“In Christ you … were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance.” St. Paul tells us that the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is the down payment from God giving a foretaste of heaven. In another letter (to the Galatians) St. Paul tells us what… Read More »

Let us give thanks today for St. Luke. Without the Third Gospel we would not know the story of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan. He left us the beautiful prayers the Benedictus and the Magnificat which the Church prays every day. He emphasized Jesus’ love for the poor. He pointed out the role… Read More »

In an age of “I’ll do my thing and you do yours” it is held to be in bad taste to chide the behavior of others. But Jesus and St. Paul did not hesitate to point out bad behavior. “Woe to you.” In the letter to the Galatians the Apostle lists some “works of the… Read More »

St. Paul fought strenuously against those who insisted that in order to become a follower of Jesus, one need to be circumcised. This was a battle royal in the first century that is reflected in many of the New Testament texts. However, there aren’t any fights over circumcision nowadays. Those battles which loomed so large… Read More »

If you would ask the average person what the Christian life consists in most would probably say something like, learning how to follow the commandments or becoming obedient to the will of God. Not many would echo St. Paul and say that the Christian life is about freedom. “For freedom Christ set us free.” The… Read More »

In passing through a train station I noticed an electric signs which, I presume, announced which train was due to arrive on which track when.  Instead, the sign kept flashing these words: “No Message.”  Rather odd.  But on further reflection, isn’t that the reality in which we live in nowadays.  Our world, our society, our… Read More »

I left Baltimore in 1963. I return every year to visit my family but for the past 55 years I have lived elsewhere. Yet I consider myself a Baltimorean. I read the Baltimore paper, I root for the Baltimore teams, I fret over the Baltimore problems. We tend to define ourselves by family and culture.… Read More »

“Realize that it is those who have faith who are children of Abraham.” This seemingly simple thought captures St. Paul’s basic insight — that being the people of God was not a matter of race or birth but due to faith. At this time in our country and throughout the world there are tendencies to… Read More »

When St. Luke reports that Jesus tells us to “ask, seek, knock” in prayer he concludes with the Lord saying, “If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?” When St. Matthew reports this scene Jesus says that the… Read More »

In the letter to the Galatians, St. Paul reports on what has been called in the tradition as the “Council of Jerusalem.” (St. Luke gives his version in the Acts of the Apostles.) There was a sharp disagreement — among those we recognize as saints! — about what the Gospel of Jesus required. They had… Read More »