Obedience Out of Fear

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Hebrews 4:12-13. I suggest reading from the beginning of the chapter, for context, and then read the other readings.

The writer to the Hebrews writes in this chapter on the Sabbath rest, though you wouldn’t know it by the brief excerpt we read today. Nowadays, Sundays are starting to look so much like every other day of the week that resting on Sundays is a hard thing for Christians to talk about seriously and really enter into.

Between the Old and New Covenants

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Hebrews 2:9-11. I would suggest beginning at verse 5 - that's where the link goes. Be sure to read the other readings for context - this reflection will not make sense without them!

On description, Daniel indicated that he thought this was a “how it happened to speak to me” type of reflection. Read with that in mind!

The Trouble with Works

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Original image from Pixabay.

This Sunday, the second reading will be from James 2:14-18 (the link goes to a bit more). I’d strongly encourage you to read the other readings as well. It’s lectionary #131, if you’re reading from a hard copy.

I don’t think there is another issue that is as contentious between Catholics and most Protestants as that of the role of works in salvation.

On the one hand, Protestants have one strong point in their favor. We cannot earn our Salvation. Not by doing good works, not by study, not by any means. And any Catholic who is worth their salt will tell you the same thing.

Choosing God's Will

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Ephesians 5:15-20, but I’d strongly suggest reading the other readings. It’s lectionary # 119, if you’re reading from a hard copy.

In this section of the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul exhorts members of the church in Ephesus to live wisely, to  make the most of opportunities, to refrain from drunkenness, and to address one another with spiritual language, and give thanks in all things.

Perhaps it is the fact that we were recently in a car accident and had a lot of things to sort out in the aftermath, but I’ve seen these very verses in my life lately.

Kids: A Great Example

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Ephesians 4:30-5:2, but I’d also strongly encourage you to read the other readings.

We’re enjoined several times in scripture to be like little children. In terms of openness to the truth, in terms of radical trust, in terms of respect for our elders. This is one of few parts of scripture in which the this call is juxtaposed with a call to the imitation of God.

Remember all those places in scripture where we are told to do things like “be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect”? This is a call to imitate the father in his attributes, and also in his actions.

Children - especially small children - are a perfect example of how to do imitation right.

Out of Love for Us, God Gave Us a Job to Do

Original photo from Pixabay.

12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday, the second reading will be from 2 Corinthians 5:14-17. I would recommend reading verses 11-21, and also the other readings for this week. It's Lectionary # 95, if you're reading from a hard copy.

The first reading and Gospel speak of God’s mastery over the sea. He set their boundaries when he made them, and he can speak a word to calm a mighty storm at sea. Clearly, his power is great, and greater still is his love for us.

At Home in the Lord

This Sunday, the second reading will be from 2 Corinthians 5:6-10. I strongly suggest reading from verse 1, for context, as well as the other readings for this week. It’s lectionary # 92, if you’re reading from a hard copy.

Life is short, right? So short, in fact that Paul describes our bodies, the most permanent things that any of us experience in our lives as a tent - an imminently temporary dwelling. Most of us are accustomed to using tents for… no more than a week at a time, right? So, the analogy of our bodies being like tents is very jarring to us.

Is He Real? Is Any of it Real?

Feast of the Holy Trinity

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Roman 8:14-17, but I highly recommend reading the rest of this week's readings, as this week's reflection really is on all three readings.

So… is God a figment of our imagination? I dare say he can’t be, and that our God is the only true God for this reason: Who would invent a God that was a sequence of mystery-wrapped-enigma-paradoxes?

God Loved You First

7th Sunday of Easter

For the seventh Sunday of Easter, the second reading will be from 1 Jn 4:7-10.

So, we’ve been hitting John’s first epistle really hard this Easter season, and he wrote extensively in this letter about love. So far, since Easter, we’ve talked about:

• What it looks like when we love God back,
• how obedience of the laws of God factor into our relationship with him,
• how incredible is God’s love for us,
• the necessity of our act of trust in the context of our loving relationship with God,
• and the necessity of loving those who are not in Christ.

Incomprehensible Love

4th Sunday of Easter

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Link 1 Jn 3:1-2. I’d suggest reading 2:28-3:3, for context, and the other readings for this week. It’s lectionary #50, if you’re looking at a hard copy.

So, between all of the readings for this week, we read that Jesus is the cornerstone rejected by the builders, and the good shepherd, and that we are the children of God - he is our Father.

In seeing things about God, we are also shown things about ourselves. If Jesus is the cornerstone, then we are the stones of the building; if Jesus is the Good Shepherd, then we are the sheep; if God is our Father, then we might all be called his children.

So, we have a lot of analogies this week for who God is, and by extension who we are in relation to him.

Contemplating God and our relationship to him is an area in which we need good analogies, because the mere existence of a relationship here is hard to really wrap your head around.