Daily Reflections

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 16, 2024

  “So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. Some of them even wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.” In today’s Gospel, we see the confusion that arises among the people about Jesus. Some hear his words and see his signs and see him as a great prophet.…

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Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 15, 2024

  “But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” How is it that Christ is coming into our lives? I think that often we say to ourselves, “but I know where he is from so he can’t be the Christ,” and thus we avoid…

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Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 14, 2024

  Today we have two examples of humility and compassion. Moses is sent down from the mountain by God only to see the people worshiping and sacrificing to a molten calf and calling it their God, thus betraying the God who brought them out of the land of slavery. God threatened to destroy the people…

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Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 13, 2024

  Jesus’s courage in today’s Gospel is so beautiful and awe-inspiring. The story picks up where we left off yesterday, with Jesus healing the crippled man on the Sabbath; and when the Jews heard of this they began to persecute him. Now Jesus answers the Jews, “My Father is at work until now, so I…

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Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 12, 2024

  The crippled man in today’s Gospel has been waiting for 38 years for someone to bring him to the pool so that he might be well. He has no one, and when he tries on his own, he is ignored and people get there before him. That is until Jesus sees him in his…

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Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

March 11, 2024

  “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” Jesus says this to the people of Cana in Galilee who witnessed the miracle at the Wedding feast where Jesus changed water into wine. It feels like Jesus is asking, “How many signs do you need before you believe in me?” But Jesus…

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Fourth Sunday of Lent

March 10, 2024

  In today’s first reading we hear of the infidelity of the people of God, they “added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple.” God, in compassion for his people, sent messengers to them. These prophets spoke the word of God to his people, calling them to…

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Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

March 9, 2024

  The evangelist says, “Jesus addressed this parable” about the Pharisee and the tax collector “to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” We can actually divide this into two groups: 1) those convinced of their own righteousness, and 2) the self-righteous who despise everyone else. The latter group is…

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Friday of the Third Week of Lent

March 8, 2024

  During our “pandemic year” at the seminary, we had canceled all of the seminarians’ regular breaks and kept them on campus. At first that was fine. We had a lovely Thanksgiving together. Yet immediately after that holiday both the administration and students had the feeling of being stir-crazy. I didn’t realize how exhausted I…

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Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

March 7, 2024

  Woody Allen famously said: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” To what would we attribute the other twenty percent? The Prophet Jeremiah speaking for the Lord would say it is this: Listening to the voice of God. Only if we listen to God’s word then the Lord will be our God, we will…

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Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

March 6, 2024

  As a priest, some of the best examinations of conscience I have are hearing confessions. A penitent’s sorrow over transgressions that I too easily dismissed as trivial can become a question to my own standard of judgment. For priests, teachers, and parents, we bear the responsibility for forming others in the faith. Challenge and…

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Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

March 5, 2024

  The call to forgive as God has forgiven us is characteristically Christian. It never seems to get easier. One of the hardest parts of committing to Jesus’ command is to forgive others and not receive forgiveness. The mature Christian will forgive without expecting forgiveness in return. In fact, this contrite, humble, and devout spirit…

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Monday of the Third Week of Lent

March 4, 2024

  The prophetic lives of Elijah and Elisha are paralleled between master and disciple. Famously, Elijah won in the contest against 850 pagan prophets. Before the God of Israel sent down fire from heaven to ignite Elijah’s altar, the pagans hopped around theirs and slashed themselves in order get their deities’ attention (1 Kgs. 18:28).…

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Third Sunday of Lent

March 3, 2024

  A popular trend in the culture is minimalism. A whole industry has cropped up around de-cluttering and designing simply: Marie Kondo shows you how to make efficient space and tells you to keep all but thirty books on hand. People construct compact and portable tiny houses – what, when I was growing up, we…

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Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

March 2, 2024

  Today is one of my favorite gospel passages about the rich young man who squandered his father’s inheritance. I would like to quote again from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In the Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo tells Frodo, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into…

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Friday of the Second Week of Lent

March 1, 2024

  Our verse before the Gospel today is one we all know. “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son; so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.” God loved us so much that he gave us his Son so that we might live for Him and do His…

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Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

February 29, 2024

  This gospel today is like Jesus is talking to a brick wall. “’Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’” Jesus…

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Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

February 28, 2024

  “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” Jesus…

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Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

February 27, 2024

  Today is a great day to celebrate the gift of life! In our first reading, we hear “Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.” Our sins—our souls—have been…

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Monday of the Second Week in Lent

February 26, 2024

  In our responsorial psalm, we read “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.” If the Lord dealt with us according to our sins, I have a feeling we would all be in big trouble! But the Lord is merciful and shows us His Divine Mercy! He took our sins and nailed…

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Second Sunday of Lent

February 25, 2024

       Today we hear in our first reading that God wants Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to Him. Just think about how Abraham must have felt sacrificing his beloved son! But because of the love that Abraham has for the Lord, he would not disobey Him. Of course, the Lord intervened…

