The angel of the Lord announces to Gideon that the Lord is with him. To which Gideon responds:  “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?” Don’t we feel like that at times? When we are dealing with a health crisis or a family emergency we wonder where God is. The… Read More »

The encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man does not describe a two-tiered spirituality. A superficial look at the story makes it seem that there are the ordinary joes who just keep the commandments and an elite “who wish to be perfect” who “sell what you have, give to the poor, and come follow… Read More »

Jesus learned something from the Canaanite woman. We shouldn’t feel reluctant to say that. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God but the Bible assures us that Jesus was like us in all thing but sin. Needing to learn stuff is not a sin so, as a human being, Jesus needed to learn. As Son… Read More »

“Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” These well beloved words of Jesus have been rendered often in paintings. How attractive in the image of Jesus with the little children! What is the characteristic of a child that makes them belong… Read More »

After the conquest of the Promised Land Joshua gathered the Hebrew Children before him and reminded them of all that God had done for them from the call of Abraham down to their taking possession of the land. The catalog of blessings included the lesson that there were people in the land before they got… Read More »

The reading assigned for today begins several readings from the Book of Joshua. After Moses led the Hebrew children out of slavery, through the Red Sea, and across the desert for forty years he died within sight of the Promised Land. Joshua picked up the mantle of leadership and led the Chosen People into the… Read More »

Jesus said,  “if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.” My experience of prayer is not as straightforward as that. There seems to be a gap between my prayer and the fulfillment of that prayer. Moses standing on Mt.… Read More »

The image St. Paul of the “first fruits” provides the context to understand the Assumption of Mary. Mary as the first believer in Jesus has gone ahead of us into glory to show us the way. As she is, so we shall be. This is a good moment to reflect on the statement in the… Read More »

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, a “megachurch,” once commented that in his years in the seminary not one professor pointed out that over 2,000 bible verses direct believers to care for the poor. That reminds us that we read the Bible through our own lens and ignore uncomfortable Biblical teaching. For example, in the… Read More »

Sometimes God crashes into your life and sometimes God sneaks into your life. We see the crashing variety in the account of Jesus walking on water. The twelve apostles we are told are terrified, they cried out in fear. They have been fighting for their lives against the storm, against the wind and the rain.… Read More »