Posts by John and Kathy Schultz
A Wise Leader
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” This particular line from today’s Gospel caught my attention. I imagine Pope Francis as the scribe who uses both the old ideas and practices as…
Read MoreTo Believe
Faithful Believers. As a faithful Catholic, at least once a week, we recite our profession of faith. We state our belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ the son and the Holy Spirit. Too often I say the Nicene Creed in a rote fashion, rarely focusing on each of the words that are the foundation…
Read MoreMaking a Radical Choice for God
One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was sending me to Catholic elementary school. During my five years at St. Philip Neri, fifty percent of my teachers were the Sisters of Saint Joseph. In the 1960’s our nuns were in full habit from wimple to the large rosary beads cascading down the front…
Read MoreThe Lord is My Shepherd
This Sunday’s readings include the beautiful and iconic 23rd psalm – “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” Until recently I was not well acquainted with the psalms. However, I do recall two encounters with the 23rd psalm. In the 1980 movie The Elephant Man the title character, Joseph Merrick, suffers…
Read MoreOur Lord Speaks
In today’s Gospel Jesus is addressing a crowd of Jews. Imagine if you were among that crowd and heard Jesus proclaim, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death” and “…but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not…
Read MoreDrop the Shackles
Confronting Evil One of my favorite words and what it implies is “metanoia.” The Oxford dictionary defines metanoia as, “change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion.” Today’s Gospel describes a dramatic metanoia initiated by Jesus in the story of the Gerasene demoniac; “What have you to do with me, Jesus,…
Read MoreFinding and Using Our Gifts
Jesus Calls “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.” Christ’s mission to save our world began with an invitation to humble fishermen. He did not begin his ministry in the temple in Jerusalem, or the courts of Herod or even in the Roman praetorium. What did Christ see in Andrew and…
Read MoreThe Boundlessness of God’s Mercy
The first reading for today’s Mass, from the book of Wisdom, provides enough reflection for an entire notebook. The opening lines are a beautiful poetic description of God’s majesty and omnipotence. They are about as close as human language can come to describing the indescribable. After setting the stage by comparing the insignificance of the…
Read MoreGod’s Earthly Creations
Today’s readings remind me of the immensity of God; He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. But the readings also remind me of how limited our human minds are in understanding God being omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient! “Have you entered into the sources of the sea, or walked about in the depths of the abyss?” (Jb…
Read MoreFools of This World
Chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel starts with a dramatic account of the start of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. It is one of my favorite scenes. Luke builds up the dramatic tension as Jesus is handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He reads Isaiah’s well-known prophecy – written some seven hundred year earlier. The synagogue…
Read More