Because of the length of today´s reading, I’ll give a brief summary: it tells the story of Susanna, a respectable woman. Two of the elders of Israel tried to seduce her. But she eluded them. Thereupon they brought false charges against her that she had taken up with a young man and threatened her with death. In her distress, Susanna entrusted herself to God. Read More
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Jesus and the adulterous woman
Jn 8:1-11
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery; and making her stand there in the middle they said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and in the Law Moses has ordered us to stone women of this kind. What have you got to say?’ Read More
Innocence or naïveté?
Jer 11:18-20
Yahweh informed me and I knew it; you then revealed their scheming to me. I for my part was like a trustful lamb being led to the slaughterhouse, not knowing the schemes they were plotting against me, ‘Let us destroy the tree in its strength, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name may no longer be remebered!’ Read More
His time had not yet come
Jn 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
After this Jesus travelled round Galilee; he could not travel round Judaea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. As the Jewish feast of Shelters drew near, however, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went up as well, not publicly but secretly. Meanwhile some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Isn’t this the man they want to kill? Read More
Let us not tire of bearing witness
Jn 5:31-47
Were I to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be true; but there is another witness who speaks on my behalf, and I know that his testimony is true. You sent messengers to John, and he gave his testimony to the truth- not that I depend on human testimony; no, it is for your salvation that I mention it. Read More
The time of grace
Isa 49:8-15
Thus says Yahweh: At the time of my favour I have answered you, on the day of salvation I have helped you. I have formed you and have appointed you to be the covenant for a people, to restore the land, to return ravaged properties, to say to prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ Read More
The river of life
Ez 47:1-9, 12
He brought me back to the entrance of the Temple, where a stream flowed eastwards from under the Temple threshold, for the Temple faced east. The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side. Read More
Giving the right place to signs and miracles
Jn 4:43-54
When the two days were over Jesus left for Galilee. He himself had declared that a prophet is not honoured in his own home town. On his arrival the Galileans received him well, having seen all that he had done at Jerusalem during the festival which they too had attended. Read More
The Father’s love for his two sons
Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
The tax collectors and sinners, however, were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable: Then he said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. Read More
Remaining in humility
Lk 18:9-14
He spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being upright and despised everyone else, ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” Read More