Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year C
The first is in the harshest of terms: to be my disciple you must hate father and mother. Jesus speaks using hyperbole… We know these words are hyperbole because we know the overwhelming content of the Gospel message: Love. You are called to love God and neighbor; but should you be forced to make a choice, a disciple knows the answer. If you won’t go to help the poor because your mother doesn’t want you to, whom did you love more? Jesus or your mother? If you can’t love Jesus above all, you can’t be a disciple.
Fourth Sunday of Advent • Year C
In today’s readings as in our daily lives, the presence of God is recognized in the little things. Does not each of us know how a small gesture of greeting can transform a stranger into an acquaintance? Not a word from Mary is recorded in today’s Gospel but her gesture of familial love speaks volumes.
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
Just as a majestic oak tree starts from a tiny acorn so the change in Catholic worship from the Latin Tridentine Mass to the current form began with small seeds. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century there was much interest in the origins of the Mass. Within the Benedictine community of monks there were two separate movements that were started in order to elevate the experience of celebrating the Tridentine Mass. The first was an effort to develop a greater appreciation for Gregorian Chant. The monks at an abbey in France did research and discovered lost tunes and melodies that were beautiful and esthetically pleasing. These tunes were eventually published in a book called the Liber Usualis which became quite popular while at the same time renewing interest in the history of the Mass.
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
Changes and adaptations to the Mass came to a screeching halt with the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. The Reformation was more a battle over theology rather than liturgy; theology certainly impacts liturgy, but the main battles were about the role of Scripture and Tradition, as well as the primacy of the pope. The theological battles were complicated by political ones as kings and princes saw an opportunity to undercut the authority of the Church.
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
Emperor Constantine credited his accession to power to Christianity. He lavished much wealth on the religion and built large churches in the city of Rome. The Christians chose the style of a basilica over that of a temple or a synagogue.
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
The first followers of Jesus were Jewish and they did not see themselves as founding a new religion. Judaism has always been a wide tent with many variations on the theme of belief in the one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The first followers of Jesus called their movement ‘The Way’ but they were still essentially Jewish; it wasn’t until later that they became known as Christians. Most of what we know about the manner in which these people worshiped has to be pieced together from references made in the writings of the New Testament and from other texts that were written in the same period.
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
Then as Jesus did with the bread, he broke the ritual and said, ‘Take and drink. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.’ If some of the disciples did not understand at the breaking of the bread that this was the making of a new covenant between God and man, they couldn’t miss it now.