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Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Today’s readings If we take one thought out of Lent, 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. Mordecai refused…
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Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Today’s readings “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.” That’s advice I wish I’d taken sometimes when I’ve been coming down with something and think, “oh, it’ll pass.” The sick need a physician! How often have we had what we thought was a little cold or seasonal illness end up being…
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Ash Wednesday
Today’s readings Someone reminded me that last year, I proclaimed that Lent to be the “Lentiest Lent that ever Lented!” Certainly we have just been through a very Lenty year, with the specter of a pandemic, the sadness of racial injustice and social unrest, the frustration of political rancor, and all the rest. The arrival of Lent…
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Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings What strikes me about these readings is that they speak of the fact that we, with our limited human minds and imaginations, often don’t get God. Even those of us who are people of strong faith often miss what God is trying to do in us and among us. Which puts us in…
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The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings In ancient days, a diagnosis of leprosy was a death sentence. And that’s not just because they didn’t know how to treat the disease. They didn’t – but what was really horrible is the way the lepers were treated. First of all, they were called lepers – not people – so being labeled…
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Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings In today’s readings we have two different ways of approaching God, with two different outcomes. In our first reading, we have the story of the fall of humanity from Genesis, the first book in the Bible. Over the past week, we have heard the stories of creation: how God created the world, the…
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Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Recognizing goodness in the world is an art form that brings happiness. Too often in our day to day life, we run into others, and maybe it’s even ourselves, who seem to live to find fault with just about everything and everyone. And sometimes it’s understandable: life is hard, and some days the…
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The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings It doesn’t take too much of our imagination to think of examples of suffering, having been through the last year of our lives. All of us can probably think of someone we know who has suffered from COVID-19, or at least the scare of it, and many of us know of those who…
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Saints Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
We have been hearing from the martyrs a lot recently. On Wednesday, we remembered Saint Blaise, a bishop and martyr who is the patron saint of those with illnesses, specifically of the throat. Yesterday, we remembered Saint Agatha, a virgin and martyr who was put to death in the third century. Today we remember Saint…
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The Presentation of the Lord
Today’s readings Today we celebrate the traditional end of the Christmas season with this feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The current liturgical end of the Christmas season was back on January 10th, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. But the older tradition reflected what we have seen in the readings for the Sundays…
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