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The Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Our readings today pick up the sermon that Jesus was giving in last week’s gospel. Last week, he used the formula: “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” to raise the bar on living the fifth, sixth and eighth commandments. Merely refraining from actual murder no longer means that we have…
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Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Saint James today encourages us to consider it all joy when we experience trial. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the emotion I usually find in frustrating or fearful circumstances. And considering that the people to whom James was writing were probably being persecuted, they probably weren’t overjoyed at their trials…
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The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings One of the most basic spiritual principles is that the Christian life looks like something. The Christian looks like something. Perhaps we ought to change that to “looks like someone,” that someone of course being Jesus Christ. In the Liturgy of the Hours, which clergy and others pray each day, today there is a reading…
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Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings There is a lot of anguish in the readings today, isn’t there? Most markedly is the anguish of King David, mourning the death of his son Absalom. His anguish was most surprising to his army, because they had been fighting Absalom’s thugs who were helping him to overthrow the government of David. But…
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The Presentation of the Lord
Today’s readings Who is this king of glory?The Lord of hosts; he is the king of glory. 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 12th, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. But the…
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Saint John Bosco, Priest
Today’s readings Saint John Bosco was a master catechist and a priest who was concerned with the whole person of the young people he taught: he wanted them to fill both their minds and their souls. John was encouraged to enter the priesthood for the specific purpose of teaching young boys and forming them in…
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Monday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings This is a tough text from the Gospel today. Jesus says that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness…” This seems to be an incongruous statement from Jesus, who came to be all about forgiveness. That he would withhold it from any sinner is shocking, I think. But we have…
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The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sunday of the Word of God
Today’s ReadingsPope Francis’s “motu proprio” APERUIT ILLIS, instituting the Sunday of the Word of God About fifteen years ago now, my home parish put on a production of the musical Godspell, and somehow I found myself part of the cast. If you’ve ever seen the musical, you know that it is based on the Gospel of Matthew,…
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Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Saint Francis de Sales was born in the Savoy region of France-Italy in 1567. His priesthood had him work diligently for the restoration of Catholicism in his homeland, reclaiming it from the clutches of the protestant reformation. He became bishop of Geneva, and was known for his writings, work and example. Astonishingly, he says that it took him…
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Thursday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings In today’s first reading, we hear about the amazing power of spiritual friendship, through the lens of the relationship of Jonathan and David. If it were not for Jonathan, Saul would have murdered David, if not in the story we heard today, then in many other occasions that we read in the books…
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