Fraternal love among Christians, but also love of all people for one another, without boundaries or reservations, is inseparable from friendship with God. Both loves are in fact one. For Christians, human relations have a religious content and express a religious relation. For sure, we can and must love God in himself. But we experience […]
In full collegiality, the apostles decided at the Council of Jerusalem that the Church is to be open to all without any distinction. All are saved in the same way: through Jesus Christ. God loves all people. That must have been a tremendous challenge for the Jews, to whom pagans were unclean and alien. Is
Implanted by baptism in Christ, the true vine, and therefore, by vocation and by our being Christians, we are called to be one in him. We often fall apart into factions because of our backgrounds in land and culture, regionalism and language differences, social origins and classes, and conservatives versus progressives. So it was in
In carrying out his mission of proclaiming the Gospel, Paul and Barnabas with him, is persecuted, stoned, driven from one place to another. He doesn’t give up; he continues founding local communities and giving them a basic structure of leadership, so that they can function on their own. He has even the courage to “put
In the first reading, Luke shows Paul working the same signs among pagans as Peter among the Jews (here the cure of a crippled person), and preaching the same message. In the Gospel, Christ speaks of God’s indwelling. In the Old Testament, God’s dwelling place was first the Tent and the Ark of the Covenant,
Greeting (See Second Reading) You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to praise God. May Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, be always with you. R/ And also with you. Introduction by the Celebrant Jesus Is the Way “Where are you going in life, or what are you
In their particularism, the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia wanted to monopolise salvation, perhaps allowing pagans to share in it later through them. For this reason, they reject Christ, his Gospel and his missionaries. But no particularistic group can monopolise Christ. He came as the light of the whole world. By coming among us, Christ
St. Athanasius (295-273), patriarch of Alexandria, was a bishop living in a time of great crisis for the Church just after the Roman persecutions. He defended the divinity of Christ against Arianism, which said that Christ was no more than a man. He suffered much for his faith. “The future of the Church will depend
To the people of Nazareth, Jesus was known as the son of a labourer, the son of the carpenter. Yes, God’s Son was born in a workman’s family, and like the young people of his time, presumably helping his father in the carpentry workshop. The readings of today also present human work as a cooperation
In the synagogue, Paul proclaims the risen Christ. That Christ is risen is not merely an important event of the past: it is, as Paul says, “a message of salvation meant for you. We have come here to tell you the Good News.” It is meant for us today. What is our task and the
