Today’s readings When it comes right down to it, we have a choice. We can choose life or death, blessing or curse, the way of the Cross or the way of the world. The choice that we make has huge consequences, eternal consequences. The stakes are big ones, and we must choose wisely. Many of… Continue reading Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Month: February 2009
Ash Wednesday
Today’s readings [from the Ash Wednesday Service of the Word] Behold: now is the acceptable time! Behold: now is the day of salvation! We have come here today for all sorts of reasons. Lots of us may still have the remnants of old and bad teaching that you have to come to Church on Ash… Continue reading Ash Wednesday
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings In our first reading today, we have an instruction on the virtue of integrity. Integrity is that virtue by which we show that we are who we say we are, that we are in our secret moments what we are in our public ones, that we walk the walk and talk the talk.… Continue reading Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr
Today’s readings St. Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of the apostles. He is known to have accompanied St. Ignatius of Antioch to Rome to confer with Pope Anicetus concerning the celebration of Easter, which was quite a controversy in that time. He was known to be a man of faith and… Continue reading St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr
Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings One of the graces that I have here at the parish is that whenever I go to parish meetings, we always pray through the Gospel for the coming Sunday and discuss it. The Spirit works through the community, and more often than not, I’ll start thinking about the readings in a different light… Continue reading Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” The writer of the letter to the Hebrews sums up for us this notion of faith, which can be so difficult to wrap our minds around. What I love about the definition of faith that comes to us… Continue reading Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings In the aftermath of the great flood, what’s left is what God wants us to know is important: life. Life is the way we participate in the essence of our Creator God. And that life is so important that absolutely nothing could completely blot it out – not even the waters of the… Continue reading Thursday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Family Reconciliation Service
Reading: Mark 10:13-16 Well, we have some children here tonight, so this reading about Jesus embracing the little children makes some sense. But not all of us are children, are we? We have big people and little people and every age, and that’s very nice. But you know, we are all children of God, aren’t… Continue reading Family Reconciliation Service
Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings We’re still in the opening chapters of human history in our first reading, and in these opening chapters we see some of the less beautiful parts of human nature. These are deadly sins, and they have continued to plague humankind ever since. We start with envy, as Cain laments that his offering was… Continue reading Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings “I do will it. Be made clean.” When I was in seminary, I did my hospital chaplaincy in my fourth summer at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. Every once in a while I would come to a room that was marked with a prominent sign stating that the room was quarantined and… Continue reading Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time