During my undergraduate years in college, my honors thesis project was trying to prove the impossibility of holding an agnostic view on God’s existence. I did all right on it, despite my inexperience with academic philosophy jargon, but I think the most disappointing part about it for me was realizing…
“Let the children come to me!” Who says that? Maybe: A clown at a kids’ party? Santa Claus? Perhaps a Librarian at story time? Can you think of any more? Perhaps we can, or perhaps we don’t want to… Children require a lot of responsibility and work, and usually end…
Dear brothers and sisters, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). The Dogma of Assumption The Church teaches that “when the course of her earthly life was finished, Immaculate Virgin Mary was taken up body and soul into heavenly…
A Grace-Filled Mission of Love. As we pause to reflect on the grace-filled experience of the Feeding of the Poor event, our hearts are filled with gratitude to God, whose providence and mercy guided every moment of this sacred mission. What unfolded in our midst was far more than a…
Living with a Sense of Responsibility: Today’s Gospel gives us a path for living together with honesty, care, and a deep sense of responsibility for one other. At the heart of Jesus’ message is relationship, a call to fraternal communion, even when that communion is tested by hurt or misunderstanding.…
“If a man has 100 sheep and one goes astray…” What makes our God the kind we want to worship? The parable of the man who has a hundred sheep serves as the backdrop for the answer. Jesus, while in the land where shepherds and sheep are common, asks a…
In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus paying the temple tax after the people asked his disciples if he should not pay taxes. Jesus is the Son of God, the Lord of all, and certainly, he would not have to pay taxes, but having become man, he fully lived our human…
When I contemplate faith, I often remember something my younger son used to say during bedtime when he was four. He begged me to stay with him after turning off the light, so I would snuggle next to him in bed and allow the quiet to settle. He would anxiously…
Today’s reading from Deuteronomy (6:4-13), is one of the hardest readings for me to take to heart. “Hear, O Israel. The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you should love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart and all your soul and all your strength.” And…
The excerpt from today’s Gospel “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” – Matthew 16:25, inspires me to reflect on the true freedom that comes from trusting God and living selflessly. These words of Jesus are…