In the Apostles’ Creed we pray: “He descended into hell.” That reflects the belief that Jesus saving death and resurrection effects everyone, even those who had been dead long before the Pascal events. An ancient legend is that Jesus encountered the progenitor of humanity, Adam, when he “descended into hell.” Below find an ancient Greek… Read More »

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The ancestors pose that question to us. They knew that when you are THERE, when you experience it for yourself, you feel it much more profoundly, it means so much more. Hearing about it is one thing, being there is quite another. Were you there when they… Read More »

It had to have been deliberate. St. John wrote his gospel after living as a Christian for fifty or more years. He had gathered with his fellow believers every Lord’s Day during all that time and broken the bread and shared the cup. They had recited the Lord’s word and recalled that he said, “Do… Read More »

No one knows why Judas betrayed Jesus. St. John’s gospel suggests that greed was the motivation — but since he gave the money back, that doesn’t seem right. Some suggest that Judas was trying to provoke an revolutionary uprising — since Jesus was popular his arrest would spur resistance to the Roman occupiers. Then why… Read More »

Back in the day when posters were the rage in a college dorm I remember one that read: Some people make things happen. Some people let things happen. And other people wonder what happened. That last description applies to those first followers of Jesus after the events surrounding his death and resurrection. A suffering messiah… Read More »

Finally, you can imagine the disciples saying on a Sunday morning so long ago, finally Jesus is taking his rightful place. The palms, the crowds, the honors. And telling those Pharisees the stones would cry out in praise, priceless. Finally, you can imagine the disciples saying on a Friday afternoon so long ago, finally they… Read More »

“Believe the works I do,” said Jesus. That reminds me of the lesson on the how of evangelization which came from Pope Paul VI: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Actually, that applies not only to “modern man”… Read More »

The promises of God must be prayed about to be properly understood. For example, how was Abraham to understand the word of God that he “will be exceedingly fertile” when even having one son took a miracle? And how were his descendants to understand “the gift of the whole land of Canaan as a permanent… Read More »

Back in the olden days I used to have a banner which read: “The truth will set you free … but first it will make you miserable.” Too true. The truth has misery-making potential because it shakes us out of our complacency and our accustomed behaviors. St. Ignatius sees freedom to say “whatever you want,… Read More »

The children of Israel complained to God about their “wretched food” — the manna and the quail which came to them as a unearned gift and were keeping them alive as they wandered forty years in the desert. Complaining is a human constant. In this political season everyone seems to be complaining about something. Sure,… Read More »