23rd Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

28 August 2025

 

The first reading is from the Book of Wisdom (9:13-18), which is not in the Hebrew Bible and is known to us only in Greek. It is generally only accepted as canonical by Catholics. It may well have originated in Egypt, a centre of intellectual excellence, and like other wisdom writings is attributed to Solomon, though it probably dates from the century just before Christ. Chapter 9 begins with a prayer for wisdom that elaborates on the prayer recorded in the First book of Kings which is more closely associated with Solomon himself. Our reading is the concluding summary of the second section of the poetic prayer. It indicates the tension between the body and the soul, reflecting the Greek understanding at that time of the human make-up which has since dominated church thinking particularly through Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century. The poem ends attributing wisdom to the very spirit of the Lord.

 

 

The second reading is from Paul’s personal letter to Philemon(9-17) and as such is a unique piece of writing in the New Testament. It is the third shortest book in the Bible and only has 317 words in it. At the time of writing Paul is an old man in prison for his work, but he refers to himself as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, for he is so bound to Him in his work and his life that it seems that he has no freedom. Paul has with him a helper, Onesimus, whom he has introduced to Christianity and whom he therefore calls his son. He is writing to Philemon who is another successful convert of his and leads the local church in his household. Onesimus had been a servant to Philemon and Paul offers to return him, and hopes that Philemon will treat him as a brother, a fellow Christian. Interestingly, Paul deliberately doesn’t ‘pull rank’ on Philemon, but asks him gently if there can be reconciliation. No-one is really in authority over another.

 

 

Today’s gospel reading (Luke 14:25-33) emphasises again the journey that Jesus is making towards His fulfillment in Jerusalem. The crowd is now a large number of people excited and attracted by many of Jesus’ words and especially by the cures that He has performed – it is all too optimistic and enthusiastic; but Jesus knew that He was heading for a confrontation in which He would not surrender his cause and mission, but would face the dire consequences. He tries to warn the crowd about this; those following him were not as committed to changing the world, but thought only of joy, success and even victory. The reports of what Jesus has to say show up the problems of translation. Matthew knew the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke and so the translation in his gospel captures what Jesus meant (Matthew 10:37); but Luke does what we would call a ‘Google translation,’ namely a literal and word for word one (“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother… ), not realising that the Aramaic could not express “loving less” except with a word which literally means ‘hating.’ We must follow Jesus before all else!

 

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

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.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

17 October 2025
The first reading is from a wisdom book ( Sirach 35:12-18 passim ). The prologue to it was written by someone in Egypt after 132 BC, who was translating into Greek a Hebrew book of his grandfather (whose name was Jesus). The book presented the thrust of the teachings of the Bible about the Law and the wise way to live. Manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew book itself have been found but it is not part of the Hebrew Old Testament. Despite the book’s enthusiasm for the Law, in our passage it speaks of a God who treats all people fairly; it quite poetically depicts God as particularly drawn to the poor, orphans and widows, like a Judge who responds quickly to prayers after judging what is asked for and what is right. The same thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the Psalm that follows this reading. In the second reading we have some words from the second letter to Timothy which seem to genuinely come from Paul himself. He is clearly at the end of his tether and near the end of his life. He speaks of the sacrifice of his life as a libation – a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. He uses his favourite metaphors for life – a race, a competition. Some of his friends seem to have abandoned him at the difficult times of his trial or when he was in prison. He is willing to forgive, and trusts that God will reward him with entry into the heavenly kingdom. It seems from the use of “we” in Luke’s book The Acts of the Apostles that Luke was often a close and loyal friend to Paul.
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