August 22, 2021

The context in which we live our lives (family, friends, work, neighbors) play an important part in living our faith. Lord, to whom shall “we” go?

August 29, 2021

Jesus reinforces his teachings today: Merely observing external rituals isn’t enough. What those rituals are meant to signify is what is the most important.

September 5, 2021

There are times when life around us, beaten down or broken, doesn’t look as though God is keeping faith with us. At these times our prayer is for grace, so we may continue to trust.

September 12, 2021

Peter’s profession of faith was, no doubt, an unclouded moment, one that suddenly turned dark and stormy. In the dark and the storms of life, we often have to have Jesus “take the wheel” for us.

September 19, 2021

Jesus surely had moments of discouragement and despair—he was human, after all. Perhaps, like Jesus, we can rededicate ourselves to the Good News by recalling and seeking life’s glimmers of divine hope.

Sunday, September 26, 2021

One of the ways in which Jesus was clearly the incarnation of the God of the First Covenant was continued care and concern for the weak, the lowly, the poor, the marginalized, the children—all God’s little ones.

Sunday, October 3, 2021

There is a broader lesson in next week’s message about marriage. The vast, generous love of God is seen when two become one, fused together by the Divine.

October 10, 2021

Many Gospel figures appear once, and then never again. We will never know if the rich man who heard had another opportunity to ” follow me “ the words, sell all he had, to become a follower.

October 17, 2021

The words “hero” or “shero” get used quite a bit— sometimes deservedly, other times not. Jesus shows us how we, made in the divine image, already have the powers needed to be heroic. We just need to use them.

October 24, 2021

We can get caught up in wonder at the accounts of people Jesus healed. Step back, realize that heaven’s mercy overcomes human misery, and then go forth to bring that mercy to the miserable.

October 31, 2021

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”Israel’s Shema prayer called the people to listen, so that they might remember that there is Someone who listened to them when they prayed.

November 7, 2021

Throughout scripture, God’s power is always with the weak and lowly, God’s favor is with the small and the marginalized. No matter how frail or little we may be, God considers that to be our greatness.

November 14, 2021

The world around us has an effect on the way we speak about, portray, and envision the end of our lives and the world. Can we allow the eternal virtues-faith, hope, love—to have an even greater effect?

November 21, 2021

We live in a shifting time, when people are replacing what is true with what they believe is true. In Christ, We know what a true king is, though it may not match

up with what others believe a king to be.

November 28, 2021

Though the followers of Jesus were told at his ascension not to stare uselessly up at the sky, faithful disciples will keep focused—with their hearts—on the power of heaven for guidance and comfort.

December 5, 2021

In Baptism we were named for Christ. This means that every day we are called upon to look around us for the presence of Christ in the world, and to live so that others see Christ present to us.

December 12, 2021

Hope happens in human bodies because our God— our hope—came to save the world by taking on human flesh. Not only do we believe in God, God believes in us!

December 19, 2021

Nothing gets us to perk up like a test. When we perk up and are attentive to the coming of the Lord, we can answer the question: "What are we to do?"

December 25-26, 2021

We think of church, or perhaps religious education classes, or a parish school as the places we learn about faith. But none of these is more central to learning to live our faith than the household and family.

January 2, 2022

We are tempted to think of Epiphany as a single day for celebrating the arrival of the Magi. Yet, every day in our own lives, we are offered the opportunity to behold and reveal the God-appearing that is Epiphany.

January 9, 2022

The baptismal garment is an outward symbol of the brightness and glory of Christ, in which we are wrapped—even swaddled—on our baptismal day and every day of discipleship.

January 16, 2022

Many scriptural figures try to get God’s revelation to work the way they want it to, from Jacob’s wrestling with the angel to Mary instructing Jesus at Cana. God wins, but so do we!

January 23, 2022

Following the Spirit who descended on him at his baptism at the Jordan, Jesus in his public ministry released God’s beauty—ever ancient, ever new,—into the world.

January 30, 2022

The word that the voice of Jesus speaks in the synagogue will die away unless other voices, our voices, continue to speak his word faithfully.

February 6, 2022

From Isaiah in the temple to Peter’s fishing boat, there is no place that we cannot be awestruck by God’s presence.

February 13, 2022

Jesus knows how tenuous life can be, especially when we put all our trust in the things of this life. Those things don't last. God does.

February 20, 2022

To love our enemies may be the hardest of all of Jesus’ teachings.. Harder still is to look at our enemies and consider them as people, created by and valued by God

February 27, 2022

To continue our growth as disciples, we also are in need of role models whose example we follow, and to whom we can be apprenticed in faith. First among these, of course, is Jesus.

March 6, 2022

Though we are made in the image of God, Jesus reminds us that we were also created to be part of larger groups: families, communities, faith traditions.

March 13, 2022

The Transfiguration is a glimpse into the glory of the Risen Christ. Every glimpse of light, however, can also return us to the mountaintop.

