Our readings for Sunday of 2025 are here, and the traditional Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C are here from 2022.
[A brief apology for the belatedness of these next few entries — the trip to Europe, covid, and trying to get a used car have been pretty time-consuming!]
This Sunday, September 14, 2025, is a little unusual because the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross replaces the Sunday of Ordinary Time observance.
In the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B, these readings are used, and I copied in the notes from Fr Dennis’ homily of that particular Sunday.
In the Gospel of John there is a pattern (not a logical construction, but a pattern):
- In Genesis: We hear of Eden and the serpent’s cross-talking words leading Adam and Eve to upend their relationship with God through their own choice.
- In Numbers 21:9, Moses stretches out and lifts the serpent up (a foreshadowing of the Cross), and any who look at it will be cured.
- In the Gospel of John: The Son of Man will be lifted up so that those who look upon Him on the cross will be cured.
- In Aramaic, “heals” = “salvation.”
- Jesus’ spirituality heals, and the physical healing is a sign of it.
- (rl notes that this healing pattern is shared in the Greek tradition with the Rod of Asclepius, a serpent-entwined staff, and even to this day it is used as the symbol of the American Medical Association.
I have left the regular Sunday notes and poem because this was another good one by D2! **********
These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the
- September 15, 2013 8:30AM Mass
_______
The poem and writing Fr Dennis references this year are:
- 2013 homily — Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen and A Prayer to the Good Shepherd by John Shea.
In 2013, we reflected on —
- In John Shea’s introduction to The God Who Fell From Heaven, he writes of three things lost, three things found, ==> three parties! (p 20)
- The Parable of the Prodigal Son has had so much written about it, it can become too familiar. Dennis read an excerpt from Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, pp 42-44. rl’s favorite quote “I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.”
- “What more can be said of the gospel reading?” and, he asked us if there was a word or phrase that stuck with us and encouraged us to stay with it, reflect, and pray.
- On my (rl’s) 8-day silent retreat this year, one of my passages was the Prodigal Son. My spiritual director/companion, Fr Peter Fennessy, SJ often uses art to help his directees engage their imaginations with the passages. This time, he showed me Two Sons by James Janknegt (2002).
- He noted that in this image, the artist equated eating the pigs’ acorns with the dehumanization of a corporate fast food job and the seething resentment of the older brother with a snapped-in-two guitar. What do you see?
- In commemoration of 9/11, in 2014 (I think) Fr Dennis offered the recording of Rabbi Irwin Kula, who had transformed the final voicemails of some people in the Towers and United Airlines Flight 93 into the form of a Jewish lament. You can listen to it here. It is how I commemorate that day in grief for lives lost and celebrate that so many chose love to be their final words. Then, perhaps in 2012, he played “No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods by Barbara Cook.
The Surest Sign 