2nd Sunday of Lent - Year C - 2025

Jeff Bagnall • 7 March 2025

Previously in chapter 12 of Genesis we read that God spoke to Abram and told him to uproot and go to where God would lead him, and that his descendants would be many, although his wife was barren. Today ( Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18) we have a second encounter between God and Abram, who is now in the land between the Euphrates river and the Mediterranean sea. God says that he will have his own offspring and the descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky; and this promise is sealed with what is thought to have been a traditional covenant ceremony usually symbolising that both parties stake their lives and their relationship together, but here it is a unilateral promise from God Who alone passes between the carcasses. These stories in Genesis are recorded after many decades of verbal transmission and inevitably after adaptation to different situations and developments in belief, but they are held as part of the Sacred Scriptures of the Jewish people – and now part of the Christian Bible.

We read from Paul’s letter to the Philippians on the second of Advent last year where there is some background information about this letter. In this extract Paul seems to be addressing the problem that some of the Christians there, were acting as though what they did in their material existence on earth had no impact on their spiritual lives. So Paul wants to stress the reality of the Christ’s embodiment on earth and even his death on the cross – Paul himself is suffering confinement in prison as he writes, but he believes in the value of the physical because of the glorified body which we will have after death. He has a hope in seeing his Saviour soon; we do not know whether this is referring to his own death or to the climax and End of the world. Though he has to correct them, he still expresses his love for this mainly Gentile community of Christians that started in the house of Lydia.

The Gospel is the story of the transfiguration ( Luke 9:28-36), which links well with the second reading from Philippians. A few verses before our reading Jesus has spoken about the true attitude to have to life this side of eternity: “What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?” Older translations use the word ‘soul’ but this misrepresents the meaning in our times when many think of a person as divided into body and soul, whereas in Jesus’ culture, the word referred to the whole self – its true value. These verses are suitably followed by a vision of Jesus in the after-life, where the body is glorified and the person will be in the company of all. In the stories about Moses, the end comes with him just disappearing from the scene, and as for Elijah the prophet, the story goes that he was whisked away to heaven in a chariot. The disciples are quite lost as to what to say or do, but the lesson in the context of today’s readings, is in some way about the grandeur of the human person (body and soul).

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

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 27 August 2026

It's not so long ago that we were reading of Elijah wanting to die because of his failure to inspire the people and because of a death-threat against him. Jeremiah was in a worse situation in Judah around the 7th century BC. In that land, regard for Yahweh and the Covenant was almost entirely abandoned, and God urged Jeremiah to preach about the inevitable political demise and eventual national disaster. He had a respite from his work for a short time during the reign of Josiah; for this king tried to reintroduce the recognition of the Law of God as found written in what we now see as the early books of the bible, especially Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But this reform soon failed, and idolatry and fertility cults regained popularity. Despite extreme reluctance, Jeremiah began the work of his calling, which was to bring him general disfavour, occasional imprisonment or confinement and continued unpopularity. There was some upbeat aspects to his message at times, particularly the one about God wanting to set up a new covenant within the hearts of the people. He suffered a tormenting turmoil in his own life; it resulted both from his natural abhorrence of preaching against his own people and from the deep and inescapable inner compulsion to undertake the vocation given him by God – announcing the people's downfall. Doing God’s will is not always an obviously good thing! Our reading is his outcry at this personal conflict within him.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 19 August 2026

During the time of the prophet Isaiah, the kingdom of Judah was threatened by the Assyrian empire from the east. Isaiah had recommended trusting in God to save the people and God would be with them. But the king and leaders didn’t see it this way, they felt they would loose, and forfeit their privileged positions, if not their lives. They made some sort of a pact with the emperor of Assyria so that Jerusalem was spared, although the rest of the country was invaded. So Isaiah, as we read today , reprimand Shebna the royal steward, and announced a replacement, who will be the leader to make decisions in the future; he will have the symbols of office, the sash, the robe, the key to the ordering of the country’s affairs, and will keep them safe like the peg for a tent. This passage seems to be in the mind of Matthew when he writes of Peter receiving the leadership office in our gospel reading. But the historical events behind it challenge us severely in our relationship with our world and with God, just as the sermon on the mount in the New Testament does: if anyone wants your shirt give them your coat as well, if anyone strikes you turn the other cheek, love you enemies… (see Matthew 5:38-48).