Fifth Sunday of Easter Background: We are used to the chronology of Luke where in his gospel and in Acts, Jesus’s resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit are separate events across weeks of time. In John’s gospel the lifting up of Jesus on the cross is the beginning of his glorification: resurrection, ascension, and […]

Palm Sunday — Matthew Background: Christian liturgy is not a play reenacting past events but a living celebration of the inner meaning of those events so that it comes alive in us today. As the oldest Palm Sunday hymn says: “To you before your passion they sang their hymns of praise. To you, now high

The 2nd Sunday in Lent Background: We read this week the last of three interconnected episodes in the gospel: Jesus’s baptism, temptation, and now transfiguration. What links them is that they deal with the meaning of his being the beloved Son/Servant. We have seen how he has struggled to understand the meaning of his Sonship;

The 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time Background: The Sermon on the Mount continues; we are once again being taught the basics of life in God’s kingdom/reign. And they are not about kosher ordinances or other do’s and don’t’s but about love in action—which is why this selection from Isaiah was chosen to parallel this Gospel.

The 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Background: Ordinary Time gets its name because each year one of the three synoptic gospels is read “in order” starting with the Baptism of the Lord which marks the end of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season and going on through 34 Sundays to Christ the King. Only Lent-Easter-Pentecost interrupt the steady

Christmas Mass During the Day Background: This is the last and oldest set of readings for Christmas in the Roman Rite. It can startle us because there are none of the details about the baby and the manger that we are so used to from the Lucan infancy narrative. Yet a saying from St. Athanasius,

Cycle A – DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Introduction to Matthew Matthew was writing for a predominantly Jewish audience, and so he occasionally presumes a bit of knowledge about the laws and customs of Judaism that many of us might be unfamiliar with. But it is easy for us to understand his references if we check the footnotes

You can reflect questions for every Sunday of the year by clicking here. Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Background: The pointless self-righteousness of the Pharisees is a dominant theme in Luke’s Gospel. This Sunday, though, it is the Sadducees’ narrow concept of God which is being portrayed for us. By setting up a rhetorical situation which