Don’t you love to get something new? A new car – doesn’t it have a wonderful smell. A new outfit – ready to step out and show my stuff. A new restaurant – some dish that promises to tickle my taste buds. A new movie – okay, do me. The new gets us pumped up.… Read More »

Sometimes discerning the will of God is simply a crap shoot. Peter wanted to  find the will of God in replacing Judas as an apostle. He in a spirit of prayer invoked the Holy Spirit. He sought the scriptures for guidance. He gathered the community together so they could take counsel about the right course… Read More »

Paul tells the people of Antioch: The inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders failed to recognize [Jesus]. Of course, even his closest disciples failed to recognize who Jesus really was. Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” At the remove of two thousand… Read More »

Often you hear people say that they don’t “like the Old Testament.” However, it was the “Old Testament,” that is the Hebrew Bible, that the followers of Jesus turned to in order to understand his identity and mission. For example, when St. Paul wants to preach the gospel in Pisidian Antioch he tells the history… Read More »

Jesus reminds the people that he “was sent” — not doing his own thing but the will of God. In ACTS we read that Paul and Barnabas were sent:  completing their fasting and prayer, they laid hands on them and sent them off. In a world which holds up as an ideal to “be all… Read More »

As near as historians can tell the first generation of the followers of Jesus called themselves “the Way.” Outsiders looking at them called them “Nazarenes,” after Jesus’ home town of Nazareth. When they were no longer limited to the territory of Palestine they were given a new name. It was in Antioch that the disciples… Read More »

The people of the Bible, like people nowadays, tended to divide the world into us versus them. For the Jewish people “them” was anyone who wasn’t Jewish. The gospel broke down the barriers that separated so that everyone was recognized as a child of God and part of the family. This caused no little tension… Read More »

Have you ever met a shepherd? My guess is that most of us don’t know any shepherds personally. Somehow the Biblical image of shepherd is one that we relate to instinctively. Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” is the favorite of many, used frequently at funerals, sung often at Mass… Read More »

You can almost hear the heartbreak in Jesus’ voice when he asked his chosen twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Some who had been following him found his teaching too much for them so they went away. What would happen if Jesus asked that question to a confirmation class today? According to statistics 85%… Read More »

The conversion of St. Paul was a big deal for the early church — such a big deal that St. Luke tells the story three times in the Acts of the Apostles. I wonder, though, if that story has given us a distorted idea of how conversion works. For most of us conversion is not… Read More »