The Holy Family - Year B

Jeff Bagnall • 30 December 2023

The first reading from Genesis tells us something about the relationship between Abraham and God. The reading is made up of two separate parts of this story ( from chapters 15 and 21) ; you notice that in the first part he is called Abram, meaning great father, and in the second part, Abraham, father of many. Names and name changes were quite significant in that culture; also the inheritance of position and dignity went from father to son, and if there was no son to any of his wives then it went through one of the maidservants’ sons used by the father. Although Abram is childless, God promises that he will have many descendants. Part of the story omitted is where God promises that Abram will have a son by his wife, Sarah, although she appears to be too old – she actually laughed at the thought. But God’s plans come to be, and Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah; God can bring about what seems to us to be impossible, but co-operating with Him will achieve remarkable results.

From the Letter to the Hebrews,( see here scroll down ) the second reading tells us something about faith. The writer believes that “to have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 GNB) – to believe in what seems impossible. He illustrates this with reference to various Old Testament characters, like Abel and Noah (whose story of the flood you will be aware of), but he is most interested in Abraham, the great ancestor of the chosen people. We hear reference to that most alarming account of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as a human offering, of Abraham going ahead with this until at the last moment an angel stops the process and offers a ram instead (see Genesis 22 ). While the writer of Hebrews takes this as an example of faith, the gospel writers might well have some of the story in mind when they tell of the Son of God, led up a hill and sacrificed on the wood of the cross. The way stories are developed and used to make a different point, it may well be that this was preserved to illustrate that God does not want human sacrifice (see Deuteronomy 12:31 ) which some of the neighbouring tribes practised and the Israelites might have been tempted to do. But this second reading for us is about accepting what God wants of us and going ahead boldly to do it.

In the gospel (Luke 2:22-40 ), we read how the parents of Jesus take him at the appropriate time to the temple to be dedicated to God. Notice that this service of presentation and dedication fulfills the Jewish law and at the time of the writing of this story the Christians believe that it is Jesus Who fulfills the Law and that in Him the glory of God is revealed. The words of Simeon are significant for us, as they were for Mary. He is a character between the Old and the New testaments and his words resound with allusions ( see here ) to the events and words of the prophets in the Jewish Scriptures especially; but they might also be applied to the Christian era when he addresses Mary directly. She too is a character at the junction of the old and the new eras; Simeon refers to the troubles and the blessings in the long history of his people as well as to the sorrow in the life of Mary, but also, perhaps, to the conversion of individuals to Christianity by Baptism as they sink into the water to die to the old self and rise out of it into new life with Jesus dying and rising. But we need to experience this pattern in our own lives and as we try to live more and more as Christians should, we will have our own falls and uplifts.

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

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025

The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

17 October 2025

The first reading is from a wisdom book ( Sirach 35:12-18 passim ). The prologue to it was written by someone in Egypt after 132 BC, who was translating into Greek a Hebrew book of his grandfather (whose name was Jesus). The book presented the thrust of the teachings of the Bible about the Law and the wise way to live. Manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew book itself have been found but it is not part of the Hebrew Old Testament. Despite the book’s enthusiasm for the Law, in our passage it speaks of a God who treats all people fairly; it quite poetically depicts God as particularly drawn to the poor, orphans and widows, like a Judge who responds quickly to prayers after judging what is asked for and what is right. The same thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the Psalm that follows this reading. In the second reading we have some words from the second letter to Timothy which seem to genuinely come from Paul himself. He is clearly at the end of his tether and near the end of his life. He speaks of the sacrifice of his life as a libation – a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. He uses his favourite metaphors for life – a race, a competition. Some of his friends seem to have abandoned him at the difficult times of his trial or when he was in prison. He is willing to forgive, and trusts that God will reward him with entry into the heavenly kingdom. It seems from the use of “we” in Luke’s book The Acts of the Apostles that Luke was often a close and loyal friend to Paul.