believe. teach. practice.

A reflection by BJ Brown, prepared for St. Agnes Church, Shepherdstown WV.

The readings for the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4 can be found here on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.

The first reading is chosen as a commentary on today’s gospel. It presents two cases: the first case concerns someone who chooses an evil path and never turns back. The second case is about someone who first goes an evil way and then reforms. It’s somewhat like the two sons in the gospel parable. The moral seems to be it’s never too late to renounce our evil ways and reform.
In the second reading, most commentators think that St Paul is really quoting the words of an early Christian hymn. We don’t have the music, just the words that Paul has passed on to us. If that’s true, then this hymn must have been the most profound ever written because it so well expresses what has come to be called “the paschal mystery of Christ.” It’s all about the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection as the source of all grace.
—Walter Modrys SJ

This week’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

A reflection by BJ Brown

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Catholic Bishops’ website.

The first reading serves as a beautiful introduction to today’s gospel. It’s taken from the so-called Book of Sirach, named after the author. It’s part of what is called the “wisdom literature” in the Bible. If you broke the Bible apart into separate sections, and distributed them on shelves in a bookstore, you would find the “wisdom literature” in the philosophy or spirituality section.
But sometimes, like in today’s reading, wisdom literature can hit home with a sharp point. In the first verse today, for example, we are greeted with a stunning image: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” We all know how true that is. In the gospel, we’ll hear what Jesus has to say about that.
—Walter Modrys SJ

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

A reflection by BJ Brown

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Catholic bishops’ website.

A reflection by BJ Brown

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

The first reading takes us to the troubled times of ancient Israel in the eight century BC. The Assyrians are attacking Jerusalem. One high Jewish official, Shebna, is removed from office and replaced by a man named Hilkiah.
We are reading this because the language describing the transfer of power reminds us of today’s gospel. Jesus—symbolically—entrusts Peter with the keys of the kingdom. In a few short verses, the Old Testament reading describes the nature of Peter’s office and responsibility.
—Walter Modrys SJ

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

There was a Jewish synagogue in Manhattan with an inscription carved into its stone facade.  It read: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
That’s a quotation from our first reading, from the Prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament. In our city, our country, the world, those words stand as a rebuke and a challenge to all the forces of hatred and prejudice that have plagued the human community since biblical times.
Today’s reading from Isaiah puts before us a vision that remains a dream that predates even Isaiah and continues to inspire us decades after Martin Luther King invoked it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Jesus was taken up by this vision as well. In today’s gospel Jesus confronts the contradiction in his own day between the prevailing customs that surrounded him and the true calling he pursued in his ministry.
St. Paul, too, certainly embraced this same belief in God’s universal love. In his ministry, Paul had to struggle with the division between Jews and Gentiles, a division that has led in later history to antisemitism and reprehensible persecutions.
Our response in this Sunday’s liturgy is to join in the psalmist’s call: O God, let all the nations praise you.
—Walter Modrys SJ

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

A reflection by BJ Brown

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.

Today’s first reading from the book of Daniel had a profound influence on the New Testament authors. In their interpretation, God, referred to as “the Ancient of Days” is seated on his throne. And the exalted Jesus, referred to as the “Son of Man,” approaches the throne through the clouds of heaven. But in the New Testament, the imagery is adjusted to depict the second coming of Jesus to earth through the clouds in the sky. The reading was meant to the affirm the Christian belief in Christ as the long-awaited Messiah sent by God for our salvation.
The first reading, therefore, serves as the Old Testament background to our gospel passage, the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, witnessed by three of the apostles. This gospel story anticipates the exaltation of Jesus as he approaches his passion and death on the cross and his continuing presence among us as the risen Lord.
—Walter Modrys SJ

This Sunday’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.