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Commentary on Mark 8:22-26 Read Wednesday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on Mark 8:11-13 Read Monday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on Genesis 4:1-15,25 Read Monday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Isaiah 66:10-14; John 2:1-11

The Gospel is the story of the marriage feast at Cana from John. The passage comes at the end of a week introducing the person of Jesus and his first disciples, a week which recalls the week of creation in the book of Genesis. 

On this last day there is a new creation, the creation of the New Covenant between God and his people, who from now on will include people from all over the world.

A wedding is a traditional Old Testament image for people’s relationship with God. Some of the prophets have described God as the spouse of his people, a people who again and again are scolded for their unfaithfulness to their Spouse.

Here at this wedding, we are told that the wine began to run short, a dreadful thing to happen for the hosts, who would have been the bride’s family. The mother of Jesus draws Jesus’ attention to the crisis. And Jesus at first tries to brush it off as none of his business. But his mother ignores his response and goes and tells the servant to go and do what Jesus tells them. He then instructs the servants to fill six large jars, each capable of holding 20-30 gallons, with water and then to bring them to the steward. When the steward was invited to taste, what had now just been water was discovered to be a wine of the very first quality. The steward is amazed. It was the custom to serve the good wine first and then, when people’s palates had been dulled, to serve a lower quality of wine.

The meaning is clear. Those six jars of water are the heart of the story. They represent a traditional Jewish custom, according to the Law, of purifying oneself on entering the house and, by implication, the whole of the Mosaic Law, whose observance was the core of serving God. 

For John, numbers are important. The perfect number is seven – for instance, there are seven ‘signs’ which Jesus gives in this gospel; there are seven ‘I AM…’ statements. But here there are only six jars, short of perfection. They are now replaced by the high class wine of the New Covenant, of which Jesus is the sign. In fact, the passage ends with “this deed at Cana in Galilee is the first of the signs by which Jesus revealed his glories and led his disciples to believe in him”.

In a way all this happened because Mary told Jesus what he should do. So here, as we honour Our Lady of Lourdes, we see Mary now telling Bernadette what she should do. And that is just how Bernadette responded, so that today literally millions of people go on pilgrimage to Lourdes in search of peace and healing.

The First Reading, which is from the prophet Isaiah, speaks of Jerusalem as the source of peace for the Jewish people of the time. Here it is applied to what Lourdes means for so many people.

I will send peace flowing over her like a river…As a mother comforts her son, so will I myself comfort you

In the passage, they are the words of God, but here it is through the Mother of Jesus that the promise is made. And many have discovered that it is really true.

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Commentary on Romans 5:1-5; Mark 16:15-20

The Gospel comes from the very end of Mark, a section that some scripture scholars hold does not really belong to the original text, but was added later and, in fact, it echoes passages from the other gospels, especially Matthew (the original Mark gospel predates that of Matthew).

Nevertheless, one can see why it was chosen as the Gospel for today’s feast.  The first part of today’s reading is said to contain words spoken by Jesus while eating with his disciples in the Upper Room after the Resurrection.  The apostles receive their mandate from Jesus to go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to “the whole creation”.  It is reminiscent of similar words found in Matthew where they are spoken just before the Ascension.

Jesus then promises that belief in him and his message will bring signs – devils will be cast out and people will be able to speak in strange tongues; they will be able to handle snakes and deadly poison without harm; they will lay their hands on sick people who will be healed. In the second part, we are told that the Lord Jesus then ascended to his Father and, as his followers carried out his commands, the things he promised did indeed take place as a confirmation of the truth of their message.

The relevance to Blaise is clear.  Many miracles and wonders were attributed to him – the healing of the sick and being able to live safely in the company of wild animals. The Lord continues to work wonders today although they are not often literally miraculous events, but experiences which may even be more influential in the lives of people.  Perhaps we have had or seen such experiences ourselves.

The First Reading is a lovely passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  He reminds his hearers of all the wonderful graces that have come through living their lives in faith and hope, “the hope of the divine splendour that is to be ours”.  He even tells them to rejoice in their sufferings, not because they are pleasurable, but because suffering properly accepted teaches endurance and inner strength.  Endurance shows that we have risen to the test, the test of our faith in the Lord Jesus.  And our ability to do this is the basis for our hope, a hope that will one day be vindicated.

