Catholic Sunday Mass Reading Reflections

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Vanity of Vanities

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Hospitality to God

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

This readings from the 15th Sunday of ordinary time include the story of the good Samaritan, and what it means to be holy.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Mission and evangelization

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

To follow Christ, we must prepare for a hard road but rest assured He will carry us.

The Feast of Corpus Christi - The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Just as Jesus fed the five thousand - a miracle of very little becoming so much more - the humble bread and wine become His body and blood in the Eucharist.

Trinity Sunday (Year C)

We should seek to model relationships and our lives after the Most Holy Trinity with sacrificial love.

Pentecost Sunday (Year C)

In the last night of his life, Jesus prayed specifically for his followers to have unity. He said that, through unity, the disciples would bear a powerful witness to his name. Why, on the darkest night of his life, was he thinking about that? The answer is seen in his example: in unity, there is love, a sacrificial love between the Father and Son, and between all who believe in him. Christianity has survived, not because of its cleverness or power, but because of its unified love.

7th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Place yourself in today's Gospel reading, and imagine being in the room with Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. Jesus sits up and begins to talk. Listen attentively to his prayer to the Heavenly Father.

6th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

The readings for the Easter season harken to the first days of Christianity, allowing us to walk in the footsteps of the first Christians as they attempted to follow Christ as part of the young Church.

5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Today's readings focuses on embracing the crosses that God allows into our lives, even while our human nature resists that kind of suffering. We avoid it and anxiously try to change situations that are unpleasant. Yet Jesus Himself modeled for us the transformation and redemption that comes from hardship and pain.

4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Have you ever watched a herd of animals as they journey toward a destination? It's remarkable that their every move seems to be in sync with the entire group. Nature itself shows us that uniting together in community – as one body – is the way God intended us to behave.

3rd Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Just as Peter denied Jesus three times, now the risen Lord asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?"

Divine Mercy Sunday (Year C)

There are two sides to Christ's love. On one side He mercifully loves us wherever he finds us, even in our sin. On the other side, we see that he loves us too much to leave us in that condition, but draws us out to be transformed.

Easter Sunday (Year C)

Today we celebrate the greatest of all Christian feasts: Easter Sunday. We come together rejoicing in the goodness of God, knowing that Christ's resurrection from the dead gives us the hope that we too will rise someday with him.

Palm Sunday (Year C)

The readings for Palm, or Passion, Sunday are the most dramatic of the whole year. They recount the entire story of Christ's death from Holy Thursday through Good Friday. One of the unusual aspects of this week's Gospel reading is that it is the one time during the year when all of us take part in proclaiming the Word of God by participating in the Gospel reading.

5th Sunday of Lent (Year C)

Today's reading from the Gospel of John tells of a woman who was caught in the sin of adultery, and then caught again--but this time in God's mercy and love. The account provides not only a striking example of Jesus' mercy, but also his call to conversion. He offers forgiveness and healing and a call to a new life as he tells her: "Go and sin no more."

4th Sunday of Lent (Year C)

In today’s Gospel we hear about the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke. Scriptures talk about a son who was lost is now found and is received into the loving arms of his father. How do you view God the father? Do you fall upon His love and mercy when you’ve strayed? Let us remember that we are God’s children and we must maintain our hope in the mercy and love of the Lord.

3rd Sunday of Lent (Year C)

At this midway point in our Lenten journey, today's readings show us the Exodus, the great journey of the Jewish people out of Egypt. What are we to think of this amazing drama as Moses defied the King of Egypt, risking everything to obey God and lead His people out of their slavery?

2nd Sunday of Lent (Year C)

What an amazing experience it must have been for Peter, James and John to witness an event few humans can imagine – the glory of Jesus! And yet we experience a similar miracle at every Mass as the glory of Jesus is shown to us in the Eucharist. The three Apostles didn't take their experience for granted. Why should we?

