Forgiveness ain’t easy. St. Peter certainly thought so. He tried to put limits on forgiveness. “Seven times?” But Jesus kept stressing the importance of forgiving. Forgive seventy-seven times. Each of you forgives your brother or sister from your heart. Right in the Lord’s Prayer: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against… Read More »

St. Paul writes: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these am the foremost.” Pope Francis soon after he was elected Pope said: “I am a sinner. This the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy… Read More »

Perhaps you have seen the poster entitled: “It was the women who stayed.” Although they differ in the details of who exactly was there, all four of the evangelists report that the apostles fled and a group of women remained when Jesus was crucified. The lesson we can draw from this in our own life:… Read More »

“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.” If you think about it, the first sin of Adam and Eve was grasping. They grasped after that apple because the snake told them that after they grasped it, “you will be like gods.” St.… Read More »

Karl Marx. of all people, warned us to be careful not to treat the concrete as if it were abstract. When St. Luke reports the sayings of Jesus we call the Beatitudes he does so in a very concrete way. Instead of the more abstract “blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who… Read More »

Those of us of a certain age remember an old TV show called Mission: Impossible. (Not to be confused with the movies of the same name.) It always opened up with Peter Graves (“Mr. Phelps”) looking at photographs of those who would be on the “impossible mission” team. He chose them based on some skill or… Read More »

St. Paul said, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.” I think most people don’t put the word “rejoice” and the word “suffering” in the same sentence. We ordinarily think of suffering as something to be avoided, to overcome; not something to rejoice in. But think for a moment about parents. They go through suffering… Read More »

In all of the four gospels, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, among all the words that Jesus spoke, the word “Church” only comes up two times – both in St. Matthew’s gospel. The first we heard proclaimed several weeks ago when Jesus told Simon, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build… Read More »

What did St. Paul mean when he said, “persevere in the faith … of the Gospel which has been preached to every creature under heaven.” He obviously knew that those who actually heard the Gospel at the time he was writing the letter to the Colossians (c. 60??) was limited to a small number of… Read More »

St. Matthew includes the names of four women in Jesus’ genealogy before mentioning Mary, his mother: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. These women illustrate some of the bumps in the family tree. Tamar slept with her father-in-law, Rahab was a Canaanite madam in Jericho, Ruth was a Moabite )and the Book of Deuteronomy instructs the… Read More »