7th Sunday of Easter Year B

Jeff Bagnall • 29 April 2024

The first reading is from Acts ( 1: 15-26 passim ). It is just after the account of the Ascension, which we still celebrate as a feast; it reminds us that though God is still with us in all that we do (except sin) yet He wants us to make our own decisions about the details because He wants us to be friends not blind automatons controlled by Him. So the disciples have to get on with the practicalities of life. They are all Jews and they think that being a follower of Jesus is a renewed way of living as a Jew; so just as there were twelve tribes of Jews according to the Bible, they want to have twelve leaders to help with the organisation of the growing numbers of followers of the Way of Jesus; and the gospels that list the disciples give a list of twelve men. As they consider the replacement of Judas Iscariot they look in their Bible (which Christians now call the Old Testament) and seek there for support for their planned action. They set about to arrange this replacement in the very down-to-earth way of voting, but believe that the Spirit is with them in the doing of this. God leaves us to make our own decisions in our particular circumstances and we should consider prayerfully in the light of our Bible and our beliefs what we should be doing in our lives and in day to day activities.

In the second reading , we once more read of the great love of God for and in us, and the love we must have of others in our world. The reason why this letter repeatedly stresses these points lies in the situation of the church that is being addressed at that time. Some of the people are so caught up with their personal form of holiness that they think this world is all wicked and consequently God didn’t really become one of us, but just appeared to be human in the man Jesus. But the Christian message is that this world here and now is holy. Not only is it being created every moment by God, but also humanity is joined intimately with God through Jesus who is both human and divine. But this perfect creative activity of God is in process: it is ongoing and it depends on us – God in some way depends on us! This is because He truly loves us and love never over-rides or forces the decisions of those loved. The world is in the process of gradually becoming what it will; Jesus illustrated in His life, right up to death, how to return God’s love by loving his world – all the people in it – even if that leads to difficulties and death. What an example He has given us, what a challenge we face! But God gives us the strength.

The gospel is part of a whole section from the gospel according to John, comprising long speeches and prayers attributed to Jesus, made after the last supper and before His arrest in Gethsemane. It is thought that different amounts of these were read in the early Christian churches using this gospel, according to the timing of Easter, which then as now, could be early or late according to the lunar calendar. The prayer in this section is for God to protect the followers of Jesus, because it is not easy to live both in the here and now and with the life of God above and in eternity. When this refers to the difficulties of life here, which Jesus had experienced and his followers will now begin to realise, the writer calls this aspect of life here as being in the world: the word ‘world’ here means its failings, short-comings and even at times the opposition to the ideal for God’s work of creation. God Himself and His planned accomplishment is holy; Jesus as one of us is coming to His place but the followers are still on the way. To be consecrated is to be united into this holiness; it is a task for the followers of Jesus – for us – for which Jesus here prays

See Jeff's Jottings on the Ascension.

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

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

4 November 2025

The first reading is from the last section of the book of Malachi. In the Hebrew this is Chapter 3, but in the Greek version it is Chapter 4. Cyrus, the king of Persia who became the ruler of Babylon in the 6th century BC, had high ideals for society and a policy of returning deportees back to their homelands. We know of this from the Cyrus cylinder which was discovered in 1869 in the ruins of the city of Babylon and is in the British Museum. In the Bible, the book of Isaiah the prophet interpreted this return to their own land as brought about by their God through Cyrus. But those who returned were not all as good living as they should be and so, in the book of Malachi, we hear today of God’s punishment upon them, but for those who are good or repent, God will come “with healing in his wings.”

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025

The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.