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The Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings If you’ve been to any number of Church weddings, you have probably heard today’s first reading, and part of the Gospel proclaimed. Obviously we usually leave out the part about divorce, but these readings are quite popular for weddings. The reason, of course, is that the story is about how man and woman…
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Saturday of the Twenty-sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings During the summer before my final year of seminary, I worked as a hospital chaplain, in a program called Clinical Pastoral Education. Most seminarians are required to do it. It ended up being a pretty rough summer for me and the other men and women in the student chaplain group: we had a…
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Saint Thérèse of Liseaux, Virgin and Doctor of the Church
Today, we celebrate the memorial of Saint Thérèse of Liseaux, the Little Flower, who was one who sought to proclaim the Lord in every simple act of her life. Saint Thérèse had a child-like faith: child-like, that is, in her trusting obedience to God’s will, even in the smallest of matters. She truly believed that…
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The Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Would that all of the people of the LORD were prophets!
Today’s readings Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all! When we think about prophets and prophecy, I think our minds always take us to ancient days. All the prophets we can think of lived many centuries ago: Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Amos…
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Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Today’s Gospel reminds me of a sound bite for the evening news. Taken out of context, Jesus is denying his family. And not only that, but Jesus now has “brothers,” so what happened to the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary? Sound bites cause nothing but trouble because you don’t have the…
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The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings There’s a principle in the spiritual life known in Greek as kenosis. Nobody likes to talk about it. It’s nicer to talk about the consolations of prayer and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and things like that. But nobody likes to talk about kenosis because, in English, we would translate that something like “self-emptying.” That…
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Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings We’ve all heard this gospel parable about the sower and the seeds dozens of times. We know, then, that the seeds are the Word of God: not just some words, but Word with a capital “W,” which is Jesus himself, God’s eternal Word, spoken to bring life to a world dead in sin.…
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Saint Matthew, Apostle
Today’s readings How wonderful for us to celebrate the feast of St. Matthew. Because Matthew was qualified to be a disciple of Jesus in much the same way that we are qualified to be disciples of Jesus-which is to say, not at all. Matthew was a tax collector, working for the Roman occupation government. His…
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Mass for the Healing of the Church
Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34 | Psalm 130 | 2 Corinthians 5:17 – 6:2 | Matthew 5:1-12a Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. I think a lot of us could use some comforting in these days. The news of the grand jury report out of Pennsylvania about clergy sexual abuse over a period…
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Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Today’s readings Quite honestly, this Gospel story is a little strange, maybe even surprising. I was particularly struck by what the messenger said to Jesus when he asked him to come to the centurion’s house: “He deserves to have you do this for him.” As if any of us is ever worthy of God’s mercy! …
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