Reflections on the Sunday Readings

                                                                                                                                     At this time of year, all around us are the hints of spring and yet there are still enough days of chilly weather to make us, like a doubting-Thomas, wondering if and when Spring will happen.  People have told us that they see definite signs of it but still we may have questions?                                                                      ...

                                                               As we open the readings for Palm Sunday, we realize that unlike any other Mass during the year, there are two gospels, in our liturgy this Sunday.                                                 The first gospel recalls the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.   This initial scene is of those who have been following Jesus     singing the hosannas and the hallelujahs and waving palm branches and laying their cloaks before him as he rode on the   donkey into the city.   But an interesting thing that the scripture scholars often remind us about, is the fact that Jesus is entering Jerusalem at the same time as when the lam...

    Our gospel reading this weekend seems to parallel in many ways the gospel   of last week. Last week, we had the youngest son in a crisis of extreme poverty but with enough wisdom to return to his father.   He expects nothing in return except to be taken back as a hired worker on his father’s farm.   Also, we had the brother who held feelings of condemnation for both toward his younger brother for his dissolution of the younger brother’s   inheritance and towards the father for the extent of mercy and forgiveness that was extended to the younger son.   This week as the gospel opens, we have Jesus teaching the crowds in the temple area and suddenly the pharisees and the scribes appear and produce this woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. Of course. as some of my female friends point out there’s no reference to the man who was also part of this adulterous relationship, but that is a discussion for another time.     ...