Uchenna C. Okpalaunegbu Reflection

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…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion         In his book “The Quest for the Mes­si­ah”, J. Paint­er explores the seeth­ing and con­fused expect­a­tions of the first cen­tury and why John con­sider these so sig­ni­fic­ant and import­ant for any under­stand­ing of…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion         Happy new month and wel­come to the month of Decem­ber, the month of the inaug­ur­a­tion of sal­va­tion! The gen­er­al mes­sage of the First Sunday of Advent was Jesus’ invit­a­tion to his dis­ciples and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Ety­mo­lo­gic­ally, the term advent derives from the Lat­in advĕntum, arrival and advenīre to arrive. Hence, it is a peri­od or moment of expect­a­tion for some­thing moment­ous. In our con­text, that is, in the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesPre­amble The Solem­nityof Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Uni­verse, pop­ularly called the Feast of Christ the King, was insti­tuted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. For the Roman Cath­ol­ic Church, it was moved…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Jesus will nev­er cease to amaze us. Every occa­sion was an oppor­tun­ity to teach some­thing new. Even the dis­cus­sion on the archi­tec­tur­al dec­or­a­tions of the Temple was used as an occa­sion to instruct,…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesPlot­ting to trap Jesus Fol­low­ing Luke’s present­a­tion, Jesus has made his ingress into the of Jer­u­s­alem. And in Luke 19:45–48, Jesus per­formed his first activ­ity in Jer­u­s­alem. Luke notes that as soon as Jesus entered…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duct­ory Words Jesus is gradu­ally approach­ing Jer­u­s­alem and he con­tin­ues to recall people’s atten­tion on the right path to the truth, espe­cially, those who are will­ing and dis­posed to listen to him. In this…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesPro­logue This Sunday Gos­pel is still on pray­er but from a dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive. If Luke 18:1–8 is on the con­stancy of pray­er, 18:9–14 emphas­ises on how to pray and on how not to pray.…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion      The teach­ing on grat­it­ude is imme­di­ately accom­pan­ied by the teach­ing on con­stancy and non-aban­­don­­ment. This Sunday Gos­pel presents a very strong psy­cho­lo­gic­al motiv­a­tion. The example Jesus used to back-up his exhorta­tion to constancy…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Luke 17:11–19 is a fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion of the Gos­pel of last Sunday (Luke 17:5–10). Jesus is gradu­ally approach­ing Jer­u­s­alem hence the pres­ence of the lepers should not be a sur­prise. That the lepers…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesThe found­a­tion of Luke 17:5–10 As indic­ated above, Luke 17:5–10 can­not be under­stood without Luke 17:1–4. Luke 17:1–4 is the reas­on and found­a­tion of Luke 17:5–10. After address­ing the Phar­isees (cf. Luke 16:14), Jesus…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Ori­gin­ally, the incid­ent of the rich man and the poor man was spe­cific­ally addressed to the Phar­isees. Today, it is addressed to us, so we should not repeat the unfor­tu­nate mis­take of the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesPre­amble After address­ing and remind­ing the Phar­isees and the Scribes that people should not be judged based on the fact that they are dif­fer­ent, and espe­cially after the power­ful les­son on the neces­sity of…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesPro­logue After listen­ing to Jesus’ words to the invit­ees and their host (cf. Luke 14:1.7–14), one of the invit­ees sit­ting at the table with Jesus exclaimed “Blessed is the one who will dine in…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesPro­logue Fol­low­ing Jesus’ warn­ing on the danger of not enter­ing through the nar­row door, and on the pro­vok­ing say­ing that many who are first will be last while many who are last will be…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesOpen­ing words After last Sunday mes­sage which ter­min­ated in Luke 12:53, the twelfth chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Luke con­cludes with a neg­at­ive criticism/condemnation (cf. Luke 12:54–57) and an advice (cf. Luke 12:58–59).…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion In 1979, “Sign of Con­tra­dic­tion” was pub­lished. This book is a col­lec­tion of Len­ten dis­courses of bish­op Karol Józef Wojtyła, who later became pope John Paul II in 1978. “Sign of Con­tra­dic­tion” is…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duct­ory Words After present­ing his con­vin­cing and theo­lo­gic­ally foun­ded argu­ment in defence of his stand that life’s worth does not con­sist in the abund­ance of a person’s mater­i­al pos­ses­sion, Jesus invites his dis­ciples not…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Dear friend, wel­come to anoth­er week of grace! Wel­come espe­cially to the month of August. To have exper­i­enced this day is a sign of God’s grace. As we learnt last Sunday, God has…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Dear read­er, how was your week? I hope you were able to handle the dis­trac­tions that came your way dur­ing the week? Gradu­ally, you will get rid of them all. Do not be…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, Jesus con­tin­ues his teach­ings on the king­dom of God and the con­di­tion for inher­it­ing it; and on why some people work their way away from etern­al life. Last…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel (Luke 10:25–37) touches a fun­da­ment­al ques­tion – life after death. It is about the rais­on d’être of human right­eous con­duct – the quest for etern­al life. The lawyer’s ques­tion is…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Last Sunday Gos­pel read­ing ended with the dis­cern­ing of dis­ciples and the cost of dis­ciple­ship (cf. Luke 9:57–62). In this Sunday read­ing, Jesus makes sev­enty-two of his dis­ciples exper­i­ence the pros and cons…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the rev­el­a­tion of Jesus’ iden­tity as the Mes­si­ah of God; after Jesus’ explan­a­tion of the implic­a­tion of his being the anoin­ted One of God; and after list­ing the con­di­tions of being his…

