A Vincentian reading of the Sunday readings

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...

Jesus preaches the Good News to the poor and works miracles for those who are sick and hurting.  He is the Messiah Israel waits for.  Miracles, wonderful deeds, spectacular events, both attract and frighten most of us humans. So, it does not come as a surprise that...

Jesus obeys to the point of death on a cross.  He does so to lead us to God and to the beginnings in Eden and in the desert, and to make us all just, washed in the waters of new birth.  Jesus stays in the desert for forty days, which sends us back, in the first place,...

Jesus brings in the kingdom of God and his justice.  So, his anger blazes as he sees us looking out for just our own interests, not caring about those who are poor. A leper comes to Jesus, kneels down and begs him: “If you wish, you can make me clean.” The account...

Jesus has come so he may go around towns and villages and preach by words and by works, and as the Father shows him in prayer, the Good News.  Before he makes up his mind to go around all of Galilee, Jesus goes off alone to a forlorn place to pray.  He does so before...

Jesus, the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, makes him known. For us to see him, then, is to see the Father, which gives us reason to destroy our idols.  Jesus teaches in the synagogue of Capernaum. He amazes those who hear him, since he strikes them as one...

Jesus is the Good News of God in person. To take seriously this Good News means to have, for sure, life, bliss, salvation. There are those, of course, who do not take seriously Jesus’ proclamation that the kingdom of God has come. They say that if it were true, things...