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As we moved deeper into fall, I started hedging my bets. Every couple of days I picked one or two rose buds in the event that the fall’s first freeze would bring the bloom season to an end. This was a particularly advantageous summer for our pink roses. They bloomed…
Two weeks ago we began our new liturgical year (B) when the Sunday Gospel is often from Mark. But today we already depart from Mark and hear from the Gospel of John. Why? In our Gospel, some people are questioning John the Baptist as to who he really is. The…
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…