The birth of John was miraculous Luke tells us his parents were beyond the age of having children Elizabeth John s mother was sterile Still miraculously John leaped in his mother s womb at the presence of Jesus in the womb of Mary That John is mentioned in the Gospels at all is miraculou

It is in the Acts of the Apostles that we hear most about Barnabas He is famous as a preaching companion with Paul in present-day Turkey with all the attendant success failure and persecution of Paul Prior to that he was grouped with Christians at Antioch who were known as having special gifts

Jesus words I came to call sinners are a compendium of Gospel themes They acknowledge that we are sinners they reveal the divine intent on finding what was lost and giving life to what was dead But these words are cited by Gospel writers for still another purpose The society in whic

Advent done Christmas time done Lent and Easter and Pentecost too From those momentous events we come into a long period of Ordinary Time The color is green No more long-lived white nor fretful purple just green It is Ordinary Time But what a wonderful color is green of many shades

Pentecost is a day of peculiar significance in the Acts of the Apostles First while the Old Testament knew from the prophet Joel that God would one day share His Spirit with the world of believers the one who actually pours out the Spirit is Jesus - he who received the Spirit from his Father for

Luke is the one in his Acts of the Apostles who describes the event we celebrate this Sunday May 4 It is in contrast to the ascension he describes at the end of his Gospel In the latter there is great joy at Jesus going to his Father the ascension is the triumph or part thereof which f

Mark does not explicitly give us the purpose of his Gospel Certainly one can deduce that he is interested in encouraging Christians to follow Christ no matter what the cost for the rewards are great He also appears to want to show the injustice of the interpretation of Jesus that led to his d

The Gospel selection for this fourth Sunday of Easter John 10 1-10 calls attention to at least these three points First Jesus identifies himself as the legitimate guide of Christians it is he who will lead them to have the deepest desire of their hearts As John s entire Gospel suggests the

From April 30 Second Sunday of Easter to but excluding Pentecost Sunday the Gospel readings of the Eucharist this year are all but one Luke c 24 taken from John s Gospel Given this attention to John in our Eastertide celebrations it might be of service to consider the principle by which

The doubting Thomas story was intended to be the final story of the Johannine Gospel Chapter 21 is a later addition to the Gospel The Gospel of John had begun on the highest note the Word which was God became equivalently Jesus of Nazareth Throughout the Gospel the author means to have h