REFLECTIONS TODAY The Galileans were Israelites who inhabited the fertile region of Galilee ruled by the Jewish tetrarch who was beholden to Rome. Many of them were prosperous farmers, shepherds, and traders. They were, however, considered impure by the religious leaders in Jerusalem because of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Joseph is the “husband” of Mary because they have undergone the erusin (betrothal) ceremony before Mary was discovered to have a child, and then the nisuin (wedding) after the angel explained to Joseph the conception of Mary’s child. In the last ceremony, Joseph “took his...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The background of Jesus’ parable is most probably the Song of the Vineyard in which God’s care for Israel is repaid with injustice and violence (Is 5:1-7). Jesus forces his hearers—the representatives of the Sanhedrin—to draw the conclusion that the parable concerns their...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The rich man (Dives, from Latin for “rich man”) in the parable is not condemned because he is rich or because the money with which he dines sumptuously each day is ill-gotten. It is rather for lack of concern for the poor man lying at his door. The vivid and detailed...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus uses the symbol of drinking his cup in accepting his suffering in obedience to the Father’s will. At the Last Supper, he tells his disciples to drink from the cup of his blood, shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins (Mt 26:27-28). In Gethsemane, he prays, “My...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus uses the phrase “the chair of Moses” to signify the place of authority that the scribes and the Pharisees have in interpreting the Law. The allusion is not to the chairs in which the Sanhedrin sit in trying and determining cases, but to those on which “doctors of the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY God is never outdone in generosity. Human conduct is measured mainly by reciprocity of the Golden Rule (“Do unto others what you want others to do unto you”). But God rewards by a hundredfold, here described by Jesus as “good measure, packed together, shaken down, and...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Second Sunday of Lent features the transfiguration of Jesus on a high mountain. The feast of the Transfiguration itself is celebrated on Aug. 6 “Transfiguration” renders the Greek metamorphosis which describes the change in the appearance of Jesus. This is also the origin...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Jews are enjoined by the Mosaic Law to love their neighbors—their fellow Jews—as they love themselves (Lv 19:18). With regard a “stranger”—one who is not a member of a tribe or a non-Israelite—the Jews would exhibit a paradoxical combination of hostility and...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Commenting on the Decalogue in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus focuses on the Fifth Commandment: “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13). Murder, first committed by Cain against his brother Abel, makes the victim’s blood cry out to God from the ground (Gn 4:10). Jesus says that evil...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Reflections today Jesus teaches His disciples, “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven” (Mt 23:9). Common sense tells us that Jesus is not forbidding children to use the word “father.” What He means to say is that only God has the perfection of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Seemingly, some people in the crowd are not satisfied with the mighty acts of Jesus and so, to test him, they ask for a more spectacular miracle. Jesus refuses their demand and refers only to the sign of Jonah. The “sign” could not be the miraculous saving of Jonah in the...
