[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091920.cfm" linkrel=""] 1 Cor 15:35-37, 42-49; Lk 8:4-15 “As for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091820.cfm" linkrel=""] 1 Cor 15:12-20 + Lk 8:1-3 From our Gospel today, I suggest a thought from the very last line: “who provided for them out of their resources.” This undoubtedly refers...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091720.cfm" linkrel=""] 1 Cor 15:1-11 + Lk 7:36-50 Hidden in our Gospel today is a beautiful little lesson in humility. It goes like this: the passage usually rendered, “her many sins...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091620.cfm" linkrel=""] 1 Cor 12:31—13:13 + Lk 7:31-35 We wonder how our Gospel today is putting us, our “generation” of believers, in question. Jesus told those of his generation, the people...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091520.cfm" linkrel=""] Heb 5, 7-9; John 19:25-27 “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son.’ Then he said...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091420.cfm" linkrel=""] Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. I offer a word which perhaps gives us a way...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091320.cfm" linkrel=""] It is a coincidence that our first reading today and the Gospel are about vengeance and forgiveness. This occurs shortly after the anniversary of the events of 9/11. Vengeance...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091220.cfm" linkrel=""] Today’s Gospel is from the conclusion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. If we look back over the whole sermon (see Luke 6:20-49), which we heard this week, what...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091120.cfm" linkrel=""] If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091020.cfm" linkrel=""] “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31) This has been called the “Golden Rule” with which many of us are familiar. It is...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090920.cfm" linkrel=""] Today the Church commemorates a Spanish missionary who is known for his untiring ministry to Africans as they arrived in slave ships on the shores of Cartagena in 17th...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090820.cfm" linkrel=""] Today the Church celebrates the birthday of Mary, the wife of Joseph, and the mother of Jesus. Her birth is not recounted in Sacred Scripture, but the circumstances of...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090720.cfm" linkrel=""] On a certain Sabbath, Jesus went into the synagogue and taught. (Luke 6:6a) Let us go in with him. Let us hear what he has to say. Yet, today...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090620.cfm" linkrel=""] Jesus said to his disciples…. Jesus spoke. He spoke a language his followers could understand. Yet, at times they did not understand. Some of the things he said were...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090520.cfm" linkrel=""] St. Paul discusses in today’s first reading what being an apostle entailed for him. For as I see it, God has exhibited us apostles as the last of all,...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090420.cfm" linkrel=""] The Pharisees compared Jesus’ disciples with those of John. They questioned why Jesus’ disciples didn’t fast and offer prayers in the way John’s and their disciples did. Jesus gives...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090320.cfm" linkrel=""] You’ve probably heard a great deal about vocations in recent years. It seems every Catholic Church has some vocation poster for this, that, or the other thing. We all...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090220.cfm" linkrel=""] Recently I’ve been reading Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm. This book is a classic. Basically, it asks (or asked) the question of why people in free societies would...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090120.cfm" linkrel=""] It has to be one of the greatest ironies in the Gospel. As Christians, we learn from a young age that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Yet...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/083120.cfm" linkrel=""] This week we take a tour through St. Paul’s powerful first letter to the Corinthians. In it, he calls the Corinthians to clean up their act and return to...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/083020.cfm" linkrel=""] “You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped…” We can all relate to this on some level. We start out on a path with high hopes...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082920.cfm" linkrel=""] We often have to admit that God’s ways are not our ways. Sometimes God’s ways seem to derail our desires and best intentions but even make no sense from...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082820.cfm" linkrel=""] Yesterday’s celebration of St. Monica was a natural introduction to the towering figure of her son St. Augustine of Hippo. As an early theologian and doctor of the Church,...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082720.cfm" linkrel=""] I once heard a story about an exam given to police recruits to test their response to unusual situations. The question was: “What would you do if you had...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082620.cfm" linkrel=""] COVID-19 has drastically changed the way people around the world live and interact with one another. What was once normal is no more. Social gatherings carry the danger of...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082520.cfm" linkrel=""] We have some very avid gardeners in the monastery. They love to get their hands dirty with digging, planting, weeding, and then nurturing with plenty of TLC. Those tomato...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082420.cfm" linkrel=""] We’ve all see those “pay-for-view” telescopes around major tourist sites. Put in the right coin, and you can scan the distant object of interest or even zoom in on...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082320.cfm" linkrel=""] The worldwide fascination with exploring the surface of Mars makes us think long-term. What will we earthlings bring with us as we land and begin to populate new living...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082220.cfm" linkrel=""] Jesus said, “You have but one Father in heaven; you have but one master, the Christ.” As we have one Father and one Master, Jesus wants us to give...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082120.cfm" linkrel=""] I was reading a Gospel reflection, and a sentence stuck out as if God had taken a bright yellow highlighter and clearly marked it for me. The line read:...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/082020.cfm" linkrel=""] St. Bernard, whose memorial we celebrate today, was born in 1090, in Fontaines, a castle not far from Dijon, France. In 1112, Bernard entered the monastery of Cîteaux (France)...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081920.cfm" linkrel=""] Growing up as the middle of three boys, there were plenty of opportunities to object to my parents: “That’s not fair!” I can think back on the portions of...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081820.cfm" linkrel=""] The Prophet Ezekiel has some strong words for the leader of Tyre (the ancient Phoenician port city) who in his haughtiness believes himself to be something greater than who...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081720.cfm" linkrel=""] Jesus encounters many religious leaders during his ministry who are trying to ensnare him in his speech or are simply too hard-hearted to receive his words of preaching. It...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081620.cfm" linkrel=""] A Canaanite woman, a foreigner for the Jews, asks Jesus to heal her daughter who was “terribly troubled by a demon.” This is a beautiful request because it is...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081520.cfm" linkrel=""] “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Today...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081420.cfm" linkrel=""] “Raymond, what will become of you?” At an early age, Raymond Kolbe was a mischievous little boy who got into trouble a lot. His mother said to him, after...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081320.cfm" linkrel=""] There are days when I want to break out of the monastery, thinking, “I want to make a difference in the world, especially with all the violence we see...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081220.cfm" linkrel=""] I know this may become a shock to some people, but I am a sinner. Yes, it’s true. I sin. Even in a monastery, no one is perfect. Our...
Continue Reading →[button style="btn-primary btn-lg" type="link" target="true" title="Today's Mass Readings" link="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/081120.cfm" linkrel=""] My grandmother had a nine-month-old daughter pass away because of an infection, and I remember my grandmother telling me, “one of the nuns who I knew said, ‘you don’t...
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