Reading Reflections

Deuteronomy 4:32 – 34, 39 – 40  We have returned to Ordinary Time, that is, time ordered according to God’s plan for our salvation.  As we do so, the Church has offered us over these next two Sundays the opportunity to reflect on two very important aspects of our faith: the Blessed Trinity and The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  These are two fundamental beliefs that inform everything else we believe about God.  This Sunday, we focus on the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  As we read in [...]

 On this, Pentecost Sunday, we come to the end of the Easter Season as we celebrate the birth of the Church and hear an exhortation of how we are to live as the Church.  Different readings are prescribed for the Vigil Mass than for the Mass on Sunday and that there are options for both sets of readings.  I will reflect on the readings for Sunday that I will use at the Masses I will celebrate.  I don’t know which readings Fr. Waters and Fr. Reilly will use, so don’t [...]

John 15:9 - 17 This Sunday, we hear a continuation from last week of Jesus’ address to the apostles at the Last Supper as presented in John’s Gospel.  Whereas last week we heard Jesus provide a parable about the vine and the branches, this week, we hear Jesus speak of the Father’s love and his call to his disciples to love in the same way.  As you will read in your footnotes, most scholars consider the section of 13:31 – 17:26 to be Johannine compositions, modeled on farewell discourses found [...]

John 15:1 - 8  Last Sunday, we heard Jesus speak of himself as the Good Shepherd.  He used that image against the Jewish leaders, whom he, by inference, characterized as bad shepherds, mere hirelings who are in it for themselves.  He, on the other hand, was the Good Shepherd who “lays down his life for his sheep.”  As I mentioned last week, this is the only occasion in the Gospel of John where Jesus uses a human image as an analogy for himself.   This Sunday, we hear Jesus speak [...]

John 10:11 - 18 As we do every Fourth Sunday of Easter, we hear this Sunday a beautiful, symbolic presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd taken from chapter 10 of the Gospel of John. As it was last year, this year it is part of his discourse against the Pharisees.  The good shepherd discourse continues the theme of attack on the Pharisees that ends John 9.  We will recall the account of the man born blind whom Jesus cured.  In this account, we recall the baptismal imagery of Jesus [...]

Luke 24: 35 - 48 This Sunday, we hear Luke’s presentation of the risen Lord’s appearances to the apostles that corresponds to John’s account that we heard last week.  Like each of the other gospels (Matthew 28:16-20, which we will hear this year on the Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday; Mark 16:14-15, which we hear only at a weekday Mass; John 20:19-23), the Gospel of Luke focuses on an important appearance of Jesus to the Twelve in which they are commissioned for their future ministry.  Matthew records the appearance [...]