6TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Year C

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8 Psalm 1:1-4, 6 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 Luke 6:17, 20-26 The Theme of the Readings: Blessings and Curses The Sinai Covenant was a formal relationship that bound Yahweh the Great King to the children of Israel as His faithful vassal people. There were promised blessings for the people if they persisted in obedience to the laws of the covenant (Lev 26:3-13; Dt 28:1-14), but there were also judgments for disobedience (Lev 26:14-43; Dt 28:15-68). Under the Sinai Covenant, the blessings and judgments were material and temporal; however, they are spiritual and eternal under the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. The First Reading and Psalm Reading contrast God's blessings for the righteous, who put their trust and hope in God, with judgments against the wicked who separate themselves from God by their free-will actions through engaging in sin, thereby condemning themselves to the curse of destruction (CCC 1037). In the First Reading, the prophet Jeremiah contrasts the arid and fruitless lives of those who trust only in themselves or others with those who live spiritually nourished lives because they have faith in God to provide for them, even in times of distress. Our Psalm Reading is a preface to the entire Book of Psalms. It opens the book by contrasting the destiny of the good and the wicked, using vivid similes to describe the choices in life between following the good and righteous path or following the way of sin that leads to destruction. In the Second Reading, St. Paul addresses the Christian belief in a bodily resurrection when Christ returns in the Parousia (Appearing) of His Second Advent (CCC 769 1001). He forcefully defends the resurrection of Christ as an essential truth of the Christian faith and not an end in itself. Furthermore, he states that by rising from the dead, Christ began the completion of God's work of redemption that will come in the resurrection of the just and the wicked at the end of the Age of Humanity, and the eternal blessing that will follow for the righteous (CCC 1042-50). When Christ returns, all humanity will arise bodily as the completion of the final human harvest in God's call to the Last Judgment that will end for the just in the blessing of eternity with Christ in His heavenly Kingdom (1 Thess 4:16; Rev 20:11-15; CCC 1038-41). Both the First Reading and the Responsorial Psalm prepare us for the Gospel Reading when Jesus addressed issues of social justice in His Sermon on the Plain. He promises eternal blessings to those who have suffered from social injustice during their earthly lives. He also condemns the rich who squandered the material blessings God gave them by ignoring the plight of the poor and announces the judgments they will face in eternity for having lived a temporal life of plenty while immune to the suffering of others. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: (Agape Bible Study) (Psalms for the Liturgical Year (livingwithchrist.ca)) 00:00 – Intro 00:15 – Collect 00:40 – First Reading 01:20 – Responsorial Psalm 03:18 – Second Reading 04:09 – Gospel Reading 06:06 – Recommended Videos