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The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)
One of the deep mysteries of the human experience lies in the realities of life and death. Everyone has, or will, experience the death of loved ones, sometimes after a long life, sometimes far too soon, always with feelings of sadness, regret, pain, grief and perhaps even anger or confusion. That’s how grief works. It…
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The Solemnity of All Saints
Today’s readings One of my relatives told me that the nun who once taught him had a rather curious line to compliment a student when they had done a good deed: “May you die a martyr’s death!” Well, knowing how some of those saints died would make anyone cringe a little and say “yeah, thanks…
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The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Mike was one of my favorite people in the world. He owned the service station where my family had, and still has, our cars repaired and maintained ever since we first moved out to the suburbs, almost forty years ago now. Dad used to joke that with all the cars we brought in…
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Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Today’s Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 1; has always been one of my very favorite psalms. One interpretation of this Psalm is to look at it as a blueprint for blessedness. In Biblical terms, of course, blessedness equals happiness. So the person who doesn’t follow the counsel of the wicked or walk with sinners but instead meditates…
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The Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings When a couple comes to me for marriage, one of the things I have them do is to write me letters, individually, asking to be married. I ask them to reflect on their relationship and to say something about their faith. Over the years I’ve received a lot of letters and some are…
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Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time/Make a Difference Day
Today’s readings Anything worthwhile costs us something, most especially our faith. If we are serious about it, if we love God and want to be caught up in his life, we’re going to have to pay for it in some way. Jesus speaks to that in today’s Gospel. One of the biggest costs to us,…
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Mass for Peace and Justice
Mass for the school children.Today’s Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6 | Psalm 72 | Philippians 4:6-9 | Matthew 5: 1-12 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” That’s a wonderful promise that Jesus makes in today’s Gospel reading, and I think it’s a promise we should hang on to in these days…
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Homily for the Holy Hour for Peace in the Holy Land
We have come together tonight to pray for peace. And it’s good that we do that. We echo in our hearts tonight the sentiment of Our Lord who offered us peace, as we just heard, during the Last Supper, just before his death and resurrection. The fact that peace was on our Savior’s mind and…
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The Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings I love it when the Gospel has a curious story in it because it’s fun then to peel back the layers of the story, kind of like an onion, and get at what’s inside. Today’s Gospel story is just like that. When our modern ears hear this parable, there are surely things that…
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Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings The Divine Liturgist today is inviting us to find our hope in God, and inviting us to turn over our lives to God in hopeful anticipation that God will answer our needs. Sometimes I wonder how willing we are to actually do that. It’s almost like we want to pray to God just…
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