Advent is a time of joyful anticipation. For someone even bigger than Santa Claus is coming to town. The human race has been waiting a long time for his next and final visit. Actually, it waited a long time for…
Prepare ye the Way
Christ the King & Last Judgment
Sunday Readings for Nov 26, 2017 On the final Sunday of the liturgical year, it is time to remember things that we’d prefer to forget. For starters, we recall that there is an infinite qualitative difference between us and God….
Thanksgiving & Eucharist
For Americans, the term “Thanksgiving” conjures up images of turkey and cranberry sauce, parades, and bowl games. These “traditions” have come to mark an event made a perpetual institution of American life by President Abraham Lincoln. But why did Lincoln…
The Parable of the Talents
Readings from Nov 19 the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time I’ve seen it time and time again. Someone decides to seek a better paying job, or pursue an investment strategy, or launch a new business. Invariably some pious person in…
Why pray for the dead?
I’ll never forget that bleak January day when my father died. It was very hard to believe in the resurrection as I watched the undertakers carry away his lifeless corpse in a body bag. But imagine this scene. You are…
All Saints Day means Holiness is for all!
At age 16, I thought that aspiring to holiness was out of the question. If you really wanted to be holy, I thought, you had to be a priest, nun, or brother. And you had to spend your days doing…
The Radical Rabbi and the Great Commandment
They are at it again. In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus’ opponents enlist a lawyer to do what lawyers do best- ask a question that puts a person on the hot seat. “Which commandment of the law is the greatest?” (Matthew…
Forgiveness
Sunday Readings for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 17. Just about everyone can recite the Lord’s Prayer from memory. That’s precisely the problem, though. We often rattle it off without really thinking about what we are saying. “Forgive…
Admonish sinners
Sunday Readings for the 23nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 10 I used to think that God’s law was like those dumb rules we had to put up with in grammar school, like “Thou shalt not chew gum in class.”…
Peter and the Keys
Sunday Readings for August 27, 2017, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time “More Catholic than the Pope.” There is nothing more quintessentially Catholic than the Papacy. When we think “Catholic,” we think Rome, the Vatican, the dome of St. Peters….