When Pope Leo XIV was elected the people of Chicago were elated. He is from here. He roots for the White Sox. He likes deep dish pizza. He is one of us. The cardinals from the United States held a news conference after the election and they dismissed the idea of the significance of an… Read More »

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is celebrated each year as Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel for the day is taken from John 10 where Jesus uses the image — “I am the Good Shepherd” — and the other reading for the day pick up the theme. The image of God as shepherd is a common… Read More »

The highlight of the Bread of Life discourse (John 6) might be these words of Jesus: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” Receiving the Eucharist has been a foundational element of Catholic spirituality from the very beginning. It is somewhat… Read More »

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He said, “Who are you, sir?” Saul (soon to be Paul) was persecuting Christians. They were to him an anonymous mass of people who were opposed to his way of life. The encounter with the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus challenged him to see not a… Read More »

The Acts of the Apostles tells the story of the Church gradually rippling out from its origins in Jerusalem into (ultimately) the entire known world. Isn’t it interesting that the first convert to Christianity outside of the Holy Land itself was an African, a man traveling from Ethiopia. He embodies what we think of today… Read More »

In the Acts of the Apostles St. Luke paints an idealized picture of the first Christian community. Everyone got along, everyone was generous, everyone shared their lives. It might have been tempting to stay in that safe and serene environment. However, external events intervened. After the martyrdom of Stephen, “There broke out a severe persecution… Read More »

Stephen is called the proto-martyr, the first martyr. St. Luke tells the story of his death deliberately modeling it on the death of Jesus. The crowd turns on him because of his claim of intimacy with God. “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He… Read More »

The readings for the fifty days of the Easter season are designed to show us what resurrection life is all about. The first reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles which describes how the Risen Jesus impacted his followers. The gospel reading for this week is from John 6, called the Bread of… Read More »

At the call of Simon, later to be named Peter, Jesus said he would be a “fisher of men.” He walked with Jesus for the years of his ministry, saw him work many miracles, heard his parables and his teaching, confessed his identity as the “Christ, son of the Living God,” denied him at the… Read More »

In the play, My Fair Lady, Freddy is wooing Eliza when she bursts into song (it is a Broadway musical, after all), “Don’t talk of Spring, don’t talk of Fall, don’t talk at all. Show me.” Elizae knows that talk is cheap, she wants to see evidence of his love. The apostle Philip says something… Read More »