Uchenna C. Okpalaunegbu Reflection

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion As I noted in my reflec­tion last week, the 25^th chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew con­tains at least three inter­est­ing and sur­pris­ing epis­odes. They are inter­est­ing and sur­pris­ing because they concern…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion As the litur­gic­al year gradu­ally comes to an end, the read­ings also reflect such an end. In the pre­vi­ous chapters of the gos­pel, accord­ing to Mat­thew, Jesus used many and dif­fer­ent stor­ies to…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Hav­ing silenced the Phar­isees on the issue of the greatest com­mand­ment, Jesus now con­fron­ted them on one issue. With the con­clu­sion that the entire Jew­ish com­mand­ment hangs on the love of God and…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, the Jew­ish author­it­ies con­tin­ue to look for a way to trap Jesus in his own speech. The twenty-second chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew, is char­ac­ter­ized by…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Are God and the gov­ern­ment in oppos­i­tion? The Jew­ish author­it­ies were determ­ined to elim­in­ate Jesus. Since their oth­er attempts failed, they have now resor­ted to set­ting traps for him. They wanted Jesus to…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the par­able in Mat­thew 21:33–43, the chief priests and the scribes real­ized Jesus was refer­ring to them. Their plan to have him arres­ted was hal­ted by the fear of the people, who…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion   In the last Sunday Gos­pel (Matt 21:28–32), Jesus reminded the reli­gious lead­ers (priests and eld­ers) that those they regard as sin­ners (tax col­lect­ors, pros­ti­tutes, and oth­ers) make it to the king­dom of…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion    The chief priests and the eld­ers of the people were the worst oppon­ents of Jesus and, there­fore, of truth and justice. This was because Jesus refused to par­take in their cor­rup­tion and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion    With par­ables based on con­crete and every­day life, Jesus con­tin­ues to por­tray the true image of the king­dom of God. The idea of a house­hold­er who goes out in search of labourers…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday’s Gos­pel (18:21–35) is a fol­low-up to that of last Sunday (Matt 18:15–20). The theme of con­flict can­not be con­cluded without touch­ing on the theme of for­give­ness too. Accord­ing to Jesus, “If…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Beloved read­er, wel­come to a new week! I hope you are gradu­ally identi­fy­ing your obstacles. It is good that at the begin­ning of the “ember” months, the Gos­pel presents us, with guidelines on…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion   In the Gos­pel of last Sunday (Matt 16:13–20), Jesus’ iden­tity (as the anoin­ted One of God – Chris­tos) was revealed and cla­ri­fied. In this week’s Gos­pel, Jesus unveils the sig­ni­fic­ance and content…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing presents before us a very vital theme: iden­tity. There are vari­ous and var­ied defin­i­tions of iden­tity. Gen­er­ally, iden­tity is the con­di­tion of being the same as some­thing described, claimed,…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion After feed­ing the crowd spir­itu­ally and mater­i­ally (cf. Matt 14:13–21), Jesus dis­missed them after ask­ing the twelve dis­ciples to pre­cede him to their next des­tin­a­tion. Hav­ing dis­missed them, he now with­drew to the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion    This Sunday is the 18^th Sunday (A) of the Church’s litur­gic­al cal­en­dar. Since August 6, 2023, which hap­pens to be the feast of the Trans­fig­ur­a­tion of Jesus, occurs on a Sunday, the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesThe par­able of the hid­den treas­ure By defin­i­tion, a treas­ure should be any­thing and/or any per­son you so much value and that is very dear and spe­cial to you. The Greek term for treasure…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion   The Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew chapter thir­teen (13), con­tains series of par­ables gen­er­ally grouped as “king­dom par­ables” because of the way they are intro­duced: “the king­dom of heav­en is like….”  The par­able of…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion   Gran­ted today, the use of par­ables in daily speeches is gradu­ally dimin­ish­ing, how­ever, every cul­ture and espe­cially the eld­erly men and women under­stand the import­ance of par­ables in speeches and con­ver­sa­tions. In…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion    Hav­ing sent the dis­ciples on mis­sion and hav­ing exhausted the theme and the neces­sity of hos­pit­al­ity, Jesus can now take up oth­er teach­ings. Isai­ah was not wrong when he affirmed that we…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion I can’t get no sat­is­fac­tion; I can’t get no sat­is­fac­tion…. This line is taken from the heat album of the Rolling Stones. Des­pite their pop­ular­ity and wealth, the group laments they can­not get…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion “I hear so many whis­per­ing. Ter­ror on every side” What are they whis­per­ing? “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” These words threatened proph­et Jeremi­ah that he became con­fused and afraid. As he complained,…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesJesus SHOWS COMPASSION The mis­sion of Jesus was uni­ver­sal. It could only be car­ried out through the min­istry of col­lab­or­at­ors who were empowered by a shar­ing in his own Spir­it. The com­mis­sion­ing of the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesPre­amble God loves the entire Cre­ated Order that He takes care of the mater­i­al and spir­itu­al life of his cre­ation, espe­cially of human beings. Jesus recalled the atten­tion of the