Letters From Home

As we’ve walked with the apostles in the Gospels in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed Jesus command the wind and sea, and order a little girl to arise from the dead.

But He seems to meet His match in His hometown of Nazareth. Today’s Gospel is blunt: “He was not able to perform any mighty deed there.”

God, who formed us in His imperishable image, did not intend for us to die, we hear in today's First Reading. Death entered the world through the devil's envy and Adam and Eve's sin; as a result, we are all bound to die.

 But in the moving story in today's Gospel, we see Jesus liberate a little girl from the possession of death.

Por un lado, San Marcos nos narra un acontecimiento que reveló a los discípulos la autoridad y el poder de Jesús, incluso sobre el último enemigo: la muerte (cfr. 1Co 15, 26). Por otro lado, sin embargo, este episodio busca fortalecer en nosotros la esperanza de que también seremos resucitados, junto todos nuestros seres queridos que duermen en Cristo (cfr. 1 Co 15,18).

The people in this week’s Gospel are frightened and amazed by the mysterious events surrounding the birth of John. Only his mother and father, Elizabeth and Zechariah, know what this child will be. John the Baptist was fashioned in secret, knit by God in his mother’s womb, as we sing in this Sunday’s Psalm. From the womb he was set apart, formed to be God’s servant, as Isaiah declares in this week’s First Reading.

Through the oracles of the Prophet Ezekiel, God gave his people reason to hope. It would have been a cryptic message to his hearers, long centuries before the Lord’s coming. Ezekiel glimpsed a day when the Lord God would place a tree on a mountain in Israel, a tree that would “put forth branches and bear fruit.” Who could have predicted that the tree would be a cross, on the hill of Calvary, and that the fruit would be salvation?

In today’s Gospel Jesus has just been healing and casting out demons in Galilee. Along with the crowds, who flock to Him so that He can’t even take a break to eat, come people who do not understand what He is doing. Even His friends think He has lost His mind and needs to be taken away for a while. But the scribes who came down from Jerusalem are not just honestly mistaken; they accuse Him of being possessed by the prince of demons.

All of today's readings are set in the context of the Passover. The First Reading recalls the old covenant celebrated at Sinai following the first Passover and the exodus.

In sprinkling the blood of the covenant on the Israelites, Moses was symbolizing God's desire in this covenant to make them His family, His "blood" relations.

Las lecturas de este día se ubican en el contexto de la Pascua. La primera de ellas recuerda la Antigua Alianza efectuada en el Sinaí después de la primera pascua y del éxodo.

Al rociar la sangre de la Alianza sobre los Israelitas, Moisés sim­bolizaba el deseo de Dios de hacerlos parte de su familia, de su sangre.

Last Sunday, we celebrated the sending of the Spirit, which sealed God's new covenant and made a new creation.

In this new creation, we live in the family of God, who has revealed himself as a Trinity of love. We share in His divine nature through His body and blood (see 2 Peter 1:4). This is the meaning of the three feasts that cap the Easter season - Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi.

El domingo pasado celebramos el envío del Espíritu Santo, que selló la Nueva Alianza de Dios y renovó todo lo creado.

En esta nueva creación, somos ya parte de la familia de Dios, quien se ha revelado como Trinidad de amor. Compartimos su naturaleza divina por medio de la recepción de su Cuerpo y Sangre (cfr. 2 Pe 1,14) Ese es el sentido de las tres celebraciones que coronan el tiempo pascual : Pentecostés, la Solemnidad de la Santísima Trinidad y Corpus Christi.