1st Sunday of Lent - Year C

Jeff Bagnall • 25 February 2025

The first reading ( Deuteronomy 26:4-10 ) is about the Jewish spring festival of Unleavened Bread (Matzah), quoting the creedal statement about the past dealings of God with themselves, His people. Their Aramean ancestor was Abram the progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel; their crop failures took them down to the well-stocked Egypt where Joseph already was; but there they became slaves and only escaped under the leadership of Moses with God’s help. Wandering in the desert they were not too pleased with their God nor He with them, but after a generation (40 years), God brought them into their present (Promised) land. It was here that they could celebrate the first fruits of the harvest again. Their creed about God was not a list of doctrines, but rather about God’s treatment of them over time – His care for His people.

Paul’s letter to the Romans begins with him saying how he loves the Jews, but how they have strayed from their original creed and now seek to gain righteousness by keeping the Law (and lots of other rules); he says: “But now the Law has come to an end with Christ, and everyone who has faith may be justified.” The passage read today ( chapter 10: 8-13 ) follows this; it is about the right relationship that we should have with God, that it comes from God, is not earned by any effort of ours and that it leads to our salvation when we die; it is by faith that we trust in God and his goodness to us. Although Paul quotes the book of Deuteronomy (30:14) he stretches its original meaning, and also when he later quotes Isaiah (28:16); but he finds what he believes about the universality of God’s love in Joel ( 2:32 ).

The Gospel is Luke’s account of the temptations of Jesus ( Luke 4:1-13 ). He has been baptised where a heavenly voice declared him Son of God, but what does this mean and how will it work out – that is where the temptations come in. Will He use His power to satisfy the various hungers of human beings (for easy sustenance, life and prosperity), or will He submit to any evil in order to become the King of kings (ruler of all the nations), or, finally, will He use His protection from God to win people with superficial, miraculous powers? Luke treats the public work of Jesus as a journey towards Jerusalem (and all that happened there), and so he differs from the order of the temptations in Matthew’s gospel to have Jerusalem as the last one and also he implies that Jesus will get tempted further during the rest of His life.

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

Feast of Saint Peter and Paul - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 24 June 2026
In the Acts 12:1-11 Luke is writing the remarkable account of the expansion of Christianity and the development of the church; and this is despite external opposition, even persecution, and their leaders’ inadequacies and failings. The story is built around the two different characters in the early church of Peter and Paul. Whereas Peter was a headstrong, simple Galilean Jewish fisherman who followed Jesus throughout His public ministry, Paul was a well educated Jew and Roman citizen living outside of the Jewish territory, who after a special encounter with Jesus turned from antagonism to Christians to become an apostle of Christianity to the Gentiles. The phrase “in those days” at the beginning of today’s reading, alludes to the time when the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and the surrounding area expanded and even included followers of Jesus’ Way who were not Jews – they were Samaritans or even Gentiles. It was this expansion that began to cause disturbances in Jerusalem. Herod, the local ruler, wanted to keep the peace in order to retain favour within the Roman empire, and so began to arrest the Jewish Christian leaders who were the source of the trouble. So our reading concerns the imprisonment of Peter; it was during the feast of unleavened Bread – a sacred time in Jerusalem – so he would be executed after the Passover, as James had been earlier. The story of his escape was passed down by word of mouth and that is what is related here by Luke. This is a good story illustrating how faith can lead us into difficulties and yet God can save us.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 16 June 2026
The first reading from the Book of Jeremiah displays a common pattern in the experiences of all humans when they are intending to do their best and what they think is right. In this 7 th century BC this prophet really feels the call from God to try to bring the people – all people – back into a good relationship with a loving God and to preach with severity and reproach against the poor behaviour of his people. It seems almost natural that they oppose him more and more as he upbraids them – and Jeremiah had a really tough time. But he earnestly wants to believe that God will see him alright in the end, will put his accuses to shame; he has faith yet it is shot through with human weakness for he hopes and expects that God will ‘get His own back’ on these miscreants … Jeremiah hopes for revenge! The best of us will still get things wrong about God and His ways.
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