Sunday Readings

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C July 6, 2025 Readings: Isaiah 66: 10-14 Galatians 6: 14 – 18 Luke 10 – 12, 17 – 20 “I have come to find the term presence a more central and more useful category for grasping the unifying note in the varieties of Christian mysticism. Thus, we can say that the mystical [/contemplative] element in Christianity is that part of its beliefs and practices that concern the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as immediate and direct presence of God. --from Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God….The Foundations of Mysticism, Vol. 1, p.xvii. The Gospel readig of this Sunday demonstrates this contemplative fundamental aspect of the Christian life, namely, the transforming, immediate presence of the mystery of God, the Trinity, as the ground of existence. Jesus tells us that the works you do to fulfill the Gospel mandate, and the joy of experiencing the results, are NOT the summit of the life. Using a Hebrew word parable, the Lord says union with God in intimacy, the contemplative element, is the “better part,” "Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written heaven.” Your name, that is your deepest self is mutually uttered between you and the Trinity. “Father ... I have made known to them your name, and will make it known so that the love with which you have loved me [the Holy Spirit] may be in them, and I in them (John 17:24) The second reading, Galatians, reveals the New Testament version of the burning bush. The mystery of God is revealed in the burning bush of Jesus’ passion on the cross leading us to the mystery of the Trinity: The Son’s complete surrender to the Father in the Eternal Spirit. “May I never glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world…. I bear the marks of Jesus on my body….unto a new creation.” Rejoice that your name is written heaven. The mystery of union lives out in this present existence, by union with Jesus as the entry point into union in the sacraments of the Church. The first reading from the prophet Isaiah gives this contemplative aspect in the analogy of the new Jerusalem, the Church, within her sacraments as we are given entry into and nourished in the divine life. “As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms and fondled on her lap…. Your heart shall rejoice.” William Fredrickson, OblS,OSB; D.Min.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

July 6, 2025

Readings:
Isaiah 66: 10-14

Galatians 6: 14 – 18

Luke 10 – 12, 17 – 20

“I have come to find the term presence a more central and more useful category for grasping the unifying note in the varieties of Christian mysticism.
Thus, we can say that the mystical [/contemplative] element in Christianity is that part of its beliefs and practices that concern the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as immediate and direct presence of God.
--from Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God….The Foundations of Mysticism, Vol. 1, p.xvii.

The Gospel readig of this Sunday demonstrates this contemplative fundamental aspect of the Christian life, namely, the transforming, immediate presence of the mystery of God, the Trinity, as the ground of existence.

Jesus tells us that the works you do to fulfill the Gospel mandate, and the joy of experiencing the results, are NOT the summit of the life.
Using a Hebrew word parable, the Lord says union with God in intimacy, the contemplative element, is the “better part,”

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written heaven.”

Your name, that is your deepest self is mutually uttered between you and the Trinity.

“Father ... I have made known to them your name, and will make it known so that the love with which you have loved me [the Holy Spirit] may be in them, and I in them (John 17:24)

The second reading, Galatians, reveals the New Testament version of the burning bush. The mystery of God is revealed in the burning bush of Jesus’ passion on the cross leading us to the mystery of the Trinity: The Son’s complete surrender to the Father in the Eternal Spirit.

“May I never glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world…. I bear the marks of Jesus on my body….unto a new creation.”

Rejoice that your name is written heaven.

The mystery of union lives out in this present existence, by union with Jesus as the entry point into union in the sacraments of the Church.

The first reading from the prophet Isaiah gives this contemplative aspect in the analogy of the new Jerusalem, the Church, within her sacraments as we are given entry into and nourished in the divine life.

“As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms and fondled on her lap…. Your heart shall rejoice.”

William Fredrickson, OblS,OSB; D.Min.