dis­ciples, when they wanted…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion The cel­eb­ra­tion of the des­cent of the Holy Spir­it last Sunday marked the end of the Paschal peri­od. There­fore, it is very logic­al that on this Sunday of the Most Holy Trin­ity, Christians…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Since Monday of the Sev­enth Sunday of Paschal, Chris­ti­ans espe­cially, Cath­ol­ics have been pre­par­ing for the com­mem­or­a­tion of the des­cent or gift of the Holy Spir­it on the Apostles, on all believ­ers and…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion While some events are self-explan­at­ory, oth­ers need to be inter­preted. Again, some­times, the mean­ing por­trayed by some events are not what people under­stand. For instance, the dis­ciples to Emmaus under­stood Jesus’ mis­sion from…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Due to the zeal and ded­ic­a­tion of the apostles, the Gos­pel mes­sage expan­ded bey­ond the bound­ar­ies of Jer­u­s­alem and the Lord con­tin­ued to add to the num­ber of believ­ers. Giv­en such rap­id expansion,…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion In the past two Sundays, we reflec­ted on com­mu­nion and fear­less­ness as the fruits of resur­rec­tion. This Third Sunday presents anoth­er fruit – repent­ance. Of what use is the cel­eb­ra­tion of Jesus’ resurrection…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion  For oth­ers, the Paschal feast is over, but not for the Cath­ol­ic Church. Litur­gic­ally, the Cath­ol­ic Church is still in the Paschal peri­od. The Sunday read­ings con­tin­ue to present to us the follow-up…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Once more, happy feast of the resur­rec­tion of Jesus! I hope you are still enjoy­ing the bless­ings and grace of the resur­rec­tion. It is the Lord’s mak­ing. It is mar­velous in our eyes.…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Is the resur­rec­tion of Jesus fact or fantasy? in fact, “many the­or­ies have been advanced, attempt­ing to show that the resur­rec­tion of Jesus was a fraud. I believe that many of the people…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel is a present­a­tion of what Jesus suffered because he pre­ferred to be just, faith­ful, com­mit­ted and ded­ic­ated to his mis­sion. The length of the read­ing sig­ni­fies his agony. Hav­ing explained…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Rein­ter­pret­ing the text of Isai­ah (61:1–2a) in Luke 4:16–20, the Evan­gel­ist Luke presents the mis­sion of Jesus as a mis­sion of hope, encour­age­ment, susten­ance, motiv­a­tion, lib­er­a­tion, and psy­cho­lo­gic­al reas­sur­ance. We saw this in…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Rightly did Jesus indic­ate in the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew (5:17) that his mis­sion was not to abol­ish neither the Law nor the Proph­ets but, to ful­fil them. Such ful­fil­ment includes the correction…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion    The Len­ten peri­od is gradu­ally pro­gress­ing towards the resur­rec­tion, the ful­fil­ment of sal­va­tion. The Len­ten Sundays con­tin­ue to enrich us with mes­sages that pre­pare us spir­itu­ally for the paschal mys­tery. While the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion    Hav­ing suc­cess­fully con­cluded his retreat, Jesus offi­cially begins his mis­sion. As soon as he came down from the wil­der­ness, and with the with­draw­al of John the Baptist, Jesus trans­ferred to Caper­naum, by…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion With the cel­eb­ra­tion of the Ash Wed­nes­day, the Church (par­tic­u­larly the Cath­ol­ic Church) begins an import­ant and unique moment in her litur­gic­al cel­eb­ra­tions – the sea­son of Lent. The Len­ten sea­son recalls the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion   This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing is still a con­tinu­ation of the 5^th chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew which com­prises a series of teach­ings that Jesus gave on the Mount. We learned…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion    Today’s First and Second read­ings under­line two facts: ‘Decision (mak­ing)’ and ‘Wis­dom.’ On the oth­er hand, the Gos­pel is a prag­mat­ic expos­i­tion of our decisions and the applic­a­tion of wis­dom or lack…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion    This Sunday’s Gos­pel read­ing is a con­tinu­ation of Jesus’ Ser­mon on the Mount (Matt 5–7). After declar­ing blessed or for­tu­nate those who are poor in spir­it; humble or gentle; mourn­ing; hun­ger­ing and…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion The Beatitude is the first major dis­course delivered by Jesus as recor­ded in the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew (chapters 5–7; see also Luke 6:20–49). Beatitude is a state of supreme hap­pi­ness. It could…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Last Sunday, John the Baptist intro­duced Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. With such present­a­tion, this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing presents Jesus as officially…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the pro­logue that recapit­u­lates the wis­dom of the logos (here in John, Word), the author of the Fourth Gos­pel presents a terse but theo­lo­gic­ally loaded con­ver­sa­tion between the Phar­isees and John the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesEpi­phany – Mean­ing Ordin­ar­ily, epi­phany refers to that very moment when a per­son sud­denly feels that he or she under­stands, or sud­denly becomes con­scious of some­thing that is very import­ant. On the oth­er hand, it is a potent reli­gious exper­i­ence. The Merriam-Webster…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Today is the last Sunday of Advent. Con­sequently, it is the last week before the Christ­mas cel­eb­ra­tions.  Since Christ-mass con­cerns the birth of Jesus, the choice of this Sunday Gos­pel is appro­pri­ate. The…