Jesus Christ is coming to town. Watch! For the First Sunday of Advent. Isaiah 63:16b-7,19b; 64:2-7. 1 Corinthians 1:3-9. Mark 13:33-37. With this past Friday blackened by the dollars of their materialistic spending, many American Catholics may think the season of Advent is a preparation for Christmas. However, the fact is there are two parts to this season. The second part begins on December 17th, that is, one week before Christmas Eve. On the 17th of December,... Read more
The Mayflower Pilgrims, as Puritan Calvinists, saw yearly festivals as a corrupt Catholic usage, and so they never kept a yearly “Thanksgiving Day.” The Pilgrims came to North America on the Mayflower in the year of our Lord 1620, and celebrated their first harvest with a meal in the following year, 1621. However, in the years that followed, they did not keep a yearly commemoration of that first thankful harvest festival. They were Puritan Calvinists who rejected the... Read more
Jesus said, “All that you see here— the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Luke 21:5-11 for Tuesday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time. The Romans tore down the stones of God’s Jerusalem Temple about forty years after Christ said it would be so. But elsewhere in his Gospel, he spoke of tearing down the Temple as a token of his own... Read more
Created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” we could not start poorer than that. Matthew 25:31-46 for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King. So that is the plan of God: he brought us into being out of nothing, and will give us a share in himself as his royal sons and daughters. We were nothing, and God would make us his royal heirs. He brings us into being out of nothing, and he gives us... Read more
God as an investor settling accounts with this trustees? Matthew 25:14-30 for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today in his Gospel, Christ uses a threatening image. An absent master returns to count up the various investments he has left each of his servants to manage. One servant has done nothing with the master’s investment, except hide it safely away. The master throws him out to suffer in the darkness. Do we like this picture of God?... Read more
Anno Domini, “In the Year of the Lord.” Luke 17:26-37 for Friday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. In today’s Gospel, Christ tells of his Second Coming. He makes clear it shall happen as a sudden surprise. Without our ever knowing when it is to take place, we are always to be ready beforehand every day in every Year of the Lord. We... Read more
The foolish rejoice without making ready. Matthew 25:1-13 for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. This parable is in the middle of a lesson on the world ending with the full coming of God’s kingdom that is already on the way to us. The kingdom comes to us in many ways. It comes to us, offers itself to us through the presence of Christ in his grace, in the power of his Spirit, and in the sacraments.... Read more
God invites you, because spiritually you are poor, crippled, blind and lame. R.S.V.P. Luke 14:15-24 for Tuesday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time. Christ made TWO points among others with the parable in this Gospel reading. FIRST: God looks everywhere to invite everyone to dine in the Kingdom of God. SECOND: not all accept the invitation. In the FIRST point God does his part. In the SECOND he leaves us free to choose and do our part.... Read more
All souls: a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues. [Revelation 7:9] In John 6:37-40, Jesus tells us: All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent... Read more
We are members of the Holy Family. Revelation 7:2-4,9-14, 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12 for the Solemnity of All the Saints. Not all of us have biological siblings or biological children. However, every one of us has a biological father and a biological mother. So, through them, each of us has a bodily connection to the whole past history of the human race. The Word of the Lord names Adam and Eve as the father and mother... Read more
Turn. Love. Repeat.
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