The Battle of Prayer: 29th Sunday of OT

Usually we think of men of prayer and men of war as complete opposites.  A monk in a habit—such as St. Francis—is a man dedicated to peace, a total contrast to one clad in armor brandishing weapons.  Yet the Readings for this Sunday combine the imagery of war and prayer in interesting ways that provoke our thoughts about the nature and reality of supplicating God.

1.  Our First Reading is Exodus 17:8-13:

The Persistent Widow & Growing Weary in Prayer: The Sunday Mass Readings Explained (The 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research

I am participating in a conference on paradigm change in Pentateuchal research in Basel, Switzerland, this coming March.  It is good to see a growing movement to overcome some positions in Pentateuchal scholarship that have ossified into rigid dogmas.  This is from the official website:

Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research

Scientific Conference at the STH Basel, 16-18 March 2017

(Deutschsprachige Version)

The Pentateuch forms both in Judaism and in Christianity the first and fundamental piece of the Bible and is the basic document of Western religious history. The currently prevailing paradigm for the study of the Pentateuch in Biblical Studies dates from the 19th century and forms a cornerstone of Biblical Studies and of the reconstruction of a history of ancient Israel. This paradigm extends to the narratives of the Pentateuch as well as to its legal collections. According to this paradigm, the Pentateuch was composed over a longer period, with the three most important stages JE (from before the Deuteronomy), D (the core of Deuteronomy originated in the 7th century) and P (Priestly texts exilic/postexilic). This paradigm was established by Julius Wellhausen's «Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels» (1878). While it has been modified in many ways, also it has been in the last thirty years more and more in a crisis; nevertheless, no fundamental paradigm shift has taken place. It is the aim of this conference to discuss this paradigm critically and to explore whether a fundamental paradigm change can lead out of the current impasse of old models and open new approaches to the Pentateuch. The international speakers are experts in the fields of Biblical Studies, Legal History, Linguistics, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Organisation
Prof. Dr. Matthias Armgardt, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Ass.-Prof. Dr. Benjamin Kilchör, STH Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Prof. Dr. Markus Zehnder, Biola University Los Angeles, USA

Programme

Picture Credits: «Moses zerschmettert die Gesetzestafeln» (Rembrandt van Rijn, 1659) – Public Domain

Is Anyone Grateful? The 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Thanksgiving holiday is coming upon us shortly, and this season of the year always makes me think, How do you give thanks if you don’t believe there’s anyone there to thank?  Thanksgiving is not a holiday that ever could have arisen in an atheist culture. 

The themes of the Readings for this Sunday focus on the gratitude for God’s salvation.  Gratitude is an important psychological and spiritual disposition.  Dr. Daniel G. Amen, the popular brain researcher and public health spokesman, identifies gratitude as a key character quality of persons with physiologically healthy brains.  That’s right: gratitude affects your physical health, including the shape and functioning of your brain.  This Sunday’s Readings focus particularly on gratitude to God, and how it should be expressed.

1.  Our First Reading is 2 Kgs 5:14-17:

Leprosy, the Priesthood & the Sacraments: The Sunday Mass Readings Explained (The 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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The Mass Readings Explained Video Series

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Article on Covenant Appears

My bibliographic article on the term "covenant" (Heb berith, Gk diatheke) has just appeared in the online publication, Oxford Bibliographies, from Oxford University Press.  The beginning of the article can be accessed here, but the full article is behind a paywall.
Much thanks to those who recommended me to the editors of Oxford Bibliographies as being knowledgeable in this area of biblical scholarship.  It was an honor and a heavy responsibility to consider so many excellent books and articles in order to choose a limited number of the most seminal works on each facet of covenant scholarship.  The decisions were not easy and I do not claim always to have judged perfectly, but overall I am satisfied with the resulting article. Happy reading!

Living by Faith: The 27th Sunday of OT

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By accident in the past few weeks I stumbled on an interview with Rev. T.D. Jakes, one of the nations most prominent African-American megachurch pastors.  The interview concerned the recent canonization of St. Theresa of Calcutta, and the interviewer was questioning Rev. Jakes about the revelation that Mother Theresa suffered interior darkness and even temptations against faith. Rev. Jakes gave an excellent reply, explaining how true faith can be compatible with experiencing doubt and struggling against darkness.  In fact, his discussions reminded me of passages from Benedict XVI on the relationship of faith and doubt.  

