The eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans (NABRE) deals extensively with themes of death, sin, and God’s spirit. These are interesting and essential concepts supporting our Christian theology of salvation, and having a clearer concept of their Greek meaning may help in understanding their interrelationship. Let’s begin with …

The fourth chapter of the Gospel According to John (NABRE) highlights one of many instances in which different people use the same title to refer to Jesus, though this fact has been lost in most translations. Whenever someone uses the title Lord or sir to refer to Jesus, they’re using …

During the season of Lent, the Church shifts the focus of its readings to sin and repentance. In the Gospel According to Matthew 4:1–11 (NABRE), Jesus is led out into the desert to be tempted by Satan. The Greek verb πειράξω (peirazo) means “to make proof or trial of” or …

In the Gospel According to Matthew 6:24 (NABRE), Jesus makes a statement about what it means to be a servant of God: “No one can serve two masters.” The remainder of this passage goes on to explain what Jesus meant in more depth, but even with all that additional context, …

In the book of Leviticus 19:2 (NABRE), the LORD commands Moses to say to the Israelites: “Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.” This passage raises the important question of what holiness means and what it looks like. The Hebrew word used in this passage, qadowsh, at its …

In the Gospel According to Matthew 5:21–48 (NABRE), Jesus reviews Old Testament teaching and reinterprets it in a new context. Throughout this passage, Jesus follows a similar form: “You have heard that it was said…”. This form is especially interesting in Greek for being unusual. The phrase translated as it was said …

What does it mean to be poor in spirit? The Beatitudes challenge us in the Gospel reading from this Sunday. While both the Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel According to Luke contain beatitudes, a difference in emphasis is noticeable between the two—beginning with the first beatitude in which the Gospel According …

In the Gospel According to John 1:32 (RSVCE), the evangelist John reports of Jesus that “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him.” In this context, the word heaven has multiple meanings, and based on common English usage in a religious context, it’s …

I had the pleasure of celebrating the recent Christmas liturgy at Conception Abbey, as is my family’s tradition. One thing that was different this year was that different vestments were used for much of the liturgy. These vestments prominently feature the letters IHS, and I was reminded that many may …

What is an apocalypse? As the liturgical year winds to a close, liturgical readings focus on the final book of the New Testament, considered the great scriptural model of apocalyptic literature and sometimes called The Apocalypse. The book of Revelation gets its name following the ancient tradition of using the …