This week we return to the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. This Sunday and next, however, are designated as solemnities, that is special days that call our attention to central mysteries of our faith. Today on Trinity Sunday we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons.
The Season of Easter concludes with today’s celebration, the Feast of Pentecost. On Pentecost we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem; this event marks the beginning of the Church. The story of Pentecost is found in the Acts of the Apostles, today’s first reading. The passage for today’s Gospel, John 20:19-23, also recounts how Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Yet the event in John’s Gospel takes place on Easter Sunday. There is no need to try to reconcile these two accounts. The Evangelists and the authors of letters were writing for different audiences or faith communities. Time, dates, witness sources and the situations varied. The core truth of the narrative remains. It enough that we know that after his death, Jesus fulfilled his promise to send to his disciples a helper, an advocate, who would enable them to be his witnesses throughout the world.
Although year A is devoted mostly to the Gospel of Matthew, for the entire Easter season, nearly all the Gospel readings have been from the Gospel of John. Today for the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord, we return to the Gospel of Matthew with the passage taken from the conclusion of that Gospel. It quickly moves from the disciples’ discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb to the commission that Jesus gives his disciples in today’s Gospel.
In today’s reading (John 14:15-21) Jesus offers encouragement to his disciples, who will soon see him crucified. He reassures them that even though he will leave them, he will not abandon them. Instead, he will send them the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, through whom the disciples will continue to live in union with Jesus.
Today’s Gospel takes us back in time to an event in Jesus’ life before his Passion. This reading is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples at the Last Supper. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house. Jesus’ promise that he will prepare a place for them “there are many dwelling places” is a comforting thought. For this reason, persons today choose this Gospel passage to be read at the funeral Mass for a loved one. Jesus assures his disciples that where he is going, they will be able to follow. Thomas, who after the Resurrection will later the disciples’ reports that they have seen the Risen Lord, contradicts Jesus by claiming that the disciples don’t know where Jesus is going or how to get there. Jesus explains that he himself is the way, the truth, and the life. In knowing and loving Jesus, the disciples will know and love God the Father.
This Fourth Sunday of the Easter season is sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday because in each of the three lectionary cycles, the Gospel reading invites us to reflect on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. In each cycle the reading is from the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel. This chapter sets the framework for Jesus’ teaching about himself as the Good Shepherd.
Unlike recent Gospels is taken from the Gospel of Luke. Today’s Gospel shows us how the first community of disciples came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. In these stories we gain insight into how the community of the Church came to be formed.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus appeared to the disciples on several occasions after they discovered that his tomb was empty. Part of the mystery of Jesus’ Resurrection is that he appeared to his disciples not as a spirit but in bodily form. The bodily form was not one that the disciples recognized though. In John’s Gospel, Mary of Magdala does not recognize that the figure standing before her is Jesus until he speaks to her.
Today we begin the Easter Season, our 50-day meditation on the mystery of Christ's Resurrection. Our Gospel today tells us about the disciples' discovery of the empty tomb. It concludes by telling us that they did not yet understand that Jesus had risen from the dead. Thus, the details provided are not necessarily meant to offer proof of the Resurrection. The details invite us to reflect upon a most amazing gift, that is faith in Jesus and his Resurrection.
Today we begin Holy Week, the days during which we journey with Jesus on his way of the cross and anticipate his Resurrection on Easter. Today’s liturgy begins with the procession with palms to remind us of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.
Our Gospel on this day, the fifth Sunday of Lent, is again taken from the Gospel according to John. The reading from John continues the break from Cycle A’s focus on the Gospel of Matthew. Today’s Gospel reading recounts another sign, or miracle, found in John’s Gospel, the raising of Lazarus. As our catechumens move closer to the celebration of their Baptisms at the Triduum, today’s reading invites us to reflect upon what it means to call Jesus the Resurrection and the life.
As with last week’s Gospel about the Samaritan woman who encounters Jesus unexpectedly, the key person in today’s reading is met by Jesus. Both are people with needs who progress throughout stages of deepening faith. In this the Fourth Sunday of Lent, a man blind from birth is healed by Jesus, the healing of the man born blind invites us to focus on the physical and spiritual aspects of sight and light. In the first part of today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus’ response to a prevalent belief of his time: that misfortune and disability were the result of sin. That belief is why Jesus is asked the question of whose sin caused the man’s blindness his own or his parents’. Jesus does not answer directly, but instead gives the question an entirely different dimension through this man’s disability, God’s power will be made manifest. Jesus then heals the man.
In today’s Gospel, the dialogue between Jesus and a woman from Samaria is among the most lengthy and most theological found in Scripture. The most startling aspect of the conversation is that it happens at all. Jesus, an observant Jew of that time, was expected to avoid conversation with women in public. The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans should have prevented the conversation as well. The woman herself alludes to the break from tradition: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Yet Jesus not only converses with the woman, he also asks to share her drinking vessel, an action that makes him unclean according to Jewish law.
For the second Sunday of Lent, we move from Jesus’ retreat in the desert to his Transfiguration. Each year on the first Sunday of Lent, our Gospel tells the story of Jesus‘ temptation in the desert. On the second Sunday of Lent each year, we hear the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration.
In each of the three Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), after Jesus’ baptism by John, Jesus is reported to have gone to the desert to fast and pray for 40 days. In each case, while in the desert, Jesus is tempted by the devil.
For this last Sunday before beginning the Lenten season, we are again reflecting on reversals or antitheses of codes of conduct which Jesus’ audience considered to be required of them. The call to love one's enemies was completely foreign to them.
This Sunday’s Gospel, as for the last two Sundays, is from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5. The focus today is on the Law. Jesus’ teaching may have been hard to swallow for this followers, because he was talking about change. What he would explain would involve going deeper into the law. It would mean intensifying the way the commandments would be lived day today.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses the now familiar metaphors of salt and light to describe the life of discipleship. We take salt and light for granted in our society, but these commodities were more precious in ancient cultures. Just as now, salt was used in Jesus’ time for flavoring, as a preservative, and as a healing agent.
Today’s reading is the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew’s Gospel. The form of the Beatitudes found here is not unique to Jesus. Beatitudes are a way to teach about who will find favor with God.
Today’s Gospel describes the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. In the Gospels of Matthew, Jesus’ public ministry begins after his baptism by John the Baptist and after his retreat to the desert where he was tempted by the devil. When Jesus returns from the desert, he hears that John has been arrested.