We come to a deeper understanding of the gift of the Holy Eucharist when we see its origin at the Passover meal. Jesus gathered his disciples around him for the ritual meal which is still a part of Jewish piety. During the meal there is a ceremonial telling of the story of the first Passover.… Read More »

There has been 2000 years worth of questions about what motivated Judas to betray Jesus. The Bible does not tell us and we have no other sources so we can’t know for sure. My own speculation is that Judas never knew Jesus as a person. For him, Jesus was the savior of the nation, the… Read More »

Chapter 13 of St. John’s Gospel opens with the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. As the chapter continues Jesus confronts Judas Iscariot about “what you are going to do” and challenges Peter about his coming denial. In other words, Jesus washed the feet of those whom he knew were going to… Read More »

There is a nostalgic desire to put ourselves in Mary’s place that we might be the ones who anoint the feet of Jesus. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to care for the Lord! But when Jesus reminds us “the poor you have with you always” he is telling us that we DO have… Read More »

You can get whiplash on this Sunday. We go from palms to passion, from glory to grief, from cheers to jeers, from triumph to tragedy, from joy to despair, from “hosanna” to “crucify him,” from praise to crucifixion in the seeming blink of an eye. What is going on here? Why can’t we just stay… Read More »

The prophets of Israel had two modes: they were either fussing or they were consoling. They fussed even when things seemed to be going well because they could see the underlying rot. They consoled when things were terrible because they knew God’s mercy and fidelity. Prophets such as Ezekiel spoke of the “new” thing God… Read More »

At first it seems hard to understand why Jesus stirred up such hostility. He was a nice person, doing good, caring for the hurting. And, of course, there is a memory of earlier men of God like Jeremiah provoking similar negative reactions. I suspect it is part of the human tendency to tear down the… Read More »

The fastest human-made object, the Cassini spacecraft, travels at 25 miles per second. Of course light travels at 186,000 miles per second. So even if we found a way to up the speed of some human object to go 8 times faster than today it would still take 4,000 years to get to the closest… Read More »

I once had a poster which had emblazoned on it the words of Jesus: The Truth will set you Free. Underneath, in smaller print, it said: but first it will make you miserable. Living in the truth is not easy — it is hard to separate out what I want to be true from what… Read More »

When Jesus talks about the crucifixion in St. John’s Gospel he speaks of being “lifted up.” The Greek meaning of the term “lifted up,” like English, has a positive overtone. We might even translate it as “exalted.” Jesus’ crucifixion is, therefore, not a tragedy to be avoided at all costs but a stage for the… Read More »