Jesus said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” You can easily imagine the disciples being excited that Jesus recognized how hard they had been working and proposed some vacation days, some rest, some “me” time. When that didn’t work out as planned because at the sight of… Read More »

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Pope John Paul II chose that as the theme for the Church’s celebration of the new millennium. As the epistle to the Hebrews reminds us, we live in the midst of the world populated by strangers, by those who are imprisoned, by people struggling with marriage,… Read More »

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian executed by the Nazis, once wrote that the reason Jesus sent the disciples out two by two was so that they would have someone to forgive. Certainly it would have been a help and support… Read More »

The tradition of the Church from the earliest times is that Mary is the Blessed Virgin. In the third century, after the persecutions ended and they lost an external enemy, Christians started fighting with one another about the meaning of the faith. The perpetual virginity of Mary was one such fight because of passages in… Read More »

When a friend became a pastor of a parish in Texas he found that the church was chock-a-block full of statues of various saints to the point that the altar seemed like an afterthought. There was an unused balcony in the back of the Church so he arranged a ceremony where a selection from Hebrews… Read More »

The Bible is mostly just a series of stories. This is in constrast to much of religious literature. The Quran, the Vedas, the Sutras are mostly exhortations, instructions, descriptions, explanations. The Bible tells the stories of people. When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wants to explain what it means to have faith… Read More »

We call Jesus the Lord, the Christ so there is a natural tendency to place him on a pedestal, to think of his feet as never quite touching the ground. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews warns us against such thinking.  In order to save us, Jesus “had to become like his brothers… Read More »

“Teacher, do you not care?” These words the apostles addressed to Jesus have probably been on our lips a time or two. Do you not care about the wars, global warming, refugee crisis around the world? Do you not care that our nation and Church seem hopelessly divided? Do you not care about my family… Read More »

The parable of the sprouting seed and the parable of the mustard seed are typical of Jesus’ preaching style. With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Jesus simply presents the parable, the image without introduction or explanation. He lets his listeners figure it out for… Read More »

Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy. We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly. When we see the wars, poverty, wide-spread disease; when we see the divisions, hostility, even… Read More »