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Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Today’s readings speak to us about the wonderful, spiritual quality of goodness. We have the creation story, or at least the beginning of it, in which God is not only creating the world and everything in it, but also creating it in goodness. And I think that we can relate to that in…
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The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings The encounter between Jesus and Simon Peter in today’s Gospel reading is a nice story, but I think it goes deeper than that. In this encounter, we see five very important principles of the life of a disciple. So I would like to reflect on these principles because we always need to grow…
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Saint Agatha, Virgin Martyr
Today’s readings As is true for many, or perhaps most, of the virgin martyrs, we know almost nothing about Saint Agatha, other than the fact that she was martyred in Sicily during the persecution of Decius in the third century. Legend has it that Agatha was arrested as a Christian, tortured and sent to a…
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Monday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings We could look at today’s Gospel reading as an interesting miracle story of Jesus casting a demon out of a long-possessed man. But I think we should dig a little deeper than that this morning. Because many of us, I think, have to tangle with the unclean spirit from the tombs that infests…
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The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Today’s readings remind me of one of my favorite theological facts: we were all created for something. I think it takes the better part of our lives sometimes to see what that purpose is, but rest assured: God has a purpose. In our first reading, God says, “Before I formed you in the…
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Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr
Today we celebrate the feast day of Saint Agnes, a virgin and martyr of the Church. She is thought to have lived and died in the third century, but little is really known of her life. She is mentioned in the first Eucharistic Prayer in the list of saints: “Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and all the…
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Tuesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is opening the eyes of his hearers, which includes us, as to who Jesus is and what he came to do. He speaks of Jesus our God, who is higher than the heavens, who became flesh, essentially “lower than the angels.” The author points out that he…
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The Baptism of the Lord
Today’s readings Today, we celebrate a feast that is commemorated in the first Luminous Mystery of the Rosary. The Luminous Mysteries were popularized by Saint John Paul II, and illustrate the various ways that Christ’s nature and the purpose of his coming were revealed to us. That is, they are luminous mysteries because they shed light on…
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Saturday after Epiphany
Today’s readings “He must increase; I must decrease.” By these words, St. John the Baptist indicates that the Epiphany, the manifestation of our Lord in the flesh, is complete. John’s disciples have got it wrong; they took offense at Jesus baptizing when he himself had been baptized by John. They assumed that because John had…
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Thursday after Epiphany
Today’s readings The feast of Epiphany is a celebration of the fact that Christian life looks like something. Because Jesus has appeared on the earth and taken our own human form, because he has walked among us and lived our life and died our death, we know what the Christian Way looks like. We know…
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