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In other words

07 Jun 2015 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle B

On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations so you can eat the Passover meal?” He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. ... He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.” The disciples left, came to the city, found everything just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover meal. In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, “Take, this is my body.” Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking God, and they all drank from it. He said, “This is my blood, God’s new covenant, Poured out for many people.” “I’ll not be drinking wine again until the new day when I drink it in the kingdom of God” (from Mark 14). Taken from The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2014 ); actapublications.com; 800-397-2282.

Preparation Passover

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Exploring the word

29 Jul 2012 - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

They were going to carry him off and make him king; Jesus came that close to being King of the Jews the day he fed the crowds. But what good would that do? Israel had had many kings. Kings never brought Israel together, and kings never proved to be the messiahs they were anointed to be. Kings built cities and temples, levied taxes, raised armies, fought battles, occasionally governed, and spawned sons to succeed them.Kings also betrayed their people, made foolish coalitions, arranged political marriages to cement their alliances, permitted shrines to accommodate their foreign wives’ religions, and drove the nation into the arms of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Fat lot of good a king ever did for Israel! So when Jesus senses the crowds prepared to name him a rival to Herod for showing there really is a free lunch, he slips away. He’ll wear a crown one day—made of thorns. They’ll proclaim him king one day—when he’s sentenced to execution. Till then, he’ll shrug off worldly honors. “The Prophet who is to come into the world” has no need of other titles. The miracle of multiplication occurs as “the Jewish feast of Passover was near.” John’s gospel notes each calendar feast deliberately. The synoptic gospels, of course, present Jesus’ ministry as the journey of a single year. Jesus celebrates one Passover “on the night before he suffered.” In John’s story there are three Passovers: at the Temple cleansing in chapter 2; the multiplication event told today; and Good Friday (not Thursday, as in the synoptic gospels), lengthening the mission to as many as three years. What is the point of relating these events to Passover? It’s the feast of liberation. It identifies Israel as the people whom God saves. The sign-value of the third Johannine Passover is the most obvious: By aligning the feast with Good Friday, the gospel presents Jesus as the Lamb whose body and blood liberates the world. In the first Johannine Passover Jesus takes the Temple area. In a year that has seen many “occupations” of public spaces, we may appreciate how this occupation by Jesus might have affected those who normally held that territory. By doing so Jesus claims ultimate religious authority. He also “liberates” the holy place and returns it to the people as a house of prayer. Today’s reading references Passover again. Here Jesus sustains the multitude. That’s the king’s job, to provide for his people. Jesus also liberates them from the economy of Rome. No wonder they want to make him king! But Jesus has no need for temples or thrones. He is himself the Lamb, the Temple, and the Bread. He does not seek to claim supplicants but to liberate friends. This authority is much too big for any earthly office. Related Scripture links God’s generosity at work: Gen. 33:11; Num. 10:29; Sir. 35:7-14; Luke 6:38 The evils of gluttony and excess: Sir. 31:12-20; 37:26-30; Amos 4:1-3; 6:1-7 Lilies of the field: Matt. 6:25-34; Luke 12:22-34 Faith is sufficient: Matt. 17:19-20; Mark 5:34, 36; 6:8; 11:22-24; Luke 11:9-13; John 14:12-14; 20:27-29; 2 Cor. 5:7; Gal. 5:6; Heb. 11:1 Catechism links One God of all: CCC 74; 172; 1971; 2792 Multiplication of loaves: CCC 1335

Authors Alice Camille

king of the jews lamb Passover Bread

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The inner word

08 Aug 2010 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Abraham obeyed because he trusted the one who bade him to have faith. It was not blind faith, but rather an experience of God as reliable that offered Abraham another way of seeing and evaluating. The Israelites on the first Passover night were able to believe because they, too, had experienced God as trustworthy. Have I experienced God as trustworthy, or do I keep my guard up? How would your life be different if you didn't have faith in God? How would your life be different if your faith in God was absolute?

Faith Passover Abraham

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Will ethics charges fell congressional stalwarts this fall?

08 Aug 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s first reading speaks of the oaths and promises made at the first Passover, and of the faith the people of Israel placed in those oaths as they awaited their salvation and the punishment of their adversaries. Two of the longest-serving and highest-ranking Democrats in the U.S. House of Representative face serious ethics charges that suggest they may have to some extent violated their oaths of office as well as the public trust. Representatives Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Maxime Waters (D-CA) hope to salvage their careers through a combination of mea culpas for errors of judgment and vigorous defenses that the charges warrant no further punishment. Both Waters and Rangel are pushing for what promise to be highly publicized public trials on the ethics charges, which brings the potential of a spectacle focusing on Congressional corruption this fall just as Democrats are fighting to hold their majorities in the House and Senate. At the time of the first Passover, the Jewish people steadfastly awaited their salvation, the reading from the Book of Wisdom tells us. Rangel and Waters both have said they are confident they will be vindicated. Nervous Democratic leaders hope private talks can resolve the cases well before election day. Source: Articles by Jonathan Allen and John Bresnahan for Politco.com, Larry Margasak for the Associated Press, and Joshua Burns for Examiner.com (Cincinnati)

