24th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

5 September 2025

The first reading is one of the significant incidents in the tale of the exodus – the going out from slavery in Egypt towards the promised land. At this point in the story (Exodus 32:7-17) Moses has gone up the nearby mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God; but he had been away forty days and during this time the people had forgotten this unknown God of Moses and remembered the golden calf worshipped in Egypt: an abandonment of the true god who brought them out of slavery. The account describes this depravity in terms of the wrath of God. But most interestingly, Moses intercedes with God on their behalf and reminds Him of the promises made to Abraham and his descendants, and that these are the people due for this promise. This story was kept alive in the people’s tradition because it was a pattern of betrayal and return that was repeated in their lives as a race and as individuals, and the Psalm chosen to follow this reading indicates this.

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are called the Pastoral. They may well incorporate words from personal letters that Paul wrote, but study of the linguistic style indicates that they are from a different hand. They are nonetheless accepted as part of the New testament and give us some indication of Christian thinking in the late part of the first century. The extract we read today (1 Timothy 1:12-17)shows how the pattern of Paul’s life matched that of Israel in general; he was a Jew who opposed the Way of Jesus, but God loved him and brought him round to doing good and even playing an important part in the spread of Christianity. The passage includes a ‘trustworthy saying’ as do the other Pastoral letters, and ends with what is called a doxology – a paean of praise to the glory of God, to which the response is ‘Amen’ (‘hear,hear’).

The gospel (Chapter 15 of Luke) has parables told by Jesus in response to criticism by the Pharisees of His sympathetic contact with tax collectors and sinners, both groups who in one way or another were not observing the strict rules for Jewish life. The lost and found sheep and the parallel one about a coin are respectively about a man and a woman. Luke seems to have been sympathetic to women more than the other gospel writers. The point that these two stories make is about the pro-active relationship of God to the sinner – He goes out looking for them. In the light of the purpose of these in Luke’s gospel, the celebration of friends and neighbours when the lost is found, is very significant; why wont the Pharisees be glad about the work of Jesus? But these two parables are followed in Luke by the most well-known parable called the parable of the Prodigal Son, though if ‘prodigal’ means ‘generously lavish’ it is the father who has this generosity which represents God’s attitude to sinners. In the context of Pharisaic complaints about Jesus, the second part of the parable about the attitude of the elder son is quite significant; he doesn’t even acknowledge him as brother, but refers to him as ‘your son.’ This elder son has worked hard at home but has not really shown love to his father. The whole is a beautifully crafted and challenging story.

See Jeffs Jottings – Good News for us all

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

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 25 September 2025

This is the only time on Sundays that we have a reading from Habakkuk. He was a prophet perhaps around the 7 th century BC, when the people were troubled by the surrounding more powerful nations. Of the three chapters in the book, we have a few verses from each of the first two ( 1:2-3, 2:2-4 ). At first the prophet expresses the heartfelt cry of the people, “How long, O Lord” is all this going on; a feeling common among most peoples at some time or other throughout all periods of human history, especially where there is an idea of a caring deity of some kind. The phrase is also used often in the psalms . But in the verses from chapter 2 that are added into our reading, we hear that God does have a vision of the future – sometime – and so we must hang on and remain loyal because, as it ends, “the upright man lives by his faith;” and this phrase is taken up in St Paul’s way of thinking and in later Christian teaching, where the word ‘faith’ is not just ‘loyalty’ but trusting in Christ and in Christ’s way of selfless service of others. In 1947 an ancient commentary on this book was found in a cave in the Dead Sea area ( see the video ), it referred the troubles to the invasion of the Romans into their land,

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 18 September 2025

The first reading is from a section of the book of Amos ( 6:4-10 ); it is introduced with the opening words of the chapter: “alas for those who are at ease in Zion.” Strong words against the city dwellers come from Amos, the country fellow – words and woes against the northern kingdom of Israel. We hear the third and last woe against the excessive luxury in which they are living although their prosperity is declining visibly; they seem to live for the moment and care little of the future, even their own. They are, unusually, referred to as a group under the eponymous name of Joseph; this could be because of the account of Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream (Exodus 41) of seven years of plenty followed by seven of crop failure, and his wise management under the Pharaoh of storing up supplies for the future. The exile that will come will be the disaster that follows this decadence. In the second reading ( 1 Timothy 6:11-16 ) Timothy is addressed as a ‘man of God.’ Unlike the people of the first reading and in contrast to those addressed in this letter just before this section, Timothy is chosen and enabled by God to be a minister in the Christian community. Paul’s athletic imagery appears here also, saying “compete well,” that is, ‘run the race’ or ‘fight the good fight.’ The Christian at baptism made confession that “Jesus is Lord”, and Jesus made a similar confession before Pilate according to John’s gospel (18:37); Timothy was baptised but was also a leader in some way, and that meant not to be a covert Christian but to speak the truth even before accusers, as Jesus did before Pilate; the writer could be referring to either of these situations. The requirement to keep the commandments or ordinances is most likely not to the ten commandments of the Jewish religion but to the requirements of being a Christian or, more likely, the specific orders for acting as a minister. He must act as a servant of the King who will eventually appear, and he must be selfless in his work towards the kingdom of God. In today’s gospel reading from Luke ( 16:19-31 ) we have the parable often call that of Dives and Lazarus; but ‘dives’ is just the Latin word for rich man. In many ways the story is straightforward once we accept the different understanding of the afterlife that it portrays. However, whereas the rich man is anonymous, the beggar at his gate is named Lazarus. Luke is writing about 40 years after the resurrection of Jesus but still there are people who aren’t believers; and John’s gospel, uniquely, has the story of the raising of Lazarus which Luke’s readers may have known; but Luke’s point is not about accepting the truth of the resurrection, of Jesus or of Lazarus, because believing is more a way of living than accepting facts – of loving God and your neighbour as yourself, which the rich man in the parable didn’t do.