Our readings this week take up the theme of faith, both Israel’s faith under the old covenant and the faith to which we are called in the new.  Jesus urges us not to despair even if we feel our faith is pitiful.  God can work wonders using small material.

"Increase Our Faith": The Sunday Mass Readings Explained (The 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Lazarus & the Realm of the Dead: Mass Readings Explained (The 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Does it Matter How We Treat Others? The 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Does it matter how we treat others?  What does my neighbor’s suffering have to do with me?  Can I continue living in comfort while bypassing those around me who are in misery?  These are questions that the Readings for this Sunday raise, and to which they provide uncomfortable answers.  Let’s read and let the Holy Spirit move us outside our comfort zone.

1.  The First Reading is Am 6:1a, 4-7:

God and Mammon: The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Sorry I posted the Year A reading earlier!)

As Jesus continues his “death march” to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 9–19), he challenges us this Sunday to choose, in a clear and conscious way, our goal in life: God or money.  The First Reading reminds us that wealth was a seductive trap for the people of God throughout salvation history.

1. The First Reading is Amos 8:4-7:

The Parable of the Dishonest Steward: Mass Readings Explained (The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Lost Sheep, Lost Coin & Lost Son: Mass Readings Explained (The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Prodigal Son Sunday: 24th Sunday in OT

This upcoming Sunday marks one of only two times in the main lectionary cycle that we hear the Parable of the Prodigal Son proclaimed (the other being the 4^th Sunday of Lent [C]).  The Readings are marked by the theme of repentance and forgiveness. 

1. Our First Reading is Ex 32:7-11, 13-14:

The Cost of Discipleship: 23rd Sunday in OT

Dietric von Bonhoeffer as a young man

One of the most famous German opponents of Adolf Hitler and Nazism was the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom the Nazis executed by hanging in April 1945 for his involvement in a plot against Hitler himself.  Bonhoeffer’s most famous work was a meditation on the Sermon on the Mount entitled (in English) The Cost of Discipleship.  In it, Bonhoeffer parted ways with a Protestantism that understood “salvation by faith alone” as some kind of easy road to heaven.  Bonhoeffer criticized “easy-believism” as “cheap grace”:

Did Jesus Teach Us to "Hate" Our Family?: Mass Readings Explained (The 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner? 22nd Sunday in OT

In 2005, a quasi-remake of the famous 1967 movie “Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner” was released.  Entitled “Guess Who?” it starred Bernie Mac as an African-American father who struggled to deal with his daughter’s Caucasian fiancé (played by Ashton Kutcher).  Much of the (sometimes rude) comedy of the film revolved around the clash of cultures at the dinner table.  Usually we only share meals with people like us: family members or friends from our own “circle.”  When someone from “outside” comes in, it upsets the balance. 

The Wedding Banquet & the Resurrection of the Righteous: Mass Readings Explained (The 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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SWIDS 2016

I'm happy to be doing some continuing ed for the permanent deacons in driving distance of Austin, Texas, this weekend.  It's the South West Institute of Diaconal Studies, 2016: SWIDS for short.  They are great men.  I visited with them in 2014. This year we are tackling the Gospel of John.  Here's the link: http://www.swidsonline.com/

Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament Can Be Pre-Ordered!

If anyone has been wondering why Brant Pitre and I haven't been writing and doing more than we have for the past four or five years, it's because a lot of our time has been taken up quietly working on a massive project which Ignatius Press has now rolled out on Amazon: A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: Old Testament.

There are good Catholic introductory texts on the OT out there (those by Boadt and Jensen come to mind), but there has been a need for some time for a more recent and thorough treatment of the Old Testament which takes advantage, from the ground up, of recent developments in Old Testament interpretation from the 1990's on, especially the growth in literary studies like narrative and canonical criticism, the impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and new archeological discoveries.

Will Many Be Saved? 21st Sunday in OT

 

If Jesus was walking through your town and you had ten seconds as he passed to ask any question you wished, what would it be?  “Why is there evil in the world?” “How can I be saved?” “What is heaven like?”

In this Sunday’s Gospel, an anonymous bystander gets his chance to ask Jesus one of the “big questions”: “Will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus’ answer is complex, indirect, and very well worth examining!  The Readings leading up to the Gospel help prepare us to understand Jesus’ response.

Will Many Be Saved? 21st Sunday in OT

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If Jesus was walking through your town and you had ten seconds as he passed to ask any question you wished, what would it be?  “Why is there evil in the world?” “How can I be saved?” “What is heaven like?”

