The Fifth Sunday of Easter – B – April 28 2024 Much has happened in the Acts of the Apostles since last week’s passage. Peter, John, and the man they had healed are released from the religious leaders’ questioning but not from their scrutiny. The Christian community thrives as the Gospel spreads. But trouble is brewing, and his name is Saul. An adherent of Jewish law, temple practice, and the political understanding of the awaited messiah, Saul viewed this Christian movement as a threat. No way would a messiah call for diversity and inclusion outside of the Jewish way of life. Better to nip th ..read more

The Fourth Sunday of Easter – B – April 21 2024 We get another speech from Peter in today’s first reading but with a different context. Last week, Peter preached the Gospel to a crowd whose ears and hearts were opened to its message by the miraculous healing they had witnessed “in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean.” From that, the number of Jesus’s followers—even after his death—grew to five thousand. This week, detained by the religious authorities, with John and the man they had healed standing at his side, Peter preaches the very same message to a tougher audience. The Jewish religious ..read more

The Third Sunday of Easter – B – April 14 2024 Disabled from birth, he couldn’t imagine what it was like to stand. But now he was walking and jumping and praising God! When he saw Peter and John at the temple, he had been begging for change, as he did every day. What he got instead was a changed life. It wasn’t what he asked for, but it was what he truly desired. The Lectionary unfortunately omits this context for Peter’s speech in today’s first reading. So his words to the crowd gathered in awe sound to us more like a reprimand than an enthralling invitation to a new life in Christ. May our ..read more

The Second Sunday of Easter – B – April 7 2024 Christ is risen, alleluia! Now what? If our Lenten observance was more than just an annual effort to become better people, how are we living radically different lives because Jesus was raised from the dead? In the Acts of the Apostles, we witness the life-changing difference Jesus’s death and resurrection made for the first Christian community. They no longer clung to things they thought would bring them security—possessions, wealth, status, proof. When they received Jesus’s blessing of peace from his own breath, saw the nail marks with their own ..read more

The Fifth Sunday of Lent – March 10, 2024 Today’s first reading continues our Lenten journey of restoration. The prophet Jeremiah’s writing focuses mostly on Judah’s faithlessness and exile. But this part, called the “Book of Comfort” (chapters 30–33), describes what awaits God’s people once they are brought home. To those who broke the Mosaic covenant, God did not simply say, “Just do better.” Instead, God did something entirely different! What is new is not the covenant’s “content”—God still desired total faithfulness. What has changed is how humanity enters that covenant. In Christ, what i ..read more

The Fourth Sunday of Lent – March 10, 2024 The final section of today’s first reading is the Emperor of Persia’s decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. After years of rule by evil kings from among their own people, leading to the destruction of the temple, the fall of Judah, and the Jewish people’s exile into Babylon, God moves the spirit of Cyrus, a foreign ruler, to let the Jewish people go back home. This decree, which is the final verse in the Hebrew scriptures and also begins the following Book of Ezra in the Christian canon, signifies the re ..read more

The Third Sunday of Lent – March 3, 2024 “Why can’t we use Year B or C readings for the Scrutinies? We’ve written prayers to fit so the assembly wouldn’t miss out on them.” I hear this every time we’re not in Year A, and, yes, one of the blessings of the revised Lectionary after Vatican II was the opportunity to hear a wider range of biblical readings over the course of three years. But sometimes having more options isn’t always better. Regardless of what history and the ritual books say, the most convincing argument is that the elect will be the elect only once in their lives. In Gospel boo ..read more

The Second Sunday of Lent – February 25, 2024 In the Sunday Lectionary, the first reading is meant to complement the Gospel pericope. Why then is the Transfiguration paired with the testing of Abraham? Both are “terrifying” in different ways. One reveals God’s awe-full glory in Jesus; the other, God’s inexplicably dreadful demand. Beyond that, they seem to have little in common. On closer look, if we read the omitted verses from Genesis, we see the connection, which is God’s love for us in Christ. Abraham saddles his donkey and takes his son Isaac on a three-day journey to a destination set ou ..read more

This Sunday at St. Columba, we will celebrate the first of three scrutinies with our catechumens — Tucker Pinochi and Elizabeth Chaponot. On the first Sunday of Lent, our catechumens were chosen for initiation at the Easter Vigil in the Rite of Election. In that rite, they became “elect” and began a 40-day period of intense spiritual preparation. The core of that preparation is the celebration of the three scrutinies on the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent. The church teaches that the purpose of the scrutinies is to “complete the conversion of the elect and deepen their resolve to hold ..read more

The First Sunday of Lent – February 18, 2024 Last we heard these readings, the world was one year into a global pandemic. For many of us, it felt like we had been stuck in an ark all year while everything outside sought to destroy us (remember murder hornets?). In the midst of that chaos that Sunday three years ago, I’m pretty sure many of us weren’t buying God’s covenant so persistently announced in today’s first reading. Nevertheless, that’s the beauty of a covenant, especially one by God. I don’t need to believe it, keep it, or even trust in it for God to be faithful to it. Neither I nor th ..read more