20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 20

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

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.

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6

Feast of the Transfiguation of the Lord, Year A

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.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 23

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Our first reading describes the ways of God, or perhaps better expressed, the patterns of grace that impact our lives. No wonder it’s complicated. God is mighty and powerful, but judges with clemency and governs with leniency. Putting the two together—power and restraint—is difficult for us. How can we combine justice based on law and order with clemency and patience expressed as kindness?
Only God can put it all together, it seems.
Today’s parable gives us a start. It counsels patience and warns us against the rigidity that is the seed bed for intolerance and does so much harm in the world. But then there are other parables, too, the express the opposite truth.
If meeting this high challenge of divine discretion is daunting, Paul’s assurance in the middle reading should encourage us. As Paul reminds us, the Spirit prays within us and inspires us to discern where God is calling us.
—Walter Modrys SJ

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

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 9

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

When President Trump visited France a few years ago, he was greatly impressed with the military parade celebrating Bastille Day. He came home wanting our own military to stage something similar—as a sign of national power and prestige.
Unfortunately, in Ukraine and other places we’ve seen lately a lot of military armor riding down city streets, and not in parade formation, but in battle readiness.
Today our first reading gives us a similar scene—but in reverse, as a demonstration against the usual display. Not horse and chariot—the military vehicles of the day, but the king riding on a farm animal. It’s a peace protest—a very different kind of parade.
The reading should be familiar to us. It’s the reading that’s used in the liturgy to introduce the Palm Sunday procession, marking the beginning of Holy Week. The gospel writers invoke this Old Testament prophecy to describe Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
It’s a symbol of Jesus’ opposition to the ways of the world—the same opposition Jesus expresses in today’s gospel, perhaps the most tender expression of Jesus’ affection for people who are hurting and in need.
In our second reading, St. Paul expresses this same contrast between the two sides, two value systems. He calls it the world of the flesh, and the world of the spirit. Ultimately, it’s the contrast between life and death—our choice, Paul warns us
—Walter Modrys SJ

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

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 25

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Of all the characters we encounter in the Bible, no one is more emotionally distraught and fully expressive than the prophet Jeremiah. No one had to endure more distressing circumstances. A battle raged all around him. The nation was on the verge of catastrophic defeat, which only he foresaw. He called for absolute allegiance to the God of Israel. For doing so he was condemned as a traitor, accused of providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
In the gospel, Jesus will send his apostles into conflict, much like what Jeremiah was forced to endure.
In our second reading, St Paul draws his famous contrast between the first Adam, the first man created by God in Genesis and Jesus, the second Adam in Paul’s theological terminology. The argument is intricate, but the point is clear. Jesus Christ is the source of all grace, the generous gift of God’s love to us.
—Walter Modrys SJ

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