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On this 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (the counted weeks of the liturgical year), the first Hebrew Scripture reading and the Gospel both speak about shepherds. So I expect we might hear homilies about this theme. But the second reading from Ephesians is especially significant for our Precious Blood family.…
“He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick. …” The simple walking stick — not the fancy, manufactured poles you can buy in a sporting goods store but a wooden stick — is a beautiful symbol for the commission we all have to bring the…
Remember that saying we learned as children? Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will ever hurt you. Probably you and I learned pretty early in life that this saying is not true! Rejection hurts. We all face rejection, often delivered with words. A special kind of rejection…
When reading Scripture, we Catholics are taught first to look at the historical context of the passage, to understand the literary elements, the forms of writing, the purpose of the Evangelist or other writers, to consider the way this particular passage relates to other passages of Scripture, and so on.…
Often a chance remark or a question gets me thinking and ends up jump-starting what I write. So I wonder, what inspired Paul as he wrote 2 Cor 5:14-17, today’s second reading? He is writing around the year 55, so just 20 years after Jesus’ death. I wonder if people…
In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus is talking about the “kingdom of God,” a very different kingdom from kingdoms of worldly rulers. Jesus uses teaching images of seeds that sprout and grow of their own accord, and of the mustard seed, “the smallest of all the seeds on the earth,”…
Not too long ago I attended a wedding celebrated in the Hindu tradition. It was full of many symbolic actions. For example, the parents of the bride and groom were on the dais with the bride and groom throughout the ceremony, and the parents had certain parts in it —…
Several times a day I check out the activity at the bird feeder to see which birds are showing up today. It is always a guessing game: Will it be the several cardinal pairs, the rufous-sided towhee, the various sparrows and finches, the mourning dove, the red-bellied woodpecker or all…
Richard Rohr reminds us that the Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen) said: “Don’t start with the One and try to make it into Three, but start with the Three and see that this is the deepest nature of the One.” When we speak of…
Recently the readings after Easter included the one from the Gospel of John where Jesus tells Nicodemus that the “wind blows where it will,” cautioning him that he does not know where it comes from or where it goes. About that same time we were experiencing some blustery April winds,…