March 20, 2022

In Memory of Father Bill Gubbins: November 20, 1929-March 14, 2022

The farmer knows that no life will grow without being fertilized. God knows we cannot grow without mercy; yet even divine mercy, if we reject it, leaves us to wither.

March 27, 2022

It’s a note sometimes overlooked: the father in today’s Gospel doesn’t stand there with his arms folded to receive back his contrite son. Rather, his love makes him run, impatient to embrace his child.

April 3, 2022

In a scene out a a nature show-only with humans, not animals-the crowd today circles the woman, ready to strike and kill to feed their self-righteousness. Jesus sends their pompous hearts away empty.

April 10, 2022

By allowing himself to be raised up on a cross, Jesus stooped to pick up the heaviest part of our humanity, so that we too, one day, will be raised up.

April 17, 2022

In life’s trials or dark moments, we feel as if we’ve entered our own empty tomb. Easter calls us out of those spaces, to realize that resurrection is everywhere around us.

April 24, 2022

We can encounter our own locked doors. We likely don’t have the power of Jesus to pass through them, but we do have the power of the Spirit eventually to get to the other side.

May 1, 2022

The followers of Jesus have a new experience of what they encountered in him as disciples: the call to follow.

May 8, 2022

Daily lives of sheep and shepherds in Jesus’ day were filled with hazards. The best protection was to stay close, stay in physical contact. It is no different for us today with our Good Shepherd.

May 15, 2022

All words—even holy, sacred words—can suffer from overuse or misuse. When we say we’re going to glorify God, it must be with a sense of how much that calls upon us to do. Truly giving glory to God is not to be done light.

May 22, 2022

Often the biggest obstacle to knowing God’s love in our lives is being able to believe that God can love us. We know God can love others, but when it comes to ourselves being loveable.

May 29, 2022

The light we experience day to day is a reminder of the light of Christ. Light from light, whose eternal light radiates into our earthly time.

June 5, 2022

Fire. Wind. Giver of charismatic speech. We often think of the Spirit in big, dramatic ways. This might lead us to mission out on all the tender and gentle and quiet ways the Spirit, the Comforter, comes among us.

June 12, 2022

When we get overly bound up in abstract concepts about the Trinity, we can lose sight of the fact that they are persons, bound together by love, delighting in each other. We’re invited to their party!

June 19, 2022

There are many who are physically gorged with more than enough food, yet they hunger spiritually Like Jesus, we can turn to those who come to have their daily hungers satisfied.

June 26, 2022

To follow Jesus means to be in constant discernment about which path to choose. There are no “higher” or “lower” paths, only paths that lead us to the work of

God’s reign.

July 3, 2022

As Jesus continues his journey to Jerusalem, he sends out some of his followers in a preview of what will be expected of them following the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.

July 10, 2022

The parable of the good Samaritan is so familiar, and comes from so long ago, that we can forget that Jesus’ first hearers would have been shocked: an enemy-outcast is the hero of the story!

July 17, 2022

Every one of us has a different set of gifts or abilities to make the world a better or more welcoming place for others.

July 24, 2022

Upon hearing the Lord’s Prayer we may think Luke forgot part of it; but his briefer form gives the prayer more urgency, as Jesus continues to Jerusalem.

July 31, 2022

Many things tug at us for our allegiance—some healthy, some not. Ultimately, only one of these can hold first place in our lives.

August 7, 2022

      Our word “remember” has its origins in the Latin word for being mindful: memor. Christians are called upon to be mindful again and again of the life and way of Jesus Christ, as we follow him daily.

August 14, 2022

Though Pentecost was months ago, Jesus reminds us that he came to set the world on fire. As members of the Church born at Pentecost, that is our work.

August 21, 2022

We pray for the reign of God: ”thy kingdom come.” Praying to God—keeping in touch—also happens when our lives reflect that reign, which welcomes in peoples of unimaginable diversity.

August 28, 2022

The word “humility” originates with the Latin “humus,” which means the ground or the earth. A truly humble person is one grounded in honesty.

September 4, 2022

In the same way we sometimes think that others are hearing us but not truly listening, God may likewise think the same; we hear, but don’t listen.

September 11, 2022

We can sometimes think too highly of ourselves, and at other times we have a falsely low self-image. God calls us to an honest evaluation of our lives.

September 18, 2022

Being made in the image of God doesn’t mean only our personal existence but also treating others in a God-like way.

September 25, 2022

The life of following is often expressed not in big gestures, but in small acts that reveal him to those around us.

October 2, 2022

It’s easy to become discouraged by the events of the world, but God’s word encourages us to move forward hopefully, toward a fulfillment of God’s vision for us.

October 9, 2022

It doesn’t take all that much to say “thank you” to God when something extraordinary happens. But do we have the mindfulness to express our gratitude for the smaller, commonplace blessings?

October 16, 2022

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus goes off by himself to pray. As members of his Body, the Church, we follow his example, and remain in prayer—our contact with God.

