Virtuous Leadership: The Readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

A few weeks ago at Franciscan, we had Alexandre Havard on campus to speak about virtuous leadership.  His fine talk is on You Tube here. 

Havard will be followed in about a week by Andreas Widmer, who will again speak about virtuous leadership, based on his experiences as a Swiss Guard during the pontificate of Blessed John Paul II.  

These speakers on leadership came to my mind this week as I pondered the Sunday Readings, because virtuous leadership for the people of God is the unifying theme of these Scriptures.

The Supper of the Lamb: The Mass as Heaven on Earth

The videos of the presentations at the Franciscan liturgical conference, "The Supper of the Lamb: The Mass as Heaven on Earth," are now posted here.  Bishop Seratelli, Dr. Hahn, Denis McNamara, Adam Bartlett, and John Bergsma presented.

Conference on Science and Faith

Al Plantinga, Emeritus Prof. of Phil., Notre Dame

It's a little tangential to Biblical Studies (although not as much as one might think), but I think it's worth mentioning that there's a fabulous Conference on Science and Faith coming up in just over a month (Dec. 2-3), right here at Franciscan University. All the specifics are here.

We have some of the brightest coming to address this subject from a Christian perspective, including Alvin Plantinga, Michael Behe, William Carroll OP, Stephen Barr, Ed Feser, Jay Richards, Ben Wiker, with members of our own faculty responding. It's well, well worth the registration fee to see these men all in the same room dialoguing about some of the most important questions of the human condition!

The Supper of the Lamb: The Mass as Heaven on Earth

This weekend I had the joy of participating in the "Supper of the Lamb: The Mass as Heaven on Earth" conference sponsored by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and Franciscan University's Office of Chapel Ministry.  The link to the conference webpage is here.  We were privileged to have Bishop Serratelli of the Diocese of Patterson, New Jersey, giving the initial keynote on Saturday morning.  Bishop Serratelli is one of only eleven bishops on the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), the commission that oversees the translations of the Mass and other liturgical rites for all English-speaking Catholics worldwide.  Bishop Serratelli spoke about the process that lead to the New Translation of the Mass, which goes into effect this Advent.  The New Translation is more literal, dignified, poetic, and biblical than the texts that English-speaking Catholics have been using for the last forty years.  For those curious about the inner workings of the translation process, the podcast of Bishop Serratelli's talk should prove intriguing.


I spoke after Bishop Serratelli on the theme of the confluence of nuptiality and liturgy in Scripture and the Mass.  My talk outline is below the break.


We also had the pleasure of an address by Dennis McNamara, one of the nation's foremost authorities on Catholic church architecture; Mr. Adam Bartlett, and expert on liturgical music; and batting clean-up, Dr. Scott Hahn addressing the mystical relationship between the earthly and the heavenly liturgy ("A Heavenly Banquet for Earthly Beggars").


Podcasts of the talks will be available shortly, and I'll post links when they are up.


I'm afraid I'm not able to do my usual commentary on the readings this weekend since I was occupied with the conference.

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project

If you haven't check it out yet, the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls project from the Israeli Shrine of the Book museum is worth checking out.  It features high-quality, easily-accessed digital images of the actual scrolls.  So far they have only a handful of the most prominent scrolls available in this format.  One hopes that this will be an ongoing effort that will eventually include all scrolls with any significant textual content.

My initial impressions of the descriptive and introductory materials they posted with the scroll images are very good.  The project seems to have been pursued in a moderate, generous manner, offering the scrolls to everyone as part of world culture.

How Do We Dress for this Wedding Banquet? The 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The standard of dress at Mass has declined in recent years.  People show up looking like their ready for the beach or a football game.  Some pastors are calling attention to this problem.  I agree--I’m all for encouraging modesty and taste in the way we physically dress for worship

But our external dress is not the main point of this Sunday’s Readings.

What is the real "dress" of the Christian who approaches the Eucharistic Banquet?

Are We a Fruitful Vineyard? Readings for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The past several Sundays we have been reading from the vineyard parables of Jesus in Matthew, and this Sunday we reach a climactic point in the hostility between the leaders of the people (chief priests and elders) and Jesus.

The Readings for this Lord’s Day are skillfully chosen to complement the Gospel reading.  Most commentators agree that the vine parables of the Old Testament found in Isaiah 5 and Psalm 80 are the textual background for Jesus’ own vineyard parable in Matt 21:33-43.