Fourth Sunday of Lent Cycle A

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

Prophets Unaware

In 1923 a book was published which has become not only a best seller but a book written by the third best selling poet in all of history, according to the Wikipedia. The first best selling poet is Shakespeare. The second is the Chinese poet Lao Tze.  And the third best selling poet is the author of this best seller book published in 1923. The title of this book is THE PROPHET. Its author is Kahlil Gibran. This book has been translated into more than 60 languages and in English has sold more than 9 million copies.

When I bought this book in the 1970s I thought that its author was a Muslim. It is only this month that I knew that Kahlil was a Catholic, a Catholic of the Maronite Rite, an Eastern or non-Roman Catholic rite.

There was a passage in that book which has influenced the rearing of my children. I do not remember much of what I read there but this passage stood out and it influenced the rearing of my children. Listen to this passage:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

This passage was instrumental in my not dictating to my children what they would be in life. I just let them be what they wanted to be.

Why did I introduce my homily today with information about the book THE PROPHET? Because our Gospel reading today talks about a prophet whose quality or function or role as a prophet we have not taken seriously.

There is a passage in Deuteronomy about a prophet whom God would raise up from among the Israelites after Moses was gone. God said to the children of Israel, "I will raise up for them a prophet like you (Moses) from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him" (18:18). This verse also tells us the basic role of a prophet, he speaks the words of God, from God, for God to the people.

Commentators identify this prophet as any true prophet coming after Moses. But they also point out that in a special way this prophecy applies to Jesus who is "the Great Prophet in whom the prophetic office finds its fulfillment and completion" (NAB foot Commentary).

And that is what we read in our Gospel today. When the blind man who was now healed of his blindness was asked by the Pharisees what he thought of his healer, he replied, "He is a prophet." What he meant was that this man had a commission from God to speak for him and to do things for him.

This role of Jesus as a prophet is not given due importance by us today. Perhaps this is because we refer to him mostly as Savior and Lord. But Jesus is indeed the Great Prophet, as the commentary in the New American Bible declares. And perhaps because we do not give due importance to this role of Jesus as the prophet we also do not give due recognition to our own role as prophets.

In baptism we were made to share in this role of Jesus as prophets. Our Catechism tells us, "By Baptism they (the faithful) share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. They are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvellous light." (1268)

And our role as prophets of God was confirmed when we were confirmed in the sacrament of Confirmation. Here is what our Catechism tells us, "- it (Confirmation) gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross" (1303). That is what we do as prophets, we spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witness of Christ, we confess the name of Christ boldly and are never ashamed of the Cross.

Our first readings tells us how a prophet is proclaimed or recognized or made one. It is by anointing with oil which signifies the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  Samuel was told by the Lord to fill his horn with oil and to anoint David the new king of Judah. This is how we also were made prophets, by anointing with oil in baptism which signifies the Holy Spirit. This was again done in our confirmation.

Our second reading tells us our work as prophets. Specifically Paul tells us "Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light."

When we tell others about our faith in Jesus, when we sing praises to God, declaring “the wonderful deeds” of God during Mass for all to hear, when we teach a little child how to say grace before meals, we are exercising our prophetic role, we are imitating Jesus the Great Prophet. We may not be aware that we are exercising this prophetic role but we are prophets, though unaware, but truly prophets by being anointed in baptism and confirmation and by our unity with Jesus the Great Prophet.

What is unique about Jesus as a prophet is that he not only tells us the words of God from God for God. He enlightens us, he gives us the light to understand what he says. He opens the eyes of our body and soul to understand the words of God.

I started this homily with a reference to the book THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran. Nowhere in that book is it stated that this prophet is Jesus. As related in that story the name of that prophet is Almustafa which sounds like a Muslim name, the main character of the story. But when we ask why this book has sold 9 millions more than other books in history, my answer is that this book makes the reader connect with the spiritual world. We are a people hungry for the things of the spirit. And when we read something which fills this void for the things of the spirit, we gladly devour the words in that book.

That is what Jesus as the Great Prophet is. He connects us with his Father, the father of all spirits. He satisfies our thirst for spiritual things as we learned last Sunday. As prophet he opens the eyes of our soul to see spiritual realities.

Lent is a special time of pausing and reflecting on the spiritual side of things. Our readings tell us that Jesus heals our blindness so that we can see the spiritual realities in our lives. As Jesus healed the blind man of his blindness, he also heals the eyes of our souls so that we can see the things of the spirit.

