Today’s readings “Seeing is believing,” or so they say. It’s not an entirely accurate saying, either. The real definition of faith, as St. Paul reminds us in his writings, is that faith is believing in spite of the fact that we don’t see God face-to-face. But there is some truth in the statement that seeing…

Today's readings Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. That line sounds like such an outrageous goal that it would be easy to write it off and pretend it's not part of Scripture. But we know that's not true. Perfection is the goal of the disciple's life, and a wonderful goal for Lent.…

Today’s Readings It would be so much easier if we could define our own righteousness. If we could choose who to reach out to and who to ignore, life would be good, wouldn’t it? If we could hold grudges against some people and only have to forgive some people, we would easily consider ourselves justified.…

Today’s readings If we take one thought out of Lent this year, it should be this: we need a Savior. Even before Jesus’ time, Esther knew this. Esther’s adoptive father Mordecai was a deeply religious man. His devotion incurred the wrath of Haman the Agagite, who was a court official of King Ahasuerus of Persia.…

Today's readings This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. In all fairness, I think it should be noted that even though Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, he was a very unwilling sign to be sure. Not only did…

Today's readings Ancient sources say that we are to pray the Lord's prayer at least seven times daily. Why? Because the Lord's prayer in all its wonderful simplicity reminds us that God is God and we are not. To those of us who are concerned with our own prestige and dwell on our own ego,…

Today's readings Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. Today's readings represent what I think is the scariest instruction we have in the Gospel. And that is that we have to be clear about the lengths the Gospel demands that we go.…

Today’s readings Back in May, I was starting to pack up the vast array of stuff that had accumulated in my room during the five years I lived at Mundelein Seminary. I was sorting through files, books, clothes, belongings, the whole mess. This was not a task I really enjoyed, of course – I don’t…

Today’s Readings In Hebrew, the word for “righteousness” is tseh’-dek, which has the connotation of right relationship. Indeed, it was the whole idea of right relationship that was preached continuously by the prophets. That right relationship was one that should be directed toward God and toward others. To live in right relationship with God and…