Afleveringen
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Friends, on this Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, our first reading is from the prophet Zechariah, who is a very important figure for the Lord Jesus. The prophet predicts the arrival of a king, meek and riding on a donkeyâa king who will âproclaim peace to the nationsâ and extend his dominion âto the ends of the earth.â This strange text from the ancient world has been fulfilled in our hearing and in our sight.
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Friends, weâre reading this week again from the tenth chapter of Matthewâs Gospel, and Christâs teaching here isâas alwaysâastonishing: âWhoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,â Jesus says to his apostles, âand whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.â There are points of overlap with Jesusâs teachings in all the great religions of the worldâbut thereâs nothing like this.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Friends, Jesus cannot be reduced to just one ethical teacher among many. But this doesnât mean that his teaching isnât important or astonishingâbecause it is! And I want to focus this week, and next, on our Gospel readings from the tenth chapter of Matthew. As Jesus sends his disciples on mission, he gives them, and us, a wonderful instruction in the spiritual life. What we hear, as I say, is astonishingâand if you allow it to sink in, it will change your life.
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Friends, on this Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Gospel is about Jesus sending the Twelve on a mission. Whenever we hear about the Twelve, itâs the Church in seminal form. And hereâs what I want to focus on: Whom does Jesus call to be his apostles? Not the best and brightest people of his time but fairly ordinary and even compromised characters. Yet Jesus sees something in every one of themâsome gift, virtue, or capacity needed in the life of the Church.
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Friends, weâve come to the great Solemnity of Corpus Christiâa celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Our first reading mentions the âmannaâ that fed the Israelites in the desertâa mysterious bread from heaven described in the book of Exodus. This is then correlated to the Eucharist, the bread from heaven that Jesus gives us, in our Gospel from the sixth chapter of John. I want to explore four dimensions of this relationship between manna and the Eucharist.
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Friends, weâve come to Trinity Sunday, one of my favorite Sundays of the year. The Trinity is not just a little puzzle for theologians; itâs the heart of the matter, in many ways. Indeed, itâs central to the way we pray: Whenever we make the sign of the cross, weâre invoking the Trinity. It matters that we come to understand this doctrine more plainly, so that we might understand the meaning of our redemption.
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Friends, weâve come to the great Solemnity of Pentecost, which is, along with Christmas and Easter, one of the most important feasts of the Christian year. It is the celebration par excellence of the Holy Spirit. It is also the birthday of the Churchâand we are meant to see ourselves in the readings for today.
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Friends, today is the great Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, which is situated between Easter and Pentecost. The Ascension is when Jesus definitively moves into the higher dimension of heaven. And while we no longer have experiences like the disciples had of the risen Lord, we experience him through his Holy Spirit, who equips us to continue Christâs work in the world.
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Friends, we come to the Sixth Sunday of Easter, which means weâre coming to the end of the Easter seasonâand coming toward the Solemnity of Pentecost. After Christmas and Easter, this great feast of the Holy Spirit is the most important of the Church year. And in our three readings for today, we see five signsâin the Church broadly speaking and in your own lifeâthat the Spirit is present and moving.
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Friends, on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, thereâs a somewhat hidden theme that runs like a golden thread through the readings, and that theme is the temple. To understand the New Testament texts, we have to see the importance of the Jerusalem temple for ancient Israelites. It was the focal point of Jewish lifeâthe political, cultural, and of course religious center of the country. It was seen, in almost a literal sense, as the dwelling place of God on earth.
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Friends, all during the Easter season, we read from the Acts of the Apostles, and this Sunday, we hear part of Peterâs oration on Pentecost morning. His bold proclamation is, in a way, the mother of all sermons; it is the essence of authentic Christian preaching. Peter, filled with the excitement of the Gospel, names the problem of sin, declares Jesus as Lord and Christ, and cuts his listeners to the heart. Then there comes naturally a question in response: âWhat are we to do?â
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Friends, for this Third Sunday of Easter, we read once again the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmausâa literary masterpiece, yes, but above all, a spiritual masterpiece. This story is not just about something that happened long ago; it's also about the Church now, and in all times. And it tells us who Jesus is and how to recognize him.
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Friends, peace be with youâan echo of the words of the risen Jesus in our Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter, also called Mercy Sunday. Christ gives his disciples the gift of shalom (peace). But thereâs an exceptionally important juxtaposition here: He also shows them his wounds, a sign of humanityâs own sin and dysfunction. Itâs not one or the other, his peace or his wounds; itâs both. To get this wrong is to get a lot of Christianity wrong.
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Friends, Happy Easter! Weâve come to the high point of the Churchâs liturgical year, the reason why weâre Christians at all. If Jesus didnât rise from the dead, Christianity is a waste of time; the resurrection is the hinge point, the standing or falling point, of our faith. Taking Easter seriously is the source of our joy and our hope. Everything else is secondary to the great declaration of our Easter faith. In light of that, I want to talk to you today about earthquakes.
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Friends, we come now to Palm Sunday, also called âPassion Sundayâ because we read, in its entirety, one of the Passion narratives from the Synoptic Gospels. This year, we hear Matthewâs version, and one of the distinctive qualities of Matthewâs account is his stress on Judasâand more precisely, on the deep regret that Judas felt over his betrayal of the Lord. Weâre challenged here to contemplate the radicality of Godâs mercy and his relentless pursuit of even the worst of sinners.
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Friends, this Lent, weâve been journeying through some marvelous stories in John: the woman at the well two weeks ago, the man born blind last week, and now the climactic story of the raising of Lazarus. The great miracles of Jesus in Johnâs Gospel are referred to as âsemeiaâ in Greekââsigns.â Theyâre indicators of Godâs power and manner that teach us great truths about our spiritual lives. And the raising of Lazarus teaches us about the ways of God amid our suffering. Why do these things happen? Why doesnât God act?
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Friends, on this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we hear the incomparably rich story of the man born blind, which has beguiled Christians up and down the centuries. We are meant to identify with this man: All of us are born into a world that has been infected by cruelty and violence and hatred. Original sin blinds us; it takes us out of the light. But Christ declares himself âthe light of the worldââthe one who will heal and illumine the eyes of us all.
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Friends, on this Third Sunday of Lent, we hear the story from Johnâs Gospel of the woman at the wellâa kind of master class in evangelization. What is evangelization all about? Itâs about telling starving people where to find bread; itâs about telling people dying of thirst where to find water. Every one of us sinners seeks life in this way; thus, this story, so rich in its dynamics, is a story about all of us.
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Friends, on this Second Sunday of Lent, our first reading about Abraham and Matthewâs account of the Transfiguration orient us to a basic biblical principle. God has made us to go out from ourselves, to experience the splendor of reality. The more we let go of ourselves and our prerogativesâand the less we try to grasp and hang on to thingsâthe more alive we become. Salvation, therefore, has a lot to do with adventure.
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Friends, we commence the holy and wonderful season of Lent, the time of preparation for Easter. I always think of Lent as something like spring training for baseball players, or like the end of the summer workouts for football players. Itâs a time to get back to spiritual basics, to reacquaint ourselves with the elemental things in the spiritual life that we might get ourselves ordered to Christ. So the Church, in our first reading from Genesis, brings us back to the beginning.
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