Let us bow our heads in prayer. Lord Jesus, you suffered and died and rose again from the dead so that we can be elevated to the spiritual realities. Make us see these spiritual realities now and lift us to your cross and coming glory. Amen.

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Note for the readers:

The Mass readings are from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our Lectionary gets the readings.

NAB stands for New American Bible (before it was revised). This is the translation I use. Unless otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.

AV stands for Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is the one known more by the English speaking world.

Third Sunday of Lent Cycle A

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

Water That Lives

One of the earliest chemical formulas we learned was H2O. We learned this during our elementary grades. We were told by our teacher that H2O was the formula for water. He or she explained that H stands for the hydrogen atom and O stands for the oxygen atom. The 2 between the two letters stands for the number of hydrogen. Thus there are 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen in water. Sometimes we used this formula in referring to water. During meals we would ask our parents for H2O confident that our parents knew what we meant, water.

The Gospel reading today talks about water. But it is not the kind of water represented by H2O. It is a water very different from the ordinary water we see and drink at table or when washing or taking a bath. It was our Lord who talked about it to the Samaritan woman. He said, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Later in that conversation Jesus elaborated about this water, He told the woman, "Everyone who drinks this water (in the well of Jacob) will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

To understand better this water that Jesus is offering us and to get its benefits let us compare it with our ordinary water, the one represented by the formula H2O. There are differences and similarities between Jesus’ water and ordinary water.

The first difference between this water of Jesus and our ordinary water is that Jesus' water is invisible while our water is visible. Our five senses can come in contact with ordinary water. We can taste it, hear its splash, touch it, see it, smell it. But we cannot see Jesus' water. There are times, though, when coming into contact with this water of Jesus, even if we do not see it, that we can feel it.

The second difference is that ordinary water evaporates and if a small amount, let's say, a spoonful of it, is left on its own for quite some time, it vanishes into the air around it. The water of Jesus does not evaporate, rather it is living; it stays the same forever. And it even grows and increases in growth and quantity because it lives. It is a water that lives.

The third difference is that it is not composed of atoms as in ordinary water. The reason is that this water has no parts, unlike ordinary water which has 3 parts, 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen. Jesus’ water is spiritual and a spirit has no parts. It has only faculties or functions or things it is able to do.

The fourth difference is that ordinary water is material, the water of Jesus is spiritual. Material water is subject to decay, impurity, and the cycle of gaseous, liquid and solid. It can become vapor, liquid and ice. The water of Jesus is always liquid, as it were. It does not turn to vapor nor solidify into ice. It is always flowing. It can always be poured.

A fifth difference between ordinary water and Jesus’ water is that too much of ordinary water drowns. Spiritual water does not drown. Water in the ocean and in swimming pools have drowned countless people. A superabundance of spiritual water does not drown. A person with too much of this spiritual water may be considered crazy by other people but it never drowns.

A sixth difference between ordinary water and spiritual water is that although the volume of ordinary water in our planet earth according to scientists is a staggering 1,386 million cubic kilometers it has a limit. The spiritual water of God is limitless. There are trillions of gallons of ordinary water but they are finite. Spiritual water is infinite. It cannot be counted. It cannot even be put in gallons or in the largest container.

The seventh difference between ordinary water and supernatural water is that natural water is getting more and more expensive. Before people used to drink from rivers and streams. With pollution these sources of water are no longer safe. More and more people buy drinking water and it is getting more and more expensive. Jesus' water is totally free. He says, "To anyone who thirsts I will give to drink without cost from the spring of life-giving water." (Revelation 21:6).

Seven is the complete number as the days of creation were only seven. But there is another difference between these two kinds of water. This is the eighth difference. The water of this earth has a beginning. It is temporal, time bound. The water of heaven has no beginning. It is eternal. It is not time bound.

There are also similarities between the water of Jesus and ordinary water. The first similarity is that both kinds of water are necessary for life. Without ordinary water there would be no life. Our body is 50 to 75 percent water. Our earth is 71 percent water. Without water we would die and our planet earth would not be able to support any life at all. In a similar way without this spiritual water of Jesus there would be no spiritual life. Our life in God, our divine life depends on this spiritual water.

