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Tuesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings It is always interesting to me how clearly the unclean spirits know who Jesus is. For them, Christ our God inspires fear and rebellion. But even these unclean spirits, hearing his voice, begrudgingly obey. Jesus teaches with authority, as the people standing by admit of him. This is a teaching that cannot be…
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Monday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings It seems like just yesterday that John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River. Oh wait, it was just yesterday! But today’s reading fast forwards a bit and takes us to a time after John has been arrested. John isn’t dead yet, not yet out of the picture, but clearly he…
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The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
Today’s readings I think we have to be a little bit careful about how we read and hear today’s readings. We’re still in the Christmas season – at the end of it, actually – and, more precisely, we’re at the octave day of the Epiphany of the Lord, which we celebrated last week, in which…
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Thursday after Epiphany
Today’s readings The feast of Epiphany is a celebration of the fact that Christian life looks like something. Because Jesus has appeared on the earth and taken our own human form, because he has walked among us and lived our life and died our death, we know what the Christian Way looks like. We know…
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Monday after Epiphany
Today’s readings Perhaps our devotion for this Epiphany week should be to pray the Mysteries of Light on the Rosary. Epiphany is a time of manifestation, of light coming into the dark place that our world can be at times. We long to see, and more than that we long to see Christ, the one…
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The Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Today we gather to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord. Epiphany is the traditional “twelfth day of Christmas” and we celebrate it on January 6, or the Sunday nearest that date. Many of our Orthodox brothers and sisters celebrate this as we do Christmas, with the giving of gifts as the astrologers brought gifts to…
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Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Mother Seton is a major figure of the Catholic Church in the United States. Her accomplishments contributed greatly to the growth of Catholicism in this country. She founded the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity. She opened the first American parish school and established the first American Catholic orphanage. All this…
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Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen
Today’s readings St. Basil the Great was born in Caesarea in Cappadocia in the year 330. He was known for his learning and virtue, and his fight against the Arian heresy. He also wrote many wonderful works, the most revered of which is his monastic rule. He is known as the father of Eastern monasticism. …
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The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God
The Church gives us this wonderful feast of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, on this, the octave day of Christmas. In a very real way, the Church still celebrates this day as Christmas day – that’s one of the wonderful things about being Catholic. We don’t have to cast off Christmas with the wrapping…
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Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas
Today’s readings So what did you get for Christmas? Was it everything you’d hoped for? Perhaps you, like me, feel that the gifts are nice, but being together with family and friends at Christmas is the real gift. Today’s first reading is exhorting us to something similar. While the rest of the world waits in…
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