The Son and the Spirit are within us, loving us by adding their voices to ours as we turn to the Father. John 14:15-21 for the Sixth Sunday of Easter Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But... Read more
John 10:1-10 Today in his Gospel, Jesus speaks of his followers as his sheep. He calls himself the gate for the sheep. However, he also speaks today of two other distinct roles: the gatekeeper and the shepherd. … whoever enters through the GATE is the SHEPHERD of the sheep. The GATEKEEPER opens it for him…. Gate, gatekeeper and shepherd: all three are in the service of the sheep. The goal is that the sheep might have... Read more
The Lord’s good wounds and good breath! The Second Sunday of Easter John 20:19-31 Last Sunday’s Gospel showed the Risen Lord outside his tomb meeting at daybreak the women who came to fulfill what was not done at his quick burial. In today’s Gospel, the Risen Lord showed himself twice to his followers. He first went to them in the evening following his Resurrection, and standing before them he did three things. First: he showed them his... Read more
My, oh my! John’s Easter Morning Gospel [Jn. 20:11-18] is full of the word my spilling time and again from the lips of both Mary Magdalene and the Christ: MY Lord, MY Teacher, MY brothers, MY Father, MY God. Moreover, even as Christ uses the word your he does so to encourage his disciples to share HIS use of the word my: MY Father who is YOUR Father, MY God who is YOUR God. This Easter Morning, Mary Magdalene was... Read more
As each of the major days of Holy Week draws near, I will add to this post, so please bookmark it. I am a freelance writer in California, where a state law prohibits a media organization like Patheos from publishing more than thirty-four posts per year from a freelance writer. So I am making separate new posts here only about once every ten days. FOR THE MASS OF THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Ezekiel 37:12-14. Romans... Read more
John 4:5-42, for Mass on the Third Sunday of Lent The savior of the world says salvation is from the Jews. Today in his Gospel the savior is traveling. He, a Jew, is passing through the territory of the Samaritans, who, like the Jews, are offspring of Jacob. However, since the Samaritans had long ago intermarried with pagans, the Jews held their Samaritan kin to be both half-breeds and heretics. The Gospel tells us Christ, a Jew, is... Read more
Matthew 4:1-11. The First Sunday of Lent. We meet in the Scriptures, the Gospel and the Sacraments not only our salvation, but also God who is to be worshiped. The event we witness in the Gospel today, the event of Christ’s retreat, penance and temptation in the desert, starts right after his baptism at the river Jordan. This two-sided event of Christ’s baptism and his forty days in the desert was the beginning of his public mission. It... Read more
Matthew 5:17-37, the Gospel Reading at Mass on the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time In his Gospel today, the Lord voices a litany of consequences for sin. you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. you … will be liable to judgment…. answerable to the Sanhedrin…. liable to fiery Gehenna. thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid…. The sins whose consequences today’s Gospel addresses are those against... Read more
The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Sunday, February 2, 2020 Luke 2:22-40 When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in... Read more
I have previously written about the Lord’s Baptism and posted it elsewhere with the title, “Baptism Made Jesus Dirty.” Last Sunday, January 12, was the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, with the Gospel reading taken from Matthew. This Sunday, January 19, the Gospel reading from John also presents the Lord’s Baptism. I’ll speak here below about the third “epiphany.” In less than one hundred eighty years after the resurrection of Christ, there was already a yearly festival... Read more
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