Readings for the 5th 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 […]

Readings for the 4th 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, […]

Readings for the 3rd 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 […]

Readings for the 2nd 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 […]

Readings for the 1st 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 […]

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 take us on a […]