My scripture professor said that if we could swap the four gospels for a video tape of everything Jesus said and did, we wouldn’t make the trade. The gospels as written not only report the actions and words of Jesus but we can also discern in them how those words impacted the early Church and… Read More »
OCTOBER72020
As any child who has played “telephone” can report an initial message can be dramatically changed the more often it is repeated. We can learn about the early church as it repeats the similar stories. St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians tells of a meeting with the “pillars of the Church” in Jerusalem.… Read More »
OCTOBER62020
The story of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary has been used to say that prayer is better than action. Martha, the woman of action, is told that Mary, the woman of prayer (according to this interpretation) has chosen the better part. Is that really what the scene teaches? Imagine if Mary had been… Read More »
OCTOBER52020
For the next two weeks we will read from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. They were a Celtic people who settled in what is now central Turkey. In almost all of Paul’s epistles he begins by giving thanks to God for his correspondents. Not for the Galatians — he starts right off chiding them.… Read More »
OCTOBER42020
A recent trend in Biblical studies has been to look at the book through a socio-scientific lens. What were the political, social, economic realities the lay behind the Biblical stories? Take, for example, Jesus’ parable of the landowner who planted a vineyard. It reflects that condition of absentee landlordism that was common during first century… Read More »
OCTOBER32020
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” The wise and the learned know how things operate, what is possible, have realistic expectations. The little children imagine a new way of being, dream of what is impossible, and… Read More »
OCTOBER22020
It is a providence that on the feast of the Guardian Angels the Old Testament lesson is from Job 38. Up to that point in the book, Job and his companions have been trying to make sense of suffering. In that chapter God answers, basically saying that the ways of God are deeper, wider, more… Read More »
OCTOBER12020
In 1925 Pope Pius XI canonized St. Therese of Lisieux and named her co-patron of the missions. How could a nun who never left her Carmel be considered a missionary? The founder of my religious congregation, Fr. Thomas Judge, C.M., saw this as particularly apt. His motto was every Catholic is called to be an… Read More »
SEPTEMBER302020
The Israelites were leery that the nature gods of their neighbors would infect their religion. They were a people of history — God acting in Abraham, Moses, King David. By the time Job was written history seems to have failed them with no nation and no king. The Book of Job, therefore, turns back to… Read More »
SEPTEMBER292020
Angels in the Bible exist because God is so far above humanity that intermediaries are needed to communicate special messages from God. Even Moses is told that he can’t see God “face to face” or it would kill him. Angels remain anonymous messengers until the time of the Babylonian Exile when the Jewish people encounter… Read More »
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