It’s easy to misunderstand prophecy. That statement is true in several senses, but especially when it comes to Jesus fulfilling prophecies as he does in our Gospel today. Jesus moves to Capernaum and it fulfills a passage in Isaiah. Did Jesus have to live there? Or did he choose to?
This Sunday, John the Baptist, the great voice crying out ahead of the Messiah, tells us who Jesus Christ really is at the heart of his identity and mission. He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and he is “the Son of God … who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
Faced with perhaps a first big emergency as adults, most of us have had this thought process: “Trouble! Call the adults!” Then an unsettling realization: “Oh no. I’m the grown-up here.”
Today is called “Gaudete” Sunday, named after the first word of the entrance antiphon of the Mass: “Rejoice (gaudete) in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.” (Phil 4:4–5)
After Our Lord tells his disciples about the calamities, persecutions and sufferings they will have to endure before the end, he concludes today’s Gospel passage by saying, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”
No one is comfortable with death. This unease transcends all cultures and religions as they grapple with the inevitability, powerlessness, and the finality which death makes real.
In a deeply insightful moment, the titular hero of G.K. Chesterton’s “Father Brown” mystery series reveals the secret of his powers of deduction to his friend, the former thief Flambeau.
On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus encounters 10 lepers. Leprosy was one of the most-dreaded realities of his day. It resulted in tremendous pain, had no cure, led to a long, drawn-out death and caused religious and social isolation.
Do we deserve heaven? Or better yet, does God owe us eternal life?
