“These are uneducated, ordinary men.” That was the reaction of the authorities to the initial preaching of the apostles. And it was true! In the plan of God it was not the movers and the shakers who were going to change the world but Joe Six-pack (or maybe Joe Wine-sack?) That is still the plan… Read More »

“I am going fishing,” St. Peter said. You can catch him thinking — Okay, Jesus rose from the dead. What do I do now? I know how to fish so I’ll go back to that. But he found out he couldn’t fish — he caught nothing. And the encounter with the Risen Lord let him… Read More »

St. Peter pronounces one of the the most chilling indictments addressing the crowds after the events of Jesus’ passion and death: “I know that you acted out of ignorance.” This is chilling because it says we can do the most horrible of things, even killing the Son of God, acting in ignorance. I remember meeting… Read More »

St. Peter says to the begger, “I have neither silver nor gold; but what I have I give you.” We can only give what we have. The story of the disciples encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus reminds us that the most important thing we have is our burning hearts. “Were not our… Read More »

The encounter between the Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene is very poignant. She comes to recognize him when he calls her by name, when he asserts the connection, the bond, the intimacy that they possessed as teacher and disciple. However, Jesus adds, “Do not cling to me.” Do not cling to how our relationship used… Read More »

Mary Magdalene is remembered as one of the most important witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus. The Fathers of the Church called her “the apostle to the apostles” since she was the one who proclaimed to the Twelve the Good News of the appearance of the Risen Jesus. I was struck though that in St.… Read More »

Let’s throw our minds back in time and imagine the scene in Jerusalem in, say, the year 34 of this era give or take a year or two. A small group of people who had come to recognize Jesus as the long awaited savior have been meeting “on the first day of every week” to… Read More »

In the Apostles’ Creed we pray: “He descended into hell.” That reflects the belief that Jesus saving death and resurrection effects everyone, even those who had been dead long before the Pascal events. An ancient legend is that Jesus encountered the progenitor of humanity, Adam, when he “descended into hell.” Below find an ancient Greek… Read More »

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The ancestors pose that question to us. They knew that when you are THERE, when you experience it for yourself, you feel it much more profoundly, it means so much more. Hearing about it is one thing, being there is quite another. Were you there when they… Read More »

It had to have been deliberate. St. John wrote his gospel after living as a Christian for fifty or more years. He had gathered with his fellow believers every Lord’s Day during all that time and broken the bread and shared the cup. They had recited the Lord’s word and recalled that he said, “Do… Read More »