From Religious Traditions to Religious Spirituality Some of the recent, popular books in the study of religion include, Why God Won’t Go Away?, God is Back, and A New Religious America. What these books suggest is that secularism as a social phenomenon is on the decline. Perhaps human beings are growing out of their adolescent
Year B – Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
You have the message of eternal life, and we believe! (Jn 6:69) With today’s gospel reading we conclude the five weeks of reflection on the Bread of Life from John 6. This conclusion offers a mixed sense of reaction to whatever has preceded in Chapter 6. On the one hand, some disciples have found the
Year B – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY What is common in the Mass readings today is \”movement.\” In the first reading (Day Mass) we see a mother about to give birth: there is movement from the womb into the world. Another movement is the woman fleeing to the desert prepared by God for her. In the second reading
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“The bread … for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51) Some years back, I was staying at the Salesian community in Florence, Italy, for a few weeks. Florence is known for its art and architecture. Following that great tradition, the Salesians in Florence have a beautiful modern fresco-type of a mural in the background
Year B – Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
(Jn 6:24-35) Do you seek the bread that the Father gives, or do you seek the Father who gives you bread? <p style="text-align: justify"A few years ago a priest was back in India on his home-leave. And he met a gentleman who was a visitor to our home-parish. He had never been to school, he
Year B – Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
From Emptiness to Abundance (Jn 6:1-15) Which is the only miracle of Jesus (besides the healing of the blind man – with differences in detail!) that is narrated in all the four gospels with similar details? It is the miracle of feeding the five thousand from five loaves, which we hear in the gospel of
Year B – Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
“The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught…” (Mk 6:30) Ministry to young people forms part of the identity of the religious order I belong to. Much of our formation as Salesians is carried out by means of hands-on experience. For instance, right from the phase of junior seminary up
Year B – Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
“He… began to send them out” (Mk 6:7) It was Pope Paul VI who began to speak about new approaches in evangelization, in his post-synodal exhortation: Evangelization in the Modern World (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975). This was to be an adequate “response to the new challenges that the contemporary world creates for the mission of the
Year B – Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
“This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary…” (Mk 6:3) The gospel text of today narrates to us how the people of his home town reacted to Jesus, despite what they heard and saw in Jesus: the wisdom and wonders. We too could go through similar experience of God in Jesus. We too see
Year B – Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
JESUS MAKES ALL THINGS NEW Stories of two women: The gospel reading of today narrates to us two stories. Both, stories of women. One story is contained within another. Both are stories about women who are ‘dead’ in their own way. It is interesting to note that all the synoptic gospels have these two stories
Year B – Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Read More »
