A Jesuit Adventure

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Lent. In the first reading, we come across the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. The chapter begins with the words “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This verse is important as it gives us the context in which the commandments are given.   The commandments are relational and personal in nature. The law is a gift from a God who has redeemed the people and now speaks to them individually. The commandments are a response that the people give to the redemptive act of God. These commandments which are given to an already elected, redeemed, believing, and worshipping community deal with the affairs of daily life. “You shall have no other gods before me” introduces the commandments and gives shape to all the others with idolatry being the focus. Though it commonly has reference to material images at the same time “other gods” could include any person, place, or th...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the Second Sunday of Lent in Year B. The first word which comes to our mind when we think of Lent is sacrifice. Therefore, it’s fitting that the first reading speaks about one of the most famous sacrifices of all time – God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. This demand for a human sacrifice and the covenant with Abraham which follows are difficult texts for us to grapple with today as we have a very different social and cultural context compared to the times of Abraham. Let us therefore look at the text a little closely. The very first sentence of the reading tells us “After these things God tested Abraham” (Gen 22:1). It was therefore a test and also the fact that the angel of the Lord stops Abraham indicates that God had no desire for the real sacrifice. So the question that arises is why did God want to test Abraham in the first place? Isn’t he called the father of faith after all? Yes, he is called that, but Abraham wasn’t a fi...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent in Year B. You’ll notice that the Old Testament readings for the first three Sundays in Lent highlight three covenants: God’s covenant with Noah, God’s covenant with Abraham, and God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai. The readings this week have the theme of new beginnings. The 1st reading presents to us the very famous narrative of God’s covenant with Noah in the background of the great flood. To grasp the depth of this text we need to rewind a bit. The entire flood narrative in Genesis chapter 7 comes at the end of the story of increasing human sinfulness that begins in Genesis chapter 3 with the disobedience of Adam and Eve. The original harmony that was created by God eventually disintegrates into chaos and disorder. Humanity is so broken that God regrets having created it in the first place. That destruction is not total and God doesn’t wipe away the creation entirely. The flood is the means of re-creation. Thus all...

  My dear friends today we celebrate the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time year B. Though the readings revolve around leprosy and how it was dealt with, they do teach us some very important spiritual truths. The book of Leviticus deals with some of the most ordinary matters of life and it does so with a spiritual objective: to live a life centered on God. The Hebrew word ṣ ā·rā·‘a ṯ , { צרעת } often translated as leprosy, is not the same disease we call leprosy or Hansen’s disease today. It is rather a very general term that could perhaps include skin diseases like ringworm, smallpox measles etc. The person suffering from any of these conditions would be isolated for the necessary time until the condition cleared up, thus preventing the spread of these kinds of diseases among the people of Israel. It was the job of the priests of Israel to examine the people who showed such symptoms. However, if you were to be among the unlucky ones and if your diagnosis of leprosy was confirmed, yo...