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In this Lent of Year B, we are taking a survey through the Old Testament of the great covenant moments. We have seen the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the covenant failure of Israel resulting in exile, and now finally, on this fifth week, we witness the promise of the New Covenant through the voice of the prophet Jeremiah. In the Gospel, Jesus speaks in ominous terms about the coming suffering that will be necessary for him to undergo in order to establish that New Covenant. 1. The First Reading is Jeremiah 31:31-34: The days are coming,...

For understanding the First Reading from 2 Chronicles 36, it’s important to realize that the First Readings for Lent in Year B are cycling through some high points of salvation history—a review as we prepare for Easter. So we’ve had (1) the covenant with Noah, the (2) covenant with Abraham, (3) the covenant at Sinai through Moses, and now this week, we are reviewing (4) Israel’s failure to keep the Sinai covenant, and thus the subsequent exile. After all, exile was prophesied as the consequence of failing to keep the Sinai covenant: see Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 27. Next week...

What is the best way to communicate law? Written law has its limitations, because we are all familiar with the concept of the “loophole.” There always seem to be methods of interpreting the written law in ways that run contrary to its intent. In West Virginia, which is across the river for us in Steubenville, they passed a law a few years back allowing cafés to operate some small-time gambling on their premises. The idea was to allow owners of small eateries a sideline to supplement income during a tough economic time. Well, now dozens of new “cafés” have sprung...

One week into our Lenten journey, the Readings for this weekend’s Masses focus on passages that look ahead or anticipate Christ’s self-sacrifice on Calvary, which awaits us, as it were, in the “liturgical future,” on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. 1. The First Reading is one of the most pivotal texts in the Old Testament, the “Calvary” of the old covenant era. This is what the Jewish tradition calls the Aqedah, the “binding” of Isaac. The story is familiar to most: God commands Abraham to take Isaac to a certain mountain and sacrifice him there. Abraham obeys, but before Isaac...

In the contemporary Lectionary, the First Readings during Lent in all three years attempt to rehearse and teach salvation history, not only as a refresher for the congregation but as an initiation for catechumens, who are preparing to enter into the story of salvation through the sacraments. World literature has many stories, with variations, about magic books that suck the reader into the world of the book, where they suddenly find themselves in a very different reality. In a way, the Bible is such a “magic book.” It contains a story that appears to be distant from the reader in...

Happy Lent, everyone! Let's indulge in a little commentary on the Readings for Ash Wednesday: 1. Our First Reading is Joel 2:12-18: Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather...

In this weekend’s readings, a healed leper disobeys Jesus and spreads the news of his miraculous cure everywhere, impeding the Lord’s ministry. Why did Jesus tell him to be quiet about the healing? What is the role of miracles in the Jesus’ ministry, and in the life of the Church today? 1. The First Reading for this weekend’s masses was obviously chosen to provide the background for understanding leprosy as it was experienced by the Jews and other ancient peoples. Reading 1: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "If someone has on his skin a scab or...

I went to a public high school in Hawaii back in the late 1980’s, and the social group I hung around with had more than its share of young cynics. For some reason, it was cool to be morose, and one of my buddies was fond of responding to anyone’s account of some problem or difficulty that they were facing with the lovely couplet, “Well, life s***ks, then you die.” At the time, we thought it was amusing, a kind of gallows humor, but in hindsight I regret showing any approval for such expressions of pessimism. Life is difficult, but...

In the Readings for this Sunday, we are following 1 Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark ad seriatim, so there is less cohesion between the Second Reading and the Gospel than on a high feast day. Nonetheless, the Readings this week can be linked by the theme of “hearing the voice of the prophet.” 1. The First Reading is a very famous passage from the Book of Deuteronomy that should be familiar to every Catholic student of biblical theology. Reading 1: Deuteronomy 18:15-20Moses spoke to all the people, saying: "A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up...

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...