What we have come to call “The Old Testament”, the first part of the Bible for Christians, is believed to have begun to be put into writing during Israel’s captivity in Babylon, in the 6th century before Christ. This would make sense for several reasons: – The first reason is that it wasn’t the masses…

“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy* slow to anger and of great kindness” (Psalm 103: 8) I love it that we start our Lenten journey with this passage of the psalm that reminds us that our God is a loving, forgiving God. Psalms are these songs of Ancient Israel that the people used…

Today we celebrate the Last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, and it is also an important time of transition. Last week, during our class, we talked about the different seasons of the church, what they mean in terms of rhythms and rites, but also, and mainly, in terms of spirituality, and how these seasons…

If you remember from last week, I told you that today, as we work our way through the Sermon of the Mount, we will talk more about what the Law means for Jesus and how he invites his disciples to obey it. In the meantime though, I had a very good question that I would…

This week we continue to hear from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. The passage we have today follows right after the Beatitudes we have talked about last week, and next week we will continue reading from what follows right after this text. Now the lectionary tries to present us with Gospel lessons…

“Whenever we hear the beatitudes, we are struck with their poetic beauty and, at the same time, overwhelmed by their perceived impracticality for the world in which we live“. I thought that this commentary I read this week about the Gospel we have just heard (called “The Beatitudes”) captures very well how we may feel…

This week again the Gospel tells us about the call of the first disciples. Last week we heard John’s version, this week we hear from Matthew’s, and if you remember we have already highlighted some differences in the way the two evangelists understand Jesus’s call: Matthew is focused on the building of the church and…

Today we hear from John’s Gospel. You probably already know that there is not a year fully dedicated to John’s Gospel in our lectionary. Over a cycle of three years, we read from Matthew’s (Year A, where we are since Advent), Mark’s Gospel on year B and then Luke’s Gospel on year C. And then,…

A Meditation to read at home for Epiphany We have noticed that during Christmas time, we read either from Luke’s or Matthew’s Gospels because they are the only evangelists who wrote about Jesus’s childhood. And we have also noticed that the two accounts do not overlap: Luke’s focuses on Mary’s story, while Matthew tells us…

We had a question last week about the origin of the “Christian Christmas”, and I said I would look it up! According to my sources, it seems that the birth of Jesus started to be celebrated in the 3rd century on the day of the pagan feast of the “Birth of the unconquered sun”. It…