“If God can raise children of Abraham – our father in the faith – out of the stones in the desert, it doesn’t matter at all that we may be Jews, or indeed that we are of any race, that our families have been Christian and Catholic for x number of centuries, or decades or years…”
Tag Archives: jews and gentiles
Jews and Gentiles again (Sunday XXVIII of Ordered time)
“Then He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and He went into the synagogue there, as His custom was, on the sabbath day, and stood up to read; the book given to Him was the book of the prophet Isaias; so He opened it, and found the place where the words ran,Continue reading “Jews and Gentiles again (Sunday XXVIII of Ordered time)”
The narrow gate (Sunday XXI of Ordered time)
“Christianity, contrary to what we may sometimes be told, is not a religion ‘of the book,’ but rather a religion of the heart… Christianity and Catholicism will always be a love story.”
Hail to the Lord’s anointed (Epiphany day)
“…when they had appeared in Jerusalem to find the Child, Jewish heads would have looked up at the mention of a new light shining out in the heavens, because of such prophecies as we have from Isaiah…”
Reading through the Gospel of S. Luke
The Gospel of Saint Luke, third and longest of the lot, is particularly interesting for the way it is arranged, with much of the material in the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, but reordered to form a different narrative. At the same time, Luke added new material the other two Gospels don’t contain,Continue reading “Reading through the Gospel of S. Luke”
Reading through the Book of Esther
The book of Esther contains a charming and, to be honest, a little frightening story about a devastating pogrom against the Jewish exiles in Mesopotamia, and throughout the vast Persian empire, probably also including the valiant band of returnees to Juda and Jerusalem, who were in the process of restoring the City and the TempleContinue reading “Reading through the Book of Esther”
Reading through the Prophecy of Malachi (aka. Malachias)
Moving on to the end of the long list of prophetic books, I have arrived at Malachy’s short work, which was a later prophecy of the second Temple period, after the return from exile in Babylon. This is the pre-eminent Messianic prophecy. In the very first chapter, we hear of the malignancy of the HebrewContinue reading “Reading through the Prophecy of Malachi (aka. Malachias)”
Reading through S. Paul’s letter to S. Titus
Saint Titus, who is often grouped together with Saint Timothy, the bishop of Ephesus, was Saint Paul’s representative on the island of Crete. Titus was a disciple and companion of Saint Paul, and became the first bishop of Crete, during which ministry he must have received this letter from his old teacher. We know fromContinue reading “Reading through S. Paul’s letter to S. Titus”
Reading through the Book of Ezra (aka. Esdras I)
Reading through the book of Haggai, we discovered a prophet who encouraged the Successor of David and the Successor of Zadoc the priest to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, when the Jews had arrived in Juda from exile in Babylon at the end of the sixth century BC, and had done their best to secureContinue reading “Reading through the Book of Ezra (aka. Esdras I)”
Reading through S. Paul’s letter to the Colossians
This is a rather short letter and thankfully without any sign of the politics that had arisen in several of the other churches of the time, such as those of the Galatians and the Corinthians, because of other Christian missionaries presenting a rivalry to Paul’s message with their attempts to initiate the new gentile ChristiansContinue reading “Reading through S. Paul’s letter to the Colossians”
Reading through the Prophecy of Jonah
The book of Jonas tells the famous tale of the successful mission of a Hebrew prophet from Juda to the Assyrians of the city of Nineve. The name ‘Yona’ is literally ‘dove,’ and we can see that, while the prophet sought peace, the Holy One had a significant mission for him: the conversion of aContinue reading “Reading through the Prophecy of Jonah”
Reading through the letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians
The Church in Ephesos (west of Asia Minor, just across the Aegean from Macedonia and Achaia) was always a good egg in the first century, apparently. In the last book of the Bible, she received a good report from Christ Himself for her discernment with regard to the Apostolic authority: “To the angel of theContinue reading “Reading through the letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians”
Reading through the first letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians
This is one of the most popular of the preserved letters of S. Paul, so let’s try and draw a quick summary. Like most big Greco-Roman towns of the first century, Corinth had a large Jewish community, living among almost any number of other religions and philosophy, for this small city was about as metropolitan asContinue reading “Reading through the first letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians”
The King of hearts (Sunday XI of Ordered time)
This last weekend’s readings allow us to reflect on what the Church is. Especially in this month of June, a whole month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of our Lord, I like to say that He is the King of hearts. This was something the Temple priests and the scribes of His day – theContinue reading “The King of hearts (Sunday XI of Ordered time)”
Reading through the second book of the Maccabees
Find my summary of the first book of the Maccabees here. The second book of the Machabees is more properly a book of the Machabees – the followers of Judas Machabeus (‘the hammer’), the son of the priest Mattathias of Modin. The first book had rushed past Judas in a way, after marking his fall in battle,Continue reading “Reading through the second book of the Maccabees”
Reading through the first book of the Maccabees
Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay I saw a recent post on social media asking if it was worth reading the books of the Maccabees, and I thought I’d put out a short summary of my own reading of them. This post is on the first book of the Maccabees. For some reason, when theContinue reading “Reading through the first book of the Maccabees”
The unifying love that is friendship (Sunday VI of Easter)
Cornelius, a leading character of our first reading this weekend, was a Roman, and so not Jewish, although not necessarily a pagan, for he was sufficiently devoted to the God of Israel to received the angelic vision that led him to call for the Apostle S. Peter. The Romans looked down upon the Jews asContinue reading “The unifying love that is friendship (Sunday VI of Easter)”
Glorified in suffering (Sunday V of Lent)
This Sunday is called Passion Sunday. Not Palm Sunday – that comes next weekend. The reason we begin already to speak of the Passion this Sunday is because the liturgy features today the moment when our Lord set His face towards Jerusalem and to His great ordeal. As He says in the gospel reading today,Continue reading “Glorified in suffering (Sunday V of Lent)”
Short commentary on the letter of S. Paul to the Romans
“Throughout the letter, he not only counsels Christians to bear with each other in their differences, but he refuses to exclude the Jewish people from the final reward of ‘life risen from the dead.'”
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 