Adult Initiation & Sacrament Preparation

On this second Sunday of Lent we continue our journey through Salvation History, focusing on those people and their lives who revealed God’s loving and saving grace.  Lent is also a time to prepare for or remember our baptism, so with that in mind, let us turn to our readings: The Word for the 2nd Sunday of Lent Genesis 12:1-4a Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22 2 Timothy 1:8b-10 Matthew 17:1-9 We open with a story from the book of Genesis where we are introduced to the first great patriarch, Abraham.  Of course, he hasn’t yet received this new name.  At this point in the story, he is introduced as  Abram, son of Terah, and is called by God to go forth from his land and from his relatives to a land that God will show him.  All this with the promise that the Lord will make of him a great nation.  God is essentially asking Abram to give up everything based on a promise of great blessings.  This reflects a great deal of trust that Abram must have in God’s promis...

When you think of the season of Lent, what do you think of?  When you ask most Catholics, they will usually say that it’s a season where we’re supposed give something up.  Others may say that it is for prayer and for giving alms.  These are all right, of course, but not entirely.  According to  The Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy promulgated from the Second Vatican Council, “The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God and devote themselves to prayer, to celebrate the paschal mystery.”   While those who are preparing for Baptism use this season of Lent as a period of “Purification and Enlightenment,” all of us Catholics are called to remember our own Baptisms as a primary focus for Lent in addition to penance.  With that emphasis in mind, let us see how baptism plays into our readings for this first week of Lent: The Wor...

Right is right, and wrong is wrong.  But is the world really that black and white?  While some might argue that it is just that simple, our Catholic tradition recognizes that it is not.  The extremes of darkness and light are easy to see, but much of our everyday life operates somewhere in-between.  The time we spend studying scripture and Church tradition are not so much to point out the obvious light and dark, but in learning how to “navigate the gray areas” of our lives.  Put another way, finding the right balance between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.  On the surface, our Gospel this week takes a fairly strong, even harsh line with regard to the Law, but to view this passage literally is to miss the deeper meaning that Jesus is trying to teach: The Word for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time Sirach 15:15-20 Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 Matthew 5:17-37 or Matthew 5:20-22a, 27-28, 33-34a, 37 Our first reading comes ...

We Catholics sometimes have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be.  Take for instance our use of certain words, like catechesis or liturgy to describe certain regular activities of Catholic life (to teach and to pray).  Their meaning gets lost because they’re just not part of most people’s everyday lives.  Take for example the phrase Social Justice.  Within Catholic leadership circles this has certain meaning for a wide array of Church activity, but if you were to ask the rest of us what “Catholic social justice” means, you might be hard pressed to explain.  Perhaps this Sunday’s readings can help: The Word for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time Isaiah 58:7-10 Psalm 112:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Matthew 5:13-16 Our first reading comes from later Isaiah, where we are reminded of what it is that God really wants to see of his people.  Not festivals but works of mercy.  This passage comes from a period after the Exile – the ...