In the middle of the Holy Mass, the priest recites the Eucharistic Prayer, which is the central prayer of the entire celebration. Here, the sacrifice of Christ is made present again on the altar. And in that same prayer, right before the words of consecration, the priest briefly mentions one…
The Path to Glory is Set: At this point in John’s Gospel Jesus’s relationship with His followers and with His enemies have reached a frantic pitch. The supreme Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, have met and decided that for them to stay on the right side of Roman power, Jesus must…
Anthony van Dyck, (1617)[1] Lent has introduced us little by little to the sufferings of Christ, but today, Palm Sunday, the liturgy slaps us on the face with the sorrows of our Lord during Holy Week, as we read the entire Passion of Matthew, chapters 26 and 27. It is…
In today’s first reading, God promises to reunite all the Jewish people into one nation. The Jewish people were widely dispersed and intermarried with the Gentiles, so this would be difficult to do. God’s plan to do this is by offering salvation to Jews and Gentiles alike. St Paul, a…
As Pope Benedict XVI reminds us in his Encyclical Letter “God is Love”, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” This is the question that…
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus once again attempts to reveal his true nature to the Jews, only to be met with insults and threats. In this passage, Jesus has returned to the temple. After the Pharisees attempt to set a trap for him with the woman caught in adultery, he…
Usually in moments of great crisis, people run to loved ones or powerful acquaintances for succor. The great tragedy is that of having no one to run to, living with the sense of being abandoned. For many people, the greatest friend and powerful figure to run to for succor is…
The Gospel today is a familiar one, but the interesting part is the attitude of the Scribes and the Pharisees, their self-righteousness and judgement of others. They condemned the woman caught in the act of adultery, but Jesus redeemed her and asked her to go and sin no more. It…
“Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3) Having crossed through the halfway mark of Lent, the Holy Mother church gives us a preview of Resurrection Sunday in all the readings today. As I was reading and reflecting on this,…
A temple guard seeks to hear Jesus. It was the time of the festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, and we had heard that the teacher, Jesus, was present in Jerusalem. As an officer of the Temple Guard, I was to be ready, if the order came, to arrest him. In…