Scripture Reflections for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“We can be the sign in the world that the people we live with and work with and meet every day are needing to see, that give them hope. We can turn so many people to righteousness if we simply try and live it out in our own life.”

"Our first reading for this weekend is from the utterly fascinating book of Daniel. Daniel is an example of apocalyptic literature, and apocalyptic books reveal something of decisive significance. We..."

“for the Christian, crisis is not a basic, inescapable, or final reality. Its destructive moments are ordered to the reception of something new and glorious”

“In his human mind Jesus could see into the divine mind...Jesus was permitted to draw out from this vision certain things so as to handle them conceptually and teach them...They did include the saving power of his Passion, Death and Resurrection.What will be revealed to each of us at his or her death, and what will be revealed publicly at the end of time, is simply how we stand in relation to Christ’s Cross: are we with those who put him there and mock him, or have we joined him there by mercy and compassion?”

“Part of what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel is the idea that our lives, indeed the whole history of humanity, the whole universe, already has a meaning and a purpose: we’re just ignoring it.Understanding our lives, then, is not about heroically creating meaning. It’s about discovering the meaning that is already there, our part in the greatest story ever told, the history of the whole universe, as told by its Creator, the God who loves us.”

“Resonance, with people’s uncertainties and fears, however, is just one aspect of apocalyptic writing. Another aspect is the encouragement to hope.”

“The end of the world is therefore a good thing, and it is something that we Christians pray for and look forward to, not because we are fed up with this world, but because we love this world even as God loves it, and we long for it to be made whole and perfect”

“it is the cross which stands as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and is the tree of life”

"Friends, there is something dark, threatening, and a little bit dire about the Gospel reading today, but through it, we see that death is not the final word. We’ve listened..."

"In our rather apocalypic Gospel for today, Jesus is not so much predicting the end of the space-time continuum as he is showing that a new world arrives through his..."

“We are called upon to be prepared to accept Jesus every moment. We are called upon to keep the door of our hearts, our family and our society open for Jesus”

“We are not saved or made whole by any other means other than through the sacrifice of total giving of Christ. He snubbed himself off life in order that we may live. Through his death, we are sanctified and made the children of God.”

“The implication of all this is that the “new creation” imagery employed in the Book of Isaiah may refer either to a literal renewal of the physical cosmos, or else the construction of a new Temple that sacramentally renews the world.”

“Berry believed that the great tragedy of the loss of so many different species as a result of environmental destruction was that we are also losing manifestations of the Divine Creator, which are in and of themselves sacramental”

“Will Jesus physically come back from Heaven to judge us here on earth? Or is the final judgment our own death and Christ’s subsequent judgment of our soul? Or is Jesus’ second coming simply the Eucharist? This is a very complex question.”

"Today’s readings deal with the end of time and the great cosmic battle. In the Gospels, Christ fights against the powers of darkness, defeats them through the Resurrection, and brings..."

"The scriptures for this Sunday represent a biblical genre called “apocalyptic”, which means “unveiling” or “revelation.” The extraordinary revelation of these particular scriptures is that in the death and resurrection..."