In the reading from the book of Revelation, we hear two of the seven letters to communities in Asia Minor which stand at the beginning of this book. While there is the occasional compliment offered to the people of these seven communities, for the most part these letters point out failures of these seven Christian communities. Nevertheless, despite the failures of these communities, we also...
As is always the case when we celebrate the Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Church turns our attention to the end times. The readings for this Sunday are called apocalyptic readings. The Greek word “Apocalypsis” means “unveiling,” as in the veil is lifted from the mysteries that surround the second coming of Jesus Christ. The readings are very difficult to...
Parables usually help us to envision an image of God or an image of God’s kingdom. Consequently, when we proclaim this particular Gospel text, we are immediately struck with the fact that Jesus does not begin this parable in the usual way. We are simply told the very beginning of the parable that the story is about a woman, a widow, who by very definition is a voiceless person in the...
Most of us have witnessed the transformation that takes place when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Perhaps one of our teachers in primary school had kept a chrysalis in a jar so that we could watch the transformed caterpillar as it entered the world as a butterfly. Transformation happens in the natural world quite regularly.
The Christian life involves transformation as well. St. Paul...
The story that we hear in today’s Gospel text is so familiar that we may possibly miss some of the nuance that Saint Luke includes in his version of this episode. The other synoptic Gospels include stories of Jesus healing lepers. However, Saint Luke tells us that it was a group of ten lepers that sought Jesus’ pity. He also tells us that one of the ten was a Samaritan. This is a...