The second similarity between these two kinds of water is that lack of water, whether ordinary water or spiritual water, causes in us a sensation of thirst. We become thirsty physically when we lack ordinary water. We become thirsty spiritually when we lack spiritual water in our soul. The Samaritan woman in the Gospel was thirsty both physically and spiritually. She went to the well of Jacob to satisfy her physical thirst. She was not aware of her spiritual thirst. But she was spiritually thirsty also. In her spiritual thirst she went from one man to another looking for something that could satisfy this thirst. But no man, not even five men, could satisfy this spiritual thirst. It was only Jesus with his living water who could satisfy this thirst. 

The first reading tells us about the ordinary water which the Israelites demanded of God to give them because they were thirsty. Surprisingly the water came out of the rock which Moses struck. But this ordinary water prefigured the spiritual water that Jesus would give. That rock prefigured Jesus who would give this spiritual water later.

The second reading tells us what this spiritual water is. This is the love of God poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So, Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit pours the heavenly water into our hearts.

Until we have this heavenly or spiritual water in our hearts we will forever be thirsty spiritually. Our souls will long for something which we cannot even describe but which we know is there. Life is meaningless. But once this love of God is poured into our hearts and freely accepted and relished and enjoyed by us it makes us satisfied most deeply in our souls.

This spiritual water was poured into our hearts when we were baptized. We were expected by the Church to grow and be aware of this water poured into our hearts. It was the job of our parents and godparents to make us aware of this spiritual water. 

Both the Church and Jesus invite us in Revelation 22 to drink of this water. "Let him who is thirsty come forward; let all who desire it accept the gift of life-giving water" (17)

During this Lent let us remember the water that gushed forth from the side of Jesus just after he died when a soldier pierced his side with a lance. That was ordinary water in the blood of Jesus. He gave out all the water in his body to the earth beneath him as a symbol of the spiritual water that he wanted to pour upon our thirsty souls. Let us not fail him. Let us partake of this spiritual water and drink deeply to the satisfaction of our souls.

Let us bow our heads in prayer.

Lord Jesus, you shed every drop of the water in your body to invite us to drink of the water of your Spirit. Help us to be aware of this water poured into our hearts. Make us drink of this spiritual water from the side of your wounded body. Amen.

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Note for the readers:

The Mass readings are from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our Lectionary gets the readings.

NAB stands for New American Bible (before it was revised). This is the translation I use. Unless otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.

AV stands for Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is the one known more by the English speaking world.

Second Sunday of Lent Cycle ASecond Sunday of Lent Cycle ASecond Sunday of Lent Cycle A

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

The Secrets of Jesus

All of us have secrets in our life. A secret is something that is hidden or concealed or revealed only to a few. And all of us have secrets, some hidden or concealed information about us or known only to a few. How we were raised by our parents, relatives or guardians is a secret to most people.

Jesus also had secrets. Some of these he alone knew and still knows now. How he exactly created the world is a secret even to the most brilliant scientist. During his earthly life he had several secrets known only to very few persons. Our Gospel reading today gives one of these secrets, how he was transfigured into a being whose face shone like the sun, and whose clothes were as white as light.

The Gospel from Matthew we heard says, 'And he, that is, Jesus, was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.'

And at the end of the reading we heard Jesus telling his three specially chosen disciples to keep this event a secret until he would be raised from the dead.

Actually in the Gospel of Matthew this is the fifth and last time that Jesus tells people to keep something a secret.

The first time is in Matthew 8:4 where he tells a leper whom he cured of leprosy to tell no one about this cure.

The second time is in Matthew 9:30 where he tells two blind men whom he also cured to tell no one about this cure.

The third time is in Matthew 12:16 where he tells the multitude whom he cured not to make him known.

The fourth is in Matthew 16:20 where he tells his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah after Peter confessed that he was that longed for Messiah.

And the fifth is this passage in our Gospel reading.

These passages show that Jesus wanted some things to be kept secret, at least temporarily.

When we go to the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, there are more secrets. In 10:4 he tells John, the writer of this book, to seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered and not to write them. We may never know what those things were. In 19:12 we are told by John that the horse rider whose name was Faithful and True had a name which no man knew but himself. This rider is of course Jesus and this verse tells us that Jesus has a name which he alone knows, a name that he has not revealed to us.

Jesus is indeed fond of keeping some things secret, especially his identity before his resurrection.

One of these secrets which he himself does not know is his coming back to our planet earth. In Matthew 24:36 he tells us that this coming back to us is known only by his Father.

