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This Sunday we are only eleven days into Lent, still very early along on our Lenten pilgrimage. The readings share the theme of beginning the journey of faith, even while giving us a glimpse of our final destination. In all three years of the lectionary cycle (A, B, C), the readings for the Second Sunday of Lent always pair a key pericope from the Abraham narrative (Genesis 12—22) with an account of the Transfiguration from one of the Synoptic Gospels. This is because, in all the Gospels, the Transfiguration marks “the beginning of the end” of Jesus’ earthly life. After...

The Readings for this Sunday are exceptionally rich, so we will have to limit ourselves to following just a few themes. 1. The First Reading is the account of the Fall, in which Eve, followed by Adam, gives in to temptation by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Reading 1: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,...

This Sunday’s Readings include some of the best known—and hardest to practice—passages from the Gospel, including Jesus famous command to “turn the other cheek.” Biblical scholarship can only go so far in elucidating some of Jesus’ challenging commands; beyond that, we need the saints. 1. Our Readings start off showing the continuity between Jesus’ teachings and the Old Testament, quoting a section from Leviticus (19:1-2, 17-18):The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.“You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your...

The “Hippie Jesus" is one of the common misunderstandings of Christ that are circulating in popular culture. People think of Jesus as a laid-back guru who traveled around Israel in this Volkswagen Vanagon, accompanied by twelve dudes in tie-died T-shirts. Jesus taught that all we need is Love, and not to be so uptight, like all those rule-bound priests and scribes. Of course, that view of Jesus is wrong. People adopt it, however, because they misunderstand the nature of Jesus’ conflict with the priests, scribes, and Pharisees that dominated Jewish religious practice in his day. Because Jesus criticizes them for...

The Readings for this Sunday remind me of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, which I’ve had the privilege of visiting a couple of times in the past few years. This beautiful church is built on a hillside and is easily visible from much of the modern city of Nazareth. The architect designed the dome of the basilica to look like a lighthouse, symbolizing the light of Christ going out to all Nazareth and the rest of the Galilee region, in keeping with the theme of last week’s Gospel, “Those walking in darkness have seen a great light.” The...

Children play make-believe games in which they are royalty—kings and queens, princes and princesses—but one of the main attractions of this kind of fantasy play is the imagined wealth that goes along with it. Who would not like to wear the finest clothes, live in the finest dwellings, dine on the best food, and be waited on hand and foot by servants? This is our standard notion of what “royalty” involves, but in this Sunday’s readings Jesus inaugurates a new kingdom, the “kingdom of heaven,” in which the aristocrats are going to live a lifestyle completely opposite of Robin Leach’s...

The Readings for this Sunday focus in part on the theme of joy, the joy that comes from recognizing Jesus Christ as the light of the world, the ray of sunshine from God who shows us a different way to live, a way that will lead to an eternal friendship with a God who loves us as our Father. Jesus is the joy and light that first was promised to the people of Israel long ago, but is now available to the whole world, from Sweden to Swaziland. 1. Our First Reading is Isaiah 8:23-9:3:First the Lord degraded the land...

The Readings for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time this year are like a “holy hangover” from the Feasts of Epiphany and Baptism that we celebrated last week. Traditionally, three events of our Lord’s life have been celebrated clumped together around January 6, between the Christmas season and the transition to ordinary time. These are the arrival of the magi (Epiphany), the Baptism, and the Wedding at Cana. These are the three events in the various Gospels that “manifest” or show forth Jesus’ glory at the beginning of his life or career: the Magi in Matthew, the Baptism in Mark...

The Christmas season can sometimes seem to be 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 (175-164 BC), the villainous tyrant of 1-2...

January 1 is the Solemnity (Holy Day) of Mary, Mother of God. To call Mary the “Mother of God” must not be understood as a claim for Mary’s motherhood of divinity itself, but in the sense that Mary was mother of Jesus, who is truly God. The Council of Ephesus in 431 proclaimed “Mother of God” a theologically correct title for Mary. So far from being a cause of division, the common confession of Mary as “Mother of God” should unite all Christians, and distinguish Christian orthodoxy from various confusions of it, such as Arianism (the denial that Jesus was...

