In 1988 there was a devastating fire in Yellowstone National Park. Almost two thousand square miles were impacted by the fire. A Park Ranger looking over the ash strewn landscape lamented that a generation would not know the park in all its beauty. He could not have been more wrong. The next year the park… Read More »

In the Man of La Mancha Aldonza challenges Sancho Panza about his decision to companion Don Quixote. “What do you get out of it,” she asks. As he stumbles around for an answer she confronts him: “You get nothing.” To which Sancho Panza answers, “I like him, I really like him.” In St. Mark’s gospel… Read More »

One can get an incorrect the idea from the story of Jesus’ encounter with the rich, young man. Looking at the story it seems there there are two levels to the spiritual life. First one becomes a commandment keeper and later one “sells what you have, give to the poor and come follow” Jesus. We… Read More »

I was in the seminary in the 60s after Vatican Council II. The seminary faculty sort of lost their bearings. They could no longer teach the way they had for the past fifty years… and the way they had been taught fifty years before that. I remember Fr. Gilbert preaching a sermon to us where… Read More »

In the book of Sirach we read that God endowed humanity with power over all things else on earth. God gives human beings rule over beasts and birds. This is a reflection of the first chapter of the book of Genesis where God says to Adam and Eve to have “dominion over the fish of… Read More »

In the Book of Sirach there is a beautiful description of friendship. “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure. A faithful friend is beyond price.” In the Gospels Jesus must deal with issues of marriage and divorce. Both of these readings remind us how important relationships are to… Read More »

In one of my teen-age-smart-alecky moods when my mother said, “I’ve told you a thousand times not to do that.” I responded, “Not a thousand.” To which she answered, “Hyperbole added for emphasis.” Jesus adds hyperbole for emphasis when he tells us to chop of our hand or foot or eye if it causes us… Read More »

Jesus addressed two questions to his disciples at Caesarea Phillipi: “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” The first question we answer with our studies. We learn the catechism, we go to Bible class, we attend religious education, we might even get a degree in theology. The… Read More »

We know more about the provenance (to use an art term) of the Book of Sirach than most books of the Bible. The author Ben Sira was of the priestly family in Jerusalem who apparently fled to Egypt because of the persecution which eventually led to the Macchabean revolt. He captured the wisdom of the… Read More »

In one of Graham Greene’s novels a character says: “It’s odd … how sharing a sense of doubt can bring men together perhaps even more than sharing a faith. The believer will fight another believer over a shade of difference: the doubter fights only with himself.” We have seen in our time how “true believers”… Read More »