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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...

In the provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and Omaha, Ascension Day is observed on it's proper day, and this Sunday is observed as the Seventh Sunday of Easter. It's a shame that so much of the country will not have a chance to meditate on these Scriptures, but perhaps even those of us living in areas where the Seventh Sunday is not celebrated can benefit by bringing these Readings to our prayer. Holy Mother Church offers as an intriguing theme in these Readings: the paradoxical relationship between glory and suffering. We find these two motifs expressed particularly...

In most of the USA, Ascension Day is observed this Sunday, whereas in the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia, it is observed on its proper day on the Thursday forty days after Easter. 1. Ascension Day is an unusual Feast, in which the “action” of the Feast Day actually takes place in the First Reading rather than the Gospel. We typically think of all the narratives of Jesus’ life as recorded in the Gospels, overlooking that Acts records at least two important narratives about the activity of the Resurrected Lord (Acts 1:1-11; also 9:1-8)....

So we have arrived at the sixth Sunday of Easter, and Pentecost is only two weeks away! It is hard to believe that this blessed season has traveled by so quickly. Yet we are approaching the end, now is the time to prepare more seriously than ever to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit on this upcoming Feast. Our Readings for this Sunday are filled with instruction and narrative about the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the First Reading, we have the account of the “Samaritan Pentecost,” as the Holy Spirit falls on these much-maligned descendants of northern...

Since the beginning of time, human beings have sought to construct buildings that would bridge the gap between the temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly planes of existence. These temples have taken widely differing forms in many cultures. One of the greatest was the Jerusalem temple begun by Herod the Great (73–4 BC), an architectural marvel of the ancient world while it stood. The authors of the New Testament texts in this Sunday’s Readings were well familiar with Herod’s great temple, yet they were convinced that God had begun the construction new and greater dwelling place for himself in their...

So we have reached the mid-point of the Easter Season and come to the Lord’s Day unofficially called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” because every year at this time we read from John 10, the famous “Good Shepherd Discourse.” For the most part, the Readings are focused around the idea of Jesus Christ as our divine Shepherd. But what is a shepherd like? In Western culture, shepherding can involve a conflicted relationship with the sheep. Shepherds often drive sheep in different directions using dogs to intimidate them. But in Eastern cultures, shepherds don’t “drive” the sheep, they lead them. Dogs are not...