Liturgical Bible Study Guide: 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
1st Reading – Isaiah 55:10-11 Until the eighteenth century it was presumed that Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote all 66 chapters of the book under his name. At that time scholars maintained that chapters 40 through 66 were written by a different author who lived some 150 years after Isaiah, during the Babylonian exile. In the late nineteenth century […]
Liturgical Bible Study Guide: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
1st Reading – Zechariah 9:9-10 The Book of Zechariah, the name means “Yahweh remembers,” comes chronologically after that of Haggai. The prophet Zechariah belonged to a priestly family which had returned from exile in Babylon. Like Haggai, he was called by God in 520 B.C., the second year of the reign of Darius. He probably lived until […]
Liturgical Bible Study Guide: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
1st Reading – 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a Second Kings deals mainly with the wars between Judah and Israel and the attacks on them from outside. The situation became even more critical when the Assyrians invaded, first in the 9th century B.C. and more vigorously in the 8th. Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom (Israel), fell in 721, […]
Liturgical Bible Study Guide: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
1st Reading – Jeremiah 20:10-13 Jeremiah’s prophetic career extended from his youth in 626 B.C. to a date considerably later than the ruin of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Thus he witnessed the brief renewal of the covenant people under Josiah; the latter’s death in 609 at Megiddo; the obstinate, weak, and futile resistance of Josiah’s successors to Babylon; […]
Liturgical Bible Study Guide: Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) Cycle A
Introduction Corpus Christi is a doctrinal feast established in honor of Christ present in the Eucharist. Its purpose is to instruct the people in the mystery, faith, and devotion surrounding the Eucharist. The celebration of the feast evolved during the 13th and 14th centuries. The Berengarian heresy of the mid-11th century (named after Berengar of Tours) taught that […]