A Vincentian reading of the Sunday readings

Jesus is the true vine.  He gives the branches that remain in him the sap that gives them life and strength and makes them bear plenty of fruit. Jesus uses the allegory of the vine and the branches. He does so since he wants to make clear how his disciples should...

Jesus is Ruler and Savior, Lord and Messiah.  Yet he lords over no one; he serves and is the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. A ruler among Jesus’ own should not at all be like a ruler among the Gentiles. The latter lords it over others. The former, on...

The one who has risen is the same Jesus of Nazareth that the disciples have known, loved and followed on the roads of Galilee.  To be his witness means to see to it that other folks catch the Good News.  Those who make up a group can easily catch each other’s fears or...

Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  To believe in him means to know how to read, to grasp, his many signs in our midst.  We read, as we come to the end of today’s gospel, “Jesus did many other signs.”  So then, we can take it that his rising from the dead is one of...

Christ is risen!  This goes to show that to go from here to there to preach the Good News to the poor, to cure the sick and to set free the oppressed, to love, is to please God. God anoints Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit. And he, then, goes about to do good...

Jesus, in life and in death, is one with those who are poor, who have no power, whom others cast out. Hence, we cannot but deny him if we turn our backs on them. We read that many give false witness against Jesus before the Sanhedrin but that they do not agree in what...

Jesus loves others to the end, to being lifted up on the cross. His death proves true that the grain of wheat that dies cannot but bear much fruit. Those who die with him bear much fruit also.  Most of us, if not all, want to bear much fruit, to succeed as best as we...

Those in power lift up Jesus on the wood of the cross.  In letting them do so, he proves true his word that God so loves the world that he gives his only Son, so that those who believe in him may have eternal life.  The Lord tells Moses to lift up on a pole a serpent...

Jesus shows us how to adore the Father in Spirit and truth. To learn from him, then, means to keep the true religion.  At Sinai, God tells the Israelites that they are not to adore other gods. Yet they later adore a molten calf. And they hail it as Israel’s god that...