• The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings In my first priestly assignment, at Saint Raphael in Naperville, there was a huge football program for elementary school kids called Saint Raphael Football.  It was not just a team, but a league, and lots of surrounding churches had teams in the league.  You couldn’t live in Naperville and not have heard of Saint Raphael…

  • Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

    Today’s readings What tradition tells us about St. Bartholomew is that he is often called Nathanael in the Gospels. That explains why Nathanael is prominent in the Gospel reading for today. Nathanael – or Bartholomew, take your pick – is singled out of the crowd by Jesus. Nathanael is surprised at what Jesus says about…

  • The Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings As the current political season heats up in these late summer days, I find that it can be very easy to be dismayed. Every candidate, every bit of legislation, everything that comes at us is so disheartening. There is almost a complete rejection of the sanctity of life, there is very little concern…

  • Friday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings God never forgets how much he loves us.  If this weren’t so, none of us would be in existence.  God loves us into life and loves us through our life and one day, if we let him, will love us into eternal life.  The people of Israel had to know this better than anyone.  In today’s first…

  • The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings In every age of the world, people have needed hope.  Because in every age of the world, there has been unbelievable hardship.  There has always been war, and disease, and poverty, and oppression, and alienation, and all the rest.  There has always been sin, and broken relationships, and impure desires and that feeling of emptiness that…

  • Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings I once heard it said that you’re only a child once, but you can be childish your whole life long!  I don’t think that Jesus wants us to be childish today, but certainly he is calling us to be more child-like. Jesus tells us today that we must become like children if we wish…

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings Wow.  If ever there was a frightening Gospel reading, I think we just heard it!  All this talk about beating the menservants and the maidservants, and the hope of being beaten “only lightly.”  Yikes.  Even the whole notion of the Son of Man coming at an hour we do not expect is pretty concerning.  We almost want to…

  • Saint Dominic, Priest

    On a journey through France with his bishop, St. Dominic came across people who espoused the Albigensian heresy. The Albigensians believed in just good and evil – there was no middle ground. For them, anything material was evil, which meant that they denied the Incarnation and the sacraments. On the same principle they abstained from…

  • The Transfiguration of the Lord

    Today’s readings This feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord can be a puzzling one for us to understand.  It’s an event we’ve heard about in Gospel readings, but it’s not something that we’ve ever seen.  So it’s hard, I think, for us to figure out.  If that’s true of us, we shouldn’t feel too bad: it’s clear…

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings You know, it doesn’t take too much thinking to see that our culture is way off base.  I saw a post on social media this week about the “do what makes you happy” aspect of our culture, and how toxic that is for us Christians. Our God does will our happiness.  But he directs that happiness…