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Posts Tagged ‘Sunday scripture reflections’
Download 2nd Sunday Advent
Reflection Questions
- Isaiah chapters 40-55 are known as the ‘Book of Comfort’. The prophet is speaking encouraging words to the exiles as they return home and seek to rebuild their lives and the Temple in Jerusalem. Isaiah is also known as the ‘carrier of the hope of the Messiah’. Foretelling a time when God will come among his people. Can you see the prediction of John the Baptist and Jesus in the reading from Isaiah? What image speaks personally to you on your advent journey?
- The preparation of a straight road or a royal highway was known to happen in ancient times when a very special person was to visit. Physically, valleys were filled and hills were lowered to make the way smooth and easy. At great expense! As Advent invites us to make a clear pathway for the Lord, what roadblocks, ditches, hills require the earthmoving equipment of prayer, spiritual direction, reconciliation?
- The 2nd Letter of Peter is regarded as possibly the latest of the New Testament Letters. Obviously they are concerned with the delay of Jesus. Peter teaches God’s final judgement is not based upon human calendars. While Peter uses the popular belief of the time of a final ‘fire’ at the end of time, he also emphasises the need for good behaviour and ‘righteousness’ (whereas gnostics did not consider there would be a future judgment and therefore immorality was irrelevant). Would Christ’s coming find you ‘eager to be found without spot’? At peace? What is the source of your ‘dis-ease’?
- Today we hear the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel we will listen to for the rest of the Year. Mark immediately shares the ‘secret’ in the first line. We are about to hear ‘gospel’ (good news about a victory battle over evil) done by Jesus Christ. He is the one who reveals by words, actions of power, that he has all the attributes of God = Son of God. Is your interest raised? Consider spending a few hours to read Mark (the shortest gospel) for Advent.
- To announce a figure of such great importance requires a voice to ‘proclaim’ the immanent arrival. This is the role of John the Baptist. Significantly John does this at the Jordan river (at the same crossing point Israel left the desert and entered the Promised Land). A new rescuing by God is taking place. John is painted to be like the great prophet Elijah who was to return to prepare for the ‘great day of the Lord’. Who has been a holy witness and ‘prophet’ like John the Baptist for your journey? Who could you be a holy witness for this advent calling them back to God?
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?
Download Feast of the Dedication of Lateran Bascilica.
Reflection Questions
- The celebration today marks the oldest of the major churches in Rome and the Church which belongs to the ‘Bishop of Rome’ (many people may think it is St Peters). Today we have an opportunity to reflect on the significance and meaning of ‘Church’ as a building and also as a ‘people’.
- The Prophet Ezekiel was also a Priest and was in the first group of Israelites to be taken away from their homeland and put in exile in Babylon. This passage is a prophecy and a reminder from God just how special the ‘Temple’ and ‘Jersualem’ and its people are in the world. Jersualem becomes an image of God’s people. The Temple becomes an image of the Parish / Church today. What does it mean for the ‘church’ to be like life-giving water flowing out into the world, making everything ‘fresh’, and the fruit and leaves produced being ‘medicinal’ for the world?
- St Paul has a deep experience of linking the temple to each disciple. We have become the ‘meeting place’ where people can experience God. Do you know God dwells in you? Do you know the ‘temple of God, which you are, is holy’? One of the first public actions by Jesus in the Gospel of John is to ‘cleanse’ the temple. ‘My Fathers house’ is said 27 times in the Gospel of John. It was an expectation of the Messiah that when he comes he would ‘cleanse the temple’ and restore it to become really and truly a proper house of God. Jesus sees sheep and cattle and money changers turn the ‘house of God’ into a market. When you look at the Church, what do you see? What upsets you? What would you like to ‘cleanse’?
- Some scholars share that the actions of Jesus are very significant. Jesus does this action at the time of the ‘passover’. He replaces the ‘temple’ with his own ‘body’. On the second Passover he replaces the ‘passover’ with the ‘bread of life’ (John 6). On the third Passover Jesus sacrifices his body on the cross, instead of the Passover lamb in the temple to be the ‘sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world’. If the temple was the place to ‘meet God’, can you recognise how we now meet and become one with God in the Eucharist celebrated at Mass? Is the building special or the celebration that takes place within it more special?
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?
Download 5th Sunday Easter
Reflection Questions
- The early Christian community described in Acts endures many challenging experiences. Today marks an incredible ‘break-through’. Greek speaking (Hellenists) Christians complained their widows were not being fed in the daily distribution of food to the poor. Jewish Christians may have been favouring their own kind. The Church was transitioning from a Jewish Christian community to a more Greek speaking and Greek cultured community. Imagine the tensions and arguments! Yet the Apostles creatively responded with wisdom and preserved unity. A new service structure was implemented into the community. Who is getting all the attention in your community? Who is not? What creative response is needed to meet the needs of ‘the poor’?
- The passage of scripture from Peter is regarded as part of an Easter Baptismal Homily. The image is of a Temple built with stones aligned with the ‘cornerstone – Jesus’ which holds the whole ‘house’ together. Who is a ‘living stone’ you look to in your local community for ‘alignment’ with Jesus? How do you ‘measure up’?
- Priesthood, a Holy People set apart, a people bringing the world to God and God to the world, is not to be understood as confined to the ‘Temple’. Peter reminds all the baptised they are no longer limited to bringing animal and grain offerings to the Temple. Their lives are to announce God’s love and care. Feeding the poor, clothing and care of the sick, prayers for the community are all part of the great ‘spiritual sacrifices’ offered to God to bring God to the people and the people to God. Do you glimpse your ‘royal’ and ‘priestly’ job description of Baptism into the family of Christ? Can you glimpse the connection between the Sunday altar and the Monday office desk?
- John 14-17 is Jesus’ departing words to his disciples. His words are filled with the language of intimate love. Have you ever had someone beautifully prepare a guest room for you? Say they want you to be always with them? How did it feel? How does it feel to know Jesus wants this relationship with you?
- Without Jesus and no longer welcome in the Jewish Temple, the Johannine community felt they were lost. ‘How can we know the ‘way’? ‘I AM the way’ is a theological punch. Jesus uses the ‘divine name (I AM) and challenges his followers to live ‘his way – the way of God’. Our life-style, our time-style, our ‘way’, is to be in exact replication of Christ. How does this challenge you?
- “Going to Church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.” What ‘works’ are we called to do?
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?