REFLECTIONS TODAY Washing someone else’s feet was considered servile, assigned to a pagan servant or slave, not to an Israelite. Jesus surprises his disciples when he washes their feet in a gesture of service. Jesus relinquishes his position as the teacher and master to impress upon his disciples...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Matthew’s account of the preparation for the Passover meal shows how Jesus directs the course of events. He is in perfect command of the situation. As they share the meal, Jesus predicts that one of the disciples will betray him. This underlines the enormity of the despicable...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The reference to the disciple whom Jesus loves is made here for the first time. He is the one reclining next to Jesus at the Last Supper and even leans on his bosom. The description of the Beloved Disciple emphasizes his closeness to Jesus. A special confidant to whom Jesus...
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 Today’s Gospel is from the last verses of John 10. The passage stands in between the good shepherd discourse and the raising of Lazarus. Jesus asserts, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (10:10). And the raising of Lazarus to life is the last...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Today’s Gospel emphasizes Jesus’ preexistence which also reminds us of the preexistent Logos in John’s Prologue. The Logos was with God and was moving toward God (pros ton theon). The Logos was God (1:1). It was through this same Logos that everything came to be. Moreover,...
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...