There is another secret which Jesus alone knows and we will never know this secret because thanks to him he alone experienced this so that we will never experience it. This is the secret of his suffering for our sins in hell.

St. Catherine of Siena in her letter to Pope Gregory XI wrote, "So by His death the wrath of the Father is pacified, having wrought justice on the person of His Son, so he has satisfied justice and has satisfied mercy releasing the human race from the hands of demons."

How Jesus satisfied the justice and mercy of God, suffering in our stead, is a secret only Jesus knows. We will never know this because we cannot satisfy God's justice and mercy.

This is the secret we celebrate this season of Lent, the secret of how Jesus suffered for us. This suffering is not only the physical suffering which we can see portrayed in movies about Jesus. This suffering is the one he endured having been abandoned by God his Father for three hours and experiencing the torments of hell for us.

In the first reading we read about the blessings that God would shower on Abraham. This was made possible by the sufferings of Jesus, his descendant through the line of Jacob and David.

In the second reading we heard that Jesus saved us and called us to a holy life, the life he won by his sufferings on the cross. By his death he destroyed death, that is, our eternal death in the fiery flames of hell so that we will not experience it. That is what Lent is about. In gratitude we remember his sufferings, death and resurrection during these forty days.

Let us pray as we bow our heads.

Jesus, you are the keeper of the secrets of this universe. You also keep the secret of how you redeemed us. Thank you for redeeming us. May we bear the little inconveniences and sufferings this season of Lent with patience in gratitude for redeeming us. Amen.

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Note for the readers:

The Mass readings are from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our Lectionary gets the readings.

NAB stands for New American Bible (before it was revised). This is the translation I use. Unless otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.

AV stands for Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is the one known more by the English speaking world.

First Sunday of Lent Cycle A

Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).

The First Computers

There is a class of creatures more numerous than human beings, perhaps more numerous than all the creatures we see, but which ordinarily we cannot see. They are mentioned in our Gospel reading today and Jesus was very fond of them. Most often we are not aware of these creatures but they are all around us whether we know it or not. And we cannot hide from them nor can we get rid of them if they persist on being with us.

Our Gospel reading today ends with this sentence: "Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him." Yes, these creatures who are all around us, always ready to serve us are the angels. They served Jesus and as we will soon learn they served him in all the important events of his life.

Just minutes before Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary an angel named Gabriel came to her to announce that a man would be formed in her womb whom she would later on call Jesus (Luke 1:26-33).

When Jesus' foster father Joseph was about to abandon Mary because he saw that she was already pregnant, an angel appeared to him to tell him to take Mary as his wife. (Matthew 1:20)

When Jesus was born an angel appeared to the shepherds telling them of his birth. (Luke 2:9-13). This angel was accompanied by a multitude of other angels.

When the life of the boy Jesus was in danger because of Herod an angel again appeared to Joseph telling him to take Jesus to Egypt (Matthew 2:13).

When Jesus finished his fasting and was about to begin his public ministry angels came to give him food and water, as we heard in our Gospel reading today.

In the Garden of Gethsemani during his agony an angel came to comfort him (Luke 22:43). He told his disciples in that garden that if he would he could call on instantly 12 legions of angels to defeat those who arrested him (Matthew 26:53). A legion is composed of 3 to 6 thousand soldiers. 12 legions would mean 36,000 to 72,000 angels. The arresting mob would have been pulverized by these thousands of angels.

It was an angel who rolled back the stone of the sepulcher where Jesus was buried. It was this angel who told the women that Jesus was risen. (Matthew 28:2-5).

When Jesus ascended to heaven two angels told the disciples that Jesus would return (Acts 1:10-11).

The last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, which tells us of the life of Jesus in glory until his coming back to earth is filled with references to angels.  

Indeed all the important moments of Jesus' life are accompanied by angels.

Since the life we live is the life of Jesus in his Spirit, the angels are also around us ready to serve Jesus in us. What a comforting thought!

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent. It is not the feast of angels which we celebrate on October 2 but it is proper that we learn a bit about them so that during this Lenten season we can draw nearer to the sufferings of Jesus.

In the first reading angels are not explicitly mentioned. This reading tells us of the fall of our first parents. It ends with this sentence "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves." They realized they were naked. They sewed fig leaves to cover themselves because they were ashamed. Before whom were they ashamed because presumably there were only two of them there? There were the angels looking at them. Later, one of these angels, a cherubim, guarded the garden of Eden so that they could no longer enter it (Genesis 3:24).