In this Sunday’s Gospel, an anonymous bystander gets his chance to ask Jesus one of the “big questions”: “Will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus’ answer is complex, indirect, and very well worth examining!  The Readings leading up to the Gospel help prepare us to understand Jesus’ response.

Will Only a Few People be Saved?: Mass Readings Explained (The 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Signs New Book Deal with Bloomsbury

Indeed, it's official. Bloomsbury is announcing that Pope Benedict has a new book coming in November 2016, entitled, The Last Testament. It appears to be 224 pages.

Ever since Bloomsbury merged ("bought out?") T & T Clark, they have been emerging as a major academic press. In fact, I love what they have done with the Library of New Testament Studies Series (formerly Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series published with Sheffield Academic Press). 

But back to the major headline: Benedict XVI "breaks his silence." 

I Did not Come to Bring Peace but Division: Mass Readings Explained (The Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Jesus' Take on Family Values: 20th Sunday in OT

In recent decades, the term “family values” has almost become a code word for “Christian culture” in American society.  Influential Christian organizations have adopted names like “Focus on the Family,” “American Family Association,” the “Family Research Council”; and on the Catholic side of things we have “Catholic Family Land,” “Tradition, Family and Property,” or “The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute,” better known as “C-FAM.”  The natural family unit—based on a husband and wife who have made an exclusive, permanent, public commitment to share a common life and raise children together—has been under such political and social pressure that at times we almost identify Christianity as a social movement to promote family life.

In this context, this Sunday’s Mass Readings can be unsettling.  Jesus says he has “not come to bring peace but division.”  Come again?  Lord, with due respect, isn’t one of your messianic titles “Prince of Peace?”  Then again, the Lord speaks of causing division and struggle within families—strife in the family unit caused by Jesus!  How can this be?  Doesn’t Jesus believe in “family values”?

1.  Our First Reading is Jer 38:4-6, 8-10:

Be Ready! The Master is Coming Back: Mass Readings Explained (The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Always Prepared: Readings for the 19th Sunday in OT

My father once served as the chaplain for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.  (U.S. Navy chaplains also serve the Marines and the Coast Guard).  I have fond memories of that beautiful seaside city.  In any event, perhaps the only bit of Coast Guard culture that I absorbed during my dad’s tour of duty was the motto: Semper Paratus, “Always Prepared,” which seems an appropriate summation of the theme of this Sunday’s Readings, which stress vigilance in the Christian life.  In fact, these Readings feel like something we might get in November, closer to the Solemnity of Christ the King, but here they are coming to us in the middle of Ordinary Time.  Yet perhaps that’s appropriate, because it is not just at the end of our lives (or the liturgical year) that we need to be vigilant, but at all times—even and especially when its literally or metaphorically “summertime, and the livin’ is easy …”

1.  Our First Reading is Wisdom 18:6-9:

The Rich Fool and the Danger of Wealth: The Mass Readings Explained (The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Wealth and Poverty: The 18th Sunday of OT

“How I long for a poor Church for the poor!”

These were some of the first words of Pope Francis’ pontificate, and the Readings this week support the Pope’s emphasis on the spiritual value of poverty.  Texts from the Old and New Testaments remind us that human happiness is not to be found in the accumulation of material goods.  Riches are fleeting and empty.  We are called instead to “store up treasure in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroy, where thieves cannot break in and steal.”

1.  Our First Reading is Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23:

Scepter Releases Pocket Catholic NT

There have been at least a dozen times that Pope Francis has urged Catholics to carry a NT with them, and Scepter Press has just helped fulfill that call by producing a high-quality RSVCE translation of the NT in a handy pocket-sized format.  Before this, the only similar NT available was the old Confraternity edition, the precursor of the NAB.  It was pretty good, but I'm sure most Catholic readers of the NT would like a more up-to-date translation.  This edition can be purchased from Scepter Publishers here.  Stuart Dunn has a good review of it over on his blog.

Jesus Teaches Us How To Pray: The Mass Readings Explained (The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Haggling With God: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Who has the guts to bargain with the Divinity?  Abraham, the father of the Israel, does.  In the Readings for this Sunday, we find united several themes: persistence in prayer, the justice and mercy of God, the generosity of God.