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

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Accord­ing to the litur­gic­al arrange­ment of the Cath­ol­ic Church, the cel­eb­ra­tion of the des­cent of the Holy Spir­it last Sunday marked the end of the Paschal peri­od and the begin­ning of the “Ordin­ary…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Last week was very import­ant for Chris­ti­ans because it offered them the oppor­tun­ity to pre­pare adequately, for the com­mem­or­a­tion of the gift of the Holy Spir­it on the Apostles, on all believ­ers and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion With the ascen­sion of Jesus after forty days of his resur­rec­tion, the stage is now set for the Twelve apostles to begin their mis­sion. Before his ascen­sion, John deems it neces­sary to document…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing is an exten­sion and applic­a­tion of that of last Sunday (cf. John 13:31–35). Last Sunday, new com­mand­ment was giv­en. This Sunday, the the­or­et­ic­al com­mand to love is expec­ted to…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The ref­er­ence to the glor­i­fic­a­tion of God in Jesus Christ echoes the text of Isai­ah 49:3. The glor­i­fic­a­tion of Jesus is strictly tied to his death and resur­rec­tion. What Jesus does to his…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The Gos­pel of this Sunday invites us to reflect on the fol­low­ing: sheep, belong­ing, listen­ing, know­ing, fol­low­ing, giv­ing, etern­al life, get­ting lost, steal­ing, and being one with the Fath­er. Sheep is the most…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Accord­ing to the litur­gic­al arrange­ment of the Cath­ol­ic Church, Sunday read­ings for Cycle C are nor­mally taken from the Gos­pel accord­ing to Luke. How­ever, the Gos­pel read­ings for the Paschal sea­son are taken…

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? As the psalm­ist says, it is the Lord’s mak­ing. It is…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The resur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ is the most sig­ni­fic­ant event in human his­tory.  Chris­tian­ity is based on the resur­rec­tion of Jesus.  Jesus Christ was resur­rec­ted after his cru­ci­fix­ion on the cross.  Every man,…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the Len­ten peri­od, fol­lows the Palm Sunday (also called Pas­sion Sunday) that marks the begin­ning of the Holy Week. The Palm/Passion Sunday is the first day of the Holy Week. Fol­low­ing the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday is the last Sunday of Lent, and the Church presents to us a beau­ti­ful pas­sage from the Gos­pel accord­ing to John. It is a story that clearly mani­fests the say­ing of Jesus…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion As the Len­ten peri­od comes to con­clu­sion, the Gos­pel read­ings become more intense and more demand­ing. To end the lent without repent­ance is a ser­i­ous spir­itu­al offence. The fif­teenth chapter of the Gospel…