Again in the second reading angels are not explicitly mentioned. Paul is telling us about the contrast between Adam and Christ. He shows that just as through the disobedience of the one man, Adam, we were all made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, Jesus, we will be made righteous. And how did Jesus make us righteous? With the help of his angels who were physically and visibly present during the importance points of his life.

The word "angel" comes from the Greek aggelos (pronounced ang-ge-los). It means messenger. This was the term used by the Septuagint Greek Bible to translate the Hebrew word mal'akh which refers to a spiritual heavenly being which serves God.

Angels are discussed in our Catechism from number 328 to 354. According to our Catechism of the Catholic Church angels are spiritual, non-corporeal beings. Following St. Augustine it teaches that 'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. The name of their nature is 'spirit'. Their office is that of messenger. They are servants and messengers of God.

There are three characteristics of angels which can help us during this season of Lent.

The first is that they are programmed creatures. By this I mean that all angels have stored within them all the things which they can do or not do in the whole of their existence. Some are messengers of good news, like Gabriel. This work of giving messages has been put into them by God from the time they were created. Others, like Raphael, are healers. Again this work has been programmed into their system, as it were, from their creation. Still others, like Michael, are programmed to fight enemies.

Each angel has a work and this work has been programmed or put into their being from the time they were created. It is as if they were created instantly as messengers, doctors, warriors.

In this sense they are like computers. A computer is created to do a particular work like word processing or adding numbers or storing data in a certain order. Now there are computers which can detect germs in our body. There are computers which can perform trading in the stocks market. They were made so from the beginning.

Angels are like that, their work has been assigned to them from the beginning of their existence. In this sense they were the first computers, the first robots. They are the computers of God.

A second characteristic of angels is that whatever work they do it is always work for God and others, never for themselves. They have no need to work for themselves because they neither eat, sleep, marry or have children. They do not need rest like us. They are ministering spirits, as the Letter to the Hebrews says (Hebrews 1:14). They always serve or worship God. They serve and they serve very well, according to the code or instruction embedded in their being, like a computer. Their difference from a computer is that they do not need outside electricity to run. Their electricity is within themselves already.

The third characteristic of angels is that the focus of all their service is Christ. They were made by Christ and for Christ. No wonder during Jesus' earthly life they were always near Jesus except during the three hours of his agony on the cross.

Now let us apply these three characteristics to our lives during this season of Lent.

Like angels all the work we will ever do has been programmed into us by God. The difference is that in angels this work is already actual, in us it is yet potential. An angel gives a message. We do not say that an angel can give a message. An angel does not grow. We grow. But this growth has been programmed into us by God already in our cells. The psalmist contemplating this marvelous work of God in us exclaimed, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest  him?  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.  . . . O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" (Psalm 8 AV). Man is so precious to God that he came to earth to reclaim him from Satan. And during this Lenten season we are witnessing this drama of God reclaiming us from the dominion of Satan by Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection.

Secondly, like angels we were made to serve others. During this Lenten season we have this Alay Kapwa which means rendering service for our neighbor. What we would have spent for food and extras we give to the Alay Kapwa fund for the benefit of others.

Thirdly, like angels the focus of our service is Christ. As Saint Paul said "You are not your own. You have been purchased and at a price! So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). And again in his second letter he says, "He (Jesus) died for all so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised up." (2 Corinthians 5:15). It was Christ who purchased us with his blood. During this season of Lent we remember this purchasing of ourselves so that we live and work for Jesus alone. Like the angels who exist to serve Christ and not themselves.

That is the essence of Lent. We learn again to live for others and for Jesus as we remember what he did for us on the cross.

Let us bow our heads for prayer.

Almighty and heavenly Father, we thank you for the angels who came to Jesus after he was tempted by the devil to minister to him. We thank you for the angels you send to minister to us. They teach us lessons which are very helpful for this season when we remember your Son Jesus’ suffering and death for us. Help us to do what you intended for us to do, help us to serve others, and help us to make Jesus the motive of our service, and not ourselves. We ask this in his name who is surrounded by all the angels in glory now. Amen.

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Note for the readers:

The Mass readings are from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our Lectionary gets the readings.

NAB stands for New American Bible (before it was revised). This is the translation I use. Unless otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.

AV stands for Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is the one known more by the English speaking world.