Sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it that determines the meaning. Fr. Dennis was in a play in high school. The setting was in the Old West and the town was starving to death. Someone rushes in announcing that a wagon train was coming. One of the characters was supposed to… Read More »
JANUARY272024
As part of his assignment in the class on “how to be a good confessor” the student interviewed experienced confessors (including me!) about how to approach the sacrament. Looking back, what struck me was that adults almost always confessed either that they missed Mass on Sunday or some kind of sexual sin. However, sin has… Read More »
JANUARY262024
According to the latest survey about 28% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, what demographers call the “nones.” This is more than the number of Catholics or the number of evangelicals. And the number is growing rapidly since the largest segment with no religious affilication are the youngest cohort — more than one third. This… Read More »
JANUARY252024
The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice. After his conversion, what inspired St. Paul to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles? In his world, Jews and Gentiles had nothing to do with each other. After all, weren’t the… Read More »
JANUARY242024
King David after consolidating his rule with all of the tribes of Israel and establishing his capital city in Jerusalem looks to center the worship of God in his capital as well. Instead of the various local shrines all the people will look to Jerusalem as the place for religious devotion. David proposes that kingdom… Read More »
JANUARY232024
One way to envision the commandment to love that we received from Jesus is to envision a stone being dropped in a pond. As the stone hits the water widening circles of ripples form spreading farther and farther. That is how we should thing of our call to love. We start by loving those closest… Read More »
JANUARY222024
The king and his men set out for Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the region… David did take the stronghold of Zion, which is the City of David. It was a brilliant tactical move on David’s part to make Jersusalem his capital. The city had not been part of any of the twelve tribes… Read More »
JANUARY212024
Look at things from Zebedee’s point of view. He had worked his whole life to build the fishing business. The fisherman’s life is hard – get up before dawn every day. Use years of experience to find where the fish might be biting today. Work under the blazing sun or in terrible weather because if… Read More »
JANUARY202024
David mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, because they had fallen by the sword. The Bible doesn’t tell us what would have happened if David had been at the battle. He was Saul’s best general. He had amassed a crack troop of mercenaries. If Saul and David had… Read More »
JANUARY192024
In our creeds we claim to be an apostolic church, that is, a church founded on the apostles. This matters because Jesus left us no writings or no sermons except as remembered by the apostles. In other words, if it weren’t for the apostles we wouldn’t know Jesus. The apostles were called by Jesus. He… Read More »
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