6th Sunday of Easter - Year C

Jeff Bagnall • 13 May 2025

In the first reading ( Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 ) we hear of an important development in the early Church. Jesus was a Jew, it was the God that the Jews believed in Who was the God of Jesus, and He and His Father were equally God. It was this God who chose the Jews and gave them certain guidelines by which to live and to distinguish themselves; among other things the men were to be circumcised. But now, with the preaching of Paul and Barnabas, many non-Jews had come to believe in Jesus and join His followers. It seemed to most Jews that if Gentiles accepted their God, then the they should accept His requirements, including circumcision. But this was not the view of Paul who had come to see following Jesus as a radically new phase in God’s plan of salvation – salvation for all. It was because of the great increase in the number of Gentile converts that the issue became urgent and was taken to the centre for Christianity at the time in Jerusalem. The reading omits verses 3-21 where Luke tells us how the matter was considered. The reading we have takes up again with the letter that was sent accompanied by delegates to confirm the message – circumcision was not required of male Gentile converts. This gives us a hint of how Luke saw the development of centralized authority in the early Church.

The second reading as last week is from the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse ( 21:10-14, 22f ). It is a further description of the glorious completion of God’s creation in heaven; some verses which elaborate on the description are omitted from our reading. It is a vision of a place somewhat in terms of the city of Jerusalem, which was a recognised symbol of God’s chosen people considered as a whole community; but this is the ideal, the heavenly Jerusalem. It is seen as the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, the heavenly gathering of the twelve tribes. But it is renewed since the work of Christ through his apostles who are spoken of as the foundations of this new Jerusalem. It is a city that has entrances in all directions throughout the world; the six verses that follow our reading indicate its openness to all nations. It is a city of light, a further symbolic word for all that is open and wonderful; it is a city with no need for a special temple where God may be found, a city suffused with God’s presence. The whole description is a vision of what this world in which we live today is in process of becoming.

The gospel of John is a well-developed exposition of the life and death of Jesus and consequently often has a depth that we cannot easily plumb. But this passage ( 14:23-29 ) chosen for the reading today is perhaps meaningful to us for two reasons. Because of the celebration this week of the feast of the Ascension and also because in two weeks’ time we celebrate Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. In the reading Jesus tells his disciples that he will be leaving them and they will no more have Him to teach them in the way that he has up to now. But the Holy Spirit will come to them once he has gone; they will be supported in their work as disciples by this Advocate who speaks now for Jesus just as Jesus spoke the words of the Father. Those who live by these words will be loved by God. The passage also is copied in the prayers used just before the Peace in our Sunday service ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.’ The common Hebrew word 'shalom’ for peace has also the rich and deep meaning of fulfilment and completeness.

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

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.

25th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 11 September 2025

The Sunday readings only use the prophet Amos three times; this and next Sunday are two of those. Amos was a country man used to living a simple life: a herdsman tending sycamore trees. Somehow he came to be a prophet of God in the city of Bethel, though he wouldn’t claim the title of prophet and was different from most of them. Such a man coming from the country to the big and prosperous city just had to speak what he thought in order to deliver a ‘scolding’ from the Lord, for the hiking of prices, lowering of measures and fixing of scales (Amos 8:4-7). His natural reactions to the corruption that he saw is described as visions from God, and they are nearly always expressed with an impressive literary style: matching couplets and triplets. Yet it is the language of wrath and condemnation, though elsewhere Amos does tell of a remnant few who will be spared and at the end of the book there is a very positive prophecy though this ‘epilogue’ may have been added later to end on an upbeat note of hopefulness.