1.  Our First Reading is Gn 18:20-3:

The Myth of the Council of Jamnia and the Origin of the Bible

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Martha, Mary and the One Thing Necessary: The Mass Readings Explained (The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Entertaining God: The 16th Sunday of OT

This Sunday, as we continue to accompany Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke, we are confronted with a pair of Readings in which human beings host a meal for God: Abraham for the LORD in the First Reading; Martha and Mary for Jesus in the Gospel.  But is it really possible for us to “do God a favor” by giving him a nice meal?  We are going to discover that, while God graciously accepts our services, it’s really about what God does for us, not what we can do for him.

1.  The First Reading is Gn 18:1-10a:

The Jewish Roots of the Merciful Samaritan: The Mass Readings Explained (The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Won't You Be My Neighbor? The 15th Sunday of OT

Fred Rogers used to sing at the opening of his classic children’s show:

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine? …
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please, won't you please?
 Please won't you be my neighbor?

Fred Rogers was a highly theological educated man, an ordained Presbyterian minister who also gave generous grants to St. Vincent’s College and Seminary (Roman Catholic) in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.  I think he was well aware of the theological significance of the concept of “neighbor,” which we will explore through the Readings for this Sunday.

This Sunday Jesus issues us a strong challenge to break down the barriers and prejudices that prevent us from showing love to other human beings.  Jesus’ teaching is in continuity with the best synthesis of the moral instruction of the Old Testament and Judaism, which views every human being as a “neighbor.”

1.  The First Reading is Dt 30:10-14:

The Mysterious 70 (or 72?) Disciples: The Mass Readings Explained (The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Gathering the New Jerusalem: The 14th Sunday of OT

In the Readings for this Sunday, Jesus continues his final journey, his fateful “death march” toward Jerusalem (Luke 9–19, the “Travel Narrative”) that began formally in Luke 9:51.  The past several Sundays have foreshadowed Jesus' coming suffering and death, but  this Sunday we get a reprieve as themes of suffering recede into the background.  We are temporarily caught up in the joy of Jesus' ministry, as he assembles around himself a congregation of disciples who constitute a spiritual “Jerusalem.”  In the healing ministry of Jesus and his disciples, we see a fulfillment of certain prophecies of peace and restoration to the “holy city” of the LORD.

1. The First Reading is Is 66:10-14c:

The Call of Discipleship: 13th Sunday in OT

The Readings for this upcoming Sunday continue the strong call to discipleship issued in last Sunday's Readings.  Jesus stresses that following him must be an immediate and complete commitment of one's entire person.  As someone once said, "Jesus did not come to suffer, die and rise from the dead in order to create 'cultural Catholics.'"

1.  Our First Reading is from 1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21:

Let the Dead Bury Their Dead: The Mass Readings Explained (The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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The Messianic Secret: The Mass Readings Explained (The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Turning to Face the Cross: 12th Sunday of OT

As the Church reads through the Gospel of Luke this year, we reach a transition point in this Sunday's text (Luke 9:18-24) where the focus of the Gospel begins to shift toward Christ's coming passion and death.  Sorrowful though his suffering will be, ironically it shall serve as the source of the life-giving “water” about which the other readings speak. 

1.  Our First Reading is from Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1:

Jesus and the Sinful Woman: The Mass Readings Explained (The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Faith, Love, and Forgiveness: The 11th Sunday of OT

 

The Readings for this Sunday revolve around a constellation of fundamental issues in our relationship with God: sin, repentance, forgiveness, faith, and love.  Two of the passages used in this liturgy have been battlegrounds in the theological polemic between Protestants and Catholics, but ought not to be so.

1.  Our First Reading is 2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13:

Life from the Dead: 10th Week of Ordinary Time

This Sunday we return to Ordinary Time, picking up with the tenth week in Year C.  “Tenth week?  What happened to weeks 6,7,8, and 9?” you might ask.  Well, weeks 7,8, & 9 were pre-empted by Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, respectively.  And week 6 was skipped, because otherwise we would not get to Week 34 (Christ the King) before Advent 2017 started.  The practical result of all that is we omit Luke 6 from the cycle of readings this year, and skip ahead to Luke 7.

The Readings this Sunday are focussed on the theme of resurrection from the dead.  The First Reading recounts Elijah raising a boy from the dead.  The Psalm praises God for delivering David from Sheol (the grave). In the Epistle, Paul recounts seeing the risen Christ.  In the Gospel, Jesus raises the son of the widow of Nain.

1.  We begin with 1 Kgs 17:17-24: 

Jesus Raises the Widow of Nain's Son: The Mass Readings Explained (The Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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