Welcome to our blog. In this space we share stories of our lives as Sisters of the Precious Blood. We hope you find our posts both enjoyable and inspirational. Please note: all comments are subject to approval before being displayed.
A while back, a quiet early spring morning presented me with a doorway into a reflective moment. A group of us were having a meeting at a small retreat place situated just across a road from the Niagara River in Ontario only a mile or so from the Falls, close…
When I was on sabbatical in Palestine, I was surprised to see how small ordinary oil lamps were in Jesus’ time, about the size of your hand. Walls of the first century homes had periodic niches where they would be placed. Today’s feast is called “Candlemas,” and the tradition is…
The Gospel today is full of movement. Upon hearing that the Baptist has been arrested, Jesus goes into action. He leaves his hometown, begins to preach, and calls disciples to follow him around all of Galilee. Pope Francis comments that in contrast to the Baptist, Jesus chooses to be an…
It’s amazing how many references there are to looking at the new year and hoping that it will lead to 20/20 vision. Seeing perfectly is an ideal (glasses, contacts, surgery) and few of us have it, more so as we grow older. Perfect visioning is also an ideal; few have…
January 19 is the second Sunday of “ordinary time,” one of the counted weeks of the liturgical year that are not part of liturgical seasons like Advent and Lent. Some “ordinary time” Sundays occur after Christmas — how many depends on whether Easter, a movable feast day, is early or…
The Gospels were written years after Jesus’ death. During our 2020 liturgical year (the A cycle), we hear Sunday Gospels from the Gospel of Matthew, written around the year 80 A.D. or C.E., and sometimes passages from John’s Gospel, written around 100. This Sunday and for the next several weeks,…
Our January 8th Gospel is the story of the three “magi” or three “kings.” This story is from Matthew’s infancy narrative. Infancy narratives are teaching stories that serve as introductions to themes of the main Gospel which follows. A major theme in Matthew’s Gospel is the conflict between good and…
In the lectionary, the church’s schedule of readings, the Gospel for the Christmas Mass at Dawn and the one for today are the same — the shepherds arriving at the manger. But today one extra verse is added — Luke 2:21. It tells about Jesus receiving his name — the…
In parishes, it is challenging to preach about the family on this feast day. In the pews are many people not living in families like the one that Jesus grew up in, the traditional nuclear family. But notice, the nuclear family is not the family that Jesus held up to…
Once, at this time of year, a group of young kids from a housing project was visiting with me. I asked them what their Christmas was going to be like, and then I asked them a follow-up question: Why do we have Christmas? None of their families were churched, and…
