Ordinary Time Cycle A

Thirteenth Sunday Cycle B

June 27, 2021

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We have all been created to live forever and sometimes we can forget this, thinking that it is only today that matters.

This Sunday we focus, not only on our life today, but on the fact that God wants to continually  heal us and give us life, eternal life.

 

The first reading from the Book of Wisdom speaks of God's great love for us.  

Even when we forget this and go our own way in sin God always wants to heal us.  But we have to reach out for that healing.

 

 

 

The gospel talks of healing. The most important healing God can give us is not healing of the body, but healing us from spiritual death, sin.

 

Recall that for the people of Jesus time, the belief was that physical illness was because of sin.

 

All we need to do is to reach out to Jesus and touch Him.  We begin to reach out when we know and admit our sins, no matter how great or small and that is not always easy.  Often we want to blame someone else.  But to truly recognize our sin is when we reach out for Jesus's healing, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.

Then we can be healed and begin eternal life now.

 

In the second reading Paul gives the Christian Community in Corinth a look at what is eternal life. That certainly involves our treatment of others. For most of us, at times, we all fail at this, and we die spiritually. We even make excuses for our sin of not reaching out to others, saying things like:

...no one would put up that person

...or that person has not got it together

...or it's not me, it's that person who drives me to sin, etc.

As we go through the week ahead, let's pray for the gift to see our sins, and to not blame others. Then we will be ready to reach out to Jesus for healing.

 

 

 

 

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12th Sunday ordinary time cycle B

June 20, 2021 ???

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When things are going badly...

...do we trust God?

We have all heard the ancient story told about Job; that he  trusted God even when things were going badly, how could they get any worse and they do.

His friends tried to convince him  that he had done something wrong to displease God and that was why he was going through all of his sufferings.

But Job did not believe them, and remained faithful to God in spite of all the problems and difficulties in his life..

We hear the words of God telling that He is in control of everything.

 

 

These words can help each of us in those times of suffering and difficulty.  

Do we believe that God is in control? 

St. Francis of Assisi and Saint Theresa Lisieux  both  believed that in order to find God, it was necessary to discover Him in those times of not being in control, in times of doubts, fears, difficulties, and struggles.

Certainly that was also true in the story of Job.

 

We are given the story of when the the apostles were in a boat and Jesus had fallen asleep.  Suddenly a severe storm came up and they were terrified, thinking that they were going to to  die.

 

In our own lives the severe storms, problems, struggles, sufferings, are all around us.

We are like the apostles, fearing for our lives when difficulties arise.  We wonder if Jesus, like in this Gospel, is asleep as we pray when our sufferings seem out of our control.

 

They awaken Jesus, who then calmed the storm and asked them why they were terrified?  Where was their faith?

 

 

The apostles were given a good lesson in trusting the Lord even when he to seemed not to be in control of things at the moment.  Where was their Faith???

Perhaps in the storms of our lives we will come to discover that, at moments, we have very little Faith and then know that Faith is what we need to pray for.

 

 

 

Saint Paul wrote his letter to encourage the Corinthians, and this letter can encourage us when life seems so hard.

 

 

 

Like the Corinthians, we too have been called by God in our baptism.  We, too, have been made new.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

What discoveries will we make

about our spiritual selves this week???

11th Sunday ordinary time cycle B

June 13, 2021

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Up until the year 597 B.C.  Ezekiel had been  the priest in the temple in Jerusalem. He was among the first of those who were taken into the Exile to Babylon. For those in Exile, he told them that the Exile was because of their sinfulness. He also gave them hope that God would not desert them.

 

He gave them words of encouragement that better days were to come. He gave the image of how God can trim the top of a giant tree and replant it.  So it would be with this failed people.

 

 

That same story is true for us.  Even in our darkest moments, God will not give up on us.  He will take our difficult moments and replant them into something wonderful.  The real problem we have is that we usually want God to act right now.  We are part of an instant culture.

 

At our Baptism we are called to make Christ present in the world, and for sure, at times, we failed, but God will never leave us.  He encourages us to begin again and again. He gives us a chance to experience His great mercy.

 

St. Paul writes this letter to encourage the Christians of his time.  We know that God has called us and given us the gift of faith.  We are to hold on  to this gift.  

 

Paul says we need to remember that we...

...walk by faith not by sight.

God is working in all the ups and down of our lives.  Often we need to pray for the patience to allow God to work in His time and ways not ours.

 

 

 

We are to use the events and situations that we are placed in to make God's love present to the whole world.
For sure we are called to walk by faith not by sight.

 

The people Jesus addressed were a people who believed that the Messiah would be a political leader to lead them to freedom from Roman domination. So 
Jesus spoke in parables, using words which related to them and their agricultural mentality.

 

Jesus gives this parable of a sower to help us to see how God works.  As with seeds planted in the dry earth and depending on nature for water, the process was, at times slow, and God often works in our lives in the same way.

Are we willing to allow God to work

in His ways

or

will we give up on God

and try to do things our ways???

  

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ Cycle B

June 6, 2021

 

 

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The name of this book of the Bible means coming out; it describes the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

 

Moses was to be their leader, and God made a covenant, a pact, a promise, with the Israelites. 

He was to be the one between the people and God, to make sure that what they promised to God, to follow the various commandments and  laws of God, were followed so they would reach and obtain, the Promised Land of Canaan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood, the source of life, was used to seal a covenant, a pact, a promise.  And so Moses, after the people agreed that they would follow what God had revealed to them, sprinkled blood on them to seal this covenant, pact, promise, agreement.  

 

 

 

 

 

 We know that those people broke the covenant again and again.  But God never gave up on them.  

Remember, when being taken out of slavery in Egypt, they were called to mark their door frames, lentils with blood so that death, sin, failure, etc would pass by them.

 

Again, and again,

God's great love and mercy for his people.

 

Saint Paul wrote this letter to this community to reassure them that the body and the  blood of Jesus Christ sealed the covenant between God and human beings, so that sins could be forgiven and eternal life had.

This proclamation describes the events of the Last Supper when Christ instituted the celebration of the Eucharist, the Mass, so that the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ at Calvary, is renewed and is with us in every Mass as long as the earth exists.

 

That means that we have Christ who intercedes for each of us and continually offers his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. We are a part of that once sacrifice of his Body and Blood at Calvary,  the Mass...What a miracle and what a gift.

 

Again, this is the covenant that God has made with each of us so that our sins can be forgiven.

 

  God will never give up on us!

His mercy is unbelievable!