by Arnold Troeger | Jan 1, 2024 | Bible
As the early church spread and realized that the end time was no time soon, a need arose to start writing on its faith in Jesus, the Risen Christ, the Son of God and Mary. Paul was the first to write his letters on faith in the Risen Lord, to the wider Church, beyond Jewish Christians. Mark was the first of the four gospels, being written around the year 70AD.
Mark designed his faith story into two halves.
Mark 1:1-8:30 – The Mystery of Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 8:31-16:8 – The Mystery of Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God.
Mark begins by telling the reader who Jesus is and what he will do. Through various episodes, in the first half of the Gospel, involving interactions between Jesus and characters who have not read the prologue (1:1-13), a single question emerges: Who is Jesus?
The questioning ceases after Jesus asks his disciples, at Caesarea Philippi: Who do people say that I am? Peter responds: You are the Messiah.
The second half of the Gospel opens with an immediate explanation of who Jesus is: the Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem to suffer, to die and to be raised on the third day. As the crucified and risen Son of Man, Jesus is both Messiah and Son of God. As Jesus dies his agonizing death on the cross, the Roman centurion, a non-disciple, confesses the crux of the faith: Truly, this man was the Son of God. The Christ was the humble, obedient Jesus, the Son of God.
The way of obedience unto death so that God might enter his story and raise him from death must be the measure of the life of all who claim to be his followers. The disciple is called to follow the crucified Messiah and Son of God.
The presentation of Jesus in Mark is focused strongly on a suffering Jesus, who dies, asking God why he has forsaken him. This portrait challenges all who follow the Son of God. He responds to his Father through his unconditional self-gift, whatever it may cost him. His followers are asked to do the same.
Mark stands in line with Paul, for we are called to preach Christ crucified, remembering that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and his weakness is stronger than our strength. Our life of discipleship makes sense because we are following the Son of God, the Crucified Jesus whom God raised from death, following him into a life of self-giving and suffering, death and resurrection.
Francis J Moloney sdb- Reading the New Testament in the Church (2015)
by Arnold Troeger | Dec 31, 2023 | Bible
As the early church spread and realized that the end time was no time soon, a need arose to start writing on its faith in Jesus, the Risen Christ, the Son of God and Mary. Paul was the first to write his letters on faith in the Risen Lord, to the wider Church, beyond Jewish Christians. Mark was the first of the four gospels, being written around the year 70AD.
Mark designed his faith story into two halves.
Mark 1:1-8:30 – The Mystery of Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 8:31-16:8 – The Mystery of Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God.
Mark begins by telling the reader who Jesus is and what he will do. Through various episodes, in the first half of the Gospel, involving interactions between Jesus and characters who have not read the prologue (1:1-13), a single question emerges: Who is Jesus?
The questioning ceases after Jesus asks his disciples, at Caesarea Philippi: Who do people say that I am? Peter responds: You are the Messiah.
The second half of the Gospel opens with an immediate explanation of who Jesus is: the Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem to suffer, to die and to be raised on the third day. As the crucified and risen Son of Man, Jesus is both Messiah and Son of God. As Jesus dies his agonizing death on the cross, the Roman centurion, a non-disciple, confesses the crux of the faith: Truly, this man was the Son of God. The Christ was the humble, obedient Jesus, the Son of God.
The way of obedience unto death so that God might enter his story and raise him from death must be the measure of the life of all who claim to be his followers. The disciple is called to follow the crucified Messiah and Son of God.
The presentation of Jesus in Mark is focused strongly on a suffering Jesus, who dies, asking God why he has forsaken him. This portrait challenges all who follow the Son of God. He responds to his Father through his unconditional self-gift, whatever it may cost him. His followers are asked to do the same.
Mark stands in line with Paul, for we are called to preach Christ crucified, remembering that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and his weakness is stronger than our strength. Our life of discipleship makes sense because we are following the Son of God, the Crucified Jesus whom God raised from death, following him into a life of self-giving and suffering, death and resurrection.
