The Gospel today is a familiar one, but the interesting part is the attitude of the Scribes and the Pharisees, their self-righteousness and judgement of others. They condemned the woman caught in the act of adultery, but Jesus redeemed her and asked her to go and sin no more. It…
“Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3) Having crossed through the halfway mark of Lent, the Holy Mother church gives us a preview of Resurrection Sunday in all the readings today. As I was reading and reflecting on this,…
A temple guard seeks to hear Jesus. It was the time of the festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, and we had heard that the teacher, Jesus, was present in Jerusalem. As an officer of the Temple Guard, I was to be ready, if the order came, to arrest him. In…
Many non-Catholic Christians disdain the crucifix because they think it distracts from our Lord’s victory over sin and death. They prefer the bare cross, which they think better reflects the victory of his subsequent resurrection, whereas a crucifix can seem to point to the apparent defeat of his death —…
Today, amidst Lent – the season of immersion into the Paschal mystery – the Church has us reflect on the Nativity of Jesus. It is fitting that Joy and Suffering be intertwined, for such is our lot: we never experience unending joy or suffering; rather, we have an admixture of…
Our ten-year-old daughter has been very sick since Christmas. She has had appointment after appointment. We have gotten a few answers. In truth, my attention has been very focused on her, and the season of Lent has felt, well, not very productive in terms of my spiritual life. Or so…
For thirty-eight years, the man reported in today’s Gospel has been lying by the pool. He is not only paralyzed in body, but also in hope. He waits for someone to immerse him in the water. He waits for an opportunity. He waits for life to change from the outside.…
Often, we think we see things clearly and understand how the world works. But sometimes, we fool ourselves or are fooled by others. We can fool ourselves because our view of reality is shaped by biases or missing information. We can also be misled by appearances, since power often works…
The readings from Hosea and Luke speak powerfully to us during this Lenten season: a time when the Church calls us to pause, examine our lives, and return more deeply to God. Through the prophet Hosea, we hear a compassionate invitation: “Come, let us return to the Lord.” Even when…
Beloved in Christ, as Christians, a good knowledge of the Hebraic origin of our faith will make you appreciate more the message contained in the Sacred Scriptures. There is a word in the Hebrew Bible that stops me every time I encounter it. It is the very first word of…