bible
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Last Sunday’s Old Testament passage from Deuteronomy was a beautiful passage from Moses on how the law of God is written on our hearts, and the Gospel was the Parable of the Good Samaritan, so my guess is that nobody paid much attention to the second reading, Colossians 1:15-20. But Paul says something interesting in…
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Do you trust me? I don’t know if you ever have this experience, but I have found that some themes, questions, and challenges keep coming back to me, generally because I haven’t satisfactorily addressed them before. How many times have we committed to getting to Mass early, or at least on time? How many times…
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If our new American pope, Leo XIV, has a theme in these too-early-for-definition days of his papacy, it is the theme of peace. His first remarks after election began with a call to peace, and he has been a consistent and vocal advocate for peace amidst the growing strife of our decidedly unpeaceful world. As…
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Be like … Paul? Even though Paul was my father’s name, my middle name, my confirmation name, and the author of half the New Testament books, he’s not one of my favorite saints. He was crazy smart and went non-stop, but it’s hard to read his letters without thinking he was also really high drama.…
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So what? Last Sunday was the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity for Catholics – basically there’s a lineup of deep-topic feast days on Sundays from Ascension to Pentecost to Trinity Sunday to Corpus Christi that celebrate different important but hard to grasp theological concepts. If you are the type that thinks that faith is…
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I’m glad I’m not a Catholic bishop in the US. In the Gospels, Jesus saves his harshest words for religious leaders that lead their followers astray. I think especially of Matthew 18, where, after saying that his followers should humble themselves like a little child, he says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who…
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Where are you this Holy Week? For those of you who are Catholic, Holy Week – starting with Palm Sunday and ending with Easter – includes a LOT of listening to Bible stories. Especially if you participate in the Triduum – marked by the services on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil on…
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A couple quick things about the readings chosen by the Church for the 4th Sunday of Lent (which was today). The Gospel is the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15, one of the most famous stories Jesus tells. It’s worth noting (I think I heard Luke Johnson say this) that the context for…
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Altissimu, omnipotente bon Signore, Tue so le laude, la gloria e l’honore et onne benedictione. One year I tried to give up impatient driving for Lent. That didn’t go so great. Count me among those who can’t wait for autonomous vehicles to replace all the other drivers on the road. Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se…
Reading Francis 