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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 17:02 |
• Proverbs 8:22-31
• Psalm 8:4-9
• Romans 5:1-5
• John 16:12-15
We are all agreed that there is only one God; but our fellow-monotheists, Jews and Moslems, cannot see how we can believe that God is also three, without doing damage to this central insight (and, if we are honest, we who are Christian do not find it altogether easy!). Next Sunday is the feast of the Trinity, and the readings for the day offer a clue: the three-ness of God answers the question how the transcendent Creator can have any relationship at all to his creation.
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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:59 |
• Acts 7:55-60
• Psalm 97: 1-2, 6-7, 9
• Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
• John 17:20-26
We are rushing towards the end of the Easter season now; Pentecost is just a week away, and already the readings look forward to what life is going to be like once we lapse back into “Ordinary Time”.
The first reading contains the stark warning that following Jesus out of Easter and into ordinary time is liable to mean death, as we read of what happened to Stephen. However, it is also the case that death is not the end of the story: for Luke shares with us that Stephen saw “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. This means that all is going to be well, even if Stephen’s utterance brings about his death.
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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:56 |
• Acts 14:21b-27
• Psalm 145:8-13b
• Revelation 21:1-5a
• John 13:31-35
Easter means that things look completely different. Easter does not mean that a magic wand is waved over our pains, so that they no longer hurt. Look at the readings for next Sunday. In the first reading, Paul is still feeling his way; but already the note is struck of the restless travelling that was to mark the remainder of his life after his dramatic encounter with Jesus; he is travelling now around the hinterland of Asia Minor, exhorting disciples, and stressing to them that “it is through many tribulations that we have to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 17:00 |
• Acts 2:1-11
• Psalm 104: 1, 24, 29-31, 34
• Romans 8:8-17
• John 14:15-16, 23-26
Next Sunday is the great feast of Pentecost, which ends our Easter celebrations, with the gift of the Holy Spirit. What does this powerful but impalpable force do for us?
Well, in the first reading, which is always read on this day, we hear of the Spirit’s effect on the disciples, who had not very long before been quivering with fear. Now they hear a sound (“as of the coming of a forceful wind”) and see “tongues of fire”, which send them round the world of Greece and Rome, spreading the message about Jesus, for the remainder of Acts of the Apostles (and, indeed, down to the present day).
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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:58 |
• Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
• Psalm 67: 2-3, 5-6, 8
• Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
• John 14:23-29
How are we to solve our problems? We have been long enough now in the Easter season (and, for that matter, it is long enough since the message of Resurrection was first preached to the world) to know that our faith in God’s power over death does not mean that there are no longer any problems to keep us awake at nights.
In the first reading, we encounter first Christians dealing with a problem that could have torn the church apart in that first century, namely whether, in order to be a follower of Jesus, a male Christian had to be circumcised, as Jesus was, and as (presumably) all his first disciples were.
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Written by Nicholas King SJ
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Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:55 |
• Acts 13:14, 43-52,
• Psalm 100:2-3, 5
• Revelation 7:9, 14b-17
• John 10:27-30
It may be the Easter season, and Resurrection may be in the air, but that does not mean that it is going to be easy to follow Jesus. For, make no mistake about it, there is going to be trouble. In the first reading, we see Paul, newly turned to preaching about Jesus with just the same enthusiasm that he had previously applied to assailing those pesky disciples of Jesus. He gives two sermons in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. The first one (omitted in our reading) is quite a success, for “they were persuading them to remain in God’s grace”; but by the following week, Paul’s enemies have arranged a hostile reception for him, although “the whole city” was so excited that they had turned up to “hear God’s word”.
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