Adult Initiation & Sacrament Preparation

As we near the end of the Liturgical year the church takes a pause to focus on the most basic of questions:  “what’s all this for anyway?”  The simple answer is, eternal life… but to me that answer is kind of a cop-out, because life itself is rarely simple, especially when you consider that our lives our played out in the context of our environment.  For some people, that environment is so difficult that all hope can be lost.  It is out of that reality that divine justice is best understood:  That all will be made right in the end. The Word for the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Malachi 3:19-20a Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19 This week’s readings continue our topic of the afterlife, reminding us that God, the just judge, will make everything right in the end.  Those who do evil in this life will be destroyed, and those that are on the side of light will be saved.  , Starting with a short reading from the prophet Malach...

For these past weeks and months as we've been traveling through this long stretch of Ordinary Time, we've been following Jesus through Luke's Gospel as he began his ministry, traveled all around Galilee, and ultimately heading for Jerusalem.  As we wind down this season Jesus has finally made it to the city of Jerusalem, but we also see the forces of opposition are pushing hard to find fault in Jesus and his teachings... The Word for the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time         2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14         Psalm 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15         2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5         Luke 20:27-38 or Luke 20:27, 34-38 This week our readings focus on the afterlife.  We start with a story from 2 Maccabees, a book written about 100-150 years before Christ, which tells the story of a family being tortured and killed by their Greek Seleucid overlords....

The theme for this week is Justification… but what exactly does that mean?  According to Merriam-Webster, "justification" is “the act, process, or state of being justified by God”.  Looking more closely at the root word, “justify”, means “to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable.”  So it begs the question… what is right or reasonable by God?  How do we justify ourselves before the Lord?  Let’s see what our readings have to say… The Word for the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time        Wisdom 11:22-12:2         Psalm 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13, 14         2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2         Luke 19:1-10 Our first reading this week comes from the Book of Wisdom.  Similar in style and teaching to the Book of Sirach (which you may recall dates to about 150 BCE), the Book of Wisdom is newer (dating to about 50 BCE), and comes from ...