The Easter season ended yesterday so our cycle of readings at Mass resumes as ‘Ordinary Time’, which we left ages ago on Shrove Tuesday (and it really does feel like a long time ago).
The first readings this week are from the Second Letter of Peter (1:2-7). This composition reads like a farewell letter, much of it focussed on the second coming of Christ. This theme (only really likely after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD70), and the picture it gives of established letters by St Paul, suggests that it wasn’t written by the apostle Peter but is much later, probably the turn of the first and second centuries. It was the last book in the New Testament to be accepted.
We pick up our passage through the gospel of Mark which stopped on Shrove Tuesday, with today’s Parable of the Vineyard (12: 1-12).
God bless and take care
Fr Ashley
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From our Facebook page…
A couple of years ago Pope Francis instituted a new feast day for the Monday after Pentecost, Whit Monday, in honour of Our Lady, Mother of the Church. At the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, reflecting the council’s teaching, Pope St Paul VI proclaimed Mary to be Mother of the Church. Our Lady was present at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which we celebrated yesterday, with the Church at its beginning. So as we move into the season of ‘Ordinary Time’ we ask Mary to pray for the Church.
God bless and take care
Fr Ashley