Tw​​​​​​​​enty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time If you want to start an argument, try telling your wife that St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians says she should agree with everything you say. I’m sure that many people have taken out of context the line about wives being submissive to their husbands. In fact, the first sentence says they both should be subordinate to one another. (Eph 5:21) And even more important is the last verse: Paul says he is actually talking about Christ and the Church.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time When we were in high school, we learned that the word sophomore came from Greek words meaning “wise fools.” The idea was that the second year student thinks he knows it all now, but still has a lot to learn. The first two readings describe wisdom versus foolishness. In Proverbs, Wisdom is a woman who invites us to her banquet, telling us to “forsake foolishness.” St. Paul invites us to give up our ignorance and to know the will of the Lord, by filling ourselves with the Spirit. Jesus says he himself is the way to understanding God’s will; he gives himself as food and drink for eternal life. So how will we accept these invitations to partake of the Wisdom of God?

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time The second reading of Paul to the Ephesians talks about forgiving one another. It reminds me of the line in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Mt 6:12) You could read that line as a warning that God only forgives those who forgive others. Paul reverses that conditional meaning to say that we forgive because God has already forgiven us. So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. It’s bad enough that the Israelites were grumbling against their leaders. But they also complain to God that they were better off as slaves in Egypt. After all God did to bring them to freedom, now they want to go back to slavery. Before we judge them too harshly, we might ask ourselves if we ever act like that. For us, it might be looking back on our slavery to sin.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. It’s no coincidence that the first reading shows the prophet Elisha feeding a crowd of people like Jesus in the gospel. If you want to compare miracles, Elisha did his first, but Jesus did it better. Elisha had a hundred people to feed with twenty barley loaves and a handful of fresh grain. Jesus had five thousand people and only five loaves and a couple fish. So was Jesus trying to show up Elisha?

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. You probably know that the Jews in the first century did not particularly like the Gentiles. Some of them who became Christians still looked down on the non-Jewish Christians. In the epistle today, Paul addresses this problem by reminding them that Jesus died for all people, Jew and Gentile. And just as Jesus rose from the dead to a new life, the converts to Christianity were given a new life also. That new life of baptism joined them all to Christ, who lives in them, forgives them, and brings them peace. So why was that unity so hard to accept?

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The second reading from Ephesians is rather long and with only six sentences, it is not easy to follow. If you take it apart, you see that Paul is very encouraging. He is giving a description of the many blessings God has given us.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Is Paul serious? Can you imagine being content with “weaknesses, insults, hardships, and persecutions?” (2Cor 12:10) Paul never specifies what that “thorn in the flesh” was. I used to think it referred to a physical weakness, or disability. But some of the commentaries I’ve read say that it was a person who opposed Paul (think of a “thorn in my side.”) That opponent may have been a Christian who Paul did not want to mention by name.

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Does the Christian duty to help the poor seem to be overwhelming? We hear more and more are out of work, more and more are homeless, and we see more and more pictures of starving children. Even in St. Paul’s time there was more than enough poverty to go around. He was trying to build interest (in our second reading) in a project to help the Christians in Jerusalem. We see two of his reasons here.

Fifth Sunday of Easter In the reading from St. John’s first letter, he talks about our hearts condemning us. (1 John 3:20) He is referring to the shame we feel when we do something sinful. When he says God is greater than our hearts he means that even when we know we have sinned, even if we feel unworthy to be forgiven, God is still a forgiving God, who doesn’t wait for us to be “worthy.” He patiently waits for us to ask for his mercy, to want his forgiveness. So when we confess our sins, we need not doubt that we are forgiven.

Fourth Sunday of Easter In the reading from Acts, Peter explains to the leaders of Israel how they cured a crippled man. They probably expected Peter to take credit for the cure, so they were waiting for him to hang himself by his words. Peter, of course, gives the credit to Jesus and then makes two important points.

Third Sunday of Easter Peter seems to be pretty tough with his listeners in the first reading. He says they handed Jesus over, denied him before Pilate, asked for a murderer to be released in his place, and put Jesus to death. They must have thought they were doomed. Suddenly, he tells them they were just ignorant. And that God had planned all this long ago. So is he saying Jesus’ death is their fault, or just fate?

Divine Mercy Sunday: ​​​​​​​Chapter 20 of the Gospel of John emphasizes Peace and the Holy Spirit abiding within us. Christ's first word following His death is "Peace". I do not find that I am naturally a peaceful person. I tend to get easily distracted and upset by life not being "fair", or agitated when things do not go exactly as I had planned. I am flawed. Yet so much greater than this is that I am also loved. Above all else, Christ has laid down his life for me. I owe it to Him to do my best to try to find an inner peace. It is often a battle. My mind races at night, dwelling on what might go wrong. It is by listening to the word of God that I calmed down and am reminded of who I really am. Through dedicating my time to Him in prayer and good deeds, He will rejuvenate me, like the Living Water He declares to the Samaritan woman.

Easter Sunday: Do you remember your own baptism? I wish I could; I was baptized as an infant, just a few days old. I envy the adults I have seen baptized at the Easter Vigil. Hopefully, they experience what St. Paul says in the epistle we hear at the Vigil. For Paul, Baptism is a sign of dying and rising to new life. Sounds like Easter to me. So when Jesus died, he rose from the dead. Is Paul telling us that we will rise from the dead, too?

Holy Saturday. Today, Holy Saturday, there are no “readings of the day,” but those of us attending the Easter Vigil will have more than enough Scripture to make up for it. Hearing the readings, we will see a beautiful picture of our salvation won for us in the Paschal Mystery, the apex of human history. This salvation was planned for us from the beginning of time. The readings of the Easter Vigil take us from the creation of the world through the Fall, the wanderings of the Israelites, the promise of the New Covenant, and the Incarnation and Resurrection.

Good Friday. Our hearts sink with sadness as we recall the Death of our Lord on this day. The Church invites us to fast and pray as we seek to unite our hearts with His. We read in today's Gospel how our Lord humbled himself and was treated like a criminal, on the way to Calvary.

Holy Thursday. In today's reading, Christ takes on the ultimate work of service and radical love for his disciples by washing their feet. We are instructed by Christ to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. To do this, we are given vocations, or callings, where we can best serve God.

Palm Sunday. This year, we hear the Passion from the gospel of Mark. One thing unique about this reading is the emphasis on Jesus being abandoned by his disciples. First, the leaders of the disciples, Peter, James, and John, cannot even support Jesus in his agony in the garden: They fall asleep, three times. Then there is Judas, who seeks out the chief priests to make a deal with them, Peter, who denies Jesus three times, and the disciples who flee when he is arrested. The crowds who cried, “Hosanna!” a few days before, now call for him to be crucified. Even Simon the Cyrenian had to be forced to help carry the cross.

Fifth Sunday of Lent. The promise made by the Lord in the first reading is very bold. He says that all people shall know him, without having to be taught by others. He doesn’t restrict the promise to only the holiest people: He says that the way people will know Him is through forgiveness of their sins. Remember, he is speaking to the Israelites, who had so many laws and commandments, they needed scribes and Pharisees to keep track of them. When they broke a commandment or law, they were isolated from the community. So the promise that God would place his law in their hearts meant they would be free to do God’s will because they want to, not because they were feared punishment or rejection.