My sister, newly graduated from college, went to teach at an inner city high school in Baltimore. A more experienced teacher told her, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” The point: maintain class room decorum completely at the beginning. It is always easier to loosen up than it is to tighten up. There is something similar at… Read More »

Both St. Matthew and St. Luke have genealogies of Jesus. St. Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy showing Jesus as a true child of Israel, from Abraham through David up to his birth. St. Luke by contrast puts his genealogy after the Annunciation and traces Jesus genealogy back to Adam! In doing so, the… Read More »

I was talking with a young man once asking why he had left the Church. He answered, “Because they said I could eat meat on Fridays.” For him, if one piece of the ediface that was the Catholic Church of his youth was removed the entire structure was not to be believed. That is an… Read More »

There was a story about a large family with a big age difference between the older two brothers and the youngest. One of the brothers asked the youngster why he liked his sibling better than him. He answered, “When you tell us to wipe our feet when we come in the door it sounds like… Read More »

“Lord, how often must I forgive? ,,, Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” I used to imagine that Jesus was talking about seventy-seven separate incidents that I needed to forgive. All too often even after I have tried to forgive or thought I had forgiven, the old resentments and… Read More »

Naaman, the Syrian, was upset that the prophet did not make some kind of dramatic gesture to bring about his cure but he need only wash in the Jordan. He was going to leave in a huff when his servant said, “If the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have… Read More »

Do you ever wish that you could have been there when God worked some mighty miracle? Wouldn’t it have been cool to see the Red Sea parted with the water like a wall to the left and to the right? Amazing to see Jesus feed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish! How about… Read More »

The scripture readings for the Feast of Saint Joseph paint a varied picture. The Old Testament lesson refers to his heritage from David. Jesus is a son of David, which the Bible presumed would be the lineage of the Messiah, because he was adopted by Joseph. St. Paul says that righteousness that comes from faith….… Read More »

“Here comes that master dreamer! Come on, let us kill him… We shall then see what comes of his dreams.” This passage from the book of Genesis always reminds me of Dr. King. They killed the master dreamer but his dream did not die. It continues to inspire us almost sixty years after he spoke… Read More »

The parable of the Rich Man (Dives) and Lazarus is challenging, even frightening. The Rich Man is not portrayed as an evil person. He at least cared about his brothers. Yet he ended up in hell. As Jesus tells the story his sin was not anything malicous that he did but rather not noticing the… Read More »