Most Recent Posts
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Faith in the Face of Pain
Saturday of the 12th Week of Ordinary Time: Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19, Matthew 8:5-17. Today’s readings combine a first reading from the seldom-used Book of Lamentations with what is for me one of the crucial texts for my experience of the Mass. They combine to shed even more light on the depth of the unearned…
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God’s Voice: Quiet, Insistent, Uncompromising
Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time: 1 Kings 19: 9a, 11-16, Matthew 5: 27-32. Today’s readings cap off a week of readings about Elijah and about Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. We explored earlier this week how Elijah’s life in exile harmonizes with Jesus’s lessons in the Beatitudes about the type of person…
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The Cycle of Salvation; the Meaning of Life
Monday – Wednesday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time: 1 Kings 17-18, Matthew 5: 1-19. The first three days of this week (see Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday readings) give us consecutive readings from the first book of Kings in the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount from the gospel of St. Matthew.…
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The Challenge of Fulfilling Your Ministry
Saturday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time: 2 Timothy 4:1-8, Mark 12:38-44. Today’s readings follow a theme from our last reflection: giving ourselves fully to the Lord. At least this is what jumps out at me, likely aided by the fact that I’m also reading The Life of St. Catherine of Siena by Blessed…
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Souls: Our Nature Under the God of the Living
Wednesday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time (Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs): 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12, Mark 12:18-27. Today’s readings present an incarcerated St. Paul, sincerely encouraging Timothy even as he faces his ultimate fate, and the gospel reading shows Jesus telling the Sadducees that they are “greatly misled.” Together, these…
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What the Ascension Tells Us of Glorification and Divinization
The Ascension of the Lord: Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:17-23, Matthew 28:16-20. What an incredible feast we celebrate today. It marks the end of the physical presence of Christ in the world (in this age, at least) as well as the divine mystery of the Trinity that God will unfold in a new and expanded way…
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The Advocate Comes to Convict
Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter: Acts of the Apostles 16:22-34, John 16:5-11. Today’s readings may seem like standard Easter season fare: miraculous things happen with Paul as he evangelizes throughout the Near East and in the gospel, Jesus talks about His impending death and Resurrection. But we have to stop and examine them…
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What is the Lord’s Peace?
Tuesday the Fifth Week of Easter – Acts of the Apostles 14:19-28, John 14:27-31a. In today’s readings, we hear Jesus promise his apostles, “Peace I leave with you,” and yet we hear in the first reading that Paul is stoned and left for dead when bringing Christ to the people of Lystra. What kind of…