REFLECTIONS TODAY Mary’s anointing of Jesus anticipates three crucial events in John’s passion narrative. First, as the response of Jesus to Judas suggests, the anointing anticipates his death and burial. Jesus will be anointed again before he is laid in the tomb (19:38-42). Second, the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The passion narrative tells us the culminating drama of Jesus’ salvific act. It unfolds the drama with a cast of characters: there are the main protagonists, the bad guys and the good guys, the bystanders and extras. They represent the different types of persons in the drama of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Jewish religious leaders gather as the Sanhedrin (the equivalent of a Supreme Court) and weigh the repercussions of Jesus’ power and his hold on the masses. If Jesus and his followers should try to wrest political power from the Romans, yet suffer defeat, the Romans would...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Even when fake news proliferates and falsity seems to become the new normal, the Gospel never fails to challenge us to hold on to the truth so that we may experience the freedom shared by those who remain in Jesus’ word. The acceptance of the truth is often not an easy thing to...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Greek word kosmos (“world”) has several meanings in the Gospel of John. It may refer either to the natural world or to the whole of humanity inhabiting the natural world, or to a portion of humanity that does not believe in Jesus (1:9-10). The first two meanings are...
REFLECTIONS TODAY First Reading • Dn 13:41c-62 [or 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62] The assembly condemned Susanna to death. …The Lord heard her prayer. As she was being led to execution, God stirred up the holy spirit of a young boy named Daniel, and he cried aloud: “I will have no part in the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY First Reading • Ez 37:12-14 Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The angel Gabriel comes to Mary with a greeting filled with joy (Chaire!). The good news announced by the angel can only be joyful. The content of the announcement is something that is freely bestowed by God. And what else can seal such a joyful announcement but the assurance that...
REFLECTIONS TODAY In John’s Gospel, Jesus is portrayed as the one who is from the Father and is returning to the Father. Jesus is revealing the Father and making the Father’s love known to the world. Those who believe in Jesus as the one sent by the Father are the ones accomplishing God’s...
Gospel • John 5:17-30 Jesus answered the Jews: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God. Jesus answered and said to them,...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The man had been ill for 38 years. When Jesus asks him if he wants to be well, he begins to tell Jesus about his situation — he has no one to put him into the pool when the water is stirred up and that someone else gets into the water ahead of him. The stirred-up water is...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Today we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the Spouse of the Virgin Mary. In the Gospel of Matthew, the very first description of Joseph is that he is the husband of Mary. Being the husband of Mary is connected to another description of Joseph as a “righteous man”...