Francis J Moloney sdb- Reading the New Testament in the Church (2015)
by Arnold Troeger | Dec 30, 2023 | Assumption Cathedral, News
These are the PDF versions of the Sunday programs. The best way to make use of these is to print them using 2 sided printing in landscape mode.
Sunday, 31 December 2023 Holy Family_B Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 24 December 2023 4th Sunday of Advent B Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 17 December 2023 3rd Sunday of Advent Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 10 December 2023 2nd Sunday of Advent Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 3 December 2023 1st Sunday of Advent Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 26 November 2023 Christ the King Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 19 November 2023 33rd Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 12 November 2023 32nd Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 5 November 2023 All Saints Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 29 October 2023 30th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 22 October 2023 29th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 15 October 2023 28th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 8 October 2023 41st Sunday Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 1 October 2023 26th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 24 September 2023 25th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 17 September 2023 24th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 10 September 2023 23rd Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 3 September 2023 22nd Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 27 August 2023 21st Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 20 August 2023 Assumption of Our Lady Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 13 August 2023 19th Sunday in ordinary time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 6 August 2023 Transfiguration of the Lord Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 30 July 2023 17th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 23 July 2023 16th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 16 July 2023 15th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 9 July 2023 14th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 2 July 2023 Sts. Peter and Paul Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 25 June 2023 12th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 18 June 2023 11th Sunday Ordinary Time Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 11 June 2023 Body and Blood Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 4 June 2023 Holy Trinity Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 28 May 2023 Pentecost Sunday Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 21 May 2023 Ascension of the Lord Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 14 May 2023 6th Sunday of Easter Assumption Cathedral
Sunday, 7 May 2023 5th Sunday of Easter Assumption Cathedral
by Arnold Troeger | Dec 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
To print this, either set your printer to print just one side, or print two sided with the fold along the long edge
Christmas Mass Eng Assumption Cathedral
by Arnold Troeger | Nov 13, 2023 | News
– Luke Coppen, The Pillar, August 2022
Bishop, what is Christianity?
Christianity fundamentally is faith in – and an existential attachment to – the revelation of Jesus Christ. By which I mean fundamentally his manifestation of our call to share in the very life of God, in his victory over death. Fundamentally, Christianity is the certainty that in Christ death has lost its sting. “Christ is risen” and everything else flows from that. There are enormous consequences, more or less simple or complex, that embrace all of existence.
What is prayer?
It’s the lifting up of the heart. It is an opening of my being to the reality of God and an engagement of my being with God’s being in a dialogue, which is sometimes an explicit dialogue and sometimes very implicit and mysterious.
There’s a marvelous story of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. When he goes to an old people’s home, he encounters this old lady, who is in a great spiritual crisis, because she says she recites the Jesus Prayer day and night, and yet she is in this state of spiritual desert. The Metropolitan advises her: “From now on, I ask you to spend half an hour a day not saying any prayers, but simply sitting in your chair and knitting in the face of God.”
It totally revolutionized this woman’s spiritual life.
Sometimes, if we could learn just to shut up and open ourselves attentively to God.
Is that what you’d call contemplative prayer?
I’ve been helped by a phrase from a Florentine Renaissance humanist, Pico della Mirandola, who speaks of our fundamental vocation as being “universi contemplator”, as one who contemplates the universe, who contemplates the whole. I’m convinced that we, by nature, are contemplative. To live contemplatively is fundamentally a matter of standing still and paying attention.
There’s a contemplative hidden in everyone?
And not necessarily all that hidden. In our cultural context, there’s a lot that militates against the contemplative life because we’re addicted to disturbance. We love to be disturbed. And if we haven’t been disturbed for the last 20 seconds, we find something to disturb us. Part of the soul pain, frustration that experience can release in us is an indication that, fundamentally, we’re constructed for a different mode of interacting with the world.
Blaise Pascal said that ‘all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’ There’s such wisdom in that.
Does the Church still have a need for contemplatives?
An urgent need, because the heart of the Church is a contemplative heart. We need that constant refocusing of our sight, of our mind, of our heart upon the mystery of God.
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