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Posts Tagged ‘Year A Sunday Scripture Readings’
Download Reflection Document 3rd Sunday Yr A
Reflection Questions
- The Prophet Isaiah remarks that the land called ‘District of the Gentiles’ (the area around the sea of Galilee) will see ‘a great light’. Imagine a small narrow road linking one part of the world with the other. This is the ‘Holy Land’ (Israel). It was a very busy trading route. Consequently there were many ‘foreigners’. For Jewish people it sometimes felt like a curse. However in God’s plan the light shines brighter in the darkness. Have you ever experienced being lost in darkness and then helped by a light? What happened. What is Isaiah trying to teach us about God?
- St Paul continues his writing to the people of Corinth. He is upset that their witness and service to Christ has turned towards arguments rather than charity. Have you ever felt a group of people wanting you to ‘belong’ to ‘their idea’? Have you had an experience of ‘division’ in the community or workplace or parish, people claiming the same purpose but not united in ‘mind’? Did you seek to understand ‘both sides’ and seek unity, or, did you grow division?
- Today in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus leaves his home town of Nazareth and arrives in Galilee. Fulfilling the 1st Reading prophecy of Isaiah, Jesus spends most of his 3 years of public ministry between 3 towns in Galilee. As the new year begins do you feel it is time to leave your ‘Nazareth’, your place of comfort, and enter ‘Galilee’ to undertake a new challenge? How could you be a light to ‘people who sit in darkness’? Those overshadowed by death, sickness, sadnees?
- In the time of Jesus, the phrase Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God were special. Everyone was waiting for the time when God would finally overcome the power of evil. Essentially Jesus begins preaching a ‘wake up’ call: ‘change your mind (repent), take notice, God is now showing victory over evil! This is the good news. Have you ever noticed Jesus both preaches and heals. Words and actions go together. How does your life bring the kingdom of heaven and contribute to the overcoming of evil? Is your faith words and actions?
- Fishing was the main industry around the sea of Galilee. Peter, Andrew, James and John were probably not ‘poor’. Boats, nets, family, work colleagues, commitments and bank accounts are significant for them (and us!). Yet they are placed second to Jesus’ invitation to follow. Is the presence of your life curing and comforting (disease and illness?) or comfortable and callous? If you had to write a sentence of what you thought God would personally like you to do / be, what would you write?
- What is one action that you will do to be ‘livingtheword’ this week?
Download Feast of Body and Blood
Reflection Questions
- The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) began as a response to increased devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the 12th Century. This led to a desire to ‘see’, Jesus in the consecrated elements. In 1220 in Paris the practice of elevating the host began.
- God’s journey with his people in the desert involved difficulties but also God’s providence and care. You were hungry and I fed you with manna – ‘a food unknown to you’. (See Ex 16). Providing food is a basic expression of care for your children. It creates a bond. And yet they soon grew tired of this ‘manna’. It became taken for granted. How could you reawaken a deeper sense of appreciation for God feeding us with the Word and the Body and Blood of Jesus at mass? Is it ‘normal’ or ‘special’? How?
- There were many temples in the city of Corinth. It was ‘normal’ to take food and offer it to various ‘god’s and pledge allegiance to them. St Paul writes this is not to happen with christians. At the sacred meal (Eucharist) we participate in and receive the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. It is not right to then join your body with worship to other ‘altars’ and ‘demons’ (1Cor 10,21). Is my communion with Jesus real or superficial? Does my life-style show I have many ‘gods’ and ‘altars’ that I worship at? What change and purification may be necessary in my life?
- Moses was greatly revered for ‘feeding’ people with bread from heaven (1st Reading). Jesus now replaces Moses and this ‘event’ with his body. ‘Heavenly Bread’ is now replaced with ‘flesh’. It is no accident that the words flesh and blood are repeated 10 times in this text. How can this man give us his flesh to eat is a question that leads to layers of questions. Is Jesus a ‘man’ or the Divine Son of God? Is the real question ‘how’ can this happen or ‘who’ is making this promise? Do you believe in these words? This promise? What the Mass brings into the life of the world and the Church and offers personally to you?
- Meditate / reflect on these scriptural lines and allow a conversation to begin with God.
- The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world….
- My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink….
- Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you….
- Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them….
6.Is your experience of the Eucharist one of looking, sitting, getting or becoming? Does it progress from Sunday into Monday…?
7. What is one action that you will do to ‘livetheword’ this week?
Download Document: 8th Sunday Yr A
Reflection Question 3: Trust in God is a consistent theme in the scripture readings this week. Jesus brushes away many small arguments and gets to the core issue: you cannot be the slave of God and money (mammon was a Hebrew word referring to property or anything of value, its modern translation has become ‘money’). Trust and Worry are connected. What we worry about reveals what we secretly trust in. What would you list as your top 3 worries? What do they ‘reveal’ about you? What do you think of Jesus’ 3 arguments against ‘worry’?