The Jews and Jesus

A family tragedy. A rending of God's own people. One story, one plan, one covenant, one arc, and yet by the end of the first century two families stand apart, both seeing themselves as the heirs of Abraham, and with chips on their shoulders. Centuries of distrust would follow.

How did we get here? Where do we go now? God clearly didn't want this. But (aside from a bare allowance of free will), did God allow this fracture so that other things might come of it, which He could use? We ponder it now, but Paul was already asking these questions in the 50s A.D. The question of Israel and Jesus wasn't his only topic in Romans, but a huge part of that letter is: God's Plan, Abraham's family, the triumph of Israel's messiah, and what does that mean for both Gentiles and Jews. 

The Canaanite woman reminds us that the Gentiles had to have some eventual place in God's plan and Romans 11 reminds us that Israel still has its role in the plan too. 

Peter's Transfiguration: He Says Less, But Also More

On Saturday night I covered in Palmyra, Nebraska for my classmate, Fr. Sean Kilcawley. Because Sunday was August 6th, the Mass that evening was for the Feast of the Transfiguration. One cool benefit of having the feast on a Sunday is that, opposed to merely the gospel of Transfiguration as found on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, you get Peter's first-person account of it from his epistle too, and also the "Son of Man" prophecy from Daniel, which was the central text of all messianism in the final centuries leading up to Jesus.