Our lives, to be fruitful, must be full of Christ; to be able to bring His peace, joy and love we must have it ourselves, for we cannot give what we have not got – the blind leading the blind. The poor in the slums are without Jesus and we have the privilege of entering [...]
In Advent, the Church reminds us that we are people living between two great events, the coming of Jesus as a child in Bethlehem and His second coming at the end of time. The first was in humility and obscurity, the second will be in power and glory. The readings in Advent help us to [...]
Today’s solemnity of Christ the King invites us to celebrate a King who embraced humanity with compassion and love, neither rejecting nor excluding anyone. It is challenging, because our secular world encourages individualism. As people of the body of Christ, we are called to selfless love in communion with one another. Jesus does not distinguish [...]
Jesus tells the parable about the talents after He has warned His disciples that the Son of Man will be returning one day in glory and that there will be an accounting. In His preaching He has spoken of God’s unbounded mercy and love, and He has demonstrated this in His ministry by the way [...]
The ancient writer of today’s first reading says to us that wisdom is to be found by those who look for her: “Watch for her early and you will have no trouble; you will find her sitting at your gates.” Wisdom is a grace of God, which is meant for human hearts. Our hearts are [...]
Today’s Gospel tells us that authorities – including religious authorities – must be respected but also challenged when their practice is out of line with their teaching. Jesus particularly warns religious leaders that being conscientious and meticulous about trivial things may prevent them from allowing God’s love to flow out of their lives in gracious [...]
Throughout St. Matthew’s Gospel, one of the subplots is the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees, who were influential teachers of the tradition of Moses; but as we know, the Pharisees’ behavior did not match their rhetoric and they saw Jesus as a serious threat to their authority. Once again today we are told how [...]
The Pharisees understood life and faith as literal adherence to the Law; by this criterion they judged others, judged themselves, and judge Jesus. If they could show that He was breaking or ignoring the Law, they could declare Him a blasphemer, unrighteous, someone who was a danger to the people of Israel. Buth they struggled [...]
Today’s Gospel has a message for all of us, and the message is that we need to invest more of our time in our family life. The Gospel story shows us Jesus at the age of 12. That was the age that every Jewish boy was expected to make his bar mitzvah and so become [...]
The vineyard is a favorite image of God’s people in both the Old and New Testaments. It brings out the closeness of the Lord to His people, the way He is prepared to work with them to produce fruit, his long-term investment in their success. But things can go wrong. If the vineyard is not [...]
