In today’s Gospel, we hear John the Baptist clarifying what he meant when he told the priests and Levites, “There is one among you whom you do not recognize”. There is a shift today. Until now we have been focusing on John, Jesus’ precursor. Now the gospel, through the Baptist’s testimony, passes us from John…
Today is the solemnity of “Mary, Mother of God.” Our church’s veneration of Mary goes back to our beginnings. At Christmas we celebrate the Word of God made flesh. Today we celebrate God blessing us through Mary, who was the means by which that Word took flesh among us. Through Mary we came to experience…
Four days to Christmas. All around us, children’s spirits are bursting with joyful anticipation, lively hopes and unbounded expectation. They dream visions of reindeer and elves, Nintendo and Xbox. And where are our spirits? And what are our dreams on this last Sunday of Advent? Do we have the spirit of Ahaz, or the spirit…
A good friend of mine taught spirituality and evangelization at a seminary in India. While there, there was one individual who did all the cooking and served the meals to the staff and seminarians daily. Upon the course completion my friend announced there would be a test with only one question. The following morning, he…
If you listened attentively to the reading today, you’ve noticed that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in each of the readings. It is clear from these readings that the Christian community is indebted to the Spirit for its very existence and well-being. It is the Sprit who stirs up in us the waters of our…
JOHN 2 No shotgun wedding here. It’s a very proper arranged marriage—and the whole village of Cana is invited. The problem is, the whole village comes, whether they have RSVPed or not. So, the wine starts running out on the third day of the festivities. Somehow the problem is solved, the family’s honor is preserved,…
ISAIAH 60:1-6 MATTHEW 2:1-12 Sometimes, what we see or hear around us is very different from our expectations. In today’s reading from Isaiah, we have one of those occasions…
Walking from Bethany to Mt. Zion is a notable journey, by no means an easy one. It is a mile and a half climbing and descending through the hills of Judea. You cross the Mount of Olives and pass by the olive trees that have been there since the time of Jesus. Then you descend…
As we approach the end of the Christmas Season – we rejoice in our recollection of the Epiphany of the Lord, the manifestation the “showing” of the Son of God to man. This beautiful story of the Wise Men is among the favorites of the Christian people. It is colorful, rich, multi-leveled, endless in its…
MARK 1:12-15 Here we are on our first Sunday of Lent. For some of us it must be a relief to have this time set aside by the church, to get our lives in order again. For others, we might be asking ourselves, “Do I really need Lent?” Perhaps instead of seeing Lent as a…