1st Sunday of Lent (Year C)

At the start of Lent we are invited to once again be strengthened in the Holy Spirit and in the Word of God. We are strengthened so that we may face the temptations of Satan each day just as Jesus did for us while he prayed and fasted in the desert. What tactics does Satan use to try to get you to sin? Let us be aware and turn away once again during this period of Lent, a time of deeper conversion.

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Imagine that you and Jesus are standing in today's Gospel reading under a fruit tree, loaded with ripening fruit. Jesus points to the fruit and says, "A good tree does not bear rotten fruit . . .every tree is known by its fruit." In prayer, ask Jesus to show you areas where you are not bearing good fruit—perhaps in your friendships or family life or in your moral life.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Take a moment now and close your eyes. Imagine that you are with the disciples as Jesus begins to talk. You hear him say, "To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." What is your immediate reaction to hearing these things? In what ways is this te...

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Imagine yourself sitting at the feet of Jesus when he gave the Beatitudes. Hear him say that the rich and satisfied will be unhappy. Hear him offer a path of true happiness through humble obedience and faith. Do you accept this humble path?

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Simon Peter had been up all night fishing unsuccessfully, but Jesus tells him to go out and try one more time. It's easy to imagine how a seasoned fisherman like Simon Peter might resist the suggestion. But, in the end, he agrees. Perhaps he didn't expect to catch anything. So we can imagine his surprise when his obedience yields more than he could possibly imagine. In that, we have an important lesson.

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth to give a homily in the synagogue. At first, everyone is impressed. But then Jesus takes on the tone of a prophet and his hometown friends take offense, even inhibiting the ability of Jesus to effectively minister there. What lesson might we learn from this event?

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Luke's Gospel recounts the beginning of Jesus' public ministry as He returns "in the power of the Holy Spirit" to Nazareth and stands up in the synagogue to read from the prophet Isaiah. There Isaiah declares that the Spirit of the Lord has commissioned him to announce good news to the poor, news of release from captivity, recovery of sight for the blind, liberty to the oppressed—all in all, a year "of the Lord's favor." The Old Testament called this celebration the Year of Jubilee. Jesus app...

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Mary's words at the wedding feast at Cana - "Do whatever he tells you" - offers two examples of prompt obedience and Christian discipleship. May Mary's words encourage us to show our trust in Jesus by promptly obeying him in all things, filling our "jars to the brim" in whatever he may ask of us.

Baptism of the Lord (Year C)

On this first Sunday of Ordinary Time, we recall the Baptism of the Lord. But, in addition to remembering this historical event, we also are asked to call to mind our own baptism. Why? Because our baptism isn't just an event from the past, but a present reality that impacts every aspect of our lives.

The Epiphany of the Lord (Year C)

On this day we encounter the Magi coming from the East to worship the baby Jesus. What were the Magi? And why did they travel so far to find the Child King? What did these "foreigners" see that eluded the leaders and people of Israel?

The Holy Family (Year C)

It's tempting to think that the Blessed Virgin was somehow different from the rest of us—that she knew exactly what would happen in her life and never had to work through difficult periods. Yet, she did. And in her, we see how certain trials in our lives fit perfectly within the bigger picture of God's work - and the graces that we obtained through them.

4th Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Many Catholics are familiar with the story of "the Visitation," when Mary and Elizabeth met. But many don't know why the scene of two expectant mothers greeting each other is so important. Apart from affirming Mary's miraculous pregnancy, the scene also shows Mary's service and humility as she travelled a long distance to assist her older relative Elizabeth. We should ask if we're willing to go the extra mile – or several – to serve others.

3rd Sunday of Advent (Year C)

The Third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete, or Rejoice, Sunday—and all of the readings for this week invite us to do just that. This first reading from the prophet Zephaniah opens with a threefold call to joy, "Shout for joy… sing joyfully…. Be glad and exult with all your heart" (Zephaniah 3:14). Israel rejoiced in the presence of her saving God, but this joy can only be made complete in the coming of the Messiah.

