Fifth Sunday of Lent:  Jer 31:31-34; Ps 51:3-4, 12-15; Heb 5:7-9; Jn 12:20-33 (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA)   The night before I turned sixteen, I couldn’t sleep for crying.   High school wasn’t easy for me.  Not the work […]

Fourth Sunday of Lent:  2 Chr 36:14-16,19-23; Ps 137:1-6; Eph 2:4-10; Jn 3:14-21 (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA) The honeymoon didn’t last long. In fact, it hadn’t even started.  The people were still wearing their wedding clothes, for crying out […]

Third Sunday of Lent:  Ex 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17; Ps 19:8-11; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25  (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA) “Sarah, do you take Mark for your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, […]

Second Sunday of Lent:  Gen 22:1-2,9A,10-13,15-18; Psa 116: 10,15,16-17,18-19; Rom 8:31B-34; Mk 9:2-10. Our third child was being baptized, and the priest did something at the end I’ve never seen before or since. “Lay the child on the altar,” he said. We walked forward, and Mark laid Clay down on his back as I smoothed […]

First Sunday of Lent:  Gen 9:8-15; Psa 25:4-9; 1 Pe 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15  Adam was not aware. He lived in blissful beauty, he did not know the primal chaos.  He couldn’t know the bleak facts of life without God: darkness; void; formless waste. He did not witness the glory of land rising up from the […]

God has a plan! As we plunge into Lent, settling into patterns of prayer and fasting and giving to others, the lectionary points us to the reason for it all. Each week until Easter, I’ll be musing on the Sunday readings: specifically, through the lens of the first (Old Testament) readings.  Read in turn, these […]