Twenty-ninth Sunday Mass Readings: Page 146 – 149 Order of Mass: Pages 7– 47 First Reading: Eucharistic Prayer III asks God to ‘gather to yourself all your children scattered throughout the earth’, and Eucharistic Prayer IV prays for those ‘gathered into one body by the Holy Spirit’. This theme of gathering the scattered is taken…
Twenty-eighth Sunday Mass Readings: Page 143 – 146 Order of Mass: Pages 7– 47 First Reading: riches – and indeed health and beauty – are as nothing compared to Wisdom. For Christians, Wisdom in the Old Testament refers to Jesus Christ. Hence the great basilica in Constantinople (now Istanbul) ‘Hagia Sophia’ was dedicated to the…
Twenty-seventh Sunday Mass Readings: Page 140 – 143 Order of Mass: Pages 7– 47 First Reading: this reading is placed before the Gospel to remind us that marriage is not the creation of the Church or even of Jesus Christ. Rather, “God himself is the author of marriage” (Gaudium et Spes § 48) Psalm: this…
Twenty-fifth Sunday First Reading: a description of the ungodly and how they attack believers. This resonates very strongly nowadays with frequent attacks in the mass media and elsewhere on Christians, Moslems and others who have religious beliefs. Psalm: a prayer for help from God when assailed by attacks from the ungodly . Second Reading: disunity…
Twenty-sixth Sunday First Reading: the parallels between Moses and Jesus are obvious; Jesus was consciously basing his ministry on that of Moses; in fact, Jesus is the new Moses. Moses is an Egyptian name meaning ‘child of God’. Psalm: this reminds us that God’s law is perfect. If we find ourselves at odds with God’s…
Twenty-fourth Sunday First Reading: traditionally we understand these words to apply to Jesus and His passion. But we can also take them as applying to individual Christian disciples who suffer and to suffering Christian communities (such as those suffering severe persecution in many parts of the Middle East today; visit www.acnuk.org for the latest news)….
Twenty-third Sunday First Reading: Isaiah portrays the glorious fulfilment of God’s saving purpose at the end of time. This end-time – we believe – begins with Jesus (see the Gospel reading). Psalm: this carries on the same idea as the First Reading: the Lord who comes to save those in need. Second Reading: James…
Seventeenth Sunday First Reading: this incident in the Old Testament foreshadows the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and even more significantly it is one of the many passages in the Old Testament which foreshadows the Eucharist. Psalm: in his compassion God feeds us. In return, all we can do is to praise…