The Christmas Solemnity has distinct readings for four separate masses: Vigil, Midnight, Dawn, and Day. They stay the same from year to year, so below are my annual comments, only lightly revised. Merry Christmas! Christmas Vigil Mass1. Reading 1: Isaiah 62:1-5: For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch. Nations shall behold your vindication, and all the kings your glory; you shall be called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the LORD. You shall...

As Christians, we tend to assume that the idea of God coming into ones’ life is always an attractive concept. However, that’s a bit naïve. Having the almighty creator of the universe come into one’s reality could also be an upsetting prospect. When doing evangelism, I have encountered people who understood the concept of “letting Jesus into your life” very well, but didn’t want that to happen, because it might upset the apple cart, so to speak. A God living within you might want to change things. He might want to take over. Are we ready for that? In this...

Once when I was a grade school kid, my mother and I camped in Shenandoah National Park for a week in the fall. One morning we got up to go hiking, but the weather was bad. It was starting to rain. I was bummed. My mom said to go back in the tent and pray that the weather would clear. So I did go and pray. But the weather didn’t clear, it only got worse. The rain got heavier, and the wind began to pick up—slowly and first, but soon so strong that the tent was shaking and starting to...

Every year on this, the Second Sunday of Advent and thus the second Sunday of the new liturgical year, the brash and burly figure of the Baptist bursts onto the liturgical stage, bellowing his characteristic charge, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” As we know, the First Sunday of Advent is always given to reflection on the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world whereas the Second and Third Sundays always focuses on John the Baptist, one of the most pivotal yet underappreciated figures in salvation history. In the context of this liturgy, the...

Happy New Year, everyone! The Church Year begins this week with the First Sunday of Advent, and we are back to reading cycle A in 2022. There is a very ancient tradition in the Church of reading the Book of Isaiah during Advent. In antiquity, both Jews and Christians considered the Book of Isaiah to be one extended prophesy of the “age to come,” the “latter days” when the Anointed One (Heb. “Meshiach,” =” Messiah”) would arrive. The First Readings for Sunday Mass and for weekday Masses, as well as the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours,...

The Church year comes to an end this Sunday with the Solemnity of Christ the King, one of my favorite feast days. The Readings focus heavily on the theme of the kingdom of Christ, which was typified or foreshadowed by the Kingdom of David in the Old Testament. 1. The First Reading is 2 Samuel 5:1-3:In those days, all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said: "Here we are, your bone and your flesh. In days past, when Saul was our king, it was you who led the Israelites out and brought them back. And the...

Some years ago I was driving through the back hills of Ohio with my son, and we passed a billboard in a farmer’s field that read: “God has a Judgment Day coming!” My son asked me if the farmer who had placed the billboard in his field was Catholic or Protestant. I suggested he probably was a Protestant. My son asked why Catholics didn’t put up billboards like that. I theorized that perhaps fewer Catholics owned farms close to the highway, or maybe they were less convinced that announcing the coming judgment was really an effective means of evangelism. Billboards...

We are advancing in the “unofficial liturgical season” of November, and the Mass Readings turn toward meditation on the Last Things. This Sunday we are directed especially to the consideration of the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of the dead is controversial. It is a traditional belief in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but Eastern religions have no necessary commitment to it. Indeed, bodily resurrection makes no sense in Buddhism. Likewise, ancient Greek philosophy had little use for the body in general, and it was often regarded as a prison for the soul. Western secularism espouses materialism; therefore, there is...

Happy November, everyone! This month constitutes its own unofficial liturgical season, focused on the Last Things. We begin the month with All Saints and round it out with the Feast of Christ the King. This Sunday’s Readings introduce themes that will be developed throughout the month: repentance, the Kingdom of God, and final judgment. In particular, the Gospel Reading urges us not merely to repent while we still have time, but also to make right the wrongs we have done to others, that is, to make reparation. Some non-Catholic theologies deny the need for reparation, but it is a biblical...

Several years ago, an experiment was done in which three American families were taken to a remote part of the Midwest and left to survive with few belongings and 19th century technology (horse-drawn plows, etc.) for a year. As I recall, two families were able to persevere through the year without being rescued, and at the end of it, they returned to their twentieth-century lives, with video games, TV, etc. When interviewed a year after the end of the experiment, almost to a person the family members agreed that the year "in the past" had been very difficult, but they...