The Gospel of Saint Luke curiously includes two episodes in which Jesus sends his disciples to announce the nearness of the Kingdom of God. In the beginning of chapter nine, Jesus sends of The Twelve who he calls apostles. However, in chapter ten Jesus sends seventy or seventy-two disciples (depending upon which manuscript you are reading) on a different mission. The instructions that he gives...
In the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, we read: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Apart from whatever else faith is – and it has more than one meaning – it is a way of seeing. Faith leads us to see more. Faith makes us certain of realities we do not see. For instance, faith helps us to see God’s...
I know that I have told you this before, but it bears repeating. The passage from St. Luke’s Gospel for this day marks a deliberate change from the Galilean ministry of Jesus. He resolutely decides to make his way to Jerusalem where he will die on a cross. At first hearing, these words do not give us a true sense of the atmosphere in which Jesus and his disciples were living. These were...
Today we the Gospel is difficult to hear and difficult to understand. We tend to be revolted by the notion of someone maiming themselves by cutting off a limb plucking out an eye. However, in his time and in his culture, Jesus is really talking about something that is completely outside our experience. It is important for us to remember that people who were blind or lame or deaf or who were...
As is often the case with poetry, unless we understand the imagery that is being used, the meaning of poem is lost on us. The reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes that we hear today is such a poem. The subject of the poem is life, old age and death.
The homage to life in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes is deliberately balanced by the somber yet shimmering radiance of a poem on old age and...