Study of the Readings
Ed. by
Joyce Ann Zimmerman,
et al
• Words, Phrases
• To the point
• First Two Readings
• Experience
Dennis
Hamm, SJ
The passage from 2 Chronicles gives us the very last page of the Hebrew Bible, in the order of the Jewish canon. It is the work of a person we call the Chronicler, who writes a good hundred years after the return from the Babylonian exile.
John Kavanaugh, SJ
Being Saved by God’s Kind Favor
Our sacraments, our rituals, our prayers and our hopes mean little if Christ has not saved us, if Jesus has not given us the promise of abundant life, if he has not, indeed, suffered and died for us.
John J. Pilch
To his credit, Nicodemus seems to have pondered and perhaps even pursued his interest in Jesus further, no doubt in discussion with others in typically Mediterranean, group-centered fashion.
It is this death for people like ourselves that Paul constantly
regards as the sign of Christ’s love for us. He passes over
everything else that Christ did for our advantage and consolation
and dwells incessantly on the cross.
Reginald H. Fuller
Being in heaven with Christ is not a matter for self-congratulation or for a false sense of security, so the author inserts the parenthesis: “by grace you have been saved.”