At the Heart of Liberty is the Right to Encounter and Know the Truth!

Be holy. Be perfect. Be children of your heavenly father. The spirit of God dwells in you. You are the temple of God… The various liturgical readings this week come together around a common thread concerning the necessary holiness of the Spirit-filled disciple, and of how that holiness is manifest as a reflection of the loving-kindness of God. Can the sudden mad rush to post-human or trans-human existence we find Western civilization engulfed in be enlightened by reflection on this call of God to be holy/perfect/complete? 7th Week in Ordinary Time,...

I will give you as a light to the nations: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

First Reading:            Isaiah 49:3, 5–6Psalm Response:       Psalm 40:8a, 9aPsalm Versicles:         Psalm 40:2, 4, 7–8, 8–9, 10Second Reading:       1 Corinthians 1:1–3Gospel Acclamation: John 1:14a, 12aGospel:                      John 1:29–34 The NAB Lectionary reading from 1Cor 1:2 has Paul addressing those who are “called to be a holy people.” The implications of that particular calling had changed significantly from the earlier time of the Deuteronomic covenant, when the Lord had declared: “The LORD will establish you as a people hol...

Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’

The Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Advent in Year A, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, contains a passage I think provides a key to understanding a different and controversial passage from the same Gospel. When John the Baptist saw the religious leaders coming to be baptized, he challenged them to demonstrate their repentance in concrete actions, not just in playing “show and tell”. He then said to them: “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.'” This criticism is reminiscent of a passage in Jeremiah where he ...

You know not on what day your Lord is coming.

Jesus’ depiction of the coming “of the Son of Man” stands in pretty stark contrast to popular ideas of how things might end, or at least of how the race my move into a new kind of future. We largely live among the “don’t worry, be happy” crowd – many of whom do not believe a word of the testimony concerning the last things, while others of them accept some notion of Divine judgment and some version or another of eternal or “heavenly” life, but who are at least implicitly and often explicitly convinced that such eventualities are of no real consequence, o...

Let Us Go Rejoicing

The liturgical year culminates this week in the celebration of the joyous and triumphant solemnity of Christ the King. In the Entrance Antiphon, the Church echoes the cry of the numberless host of heaven, witnessed to in the Revelation to St John, acclaiming in loud voices the worthiness of the Lamb that was slain (Rev 5:12). In the Collect, She prays “that the whole creation, set free from slavery,” might ceaselessly praise God – thus joining...

Leprosy: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

One of the themes that emerge from this week’s readings is the importance of communion, that is: the role of the Church in not only embracing all people in brotherhood, but doing so by means of bringing all people to a place of graced renewal, for the end, as Paul says in the second reading, “that they may be saved.” The device that is used to characterize this is the ancient scourge of leprosy. The first reading, from Leviticus, skips over an extensive middle section of the Biblical text on the details of the disease, including regulations on distinguis...

Comfort Without Complacency

Comfort, comfort my people. 2nd Sunday in Advent, Year B 1 Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! 4 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley....

Oh, That You Would Rend the Heavens and Come Down!

I had the curious privilege this weekend of proclaiming the liturgical reading for the last Mass of the year on Saturday, as well as the readings for the first Mass of the new liturgical year today. I’m sure that’s not particularly unusual, but given as I only read about three days a month, it was a bit curious to draw these exact two assignments. In reflecting on them both, it struck me how similar they are – in that even the triumphant scene from Revelation of the vision of the tree of life in the Saturday reading is imbued with such ...

Watchman for the House of Israel

There is a common thread of real, and very serious, responsibility for neighbor running across all three of this week’s readings. 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Ezek 33:7-9; Rom 13:8-10; Mt 18:15-20 It’s not that common for the second reading to dovetail this nicely with the first reading and the Gospel reading. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but perhaps it bears repeating (even in somewhat oversimplified form). . . The lectionary cycle for Sunday readings consists of two independent threads of content: the primary thread bein...

Upon This Rock: Royal Authority & Stewardship

A few observations on the Gospel reading for this week… 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 19 I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. 20 On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; 21 I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. 22 I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open. 23 I w...