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Lifelong Catechesis

Forming Catholic identity across generations
September 18, 2024
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Ordinary Time

For a large part of the liturgical year, we devote ourselves to listening to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects unfolded as we seek God's truth and understanding.

Sunday Readings and Backgrounds

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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I : Isaiah 49:3, 5-6

I will make you a light to the nations. To the ends of the earth.

  • The first reading from Isaiah is one of a set of songs which portray a “servant of the Lord,” who was commissioned by God to bring salvation and whose suffering would redeem God’s people.
  • In today’s passage the servant is called from the womb and commissioned to bring salvation to the nations.
  • The Evangelists of the New Testament use the figure of the servant to explain the mission of Jesus.

Reading II : 1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

  • The second reading begins Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, which will be read for the next several weeks.
  • Paul describes himself as an Apostle, that is, “one who is sent.”
  • Together Paul and the Corinthians form a people “called,” or ecclesia, which we translate as Church.

Gospel : John 1:29-34

Now I have seen for myself.

  • The Gospel reading is part of a series of testimonies about the identity of Jesus.
  • In today’s reading, John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God and as the Son of God, God’s chosen one.
  • The image of the lamb is rooted in the Passover, the deliverance from Egyptian slavery by God’s saving power, during which the Jews sacrificed a lamb and put the blood on the door to commemorate the blood that saved their firstborn from the tenth plague.