29th Sunday Ordinary Time On the way to Jerusalem, between two healings of blind men (in chapters 8 and 10), Mark repeats this pattern three times: Jesus reveals his destiny; the disciples misunderstand what that means; Jesus reorients them to … Read More
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 17 October 2021 Isaiah 53:10-11. Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22. Hebrews 4:14-16. Mark 10:35-45. What Do You Wish? We go to Jesus all the time, asking, pleading, wanting. We ask to be healthy; we … Read More
28th Sunday Ordinary Time It can be comforting to treat today’s Gospel as another of Jesus’s hyperboles about the call to discipleship. However, we should not avoid its truth. The man in the Gospel seeking eternal life had observed all … Read More
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 10 October 2021 Wisdom 7:7-11. Psalm 90:12-13, 14-15, 16-17. Hebrews 4:12-13. Mark 10:17-30. Living for Eternal Life. Let us put ourselves into the gospel story today. All of us want to “inherit eternal life.” … Read More
27th Sunday Ordinary Time There is no getting around it. Today’s Gospel will hurt. Let us acknowledge that pain and admit there are no simple answers when families struggle with divorce. The lectionary allows a shorter version of today’s Gospel … Read More
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – 03 October 2021 Genesis 2:18-24. Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6. Hebrews 2:9-11. Mark 10:2-16. Making, Testing, and Deciding. There are at least three take-aways from the readings today. In the making of man and … Read More
26th Sunday Ordinary Time Today, Jesus’s disciples complain about an outsider driving out demons, something they had failed at earlier in the chapter. But their complaint is not that this person was healing or does so in Jesus’s name. They … Read More
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 26 September 2021 Numbers 11:25-29. Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14. James 5:1-6. Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48. The More the Merrier. Who cares if other Christians are also doing the good things that Catholics do? … Read More
25th Sunday Ordinary Time To get the full irony of the disciples’ argument today—who among them was the greatest—we need to know what happened in the section before and what we’ll hear in the following section of Mark’s ninth chapter. … Read More
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – 19 September 2021 Wisdom 2:12, 17-20. Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6-8. James 3:16–4:31. Mark 9:30-37. “I’m Better Than You.” Our lives are filled with all manner of put down, one upmanship, top dog behavior. When … Read More