October 23, 2022

It shouldn’t be that difficult to be humble when standing before God in prayer. However, in addition to telling God what “I” want/need, we must remember

the needs of the world around us.

October 30, 2022

No doubt we’ve all come to the conclusion that God sees the world and others in a very different way than we do. Can we attempt, however, to see the world with God’s vision of love and mercy?

November 6, 2022

Attempting to understand the life beyond this life can be a challenge. We know that somehow we will still live, but in a completely new way. The Risen Christ shows us the way.

November 13, 2022

The readings at the end of the liturgical year always refocus us on the end of time. As frightening as they can sometimes be, we are always assured of the ultimate love we will know at the end.

November 20, 2022

This feast celebrates majesty in humility, strength in weakness, and power in gentleness. Are we able to live humble, weak, gentle lives as Jesus did—so one day we will be crowned with his glory?

November 27, 2022

Unlike our everyday life, in which we can never fully prepare for crisis or emergency, we are able to prepare spiritually for the time of the Lord’s return.

December 4, 2022

Sometimes we do not like change, but when it comes to living more closely in the image of Christ, things about our lives do need to change. We cannot change our lives without a change of heart first.

December 11, 2022

This week we will hear what happens when the reign of God truly breaks into the world. Can we imagine a world or a life that looks like those signs

December 18, 2022

We hear about Jesus’ many ancestors in Matthew’s Gospel. Surely Jesus knew of these men and women, but he always lived focused on the future, building on what he had inherited.

December 25, 2022

All the ends of the earth see the saving power of God because God’s Light from Light, Jesus Christ, shines for all to see, and for all to be able to see.

January 1, 2023

This week we celebrate Mary, who held God’s mysteries and pondered them in her heart, and whose heart would be pierced in sorrow. Like Mary, we need to train our hearts to be given wholly to God. 

January 8, 2023

An epiphany is a moment of revelation that can occur when something long-expected finally happens, or when something completely unexpected breaks into our lives.

January 15, 2022

This week we hear John the Baptist call Jesus the “Lamb of God,” we are set on a journey toward Ash Wednesday to discover who Jesus is — and who we are as well.

January 22, 2023

     There is no denying that the world, our society, our Church, are all in a state of factionalism. For Christians, fiercely belonging to a faction often means that we can only share a fraction of the Gospel.

January 29, 2023

     The Beatitudes in next week’s Gospel reading show us how to orient ourselves and to give ourselves an attitude toward living that is truly Christ-like.

February 5, 2023

     Though few of us are called to do grand and publicly glorious things for Christ, each of us is called upon to bring some goodness into the world and do a little bit better at it-every day.

February 12, 2023

     It is tempting to try and figure out the bare minimum that we can do and still think we are a follower of Christ. But he always challenges us to do more than the minimum, to stay away from the Tempter who leads us down that path.

February 19, 2023

     To love one’s enemies may be the most difficult teaching of Jesus, the one that leads many times to act in direct contradiction to the wisdom of the world. Yet that is at the heart of his message.

February 26, 2023

     The fruit of the tree in Eden was good, but the eating of it wasn’t a good thing for Adam and Eve. In Christ we can discern both what is good and what will be good for us.

March 5, 2023

     Though the Transfiguration was dazzling, Christ’s followers had to come to learn that no matter where they were, Christ their Light always remained with them, even when leaving the mountaintop. 

March 12, 2023

As our Lenten journey progresses, we strive to improve the manner in which we “see” with our hearts, hoping that, in the light of Christ, we can truly come to see the world as God does.

March 19, 2023

The most common substance on earth — water — is also the most precious. It is no wonder that the stories of our salvation feature it so frequently

March 26, 2023

Facing death of those we love or our own—is a profoundly human moment in every life, a moment into which we know Jesus will step.

April 2, 2023

The death of Jesus on the cross was not merely a dutiful Son fulfilling His role. It was a total self-emptying, self-surrender, self-giving sacrifice that led Him and us to resurrected life.

April 9, 2023

The Easter scriptures give us many role models to be people who give witness to the Resurrection. We must overcome fear and boldly speak what we have come to know through faith.

April 16, 2023

This Sunday, the very breath of Jesus bestows the Holy Spirit on the disciples. Like our own breath, the breath of the Spirit is absolutely essential to our ongoing lives as followers of Jesus.

April 23, 2023

The disciples knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread, but first, they had to come to know how he had broken open his own life. As we still break bread in his name, so must we break open our lives.

April 30, 2023

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is always with us and tends to us. But the members of his flock still fail to hear or know his voice and scatter off in many directions without knowing their shepherd is near.

May 7, 2023

Like every other aspect of our lives, our spiritual lives go through times of growth and change, times that are not always easy. As the Church did from the beginning, we need to keep the Lord near.

May 14, 2023

The Holy Spirit promised by Jesus gives us our purpose: to go out on the joyful mission of spreading the good news of salvation.

May 21, 2023

Even though Jesus has “gone away,” he is closer to us now than he could have been if he had physically remained on earth.