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Saturday of the First Week of Lent

February 24, 2024

  And this week ends as it began, with a confirmation of the covenant between God and us. The covenant goes beyond keeping the commandments, although those are good places to start. Harming our enemies is not be done, according to the commandments. Not enough, however. We need to go further and actually pray for…

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Friday of the First Week of Lent

February 23, 2024

  On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis addressed the Joint Session of the United States Congress. He stated, “Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility.” He cited four Americans who helped “preserve the dignity of fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common…

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Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle

February 22, 2024

  Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. Of all the apostles handpicked to be fishers of men, Christ chose Peter to be the foremost among them. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles include stories about the shortcomings of St. Peter. In frustration, Jesus even called him Satan…

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Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

February 20, 2024

  There are occasional gaps in Sacred Scripture, especially in the New Testament. Jesus obviously taught his apostles things that were so meaningful and life-changing that they abandoned what was familiar and sacrificed their lives for The Way. St. Paul spoke so movingly that people stayed up and listened to him until the wee hours…

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Monday of the First Week of Lent

February 19, 2024

  “Most young people think of virtue as something negative. They think that by avoiding sin they are being good. They think of purity as an absence of impurity. Yet we should think of purity as a shining positive virtue, rather than as a negative one – one that makes itself felt, that stands out…

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First Sunday of Lent

February 18, 2024

  Not so very long ago, we joyfully celebrated the birth of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, and the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Last Wednesday, we entered more fully into the reason for God becoming man. Lent is an olive branch. God, who provided us with this world and everything in it, reaches…

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Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

February 13, 2024

  In today’s Gospel, Jesus and the disciples are on a boat, a storm comes out of nowhere, and the disciples become worried and terrified of capsizing. But Jesus is asleep while the storm begins. When the disciples awaken Jesus, pleading for His help, he again calmly wakes up and rebukes the storm, which immediately…

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Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

February 12, 2024

  In today’s readings, I find a beautiful teaching on the value and necessity of faith, patience, and perseverance. Before, when I read this Gospel of Mark passage, I would be somewhat confused. Why would Jesus refuse to give “this generation” a sign? Why not just give it to them, and then they would believe…

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Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 11, 2024

  Today’s readings and psalm powerfully communicate that while we get caught up in this world by sin and wickedness, God constantly pursues us with love and the promise of salvation. In today’s first reading, we hear of the brutal, painful quality of life someone with leprosy endured as an Israelite in the Old Testament.…

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Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin

February 10, 2024

  “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion.” This text, from the Song of Songs, given us by the Church for the feast of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict, shows a side…

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Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

February 9, 2024

  “(Jesus) looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) In the Church’s rite for of baptizing an infant, there is this entry: Ephphetha or Prayer Over Ears and Mouth. In this ritual, performed at the discretion of the celebrant, he touches the ears and mouth of each…

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Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

February 8, 2024

  “She begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. You may go… When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.” This is the way faith must operate in our lives—we ask; Jesus replies; and then we act as if we believed in Jesus acting…

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Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

February 7, 2024

  “The things that come out from within are what defile.” The saint who the Church remembers tomorrow, St. Josephine Bakhita, provides a beautiful image of the contrast we heard in our Gospel today: what comes from outside and what comes from within. For the young girl, Bakhita, from the outside came slavery. Her slave…

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Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs

February 6, 2024

  “You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.” Today the Church honors the memory of St. Paul Miki and Companions who died in 1597. These 26 martyrs of Japan were crucified on a hill, now known as the Holy Mountain, overlooking Nagasaki. Among them were priests,…

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Memorial of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr

February 5, 2024

  “… [they] begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak” Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing for a human being to have; boredom is a real drag! The people in our Gospel today are very enthusiastic. They want to get close to this wonder-worker. The Scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, remarks about…

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Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 4, 2024

  “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” All of us can agree that mental anguish is a great human suffering. Loneliness, fear, doubt, betrayal, infidelity, depression—these are hard to take. We who follow Jesus seek to square such experiences with the goodness of God.…

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Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

February 3, 2024

  There is a certain familiarity that comes across as we read the opening lines of the Gospel today. The apostles were returning from their first “mission trip” wanting to share stories, awesome experiences, fearful challenges, funny stories, and sad memories. And they simply needed to rest. It makes perfect sense that Jesus would want…

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Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

February 2, 2024

  This beautiful feast of the Presentation of the Lord is often an overlooked treasure in the course of the liturgical year. The core meaning goes far beyond a description of the holy family fulfilling a legal requirement. Something powerful and amazing is happening. Divinity is revealed through the humanity of a little child. But…

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Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

February 1, 2024

  Many years ago, one of the most popular TV suspense/action shows was “Mission Impossible.” Besides the awesome challenges of the mission itself, there were the equally awesome (then) gadgets and electronic gizmos used to help accomplish the weekly mission. Our liturgical readings for today make us think of those assigned missions. Some of those…

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