First Sunday of Advent, Year A
Advent heralds Christ's three comings: birth, indwelling, and glorious return. This first Sunday's Gospel urges vigilance amid end-times turmoil, echoing the temple's 70 AD destruction as a prelude. Rejecting the rapture, Catholics emphasize preparation like Noah's era—live in grace, spiritually awake, ready for personal judgment at life's close.
Lectio Commentary: Feast of Christ the King, 2025
Pius XI instituted the 1925 Feast of Christ the King post-WWI to affirm that true peace demands submission to Christ's reign, as humanity's rejection of Him fuels global evils. Today, amid nuclear war threats and 1 Jn 5:19's warning of the evil one's sway, the Crucifixion's mercy—echoed in the good thief's plea—unites us in His Kingdom.
Lectio Commentary: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
In Luke 21:5-19, on this penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year, Jesus foretells Jerusalem's temple destruction—a prophecy fulfilled in 70 AD—and the end-times tribulations preceding his glorious return. Amid wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues, and persecution, he urges believers to witness courageously, relying on the Holy Spirit, and persevere faithfully to the end.
Lectio Divina: Feast of the dedication of the Lateran basilica
Ezekiel’s east‑flowing stream, deepening from ankle to waist, prefigures the Holy Spirit’s progressive sanctifying action; its life‑giving flood heals the Dead Sea and bears perpetual fruit, echoing Eden’s River and Revelation’s crystal river from the throne. Thus, the vision points to the Spirit’s mission to renew all creation in the world.
Jesus’s zeal for the temple exposes its corruption, driving out merchants and money‑changers, fulfilling prophecy that God’s house be a house of prayer. His act prefigures the temple’s destruction and the new worship in Christ’s body, the living Temple.