The Better Part

John 9.1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38 (full reading: John 9.1-41 ) Listen to the Gospel and Reflection   In the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus gives sight to a man who has never been able to see. He heals him. This is a miracle and it is marvellous, and it is one of many examples of Jesus healing people. Healing and faith go hand in hand. There seems to be a certain order to faith and healing. Look at these three other accounts of healing and faith: 1. Jesus turned, and seei

John 4.5-15 (full reading: John 4.5-42 ) Listen to the Gospel and Reflection   On the third Sunday of Lent, we hear a conversation Jesus has as he takes a break from walking from town to town. His disciples have gone into a city to buy food. Meanwhile, Jesus waits by a well in the hot sun. He does not have a way to get the water that lies in the well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” This is a strange thing for Jesus to do. It is

Matthew 17.1-9 Listen to the Gospel and Reflection In the Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent, Jesus takes three of his best friends, Peter, James, and his brother John, away by themselves for what seems at first to be an ordinary hike up a mountain. But in the Bible, when we hear about people going up a mountain, that is a sign for us. There is going to be an encounter with God. People who live near the Rocky Mountains in Canada or the United States, people who have seen p

Matthew 4.1-11 Listen to the Gospel and Reflection We enter a new season in the church called Lent , a time of preparation   for the great feast of Easter. At Easter, we celebrate Jesus dying and rising to new life—so full of the life of God that he can never die again! But before we celebrate, we prepare . There will be six purple   Sundays to prepare for the feast. On the first Sunday of Lent , we hear what happens right after Jesus gets baptized. Jesus goes into the deser

Matthew 5.17, 20-24, 27-28, 33-34, 37++   full reading: Matthew 5.17-37 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n The Gospel reading for this Sunday is part of a long talk that Jesus gives while sitting on the hillside of a mountain, surrounded by so many people who gather to hear him. He says, Do not think that I have come to abolish  the law  or the prophets ; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill . Abolish  means to put an end to something, or to get rid of it. Jesus s

Matthew 5:13 -16   Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus sits on the mountain with his many disciples gathered around him, listening. He has told them how to be people of the Kingdom of God. He has shown them what pleases God. Then he looks right at each one of them and says, “You are the salt  of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and tramp

Matthew 5:1-12   Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Bible, we often hear Jesus teaching people about the Kingdom of God. Jesus understands that we need to know about the Kingdom. He knows that when we set out to play a game with our friends, we first sit down to work out the rules. We want to know who can play. We want to know how to play well. Jesus understands that we need to know these things about the Kingdom of God. So he sits down and lets us look for a mo

Matthew 4:12-23   Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n This Sunday is called the Sunday of the Word of God. Sometimes Jesus is called the Word of God made flesh. God gives the Word a body and a voice, something we can see and hear. We can see the Word of God in our imagination, and we hear it speak to us in our heart. In the Gospel, we hear Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, calling four people to come follow him. There are two pairs of brothers: Andrew and Simon (who is also

John 1:29-34   Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n After weeks of preparing and celebrating the feast of the Light coming in the world, we now return to Ordinary Time. The church changes the colour to green. In many parts of the world, snow covers the ground; there is no green. When we finally see green poking though the snow and green beginning to cover the bare branches of trees, we know spring comes. Things grow. Ordinary Time is a good time for growing—growing in Go

Matthew 3.13-17 Click here to listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n We are coming to the end of the Christmas season. Most people think Christmas ends on December 26th, or that maybe the season lasts for twelve days, but the Church celebrates God becoming human like us  for three Sundays. The Baptism of the Lord is the last of the three Sundays of the feast of Christmas. After hearing about Jesus as a baby for two Sundays, now we hear about Jesus as a grown man. He comes

Matthew 2.13-15 , 19-23 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Gospel reading this Sunday, we hear Joseph take his family away from their home country of Israel when it is no longer safe for them to stay. They travel to Egypt, a country far away from the forces that want to harm Jesus. The little family stays there until it is safe for them to return to Israel, and settle in Nazareth, a safe town away from danger, where Jesus can grow up in safety. Clearly, God want

Matthew 1:18-24 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n Throughout the Bible, we discover many names and titles for Jesus. We can find one for each day of Advent and still have more to find! Thinking about the different names and titles helps us go deeper into the mystery of who Jesus is, deeper into the mystery of God. In the Gospel for this fourth Sunday of Advent, when Joseph learns about God's plan, we hear two different names for the baby. Now the birth of Jesus the Me

Matthew 11.2-11 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n (Adults, you could begin by reading the Gospel to your child.) Matthew 11.2-11 This Sunday is called Gaudete  Sunday. We light the third candle of the Advent wreath, the pink one. Gaudete  means rejoice  and pink is the colour for rejoicing . We wonder, though, why  do we rejoice ? Last Sunday, we heard about John the Baptist—the Preparation  Person— preparing  the people of Israel for Jesus who comes. John the Baptist

Matthew 3.1-12 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Gospel for this Sunday when we light the second candle on our Advent wreath, we hear about John the Baptist who is a cousin of Jesus. John the Baptist is a preparation  person. He prepares  the people of Israel for Jesus who comes to speak about the Kingdom of God  in a way no one has ever spoken before. In Advent , we listen to John the Baptist as we   prepare  to celebrate the feast of the Light of God coming i

Matthew 24.37-44 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent . Advent  is a season of preparing  for the feast of the the light of God coming into the world. We think about the moment when that light first came into the world and we prepare for the moment when that light fills all the world. The colour for the season is purple . We know that Jesus is the light of the world and that he is born in Bethlehem. We know that he grows to be

Luke 23.35-43 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n This Sunday is a special feast day called Christ the King. "Christ" is a title given to Jesus that means "One Who Is Anointed"—one who is chosen by God for something special. The reading for this Sunday talks about Jesus dying on the cross. Is this the "something special" God chooses him for? Is this our King? "Forget-me-nots" (Image by RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ from Pixabay.) The reading begins: And the people stood by, watching...

Luke 21.5-19 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus speaks about some upsetting things. He knows that the world is not perfect. He knows that bad things happen. What does he want us to know about these things? When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all wil

John 2.13-25   Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n This Sunday, we celebrate a holy place—a special holy building called a "basilica" in Rome. In our Gospel reading, Jesus arrives at a holy place—a special holy building called "the Temple" in Jerusalem. The Temple is the most holy  place in all of Jerusalem because in the Temple is God. The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, a

Luke 7.11-17 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n This Sunday is a feast day. It is November 2nd, the feast of All Souls. Each year on this day, we think in a particular way about those people who died before us. Death is a part of life that touches us close to our hearts. On this day, we listen to the Gospel to find out what Jesus thinks about death. We want to learn something of his heart. Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with

Luke 18.9-14 Listen here to the Gospel and Reflectio n In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus tells a parable about how we should be when we pray. We remember that parables are little stories to help us understand. In this parable, there are two people who go to the Temple to pray. The Temple is the most holy place in all Jerusalem, in all of Israel, because in the Temple, behind the great gold doors of the Tabernacle, is the Holy of Holies. Only a certain holy priest on a cert