In 415 the bones of St. Stephen were miraculously discovered on December 26.  St. Augustine commented on how wonderful it was to receive a relic of the first martyr in his African city. So in one sense it is sheer coincidence that the feast of St. Stephen, protomartyr, is celebrated on the day after Christmas.… Read More »

Without the gathering and the going out and singing “Adeste Fideles” together it doesn’t feel like Christmas has in the past. No egg nog and tree decorating this year made it hard to get in the spirit. You have heard, no doubt, (since these songs are played on an endless loop on the radio) the… Read More »

Once on a retreat I was telling the director all the things I wanted to do for God. He laughed at me. “You don’t do for God,’ he said, “God does for you.” That is what King David found. He wanted to build a house for God. The prophet had a vision which he relayed… Read More »

At the beginning of the Christian period traditional Jewish Biblical scrolls were collected in a codex, the ancestor to a book. Christians ordered what we call the Old Testament with the books of the prophets at the end, showing continuity between the words of the prophets and their fulfillment in Jesus. Doing so made Malachi… Read More »

God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. These words from Mary’s prayer (usually called the Magnificat after its first word in Latin) serve as a reminder that the coming of Jesus… Read More »

Hark! my lover–here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills. This passage from the Song of Songs was used in a wedding I once did at LSU. The groom was a defensive lineman for the football team — with the size to match. People started laughing as they envisioned Ivan “leaping across… Read More »

“Nothing will be impossible for God.”  That’s what the angel told Mary and isn’t that good news. Whew. Dealing with the coronavirus and returning to normal will not be impossible for God. Finding a way to create a more just and peaceful society free of racism will not be impossible for God. Making a world… Read More »

According to Jewish tradition Biblical prophecy ended with Malachi. To a people at the end of their rope the prophet offers this last word about the Coming One:  “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 3:24). That makes sense out of… Read More »

God does not live up to our expectations. Jeremiah presumed that the people returning from exile would experience a triumph equivalent to the exodus from Egypt. It didn’t quite work out that way. Joseph no doubt expected a nice, normal life of a working man surrounded by his wife and children. It didn’t quite work… Read More »

St. Matthew begins his gospel with “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” You learn a lot from genealogies. Henry Louis Gates has a show “Finding Your Roots” where he introduces celebrities to their ancestors. Like the genealogy of Jesus their roots are populated by saints and sinners, by shirkers and workers. For Matthew… Read More »