary Americans about who they...

If Jesus was walking through your town and you had ten seconds as he passed to ask any question you wished, what would it be? “Why is there evil in the world?” “How can I be saved?” “What is heaven like?” In this Sunday’s Gospel, an anonymous bystander gets his chance to ask Jesus one of the “big questions”: “Will only a few people be saved?” Jesus’ answer is complex, indirect, and very well worth examining! The Readings leading up to the Gospel help prepare us to understand Jesus’ response. 1. The First Reading is Isaiah 66:18-21: Thus says the...

In recent decades, the term “family values” has almost become a code word for “Christian culture” in American society. On the Catholic side of things we have “Catholic Family Land” or The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, better known as “C-FAM.” The natural family unit—based on a husband and wife who have made an exclusive, permanent, public commitment to share a common life and raise children together—has been under such political and social pressure that at times we almost identify Christianity as a social movement to promote family life. In this context, this Sunday’s Mass Readings can be unsettling....

My father once served as the chaplain for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. (U.S. Navy chaplains also serve the Marines and the Coast Guard). I have fond memories of that beautiful seaside city. In any event, perhaps the only bit of Coast Guard culture that I absorbed during my dad’s tour of duty was the motto: Semper Paratus, “Always Prepared,” which seems an appropriate summation of the theme of this Sunday’s Readings, which stress vigilance in the Christian life. In fact, these Readings feel like something we might get in November, closer to Christ the King,...

In the Readings for this Sunday, texts from the Old and New Testaments remind us that human happiness is not to be found in the accumulation of material goods. Riches are fleeting and empty. We are called instead to “store up treasure in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroy, where thieves cannot break in and steal.” 1. Our First Reading is Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23: Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and yet to another who has not labored over it, he...

Who has the guts to bargain with the Divinity? Abraham, the father of the Israel, does. In the Readings for this Sunday, we find united several themes: persistence in prayer, the justice and mercy of God, the generosity of God.1. Our First Reading is Genesis 18:20-32: In those days, the LORD said: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out.” While Abraham’s visitors walked on farther...

This Sunday, as we continue to accompany Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke, we are confronted with a pair of Readings in which human beings host a meal for God: Abraham for the LORD in the First Reading; Martha and Mary for Jesus in the Gospel. But is it really possible for us to “do God a favor” by giving him a nice meal? We are going to discover that, while God graciously accepts our services, it’s really about what God does for us, not what we can do for him. 1. The First...

In the Readings for this Sunday, Jesus continues his final journey, his fateful "death march" toward Jerusalem (Luke 9–19, the "Travel Narrative") that began formally in Luke 9:51. The past several Sundays have foreshadowed Jesus' coming suffering and death, but this Sunday we get a reprieve as themes of suffering recede into the background. We are temporarily caught up in the joy of Jesus' ministry, as he assembles around himself a congregation of disciples who constitute a spiritual "Jerusalem." In the healing ministry of Jesus and his disciples, we see a fulfillment of certain prophecies of peace and restoration to...

The Readings for this upcoming Sunday continue the strong call to discipleship issued in last Sunday's Readings. Jesus stresses that following him must be an immediate and complete commitment of one's entire person. As someone once said, "Jesus did not come to suffer, die and rise from the dead in order to create 'cultural Catholics.'"1. Our First Reading is from 1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21: The LORD said to Elijah: “You shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah, as prophet to succeed you.” Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke...

I love the early summer liturgical "trifecta" of Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, forming a kind of "encore" to the joyful Easter Season focusing in succession on three fundamental realities of the Christian life: The Church, the Triune Godhead, and the Eucharist. This "trifecta" comes to an end this week with the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Readings for this Solemnity obviously focus on types and descriptions of the Eucharist, but there is a notably priestly theme that also runs through them. In this way, we observe the connection between priesthood and Eucharist. This connection first...

Pentecost is not supposed to mark a spiritual highpoint, from which we then regress and go back to being our slovenly selves. Rather, Pentecost should be a dramatic infusion of spiritual energy climaxing a period of formation that has been ongoing since the first week of Advent. Pentecost propels us, like a shot out of a cannon, into the “world” of Ordinary Time, in order to do effective combat with sin, death, and the Devil. This Sunday marks approximately the half-way point in the liturgical year, and at this temporal center, we pause to reflect on the central mystery of...

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 of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the...

Ascension Day, unfortunately, is not observed in a uniform manner across the United States. Catholics in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England will observe it on Thursday; the rest of the country observes it this Sunday. The First Reading and Psalm for this Solemnity are always Acts 1:1-11 and Psalm 47. Year C has the option to employ Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23 instead of Ephesians 4:17-23 as the Second Reading (both are discussed below) and proclaims Luke 24:46-53 as the Gospel. This is an unusual Lord’s Day, in which the “action” of the Feast Day actually takes place in the...