Today’s Gospel story teaches us how simple the whole notion of a vocation is. Jesus approaches the people He wants to be His followers, asks them a question, and their response is immediately to leave everything and follow Him. He meets them where they are, in their everyday lives, in the workplace, and puts the […]
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – “A†– January 26, 2014 Read More »
Just as Jesus begins His public life in the presence of the Holy Spirit, so He will end it in an outpouring of that same Holy Spirit on His disciples. The challenge for us is how we too receive that gift with open hearts and what we do with it in our lives. We have
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – “A†– January 19, 2014 Read More »
In the face of the Church’s call to mission and evangelism, what do you think is the most effective way for Christians to spread their faith among others? Should we use all the techniques of advertising to persuade people that what we believe is worth sharing? Advertising is useful, but the problem is that the
Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– November 17, 2013 Read More »
The letter to Hebrews does center on a word that we use quite frequently: sacrifice. The word Veteran stems from the Latin “vetusâ€, meaning old. We think of veterans that way, yet, today we look around and see those we call veterans of a much younger age. The parades are no longer for the old
Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– November 10, 2013 – Veterans Day Read More »
Zacchaeus’ great gift is not that he has led a disciplined life of prayer and goodness; he has become thoroughly sucked in to a life of wealth and position, even at the cost of marginalizing himself from his own people. His great gift is simply the desire he has to see Jesus. Not only does
Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– November 3, 2013 Read More »
In today’s Gospel, two men go up to the Temple. One asks for something, the other doesn’t ask for anything. If you look at what the Pharisee is actually saying, he isn’t asking for anything, he is just telling God what God already knows. His description of himself is very superficial. Firstly he describes himself
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– October 27, 2013 Read More »
Some may see a contradiction in praying to a God you have just put on trial, but, in fact, this is in line with the Jewish tradition of being completely devoted to God while feeling totally frustrated by God’s silence and inaction. The Psalms are full of such questions: “How long, O Lord?â€; “Why have
Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– October 6, 2013 Read More »
In the Gospel parable today, Jesus shows how in the reign of God there is a reversal of what we might be used to. The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. In our world, who is recognized by name? The rich and powerful. Well, in the parable, the rich man has no name –
Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– September 29, 2013 Read More »
In the days of His public life, Jesus also used stories as His favored method of helping people to see the truth. Today’s story is an intriguing tale of master and servant, and money and sly dealing, and the lesson is clear. As Jesus tells it, the servant who loses his job knows exactly what
Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– September 22, 2013 Read More »
The father in the story is really God our Father. And the boy who comes home is you or me. It is a tale of forgiveness. God is so anxious to forgive us. We are tempted to think that surely God’s forgiveness cannot work quite like that; we’d expect that a repentant sinner would have
Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – “C†– September 15, 2013 Read More »