Category: Bible Study

NEW AND NOW

“They killed Him, finally, hanging Him on a tree, only to have God raise Him up on the third day.” –Acts 10:40 Alleluia! Today is one of the greatest days in our lives. This is the first day of the fifty-day Sunday, the Easter season. Alleluia! When we believe in our hearts that Jesus is risen from the dead (see Rm 10:9), everything is transformed and made new. Death no longer overshadows Life. The fear of death no longer enslaves us (Heb 2:15). Death has lost its sting (1 Cor 15:55). Death is not our enemy but our friend; it...

A DAY WITHOUT JESUS

“I had rather one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” –Psalm 84:11 The first Holy Saturday was a day without Jesus. He was buried in the tomb and, because of the sabbath, His body could not be anointed (Lk 23:56—24:1) or possibly even visited (Mt 28:1). Today the Church relives that first Holy Saturday without Jesus. The Blessed Sacrament does not reside in the tabernacle today. There is no Mass during the day. We identify with Jesus buried in the tomb (see Rm 6:3-4). Mary Magdalene spent the first Holy Saturday waiting. She longed for the day to...

GOOD NEWS ON GOOD FRIDAY

“He became the Source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” –Hebrews 5:9 When we venerate the cross today and kiss the wounds of Jesus, may we be totally committed to Him, repentant of all sins, and zealous for everyone to know our crucified Savior’s love. If obedience, repentance, and evangelization are not our responses to Jesus’ sacrificial death, the cross of Christ is “rendered void of its meaning” (1 Cor 1:17). The Lord wants us to leave church today willing to suffer anything so as to lead as many as possible to Jesus (1 Cor 9:19). After what...

FREEING LOVE

“As I have done, so you must do.” –John 13:15 The night before He died, the Lord instituted the way He would remain with us forever. He could have remained with us in awesome majesty, in fire and cloud, as He did with the Israelites (Ex 19:16ff; 40:34-38). Instead, Jesus set aside His majesty and humbled Himself (Phil 2:6-8). He decided to remain with us in His Eucharistic Body and Blood. Jesus’ Last Supper took place on the eve of the Jewish feast of Passover. The first Passover brought freedom from physical slavery and from the tyranny of Pharaoh (Ex...

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? (JN 1:38)

“From that time on [Judas] kept looking for an opportunity to hand [Jesus] over.” –Matthew 26:16 Judas Iscariot spent some of Holy Week with his eyes fixed on Jesus (Heb 3:1; 12:2). But Judas wasn’t watching Jesus for the purpose of growing as His disciple, though outwardly Judas was an apostle. In fact, Judas was apparently a powerful enough apostle that when Jesus mentioned at the Last Supper that one of the Twelve would betray Him, none of the other eleven disciples thought to accuse Judas of being that betrayer. Instead, they considered themselves more likely to be the betrayer,...