Daily Reflections
After he was tempted in the desert, Jesus went to the synagogue and inaugurated his public mission (cf. Luke 4, 14-23). At the end of his inaugural message, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips .” The Gospel we meditate…
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Jacob’s Well I had the pleasure of going to Jacob’s Well along with two young priests and my son deep into Samaria near Nablus. We rode in a properly marked Taxi Cab, with Iyad (the right Cab Driver) and left from Jerusalem before sunrise. In the back of my mind…
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Today’s gospel reading is one we all know very well. The Prodigal Son. Much has been written about this parable. Which son do you identify with? The older son who is always with his father, doing as he should? Or, the younger son who has strayed from what is good,…
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Have you ever noticed how easy it is to blame or do wrong to another person, when we gather with others who echo those feelings? Scapegoating I remember when I was in sixth grade there was a new student who faced repeated mockery from the other boys, and one day…
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The word “heart” appears around 900 times in the Bible, which begs the question, “What is the heart?”. Jeremiah 17:9-10 (one of my favorite verses) says, “More tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy, who can understand it? I the Lord will explore the mind and test the…
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Doing the Right Thing Does Not Guarantee Any Reward In the first reading (Jeremiah, 18, 18-20), the prophet Jeremiah is presented to us as an exemplary image of one who proclaims the word of God. Nevertheless, there are plots against him. People find his teaching uncomfortable, and they want to…
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God is always merciful, and there is no sin that He cannot forgive. Sin distances us from God, but God does not abandon us because of our sins, he invites us to make amends, not because he owes us forgiveness, but because he does not want to lose us. This…
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Whatever we do, we do it for ourselves. Whatever undertaking we engage in, we do it for ourselves. We may convince ourselves that we do certain things for others or even for God. Ultimately, however, we do whatever we do for ourselves. This is because, according to the law of…
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Every year on this Second Sunday of Lent we consider this great event of the Transfiguration of our Lord. Jesus appears in all his glory along with Moses and Elijah to his three closest apostles. Elijah the Prophet One interesting aspect of this apparition is the fact that Elijah is…
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Today’s readings seem to be all about rules and following the rules. We start with Moses telling us to observe the statutes and decrees. He says that today is the day to start following the rules, not later. If we follow the rules, we will end up in a good…
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