This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday of Easter. Here in John 15:15 we hear “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday of Easter. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends – in v.13 we come to the greatest love. This verse is perhaps the most explicit statement in the Gospels of what it means to love as Jesus loves. While some might argue this is simply a restatement of the ideal of Plato and Aristotle, that classical idea is given new gravitas of Jesus’ conventional mission by which the world is redeemed. Continue reading
The gospel today is talking about vineyards. Vineyards are like a garden – sort of. Unlike a garden where you can grow all kinds of flowers and vegetables, vineyards grow one thing: grapes – and usually for making wine. I don’t have a “green thumb” but I can successfully plant and harvest a vegetable garden. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday of Easter. There is something very practical here: If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. Many suggest that this is the practical answer of how one remains in Christ and in his Word, bears fruit, and remains in the love of Jesus. These things are not some mystical experience. It is simple obedience. It is when we keep Christ’s commandments that we abide in his love. Once again appeal is made to Christ’s own example. He kept the Father’s commandments and thus abides continually in the Father’s love. And it is not a blind following of the commands, it is to “listen through” to the deeper love that resides within and throughout the commandments. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday of Easter. Gospel text begins: As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. From the obligations placed upon his disciples (vv.1-8 from last Sunday’s gospel) Jesus turns to his love for them. He first tells them that his love for them is like the Father’s love for him. Then he commands them to continue in his love, suggesting that it is possible for people to live without being mindful of Christ’s love for them and so break the closeness of the fellowship. Jesus commands them not to do this. Continue reading
Today is the Feast Day of St. Catherine of Siena, along with St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy! As a feast day, there are readings specific to the occasion, taken from the First Letter of St. John and the Gospel of Matthew – and these are well chosen for the occasion. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Easter. Many Catholic scholars (Raymond Brown, Jerome Kodell, Eduard Schwizer, etc.) see a part of John’s Eucharistic theology in the metaphor of the “Vine and the Branches” – specifically serving as the cup, as a type of parallel to the “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6. The vine was a recognized Eucharistic symbol at the time the Gospel according to John reached its final written form. We read in the Didache: “And concerning the Eucharist, hold Eucharist thus: First concerning the Cup, ‘We give thanks, our Father, for the Holy Vine of David your child, which you make known to us through Jesus your child…” (IX:1-2). Continue reading
If you are interested in the progress on clearing the Baltimore Harbor channel to reopen the Port of Baltimore, here are two sites I can recommend:
In case you are interested in what they are using to “pick up” things on the harbor floor:
Today’s gospel contains the verse we all remember from the King James translation version: “In my Father’s mansion, there are many rooms.” As grand as that image is, in fact, the word “mansion” does not appear in the original Greek. It simply says, 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Easter. Another word with a double meaning is meno — translated “remain” in our text, but it also carries meanings of “abide, stay; live, dwell; last, endure, continue.” Sometimes this verb refers to the branch staying connected to the vine and sometimes it refers to disciples staying connected to Jesus. This word occurs 11 times in 15:1-17. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit if it is disconnected from the vine, neither can disciples bear fruit if they are disconnected from Jesus. Continue reading
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