And it is not an empty hope because “God’s love has been poured into our inmost being through the giving of the Holy Spirit”.  This is a passage which was lived by Blaise, who faced every kind of torment and, in the end, did not hesitate to give his life, following the example of his Lord.

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Commentary on Isaiah 62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17,22-25; Matthew 1:1-25

This beautiful Mass is not often celebrated, especially when the first (‘midnight’) Mass of Christmas takes place in the early evening, say 8.00 p.m., as is not unusually the case in large parishes. There are three readings, each one of which deserves our attention and prayerful reflection.

The Gospel is the opening of Matthew’s Gospel and consists of a combined re-reading of the Gospels we had on December 17 and 18 – the genealogy of Jesus and the birth of Jesus (Matthew’s version).

Many find the genealogy a rather boring and incomprehensible list of unpronounceable names. That only goes to show how much the Hebrew Testament is a closed book to so many of us. It begins with Abraham, the father of God’s people, and is in three parts, with 14 generations in each part. It ends with the words:

Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary; of her was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

The parenthood of Joseph is carefully excluded but Jesus’ family line comes through him.

It would be worth our while some day to go through that list of names and then we would learn something about the kind of people from Jesus was descended. They were by no means all saints; there are real ruffians among them. There are also four women.

By giving us this list of names Matthew is emphasising, especially to the Jews of his day, that Jesus’ lineage goes back to the very beginnings of Israelite history beginning with Abraham, the father of the nations, and including David, Jesus’ kingly ancestor. Jesus is the natural continuation of God’s long connection and involvement in the history of his people. He is in fact the long awaited climax to that history. He is the Messiah King.

This is further emphasised by Matthew’s telling in the second part of the Gospel how Jesus came to be. The conception, the beginning of the life of the Child in the womb of Mary, takes place after she and Joseph are betrothed but before they are married and begin to live together as husband and wife. Clearly, the agent of bringing the new life into existence is not Joseph, but God himself. It is God who is the Father of the Child, and Mary is his mother. This is the Incarnation, when the Word of God is made flesh and begins to live among us.

This puts this Child in a totally different category from that of all his ancestors, and yet he shares their blood and their genes while, at the same time, being Someone quite other.

The Second Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, represents a speech which Paul gave on his first missionary journey to fellow Jews in the synagogue at Antioch. In it he gives a brief history of the Jewish people leading up to John the Baptist and the appearance of Jesus, the Saviour of his people. Here too, there is the emphasis on the continuity between the Jewish people and the emergence of Jesus as a Saviour arising from among them – their Saviour and ours.

The First Reading is a beautiful passage from Isaiah. It is a message of consolation for Zion, but can easily be applied to the Church and to all of us in the community of Christ who look forward to the birth and the coming of our Saviour.

Let us just pick out a few phrases worth reflecting on:

I will not grow weary until her integrity shines out like the dawn and her salvation shines like a torch.

The nations then will see your integrity…and you will be called by a new name…

Integrity is a precious gift needed by the Church as a whole and by each one of us. Integrity means that we are everything we proclaim to be, that there is no hidden agenda, no false fronts but total transparency – what you see is all there is.

No longer are you to be named ‘Forsaken’, nor your land ‘Abandoned’, but you shall be called ‘my Delight’ and your land ‘the Wedded’…

Like a young man marrying a virgin, so will the one who built you wed you, and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in you.

The three readings combined sum up beautifully the context in which the Child Jesus will be born in the strange surroundings of a stable in Bethlehem. All is now about to fulfilled for each one of us as we prepare this evening to celebrate the birth of God’s Son among us as one of us.

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There are no fixed Scripture readings for today’s feast. The Lectionary will show a wide choice available from both the Old and New Testament. Because of this, there are no specific commentaries for this day. However, there are commentaries written for many of the readings listed today in the Lectionary, and they may be accessed using Living Space’s search facility or the indices in the adjacent sidebar.

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Commentary on Luke 8:4-15 Read Saturday of Week 24 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »

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Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:35-37, 42-49 Read Saturday of Week 24 of Ordinary Time – First Reading »

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Commentary on Luke 8:1-3 Read Friday of Week 24 of Ordinary Time – Gospel »