Almost the whole of the Book of Genesis deals with the getting the Chosen People to the Promised Land. Abram is led from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan. He and Lot split up the land. Isaac is not to go back to the ancestral land no matter what. Jacob flees the Promised Land in… Read More »

Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt by his brothers. Many adventures later he became the Grand Vizier of the pharaoh and his brothers who betrayed him came to the Grand Vizier since they were in need. When he revealed himself to them he did not reproach them but said, “It was really for… Read More »

Jesus appointed twelve apostles to “proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand.” We are the heirs to those apostles, “missionary disciples” in the phrase of Pope Francis. As heirs we are given the same commission the twelve were: “to drive out unclean spirits and to cure every disease.” That seems like an intimidating… Read More »

The image of Jacob wrestling with “a man?” an angel? God? is one that resonates with people’s experience. We have our idea about how things should go — good health, happy family, financial security — and wrestle with God when it doesn’t turn out as we had planned. “Why me, Lord?” asks an old country… Read More »

The Jacob cycle in Genesis tells the story of the father of the nation. Abraham is the father of the faith but “the father of many nations.” Jacob with his twelve sons forms the nation of “Israel” (Jacob’s new name as we will see.) Jacob is portrayed as conniving with his mother, Rebekah, to steal… Read More »

Jesus sent them out two by two. This was not simply to provide the disciples with companionship. Being sent out in pairs helped to embody how the disciples of Jesus should live. By being together they could show that following Jesus means being in a relationship — “loving God and loving one’s neighbor.” Being together… Read More »

The history of the early Church was not a seamless development; there are hints throughout the New Testament of the struggles and difficulties that accompanied the nascent Jesus movement. For example, there seem to have been tension between the followers of John the Baptist and those of Jesus. “The disciples of John approached Jesus and… Read More »

The daily Bible readings are distributed over a two year cycle called the lectionary. You get a good taste of scripture by attending to the reading of the day. However, sometimes you miss some of the more interesting tidbits since the lectionary just hits the highlights. Take, for example, the story of Abraham buying a… Read More »

The story of Abraham being commanded by God to take his son, Isaac, up Mount Moriah as a sacrifice strikes us as bizarre. In the Jewish tradition this scene is known as “the binding of Isaac.” This shifts the focus off of what Abraham was doing to what Isaac was feeling. In a book by… Read More »

A few years ago there was a play, Doubt (subsequently made into a movie) set in a Catholic church and school in the early 1960’s. The mother superior of the school has relied on the certainties of the faith she inherited. She resists the changes brought about by Vatican II and as a result gets… Read More »