2nd Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Any experienced driver knows that a road that zig-zags takes longer than a straight path to get to a destination. The same is true spiritually, as we see in today's reading. But the question is: why were the roads to God crooked in the first place?

1st Sunday of Advent (Year C)

If the first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year, why does the Gospel focus on endings as it talks about the sun and moon darkening and the stars falling from the sky? We're supposed to be preparing to celebrate Jesus' birth as the Messiah, not hear about the end of the world. What's going on here?

Our Lord Christ the King (Year B)

This Sunday brings the liturgical year of the Church to its culmination. At the close of the year, the Church draws our attention to Jesus's Kingship and the coming of his Kingdom through this Sunday's readings.

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

In our readings for this Sunday, the Church invites us to relfect on this call to approach each day as our last, to strive continually to hold absolutely nothing back from the Lord because we assume we'll have another chance tomorrow. We only have the present moment to give ourselves completely to God, because he has only given us each moment.

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

A widow in Jesus' time would have been one of the most outcast in society. With no man to own property, home, or bring in an income, she would be struggling to get by. And yet, with great humility and great courage, she still presents herself in the Temple, showing her brave faith. She trusts in God's word. She hopes in his promise. And she gives all that she has. While no one else may notice, Jesus does. He notices the ways in which we empty ourselves when we don't think we have more to give...

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

The great consequence of the truth being Jesus is that the world is split into those who recognize Jesus and those who do not. To the extent that we see Jesus, recognize him, know him, and commune with him we are able to see things in the truth and perceive reality clearly. The more we know him and love him, the more we know and love the truth in all things.

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

The imagery of sight and blindness pervades the readings for this Sunday. The Church uses this metaphor to help us understand how we are blinded by sin and are in need of Christ's light in order to follow him.

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

The logic of the Gospel is the logic of God, not of humans. Today, Jesus wants to pull us aside for an intimiate moment to reveal his heart more deeply to us and to teach us his logic that will lead to our true joy, just as he did for his Apostles.

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

Winter can be depressing. Depending on where you live in the country, you may not get to see the sun for two or three months. It can be bone-chillingly cold and there is little sign of life except for the brave neighbors who shovel their driveways. The days are short and dark, the trees are lifeless, and we don't hear children playing outside or birds chirping. It can be so desolate. Carrying our cross is often a "winter" for our soul. It can be challenging, lonely, and feel never-ending. The...

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

Have you ever felt like you really have something down? Maybe a sport, a task at your work, or getting the laundry folded regularly! You have finally mastered it. And then, when you thought everything was (finally) going as you planned and worked for, something comes up. You get hurt, your work changes, a child gets sick and everything is thrown off once again. Today we will encounter this in a man who has been seeking to follow the commandments since he was a young boy. He thinks he has it a...

23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

When was the last time you were so sick you had to rely on a family member or friend to help get you to the doctor? Sometimes, we aren't able to get the healing we need on our own. We need someone else to bring us. Today we will read about a man who was brought to Jesus, and how grateful he must have been to those who loved him enough to present him before the Divine Physician.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

God desires our whole hearts, not simply our actions. We can do good acts but still keep our hearts far from him. But if we lift up our hearts, the power of Jesus' resurrection can transform us overtime to actually become more like him. Then our actions will flow seamlessly from who we are in our hearts.

31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus encounters a sincere scribe, unlike the other Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadduccees, who continually attempted to trick him and destroy his words. Because of his sincerity, Jesus offers great hope to this scribe by telling him that he is not far from the kingdom.

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B)

The word "Christian" literally translates to mean "follower of Christ". That means we are followers of Christ, but many of us have probably not ever thought about what it actually means to follow him. Maybe we never even consciously decided to follow him, but we have always gone to Church because that's how we were raised, or that's what our spouse does.