Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
The prophet Malachi could be speaking to our community today. So many of us have wondered, ‘why am I working so hard at being a good person, when it doesn’t seem to be paying off?’ We feel like we’ve been working without pay. We don’t want to hear, ‘the reward in Heaven will be great.’ What about a reward right now? Malachi shows us what to do when we’re feeling this way. We need to meet with our fellow Christians and strengthen each others’ faith: “Then they who were in awe of the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord listened attentively…Then you will see the distinction between the just and the wicked…” It’s easy to get tired of hoping on the Lord.
Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
From Jesus’s lips to ours. The Lord’s prayer has been the most common prayer of Christians for the last twenty centuries. It began with a simple request from the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray.” The prayer Jesus offered was a new way of interacting with God. Imagine how challenging this prayer must have been, for a faith that did not use or write the name of G-d. Now Jesus wanted his followers to call God Abba.
Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
As we know very well, in Jesus’s day, women didn’t sit at the feet of great teachers. Men did that. Women focused on domestic labors like preparing a meal, taking care of children, and so forth. That was the order of things then.
Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
When I read the Book of Jonah, I am always encouraged. Jonah was chosen by God to be a prophet but simply cannot accept his commission. Ironically, in his attempt to flee from the Lord, Jonah ends up being cast into the sea precisely because he declares himself a Hebrew and worships the one Lord God. Jonah saw the men on the ship being tossed about on the raging sea as his neighbors. He was willing to be tossed overboard to save them from what he saw as his own personal rejection of God's will for him.
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
This is the third week in a row that the gospel reading is about a vineyard. Two weeks back we heard the parable of the workers hired to work in a vineyard during different times of the day and being paid equally by its owner. Last week we heard the story of the landowner who asked his two sons to work in the vineyard and them responding differently. Both these parable had a common message - that God was accessible to the first and last alike, and yet, that it was the ones who were last that were walking in the kingdom of God first. This was not because God was somehow unjust, but because some of those who were first refused God’s offer of unconditional and redeeming love for all people.
Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
As Christians we are called to a great many things. We are called to be missionaries of mercy and workers of charity. We are also called to be advocates of truth and supporters of justice. We are to be deeply contemplative and tirelessly active. The call to live the Christian life is difficult and oftentimes loaded with paradoxes and I think those can weigh us down if we fail to live with an eternal context. We act, speak, pray, and rest with one eye on eternity. This is what Jesus sets up for us today in the words, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” This eternal context doesn’t make the Christian life easy, but I think it helps make it feasible. To help with that feasibility I want to offer three quick snippets of advice.
Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus condemning various cities. They have seen Jesus’ mighty deeds, and yet they do not recognize Him, in fact, in some instances, He is accused of being in league with the devil. Jesus uses the example of two cities Tyre and Sidon that, like Sodom and Gomorrah, were destroyed for their lack of repentance. Punishments or violent consequences of sin such as what befell Tyre and Sidon, are not intended to “punish.” They are rather remedial, and intended to prevent the deadly power of sin from spreading, or in some instances they are therapeutic and are brought about, or allowed to occur, to help bring about the conditions necessary for true repentance. Either way, they stand as a sign to others to help future generations avoid their downfall.
Thursday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
“Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!” - This is the message that Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites provide to those who are saddened at Ezra’s reading from the book of the law of God.
Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi
Walking into a room recently, I was struck when the person greeted me with the question "Can you sin when you look at me?" Many things struck me all at once. Is the person perceiving something in how I am looking at this person? Did they have something they needed to get off their chest? In sharing that I try to only see Christ in the person, he probed further wondering if there was a sin that I was carrying that I needed to share. In reflecting for the readings today, this interchange came to mind immediately.
Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
In the text before us today from Luke, we hear two powerful words. One painful. One merciful.
Memorial of the Guardian Angels
Children are amazing! I am fortunate that I am around children in many circumstances. My role as mother and grandmother and my job caring for children as a pediatrician give me many opportunities to see how children experience the world so differently than we do as adults. In today’s gospel, Jesus places children as being “greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” What is it that makes children so remarkable, and how can we “turn” to become like them?
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I am not going to talk about the state of public discourse in our country. People are up to their noses with it. To get respite, many people have chosen to withdraw from public discourse. Others have completely abandoned social media and news channels. I am not going to talk about it either, because I don’t want you to feel oppressed in church as well. My personal challenge has been to discern my Christian code of conduct in these times. As a Catholic priest, pastor, and a public figure, how do I navigate through the divisiveness and the hate without also compromising the cause of justice and righteousness? How do I become a healer and reconciler? These are questions that affect my eternity.
Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
For the most part, my kids can freely roam the house. There are some obvious exceptions, such as, stay out of Avila’s room when she is napping, don’t go outside by yourself, and stay off the roof (I’m to blame for that rule). However, for a time we had to institute a rule keeping them out of the dining room. For Iggy, the dining room table was just too tempting. Not as something to climb on, but as a place to hide when he was up to no good. Pilfered candy or a forbidden objected would be taken under the table as he hoped we wouldn’t find him, or at least not notice his absence until he was finished. He snuck off with these things because he knew he wouldn’t like the answer if he had asked to have them.
Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels
For many people, Worship and Praise do not come easily. We’re comfortable asking God for what we want, and thanking God for what we receive. But praising, adoring, or worshiping our Lord… some people may ask, “why do we have to do that?”
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Of all the reasons people can be attracted to Jesus, I think spectacle is one of the funnier ones. ‘Who is this person that everyone is talking about? I’d like to see him myself,’ Herod says to himself. No matter what drives a person to get there, the desire to see Jesus is blessed and holy. Our Lord, the Son of God, is unique in the universe and among all other names for divinity. No one else married Heaven and Earth, Humanity and Godliness. No one else was so full of love, compassion, wisdom, and mercy. No one else worked great miracles. No one else endured such great suffering so gracefully. No one else loves you so perfectly, so completely. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!
Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” (John 14:1-2). A In my house however there is seemingly less of a dwelling place for people and a broad place for stuff. How many shirts or shoes does one person need? How many books does one need? We have ten bookshelves full. How many cds, albums (vinyl for those born after 1998), speakers or songs does one need? How many Christmas trees or ornaments does on need. At what point do we have enough stuff? There are times when I want to pull up a St. Vincent de Paul truck and load everything up without even looking at that which is being given away.
Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
The text from Luke today puts forward an incredible possibility—that we might become like a mother or brother to Jesus. How can this be? How could we get anything like that close to Jesus?
Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s reading from the St. Luke relates the parable of the lamp (Lk 8:16-18).
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
How often have you cried out and said, “Its not fair!” I probably say this at least once day. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am not. When we experience an injustice, we seek justice from the justice system. It is the right thing to do. It is right to seek justice not only on a social level, but we Catholics also believe that justice is a divine quality. We know God to be just. There is a problem, however. When we have done something wrong and we come before God, we don’t seek justice, but rather, mercy. Here, then, is the dichotomy - we know God to be just but we expect to be treated with mercy. If God treated us sinners in the same way that our justice system treats offenders, what would the confessional look like? In the Christian tradition, God is known to be both just and merciful? Where do justice and mercy meet? The purpose of the parable of the generous vineyard owner in today’s gospel reading is meant to address precisely this question. Just to recall, in the parable, a vineyard owner invites laborers to work in his vinegar at various time during the day, but pays them all the same wages, which causes the ones who came first to the field to grumble.
Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
Scripture and Tradition love to link God and light. John discusses God as light. The Nicene Creed identifies the divinity of Jesus through the phrase, “God from God, Light from Light.” Also, our first reading today describes God as being in “unapproachable light.”