promises Passover corruption ethics charles rangel maxime waters

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In other words

20 Mar 2016 - Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Cycle C

Jesus sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, “I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It’s the last one I’ll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God.” Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.” He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.” Jesus said, “Do you realize that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on this table?” They immediately got suspicious of each other and began wondering who might be about to do this. Peter said, “Master, I’m ready for anything with you. I’d go to jail for you. I’d die for you!” Jesus said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me.” . . . Jesus went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. He knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” He went back to the disciples and found them asleep. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a crowd showed up, Judas in the lead. He came right up to Jesus to kiss him. Jesus said, “Judas, you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” . . . They took Jesus to Pilate. Pilate asked him, “Is this true that you’re ‘King of the Jews’?” “Those are your words, not mine,” Jesus replied. Pilate said, “You brought this man to me as a disturber of the peace. He’s done nothing wrong. I’m going to warn him to watch his step and let him go.” At that, the crowd went wild: “Kill him!” They kept at it, a shouting mob, demanding that he be crucified. Pilate caved in and gave them what they wanted. . . . When they got to Skull Hill, they crucified him. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” . . . The whole earth became dark. Jesus called loudly, “Father, I place my life in your hands!” Then he breathed his last. . . . A man named Joseph asked for the body of Jesus. Taking him down, he wrapped him in a linen shroud and placed him in a tomb chiseled into the rock. The women who had been companions of Jesus followed along. They saw the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed. Then they went back to prepare burial spices and perfumes (from Luke 22). Excerpted from The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2014); actapublications.com.

last supper Passion Crucifixion Passover

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Homily themes

06 Mar 2016 - Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

“Now we must celebrate and rejoice.” Rescue, reunion, and revelry weave their ways through the readings today. Israel’s sins are “rolled away” (a possible meaning for Gilgal), they arrive in the land God promised them and to which they have been journeying for so long, and they end their Exodus just as they began it: with the celebration of Passover. Saint Paul reminds the Corinthians that God through Christ has forgiven their trespasses and calls them be ministers of reconciliation. The parable finds the father welcoming home both his elder and his spectacularly errant younger son with a celebration—the latter’s return and reconciliation are more important than his past sins. In all the readings “the old things have passed away,” as Paul writes, and “new things have come.”

Passover reconciliation

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Homily themes

08 Aug 2010 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

The night of the Passover was known beforehand to our fathers. . . . The first reading comes from a rare use of the Book of Wisdom in the lectionary. We find the writer in the midst of a recounting of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, in particular the Passover. Why does the author of Wisdom remember this story? Because it's happening again, in his time. Just as God did for our ancestors in faith, God is delivering us today, and so is giving us hope. The implications for Christian liturgy are almost overwhelming: We recollect the saving events of the past into our deliverance in the present, which guides our future. The response of people of faith? At the first Passover deliverance comes by night, just like the Son of Man who will come like a thief in night. Keep vigil; watch and pray in expectation. Homily points Being prepared is an important contemporary motto, and it's good advice. For what should we be preparing? Jesus urged his disciples to be prepared, but not in the way of storing up material goods. Jesus insists the best preparation is to divest yourself of worldly resources in order to attain eternal ones impervious to loss or destruction. Where our heart goes, our treasure is certain to be found.

Passover Hope prepared

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Homily themes

14 Mar 2010 - Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

The Israelites mark the end of their exodus from Egyptian slavery to the promised land they way they began it: with a Passover meal, the meal of God’s deliverance. Having passed over the Jordan River as they passed through the Red Sea, they stop eating the food of exile and eat instead the food of their homeland and so “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” “For our sake he made him to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him,” writes Saint Paul. Why did Jesus “become sin”? Christ becomes and identifies with what we are—humans capable of sin—so that God’s redemption may draw us to become like Christ. God intervenes to reconcile the world through Christ and therefore gives us in turn the ministry of reconciliation we are to exercise as Christ’s ambassadors. Such reconciliation manifests itself in the “prodigal” love of the father, which overcomes both one son’s leaving the family and another’s resentment. God’s love overwhelms our transgressions. Homily points Being made new is a highly desirable state, especially if we’re honest about the old self. Rituals of newness, including circumcision and baptism, are marks of spiritual maturity. The two brothers in the parable both need to grow up. Their understanding of their father affects their ability to achieve maturity. If we believe in the God of compassion, we can be quite fearless about leaving the old self behind.

Exodus slavery Passover Deliverance prodigal son

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