The third epistle of St. John is very short. It contains this provocative comment: you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters, especially for strangers… Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey. While we are not exactly sure who the “strangers” are it is fascinating… Read More »
NOVEMBER112022
The second epistle of St. John is a short admonition sent to deal with a particular problem in a local Church. It seems that certain perhaps more philosophical types couldn’t believe that God could assume a human nature, they do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. For them, Jesus was not truly… Read More »
NOVEMBER102022
No doubt St. Paul wrote many personal letters. Only one has come down to us, the one to his friend Philemon. It was saved in the Bible and recognized as Sacred Scripture because the themes in the letter are universal. Some background: Onesimus was a runaway slave who at some point encountered St. Paul and… Read More »
NOMEMBER92022
Today in the Catholic Church we remember the dedication of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. This is the Cathedral Church of Rome (St. Peter’s is in Vatican City which is technically another country) and, hence, the seat (cathedra) for the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. The Emperor Constantine gave the Lateran Palace… Read More »
NOVEMBER82022
I used to say Mass at a Sisters convent. Afterwards the Sisters would come forward and say, “Thank you, Father, for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” I never knew how to respond to that. Why should I be thanking for doing what I was supposed to do? Now, as pastor, I am called upon… Read More »
NOVEMBER72022
St. Paul’s letter to Titus is one of the “pastoral” letters since it concerns itself with how to be a pastor in a rapidly developing church. I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done and appoint presbyters in every town. Instead of the itinerant ministry that St.… Read More »
NOVEMBER62022
Jesus ends the controversy over the resurrection by saying God “is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” As human beings we are time bound. There is the past, the present and the future. We remember our loved ones for what we shared in the past; we… Read More »
NOVEMBER52022
No servant can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon is kind of a funny word. The only time I’ve ever heard it used is in this saying of Jesus. The dictionary definition is “wealth regarded as an evil influence.” As St. Paul puts it in another place, “the love of money… Read More »
NOVEMBER42022
Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. St. Pul does not want us to worry about “earthly things” but how can we not? There are bills to pay, places to get to, sickness in the air, political decisions to make. The image that came to me was of the… Read More »
NOVEMBER32022
A few years ago at a workshop we did an exercise where we named the ten things that were most important to us: family, friends, music, good food, etc. The exercise then required that we cut our list of ten down to five — which was hard but not impossible — and then down to… Read More »
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