A talent in the ancient world was a huge sum of money. I suppose in our terms it would be worth millions, maybe even billions of pounds. And that’s appropriate for the parable, because in the Christian life the Lord endows all of us with…
In today’s reading from Philippians, St. Paul in prison expresses his gratitude for a financial gift recently received. Without it he would have faced severe hardship; perhaps even starvation. He knows that the Philippian Christians themselves are…
Worry, says St. Paul, in today’s second reading, or be anxious, about nothing. Paul is writing to the Philippians: to people he knows, and loves, and trusts. He is beginning to wind up his letter, and he wants to leave them with a strong message to remember and…
Of all St. Paul’s Letters, Romans is the longest, richest, densest, most difficult, most rewarding, most challenging, most perplexing, most commented on, most thoroughly Jewish, most obscurely Rabbinical, most radically universal in its all-embracing…
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, according to St. Matthew, Jesus speaks of a wise man who built his house on rock. Rain came, floods rose, gales blew, and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall (7:25). Now today we hear him speaking of…
“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?” said Gandalf. But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and joy, he could not answer. At last…
After the worst possible thing: the best possible thing. No: better even than that. Far, far better. Still each year when we keep this Vigil, the newness of it, the magnitude of it, catches us as if in the throat. The explosion of new life. No, better than just…
Joseph Ratzinger, commenting on this passage, observes that our canonical Greek text must derive from an Aramaic original. There is a direct citation of Aramaic in the name “Simon Bar-Jonah”. There are also typical Aramaic…
