20th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

Jeff Bagnall • 15 August 2025

The first reading is verses taken from from Jeremiah . The man of this name was a prophet round about 600 BC, with a very difficult message to deliver but nonetheless a necessary truth. Because the people in general had abandoned their faith and were worshipping false gods, Jeremiah had to say that they would be punished and eventually this was to be their defeat and the capture of many of them and their exile in Babylon. Obviously people were not pleased with this message and Jeremiah was often threatened and sometimes even imprisoned, and all for just doing what God wanted of him – telling them of their forthcoming downfall. Today’s extract is about one such incident. It makes better sense to read from the beginning of the Chapter rather than the extract in the lectionary (verses 4-6 and 8-10), although then one encounters a number of names perhaps difficult to pronounce. The psalm that follows seems appropriate for Jeremiah’s plight.

The second reading from Hebrews ( 12:1-4 ) comes after last week’s reading which was about faith, with outlines of examples of Old Testament characters who showed great faith, thinking they realised what God’s will was and set out to make it real. In this week’s reading Jesus is held up as the paragon of faith in the life that He led, but climactically in the manner of His death. Like Jeremiah in the first reading, Jesus’ message may have been shocking to many people – we only have records of it from those who saw the positive side of it; but it must have come across as very disruptive and critical, particularly to the leaders of a society which focused on wealth, power and the externals of living out religion. So He is the prime example for us, the hero who encourages and thus enables us to live our lives of faith.

The gospel we have for today ( Luke 12:49-53 ) follows naturally the previous ones, because of the drastic situation that it talks about using the words fire and baptism to describe these experiences. It may relate to the recorded announcement by the Baptist that Jesus would bring a new baptism of Spirit and fire. The divisions that Jesus is said to foretell in this reading are serious splits within families and between generations; it is not something which we experience or at least not so extremely, as is predicted. For early Christians at the time Luke is writing (about 70 AD) being a Christian was often risky and caused family splits and opposition from one’s society; the words Luke uses here might be influenced by these experiences.

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

14 January 2026

The first reading comes from a section of Isaiah which nowadays we associate with Christmas. In Advent (the 4th Sunday of Advent, cycle A) we heard a prophecy of the birth of a young lady’s first child to be called Immanuel (‘God with us’). There are two other children in this section of the book; they have equally meaningful names: Maher Shalal Hash Baz (‘disaster will come upon many’) and She’ar Yashub (‘rescue for some’). All this precedes the section we read today; and after our reading comes the source of the well-known Christmas carol, “Unto us a son is born” (Isaiah 9:6). Our reading refers to Zebulun and Naphtali, which were tribal areas in the break-away northern kingdom. It is in these areas, we read, there have been difficulties but also glorious times (perhaps in the future). Because of the editing of the book of Isaiah over many centuries, it is uncertain what the historical reference is; it could be about 733 BC when the Assyrians invaded that land, but would eventually loose power, or it could be about the 6th century BC exile in Babylon and the eventual return. But for us today, it is clearly linked with the words of the gospel: there may have been darkness but now the light begins to shine!

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 8 January 2026

The Lord speaks to one of His spokesmen (such is a prophet), with a quite progressive message for the chosen people (for us); it announces that though they are chosen yet His purpose is to extend salvation to all peoples everywhere. This first reading is the second prophecy/poem about the Servant of the Lord, found in the part of the book of Isaiah put together during the Exile in Babylon. We have just a few of its verses read to us, but selected to make a very significant point: that the chosen servant is to be a light of the nations, so that salvation may reach to everyone – to the ends of the earth. We see this insight that struggled to develop throughout the history of the Jews before Christ, and still had difficulty being grasped in the early church – and perhaps in our church today. The universal love of God is now generally recognised in the teaching of various Christian denominations; but the practice of this love and of its implications is still a difficulty both for some sections of the church and for us individually. Imagine the situation of the Jews in Exile, hit by this message that God actually loves those enemies of theirs, and that they, being a light to the Gentiles, should show this love to them.