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This Thanksgiving, it may have felt like there was little in 2020 to give thanks for: a record-breaking hurricane season; wildfires that have burned over 8 million acres of land in the United States, including homes and businesses; destructive flooding in other parts of the world; never-ending wars and conflicts…
Advent is the “expectant” liturgical season, expecting the birth of a child, expecting the coming of the kingdom. But I notice that Sunday’s readings have a penitential flavor. In Isaiah we hear that Israel must be comforted and her guilt expiated because she already has “received from the hand of…
“O Lord, you are our father, we are the clay, and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” Advent begins a new liturgical (church) year. This is “Year B” in our lectionary, and on Sundays we will often hear passages from the Gospel of Mark. Mark…
Look with love I recently finished researching a paper about the Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics in Maria Stein, Ohio. Knowing about the Shrine in broad strokes, it was fascinating to learn about some of the particulars of how the Shrine, as it is today, came to be.…
Today we close a church year. Next week Advent begins. Notice the title of this feast: Christ is named King of the Universe, not only of our world. In the Gospel a king says to his faithful followers, “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”…
The other day I was listening to a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. One of the TV kids asked her TV Daddy: “If we are all going to heaven when we die, why do we have to spend time here on earth?” This weekend we have another parable about time,…
There are only a few Sundays left before the new liturgical year, and so we hear readings about time. Matthew’s community was interested in the end time, when the Kingdom would arrive and the Lord would return in glory. Within that picture they were interested in judgment — the eternal…
Saints make mistakes. I just finished reading the historical fiction Wolf Hall trilogy. In it, St. Thomas More, of A Man for All Seasons movie fame, opposes Henry VIII’s divorce and ascension to head of the Church of England. But More also is portrayed, with some historical facticity, as condoning…
One of the untrue and biased things we Catholics used to hear was that the Old Testament (and the Jewish religion of Jesus’ day) was based on law, while the New Testament was based on love. In today’s Gospel, Jesus answers this question: Which is the greatest commandment? Jewish rabbis…
His opponents set a trap for Jesus in today’s Gospel. Rome had imposed a head tax on its Jewish subjects. Pharisees were OK with paying it, Herodians supported it, and nationalists opposed it, sometimes by fomenting rebellions. Who would Jesus side with? Would his answer brand him as an insurrectionist?…
