After St. Paul entered Greece he went to Athens — the educational, cultural, economic and social capital of the country. While there he gave a sermon where he drew upon Greek poetry and philosophy during the preaching. The Sermon flopped. After Athens he went to another major city, Corinth, but there he changed his preaching… Read More »

For the next weeks the first reading of the day will be taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Church at Corinth. As we shall read, this was a community going through many growing pains as it tried to adopt a lifestyle which flowed from their Christian faith. He begins the letter saying two… Read More »

Today is the feast of the apostle, St. Bartholomew. So why is the Gospel from John about Nathanael? Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote and the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” In the list of apostles in Matthew, Mark, and Luke Philip is paired… Read More »

The Church in Thessalonika seems to have been a favorite of St. Paul. Thus when the community got in an uproar he wanted to offer them some guidance. Apparently when the looked around they saw terrible things in the world and presumed that it was time for God to intervene. (Sound familiar?) We ask you,… Read More »

One of the daily readings is taken from one of the gospels. The other is taken either from the Old Testament or the New Testament. For the past few weeks the readings have been taken from the Old Testament prophets. Today we shift and start a cycle of reading from the epistles of Paul. St.… Read More »

In my time, when you got to 9th grade you studied Algebra. In elementary school you studied arithmetic but now that we were in high school we were going to study (cue the ominous music) MATH. It was intimidating. I can remember how happy I was when we were given our algebra text books. The… Read More »

I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east…. I fell prone as the glory of the LORD entered the temple …. The voice said to me:  Son of man, this is where my throne shall be, … here I will dwell among the children of Israel forever. Ezekiel had seen… Read More »

There was a fun movie a few years ago called Galaxy Quest. Whenever the crew would get it trouble they would shout, “Never give up. Never surrender.” That was Ezekiel’s message as well to a people who had lost homes, country and a place to worship. No matter how dire things seem, even when you’re… Read More »

In 721BC the ten northern tribes of the Israelites were taken into exile. They have disappeared into the mists of history. (Although many legends speak of their fate. For example, the Lemba people of south Africa claim to be descendents.) One hundred plus years later the tribe of Judah was taken into exile. We know… Read More »

The Book of Ezekiel shifts its initial focus from helping the Jewish Exiles cope with their situation to one of proposing how to rebuild the nation post-exile. One great concern is leadership — what he calls the “shepherds.” He suggests that Israel got into this mess because of poor shepherding. The shepherds “did not strengthen… Read More »