3rd Sunday of Easter - Year C - 2025

Jeff Bagnall • 23 April 2025

In the Acts of the Apostles ( Acts 5:27-41 passim), Luke tries to present to us his ideal vision of the church. He writes from a time when the number and placement of Christians has grown and spread into the wider world; a time when it has become distinguished from its roots in the Jewish religion and, through the initiative of Paul, opened up to the Gentiles. But he writes from this later standpoint about the beginnings of it all in the early days in such a way as to express and address his contemporary issues. So it seems awkward to us in our different situation and after centuries of developing thinking about the impact of Christ on everything. We now want to distance ourselves from any hint that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ; for we see the way humanity both in the centuries before and after Christ has fallen short of all that it should be and appears to thwart the creative intent of God. Notice that a section of what Luke wrote is left out of the lectionary reading; the missing verses tell of the wise conclusion that the Jews came to about this matter.

The second reading is from the Book of Revelation ( 5:11-14) (or as I explained last week, the Apocalypse). We saw in last week’s reading that the writer can produce a visionary description in a style of writing that is as unfamiliar to us as the cartoons and computer games of our days would be to him and his original recipients. Here he tries to picture the glory of heaven where Christ is now present after the success of His earthly life and, especially, death – the completion of His life’s work. From our standpoint it is a vision of the future that we expect to experience but it is a setting which we already key into at times – we become a remote part of this heavenly scene symbolically when we celebrate together in communion with the saints, but also when we live out the life of Christ by applying His attitude of loving care and forgiveness in the ordinary meetingswe havewith people daily. It is in these that we are amongst all the creatures and the thousands that worship in this scene of heavenly praise. However, the people that lived nearer than us to the time of Jesus had no difficulty with his humanity, but him being divine was all the more difficult to comprehend; so in this scene, there is no mention of the Holy Spirit, but rather an emphasis on Jesus being praised and worshipped as God.

The third reading is from chapter 21 of the fourth gospel ( John 21:1-19). Chapter 20 ended “All this has been written so that you may believe … and believing may have life;” that ends the original work, but then a final chapter was added. It has an account of Jesus meeting the disciples after a night’s unsuccessful fishing – have they not yet settled down to the task of founding a new community of the followers of Jesus? Yet they do have a large catch and the net isn’t broken, which may symbolize the growing community (and no one really knows the symbolism of the 153 fish for certain). The chapter also has the purpose of confirming the leadership position of Peter; he was the one that in the passion account denied having anything to do with Jesus – three times! Now, in a touching tale, the risen Jesus asks him three times, “Do you love me?” and Peter is able to counter his denials, saying at last, “Lord, you know everything, you know I love you!” In our present time, we notice the role of leadership in the church is meant to be one of feeding the followers.

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

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).

Feast of the Assumption - Year A

14 August 2026

There was much apocalyptic literature in the centuries before and after Christ – among the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and even Indian literature. This literature which is about the development in the world of disasters and troubles expressed in dramatic stories, included those of evil ‘influences’ seeking to destroy the next ruler born to a chosen woman to be mother of the future ruler. Some form of these apocalyptic stories were part of Jewish literature – as also the book of Revelation in the N.T. which used to be called the Apocalypse in Catholic bibles, because of its similarity to such literature. Our first reading (from Revelations 12:1-6 ) for the Catholic feast of the Assumption includes an adaptation of this mythic scenario to the situation of Christianity under Roman persecution in the 1st century to encourage believers in Jesus and his resurrection – a faith that secures them safety in heaven, but how the rest of us, still living in our world, are still threatened by evil. The story could bring to mind the Assumption of Mary into heaven – waiting with Christ for the rest of us after our struggles against the evil forces in our world. There are ‘secular’ stories of old about such sort of events.