2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

Jeff Bagnall • 8 January 2026

The Lord speaks to one of His spokesmen (such is a prophet), with a quite progressive message for the chosen people (for us); it announces that though they are chosen yet His purpose is to extend salvation to all peoples everywhere. This first reading is the second prophecy/poem about the Servant of the Lord, found in the part of the book of Isaiah put together during the Exile in Babylon. We have just a few of its verses read to us, but selected to make a very significant point: that the chosen servant is to be a light of the nations, so that salvation may reach to everyone – to the ends of the earth. We see this insight that struggled to develop throughout the history of the Jews before Christ, and still had difficulty being grasped in the early church – and perhaps in our church today. The universal love of God is now generally recognised in the teaching of various Christian denominations; but the practice of this love and of its implications is still a difficulty both for some sections of the church and for us individually. Imagine the situation of the Jews in Exile, hit by this message that God actually loves those enemies of theirs, and that they, being a light to the Gentiles, should show this love to them.

About the year 52 AD Paul writes to the Church/congregations in Corinth where he had originally preached. Though he intends to address some awkward issues with them, he opens the letter positively to these people called by God and prays for them to have grace and peace. He had preached the good news to them two years previously and his message was accepted by some Jews and by some Gentiles too. We note that he names his authority as him being an apostle and calls his fellow worker, brother, as Christians used to address each other. Each cluster of Christian believers is called by him Church, the original meaning behind the word is ‘gathering,’ what today we might call a congregation. The members are made holy through Christ, but are called to be holy within the wider community of all who profess the same faith. If this is the challenge they face then they need the final prayer in Paul’s opening greeting: God send you grace and peace! This was just a private letter to the church in Corinth, but it was probably read in other churches as well and hence got preserved and eventually incorporated into the collection of sacred writings seen as the Word of God to all – our New Testament. So we might read these words as addressed to our congregation, challenging us to this demanding but practical holiness – holiness, a word we might well be hesitant about.

In his Gospel John clearly reminds readers of the Baptist’s own words about the superiority of Christ. We notice that the word ‘sin’ in the ‘Lamb of God’ saying is singular and so implying all sinfulness in the world, which will be overcome by Christ. So in the gospel we have part of the account of the encounter between John the Baptist and Jesus. There were some early believers who treated the Baptist as though he were more important than Jesus; after all he seemed much more charismatic, dramatic and confident, as well as gathering a lot of attention from all ranks of society. So in this fourth gospel there is emphasis on the inferiority of the Baptist to Jesus; his role was really just to recognise Jesus, to point him out to others and to help his followers to convert from their previous way of living. Jesus has already been baptised by John and is now being pointed out to the crowd. The passage includes the well-known sentence: ‘behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’. The Jews before the destruction of the Temple were used to the sacrifice of lambs, and the Passover was a special meal of lamb commemorating the escape from Egyptian slavery centuries earlier. The fourth gospel was finalised quite late in the first century and so this phrase may refer to the Last Supper (probably of lamb) which Jesus had with his disciples and which was re-enacted in some way at early Christian gatherings and still is to this day in our churches in a less realistic way – with just a little bread and a sip of wine. That Last Supper was a symbolic expression of Jesus’ whole life given for the good of others, for the whole of humanity; it was a life shortly to be completed, ending with the crucifixion.

See Jeff’s Jottings – Your calling

< Older Post Newer Post >

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

7th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 15 May 2026

Thursday is t he feast of the Ascension . It’s not that Jesus has left this world, but rather that He is everywhere and especially in all other human beings whom we meet! But now to Sunday’s readings —-

6th Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 8 May 2026

The first reading is from the point in Acts where Luke tells of the extension of Christianity beyond the confines of Judea and the limits of the Jewish religion. Christianity is spread by Philip, one of the ‘deacons’ appointed to help the Hellenists in Jerusalem (see last week’s first reading). He goes to the Samaritans, who had become separated from the Jewish faith when they intermarried with non-Jews centuries earlier, and who were despised by the Jews. We have mixed reports about them in the Gospels: Jesus sent the chosen twelve out saying “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans” (Matthew10:2-6); Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25ff); and in John’s Gospel (Chapter 4), Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman and many Samaritans come to believe in him through her testimony. Philip had been commissioned through the laying on of hands by the Apostles specifically to pastor the Hellenists in Jerusalem, but now we see him as a missionary (sometime translated as an evangelist – one who preaches the Good News) to the Samaritans. He is successful Luke tells us, because of his words and the miracles attributed to him; many of them are baptised; we recall that Peter had told the Jews, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38f). Peter’s words imply that baptism brings the gift of the Holy Spirit and is open to “whomever God will call.” But when the Apostles in Jerusalem hear of this they send Peter and John to lay their hands on the Samaritans for them to receive the Spirit. Behind this we might detect some edginess between the ‘mother’ church’s leaders and the successful evangelist, Philip, though it is not made explicit, for Luke when he was travelling with Paul stayed with Philip at his house in Caesarea (Acts 21:8-10). We learn from this reading about the growth of the Church both as a community of the Spirit and as an organised body (of Christ); the process will always be difficult and is still going on in the worldwide context of the Church to this day – we all play a part in this.