Astronomers were excited to discover, what they called, Earth 2.0. It possessed earth-like qualities that suggested humanity might survive there. The problem — it is 1800 light years from earth and the fastest earth-made vessel travels at about two-one thousanth of the speed of light. We’re not getting there any time soon. All of which… Read More »

In most creation stories of ancient people nature is described as eternal and necessary. Things are simply the way they are. The Biblical creation story is different because creation is not necessary but the result of a choice. God chose to create and to do so in specific ways. When God created humanity in the… Read More »

Many ancient cultures have a creation story which features some sort of struggle or battle between good and evil, light and darkness, sky and earth in order to produce the world. The Biblical creation story differs in that God is the sole creator and God created everything good. God saw how good it was at… Read More »

The first reading from the prophet Isaiah has an “if/then” quality to it. If you do this, then this will happen. If you share your bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, remove oppression and malicious speech from your midst, then your light shall break forth like the dawn. The prophet is… Read More »

I would have been very unhappy if I had been one of the Apostles. Jesus recognized that they had been working hard and promised them some vacation.  “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” But when they get to their nice sea side resort instead of a vacation Jesus went… Read More »

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect hospitality … Be mindful of prisoners … Let marriage be honored among all … Let your life be free from love of money … Remember your leaders. For the past few weeks we have been reading from the Letter to the Hebrews. The author (probably not St. Paul)… Read More »

You will, at times, hear the criticism that the Catholic Church is all about ritual, that worship should be more spontaneous and spirit-filled. The Biblical story of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2) presents a different story. St. Luke emphasizes that Joseph and Mary were doing what they did in order “to… Read More »

At my godmother’s funeral I got to spend time with cousins that I hadn’t seen for many years. What struck me was that they had changed over the years — more mature, more balanced, more focused.  My temptation was to put them in the box of who they were back in the day. It was… Read More »

A priest friend Houston moved into a new parish which was chock-a-block full of statues. Knowing this could be delicate he noticed that there was an unused choir loft so he moved all of the statues up to the loft and used the Letter to the Hebrews to explain the new arrangement. Since we are… Read More »

One line in the Apostles’ Creed causes no little head scratching for us today. “He descended into hell.” The way we usually understand hell — the place of eternal punishment — doesn’t fit this credal statement. Ancient peoples  would not have divided up the afterlife into the neat categories that we have of heaven, hell… Read More »