Whenever we gather for Eucharist, our first reading we listen to always comes from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we traditionally called the Old Testament. The exception to this is during the 50 days of Easter, where the first reading comes from the Acts of the Apostles. Acts tells us of how the Church came to birth when it no longer had Jesus physically present to them. The early Christians truly relied on the ongoing presence of Jesus in his …
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There is a pattern in this gospel story, a movement you might say. And the pattern seems to go like this. First you follow Jesus, then you find abundant life. The point of following the shepherd, if you see yourself as one of the sheep, is that you might be led to pastures of abundant food. “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.” The movement is not that you first find some kind of abundant …
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Some 60 years ago, when the Second Vatican Council ended (1963-1965), the world’s bishops were looking for a metaphor to describe the Church. They settled on not calling the Church a divinely instituted hierarchy but instead a “pilgrim people of God.” What they were saying was: 1) the Church is made up of people, 2) the people are God’s people, and 3) these people were on a journey, a pilgrimage you might say. Until then we always thought life …
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All throughout these 50 days of Easter, our first reading will come not from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), but from the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles are stories about the beginnings of the Church and how the Early Church survived and thrived under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit promised and delivered by Jesus.
Today’s first reading speaks about how the early Christians came together for the breaking of …
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All four gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) have slightly different versions of the resurrection story as you probably know. They are not contradictory stories per se but stories that give us four different angles on the one truth, that Jesus is risen and is still bringing about God’s kingdom in our world.
Today’s story, John’s version, begins this way: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene …
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You might remember how the Passion story ended last Sunday, on Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday). After Jesus is crucified, he’s placed in a tomb. Matthew, the gospel writer, throws in this little hint that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat opposite the tomb. This is a clue of what is to come. Pretend you never heard the story and have no idea that it ends in resurrection. Mary Magdalene isn’t just sitting anywhere; she’s sitting opposite the tomb. …
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In that Passion account we just heard, within just a few hours, Pontius Pilate asked Jesus 11 questions. Nobody in the entire Bible (Old Testament or New Testament) asks as many questions as he does. It becomes clear that Pilate really doesn’t want to know the answer to any of these questions. When Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, says that he came into this world to testify to the truth, Pilate asks him a …
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That first reading from the Book of Exodus speaks about the central feast of our Jewish brothers and sisters down to this very day—the great feast of Passover. What I didn’t realize, until recently, is that the entire passage is a monologue spoke by God. It’s God speaking instructions about how to prepare the Passover meal and what to do with the lamb’s blood afterward. It ends with a command to do this ritual, that is, observe Passover as …
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Of all the creatures that God created the only one that foresees and, therefore, fears death is the human being. Every other form of life on this planet accepts the natural cycle of death and life. I suppose the reason we fear death and postpone thinking about it until the very end, often only when we’re on our deathbeds, is because death is the entry into the great unknown. Many of us fear what we don’t know and can’t …
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I’m beginning to appreciate the importance of the gospel stories we’ve had over the last three Sundays. Like I mentioned last weekend, in the Early Church, a person could not be baptized unless they were familiar with the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well (two Sundays ago), the story of the Man Born Blind (last Sunday), and today’s story of the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead. With each story we get a little bit closer to …
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