Google “If-a-genie-grants-you-three-wishes-what-do-you-intend-to-wish-for” and you get varied responses. There are the ones you’d expect: Good health, Lots of Money. Someone to love me. There are some altruistic ones: World peace. Equal opportunity for everyone. Eliminate global warming. There are some personal ones: My girl friend will marry me. I’ll be six feet tall. I’ll get a… Read More »

What is the fertilizer? Jesus tells a parable describing God’s patience. The unproductive tree will be given another change to thrive. Leave it for this year also,  and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it. Jesus expects the Church to produce the spiritual fruit of a more just and peaceful world. Even though… Read More »

St. Paul reminds us that will power is not enough. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. That certainly resonates with my experience. Most mornings when I wake up I think “today would be a good day to lose a few pounds.” When the… Read More »

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” These words of Jesus inspired Fr. Thomas Judge, the founder of my religious congregation. He was concerned at the beginning of the twentieth century about what he called “leakage from the church.” It created a sense of missionary… Read More »

It is so easy to notice what we don’t have, the losses and griefs, the troubles and difficulties, the looming problems. The gospel wants us to shift that narrative and notice how blessed we are. All the problems in the world pale to insignificance compared with the surpassing grace of God’s presence. And, since we… Read More »

Looking around at our situation gives the impression that we as a nation are experiencing wide-spread trauma. The intractable political divisions, the persistence of racism, the abuse of immigrants, the scandal of income inequality, the irrational resistance to heeding the advice of health professionals, the ongoing plague of violence — to say nothing of pandemic-produced… Read More »

In St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy we read: Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke is the only one with me. Get Mark and bring him with you … I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus. This passage is not unique. In almost all his… Read More »

“We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” What does that request of James and John made to Jesus sound like to you? A toddler wanting a cookie? A child with their Christmas list? A teen demanding a later curfew? You can imagine the statement punctuated by an almost childish stomping… Read More »

Despite the prayer of Jesus that “all may be one” Christians are divided. One such division, that between Catholics and Protestants, goes back to the sixteenth century. Martin Luther started a new religious movement by focusing on “faith alone” which he saw as the standard raised by St. Paul.  It was not through the law… Read More »

My favorite book is Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. The title characters are a brother and sister and they remember at one point Franny, the sister, decided she didn’t like Jesus because he said, “You are worth more than many sparrows.” How come, she wanted to know, were human beings more valuable than other creatures?… Read More »