Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“Just as Jonah was a sign for the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be a sign for the present age.” –Luke 11:30 For modern-day readers of today’s Gospel, the sign of Jonah is that he spent three days buried in the belly of the large fish (Jon 2:1). After three days, the fish spit him alive onto the shore. Thus, Jonah prefigured Jesus’ three-day burial and subsequent Resurrection. In today’s text, Jesus refers to Jonah being “a sign for the Ninevites” (Lk 11:30). The Old Testament book of Jonah makes no mention of Jonah telling the people of...

“If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours. If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you.” –Matthew 6:14-15 The above Scripture passage from today’s Gospel reading is blunt and clear. “The measure with which you measure will be used to measure you” (Mt 7:2). Our eternal forgiveness and salvation depend upon whether or not we have forgiven those who have wronged us. Yet we are only human, and our sinful nature inherited from original sin makes forgiveness impossible from a human standpoint. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing, particularly...

“You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake.” –Leviticus 19:16 Lent prepares us to celebrate the Resurrection. But it’s hard for someone starving to death to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. It’s also hard for Christians to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection victory when they are at the same time allowing people to starve. “How can God’s love survive in a man who has enough of this world’s goods yet closes his heart to his brother when he sees him in need?” (1 Jn 3:17) Jesus...

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, then returned from the Jordan and was conducted by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.” —Luke 4:1-2 Lent is imitating Jesus’ forty days in the desert. Jesus began His “Lent” filled with and led by the Holy Spirit (see Lk 4:1). He also came out of the Lenten desert “in the power of the Spirit” (Lk 4:14). The Holy Spirit directed Jesus every step of the way through the “first Lent.” Are we letting the Spirit direct us this Lent? (Gal 5:25) Are we fasting, praying, giving alms, and evangelizing in the...

“The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up.” —Isaiah 58:12 When Levi decided to be a tax collector (see Lk 5:27), he separated himself from his people and his family. This perhaps showed that his family relationships were in ruins. But if his family relationships were not yet completely ruined, Levi proceeded to ruin them by becoming a tax collector, an accomplice of the Roman oppression and an enemy of the Jewish people. After Levi followed Jesus and received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this man whose house had...