The Good Word

Second Sunday of Advent Year C The entrance antiphon and gospel specifically and the first reading and response more allusively speak of God rsquo s role to ldquo save rdquo give ldquo salvation rdquo to Israel believers perhaps all humans and even creation Now is a good time to ask exact

I love the Christmas season even if prior to becoming a Catholic I tried to invent it myself nbsp Admittedly it was an inchoate creation based upon buying little treats each week which I would hide away in preparation for Christmas day These were not mind you gifts for family members just

It does not seem proper to leave the Good Word alone on Thanksgiving particularly with the last post clinging to the top of the list I have meant to post earlier but the end of semester and the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in New Orleans gobbled up my time Thanks so much for reading

I took a course on law in high school In a mock trial I was haranguing a witness and I can still remember my teacher blurting out John you rsquo re flogging a dead horse I thought I might be flogging a dead horse with my first entry on the Conservative Bible Project CBP but I think there

I have a feeling that this week rsquo s readings were not geared to the Hollywood release date of 2012 but it works out well for those with apocalypse on the mind The first reading from Daniel 12 1-3 and the second reading from Mark 13 24-32 a chapter known to scholars as the little apocalyps

I am not privy to the ways of the lectionary either ancient or modern and sometimes I see the connections clearly between the readings and sometimes I do not I had a hard time making sense of how Hebrews 9 24-28 fits with the other readings for the Thirty Second Sunday and the responsorial Psalm

Mary Chilton Callaway a perceptive and profound commentator on the Jewish Scriptures and their vast matrix literature says that our understandings and interpretations of biblical passage are often more influenced by how others have read them than by the texts themselves nbsp By ldquo other read

The first reading for the Solemnity of All Saints is Revelation 7 2-4 9-14 what has been omitted from this reading verses 5-8 is simply the listing of the 12 tribes of Israel by name and the numeration of the 12 000 called from each tribe The reading as it appears in the lectionary begins with

No my title for this post is a good one and fair Michael Sean Winters writing at the In All Things blog has drawn readers rsquo attention to the Conservative Bible Project CBP The project is perhaps worse than he suggests The CBP first came to my attention through an e-mail sent by my co

Apocalypses have always been fascinating to decipher which is one of their attractions over the centuries Dense symbolism angelic mediators cryptic numerical references kingdoms which are presented as animals all presented as emerging in many instances from the hoary past pull the reader int