The Good Word

The relationship of Jesus to the Torah the Law of Moses is a decidedly complex issue in general In the case of specifics such as the kosher or dietary laws it can be just as complex The Gospel reading for the Memorial of Saint Scholastica virgin February 10 Mark 7 14-23 is indeed complex

The Gospel reading for the Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Mark 7 1-13 nbsp raises the issue of tradition the theme of my last post on 1 Corinthians 15 1-13 but in this context it is raised in terms of condemnation At least a superficial or initial reading points to condemnation of

You must sing the title as in Fiddler on the Roof Go back and try it if you did not this blog post will improve greatly with the sound of the song ringing in your ears Paul s beautiful demonstration of the reality of Christ rsquo s resurrection is based on the tradition of the early Church of w

This Sunday we have the second half of a story Luke means to introduce in a schematical way the entire rest of his Gospel nbsp Jesus had explained the purpose of his Baptism to announce a year which signaled God s good will a year of nbsp beginning a new covenant of divine union with God s peopl

We are coming to the end of our course ldquo The Cradle of Early Christianity rdquo after time spent journeying from Athens to Thessalonica to Philippi to Pergamum modern Bergama nbsp Smyrna modern Izmir Ephesus and Constantinople Istanbul nbsp We have surveyed the ruins of numero

In Chapter 3 Luke presented a traditional story about what occurred around the time of Jesus baptism this story in the main agrees with what we read nbsp Matthew and Mark nbsp But it is Luke who returns for a moment to that coming of the Spirit upon Jesus in order to explain a purpose for tha

I have been musing about what it means to be beginning Ordinary Time for 2010 In one sense the term has a simple liturgical meaning Ordinary Time begins on the Monday after the Second nbsp Sunday of the Year The Baptism of the Lord There is paradoxically no first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Certainly the changing of water into wine is an astounding accomplishment its being the first miracle story told by John nbsp about the public life of Jesus shows its ability to make clear the identity of Jesus nbsp It was the first of Jesus signs and the disciples believed in him nbsp Bu

The strange thing about studying early Christianity in Turkey is that there are not a lot of Christians left in Turkey the lands that were home to so much of the earliest growth and development of Christianity and the location of all seven of the first Ecumenical Councils As we discuss how Christi

For reasons having to do with airline flights we trace the Apostle Paul s journey through Greece backwards at least Paul s first journey through Greece described in Acts which is often titled The Second Missionary Journey Acording to Acts 17 1-15 and 1 Thessalonians itself Paul was persecute