Scripture Reflections for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Year C, Lectionary 132
Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the Bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: Anger • Community • Compassion • Control • Courage • Covenant • Divine • Entitlement • Environment • Envy • Find • Forgive • Grace • Heaven • Holy • Idolatry • Journey • Joy • Judgment • Justice • Lost • Love • Mercy • Mission • Moses • Patience • Paul • Peace • Pride • Prodigal • Reconciliation • Relationship • Repent • Restore • Salvation • Seek • Sheep • Sin • Unity • Virtue •
“it's not him repenting of something that he was going to do that was wrong, it's him relenting of something he was going to do that was just”
“you'll see saints like Therese or others who clearly live lives of virtue say 'I'm the worst of sinners'...this is not false humility at all, actually. What it is is a recognition among the saints of just how grave their sins really are”
“In the Gospels when you hear them talk about sinners it's a technical expression. It refers to people who were violating the law of Moses, who were violating the Torah and they were doing it in a public way and in a grave way.”
“Sometimes we lose our way too. Sometimes we find ourselves in a distant country, we find ourselves far away from where we know we're supposed to be and we have a long journey to return home. And the hardest step is the first step”
“nobody is preventing them from immersing themselves into the joy of that moment except themselves as individuals, the righteous”
“God calls us to be the prodigious mother, the prodigal father. God calls us to have an extravagant love.”
“We are called to take one step, then another, on our journeys to recover what is lost and transform damaged relationships. Reconciling isn’t about forgetting the hurt, it’s about us finding new ways to model God’s boundless mercy.”
“So what is so divine about forgiveness? What makes the act of forgiving so holy? We first have to realize that true forgiveness definitely comes directly from God.”
“when we see the error of our ways, when we realize that we don't have all the answers and maybe our Father actually does know best, Jesus shows us that we can always come home. Despite our mistakes, whether we deserve it or not, God waits for us with outstretched arms because he loves us and we are his.”
“God made us intellect and freewill, to choose. You cannot force someone in relationship, you cannot force someone to love you and God Himself will not force you in relationship.”
“We are all sinners in one way or the other. We have all gone astray in one way or the other and we are all capable of going astray. If all that we have is Divine Justice then we are all hell-bound. But thank God for Divine Mercy.”
“God is transcendent, totally other but we continue to try to whittle God down to size. To a size our human minds can comprehend...we try to domesticate God. To put God on a leash, to make God a household pet who does our bidding.”
“Jesus draws us into a world of compassion which is not of our own making right in the midst of our feeling lost, where things are unresolved, where our best efforts don't seem to measure up. To be open to this compassion may seem unrealistic, not practical, too abstract but...this way of being present is making a way out of no way”
“is Heaven not when we experience God's love, mercy in the now?”
"we're not immune to tragic events or to illness or to anything. We just have a different, I guess, we just have a different way of approaching it and that's through the lens of faith."
In the latest episode of the 1 Christian 1 Topic Podcast "Faith Amidst Tragedy," we have a conversation with Liz on faith, suffering, and prayer. More