5th Sunday of Lent - Year C - 2025

Jeff Bagnall • 25 March 2025

The first reading from Isaiah chapter 43 speaks to a people being brought home by their powerful God; this despite their many faults and failings. Yahweh is the name He uses of himself, but also announces himself as their redeemer and saviour as well as their original creator who formed them into a people. No god could be imagined as great as Him who can bring his own through all manner of difficulties. They need have no fear now but can sing His praises. The whole chapter is worth reading to get the full force of this message and there we have the words of a well-known hymn “ Do not be afraid " which expresses these sentiments for us today.

In the second reading , Paul reminds the Philippians that he himself was once a Jew who, like the Pharisees and all devout Jews, aimed to win God’s favour by keeping all the precepts of the Law and, like them too, failing in the attempt. But he adds that he has put that aside now, lost this burden of trying to keep the rules because he has found a new insight into God through his encounter with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. He knows that righteousness (being in a good relationship with God) must come from God not from the human recipients of His love. But what he is trying to do, is to imitate the sort of life Christ lived; a life devoted to God to the very end; but this is an ongoing enterprise that he has to pursue through whatever difficulties of life – it’s all well worth it. He is most likely saying all this because there are some in the church in Philippi who have a more Pharisaic approach to their religion and perhaps want to impose it on others.

The Gospel is from John but is not unlike the sort of accounts that Luke writes. It is the well-known story of the woman taken in adultery. It develops the theme from the second reading, about the inadequacy of the Law to gain righteousness, and the priority of God’s love and forgiveness. In that place and time it is the woman that is to blame for the adultery – nothing is said about the man involved. Jesus, with the love of God for all, says that the one who has no sin can cast the first stone towards her execution by stoning; but notice that Jesus is the only one there who has no sin, yet it is He who shows forgiveness towards her – He is the one who shows us what God is like, as we try to see what He is like and what He wants of us.

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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.