When you introduce a hero it is customary to provide an “origin story.” Where did Superman get his powers? Why is Batman so dogged in his pursuit of criminals? Who is Wonder Woman? In the Book of Exodus we hear the origin story of one of the great heroes of the Bible, Moses. As so… Read More »

“A new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, came to power in Egypt.” The tragedy of the children of Israel in Egypt occurs because the “new king” (pharaoh) did not know his own story. He forgot the past and thus ruined his present. This is an all too common trait. For Christians, who tell the… Read More »

In the age of cell phones and downloads, of Dr. Dre and Dr. Phil, of CIA, FBI, OMG and LOL are school children too sophisticated to enjoy the story of Johnny Appleseed? He was born John Chapman and for almost fifty years he went around planting apple trees, hence the nickname. His husbandry took him… Read More »

There is a scene in one of my favorite books, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger where Zooey accuses his sister of a little apostasy. She objects to the saying of Jesus, “You are worth more than many sparrows.” All of creation is sacred from her perspective so why should human beings be worth more that bunnies,… Read More »

A few years ago, because of an office I held, I took training in “media relations.” The gist of the program was to have your own points in mind and no matter what the interviewer asked you, always keep coming back to those points. Politicians nowadays must have had the same training. No matter what… Read More »

“I am Joseph, your brother.” These words from Genesis were the title of a biography of Cardinal Bernardin. They were also the first words spoken by Pope John XXIII when he met with the Chief Rabbi in Rome. What these three scenes have in common is the transcending of pain and suffering. Joseph does not… Read More »

The New Testament insists that Jesus is “like us in all things but sin.” Well, since learning is a very human activity and it is certainly not a sin, we can be sure that Jesus learned. The Gospels suggest that one thing he learned was the scope of his mission. When he commissions the twelve… Read More »

The scene of Jacob wrestling with “some man” — who he comes to recognize as an angel of God — is one of those puzzling stories in the Bible, but one that we can relate to. Haven’t we all felt like we have been wrestling with God at certain points in our life?  Some difficulty… Read More »

“How awesome is this place! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!” Have you ever been to a place that caused you to react as Jacob did — with a sense of awe at the presence of the sacred? I know people who feel the sacred… Read More »

My old seminary professor used to call the passage Matthew 11:25-30 “a Johannine lightning bolt in a Matthean sky.” He meant the the words of Jesus quoted by St. Matthew would seem to fit better in John’s Gospel than in the first. Jesus in St. Matthew usually talks about things like the lilies of the… Read More »