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Here are the Old Testament and Gospel readings for this Sunday (Oct. 25): Exodus 22:21-26 Thus says the LORD: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out…
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For those of you who subscribe to this blog, but aren’t connected to me on social media otherwise, I’ve been writing some career-focused pieces on a Substack account I started. I posted them there because they didn’t seem to fit the focus of Reading Francis, which is really more faith-focused. I posted my retirement rationale…
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From protagonists to witnesses, blessing the next generation, and what I learned from a missionary motto How do you know when it’s time to go? Fr. Ronald Rolheiser is one of my favorite spiritual guides, and his book Sacred Fire has had a profound effect on my understanding of what it means to be a…
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It’s comforting to know that even the best of them were works in progress. I’ve written a lot about St. Francis of Assisi over the years, but this is a particularly big year for Franciscans, as it is the 800th anniversary of his death. While the daily Mass readings aren’t necessarily selected with St. Francis…
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What is “fruitful labor”, anyway? I’ve been thinking about work a lot lately. Partly, that’s because several friends from different parts of my life have reached out to pick my brain about their career journeys, which has made me reflect on my own. I even started using Substack to share my thoughts; I wanted to…
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“Jeff! Ti aspetto da due anni!” Jeff! I’ve been waiting two years for you! Whenever we go to Assisi, we start each day with Mass. Six days a week, we walk down the hill from our hotel through town to the Basilica of Santa Chiara and settle into the intimate Chapel of San Giorgio (which…
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What must it be like to fall apart in front of tens of thousands of people? What must it be like to be a performer, on-stage, unable to sing the song you made, the one that made you famous? Sometimes people who aren’t religious think that Christians have a delusional sense that, with enough belief,…
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At what point do our scruples do more harm than good? Scrupulosity is not a term you hear a lot these days, even though I think it’s a burgeoning condition now in both secular and sacred circles. (We tend to go with the more pathological term, OCD.) Back in the day, Jesus poked at the…
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The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing. I mentioned earlier this week that the daily Mass readings this week cover the return to Jerusalem and rebuilding of the Temple, but one of those readings has really stuck with me all week, because I think it speaks to a larger question…
