Some Quick Thoughts on All Saints

A happy Feast of All Saints to one and all!  This is one of my favorite feasts.  The month of November is not formally a liturgical season, but since it begins with All Saints and ends with Christ the King, these four weeks really do have the feel of a liturgical season focused on meditation on the Last Things: Heaven, Hell, Death, and Judgment.

The Readings for All Saints are, of course, beautiful.  The full text of the readings are here.  Here are some quick thoughts:

Love and Priesthood: The 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Readings for this upcoming Sunday revolve around the themes of love of God and perfect priesthood.

1.  The First Reading is Deuteronomy 6:2-6:

Moses spoke to the people, saying:
"Fear the LORD, your God,
and keep, throughout the days of your lives,

The New Exodus: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Notice Bartimaeus and Baptism in this icon

The readings for this Sunday revolve around the theme of return from exile for God's people.  In the Old Testament, we read about God's people Israel being exiled from their land because of their violations of their covenant with God.  The great Isrealite prophets, however, predicted that God would bring his people back from the places they were exiled, just as he brought them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses long ago.  This is often called the "New Exodus" theme in the prophets.

1. Our First Reading is one such prophetic oracle, Jeremiah 31:7-9:

Thus says the LORD:
Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
The LORD has delivered his people,
the remnant of Israel.

Feast Day of St. Luke

The Feast of St. Luke is just past.  On the Eve of the Feast, Matt Leonard and I sat down at the St. Paul Center to discuss this great biblical author.  After Matt mocks me for about 30 seconds, we get down to talking about St. Luke's contributions to Scripture and the Faith.  Enjoy!

Frank Moore Cross, Rest in Peace

The Biblical Archeology Review is reporting that Frank Moore Cross, arguably the senior Old Testament scholar in North America, has passed away.  The full obituary is here.

Cross was a student of the "dean" of American Old Testament scholars, William Foxwell Albright, and for most of his career taught at Harvard.  Cross was the Doktorvater (dissertation director) of my own Doktorvater, James C. VanderKam.  So I guess that makes him my Doktorgrossvater.   

In any event, he was a scholar almost without peer.  An accomplished paleographer, he was one of the first scholars to see and work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  But for me, his most valuable contributions concerned the understanding of the Old Testament concept of "covenant," especially in the first chapter of his classic From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. In my own little book Bible Basics for Catholics, I make a big deal about the covenants in salvation history, and how covenant is related to kinship. In this, I am drawing in part from Cross (see BBFC, p. 159), who famously said: "Often it has been asserted that the language of ‘brotherhood’ and ‘fatherhood,’ ‘love,’ and ‘loyalty’ is ‘covenant terminology.'" But this is “to turn things upside down. The language of covenant, kinship-in-law, is taken from the language of kinship, kinship-in-flesh" (Epic to Canon, p. 12).  This insight, that covenant forms kinship, is key to understanding Scripture.

The past few years have seen the passing of so many "greats": Moshe Greenberg, Moshe Weinfeld, Jacob Milgrom, David Noel Freedman, and now Cross. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" (2 Sam 1:19).

Frank Moore Cross, rest in peace. 

Suffering and Leadership: The 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Readings for this upcoming Lord's Day focus on the themes of suffering and leadership: in particular, how Christ, our definitive leader, embraced suffering on our behalf, and so modeled true leadership for all who would follow him.

1.  Our First Reading is Isaiah 53:10-11:

The LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity.

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.

This is an excerpt from the larger "Suffering Servant Song" that extends from Isaiah 52:13–53:12.

Leroy Huizenga on Dei Verbum

My friend, New Testament scholar, Leroy Huizenga, has a wonderful lecture up on the Second Vatican Council's document, Dei Verbum. Have a look!

Embracing Lady Poverty: 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

St. Francis Wedding Lady Poverty

October 4th, this past Thursday, was the Feast of St. Francis of Assissi, and as you might imagine it was a big deal here at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  The all-campus Mass was reverent and moving, and the festivities over the weekend, including the annual Medieval Festival, were full of good-natured merry-making.

One of the themes that always comes up in this yearly recollection of St. Francis is his radical embrace of poverty.  Together with St. Dominic, St. Francis helped establish the tradition of mendicant (begging) religious orders, that is, groups of religious men who owned no property and were dependent on the good will of others for their necessities.

St. Francis used to refer lovingly to "Lady Poverty," and said he learned a great deal from her.  The Readings for this Sunday's Mass also treat of the theme of poverty for the sake of the Good News and the Kingdom of God.

1. Our First Reading is from Wisdom 7:7-11:

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Catholic Church

Next weekend I'll be in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, at the Church of the Incarnation giving a set of five talks on the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relevance to the Catholic Faith.  We'll learn about the Scrolls and use them as a lens to examine the Jewish and Biblical roots of Catholic teaching and practice.  Here's the schedule:

Friday, October 12, 7pm-9pm:

1. An Introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls

2. John the Baptist and Baptism

Saturday October 13, 9am-12pm

3. The Jewish Roots of the Eucharist

4. Marriage, Celibacy, and Holy Orders

5. The Reformation and "Salvation by Faith Alone"

Hope you can make it if you're in the greater Albuquerque area!

God Loves Marriage and Children: The 27th Week of Ordinary Time

The Readings for this Sunday provide the homilist with an ideal opportunity to teach Christian doctrine concerning marriage and children.  The opportunity is timely, too, as one of our political parties has taken an official stand supporting "same-sex marriage," an arrangement that is not intrinsically related to the birth and rearing of children, does not provide the same benefit to society as true marriage, and can never be as optimal for the well-being of children as to be raised by their own biological father and mother.  In the midst of the confusion about the very nature of marriage and its purpose, these Readings shed the light of God's revelation on how we should live this most intimate aspect of our lives.

1.  The First Reading is Genesis 2:18-24:

The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him."
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;