Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Again Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting…
The Tears of God
You see a different side of someone when you see what makes him or her cry. Seeing a person weep, and knowing why — the thing he or she cares about so deeply as to be moved to tears — is a deep insight. Lazarus. Jerusalem. Sin. Jesus weeps at these. That tells us something important, for a man who weeps…
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on…
Jesus Receives You as a Gift
“Nobody has ever been for me like this before.” That’s the difference it can make to receive someone as gift. Jesus looked at the disciples and thanked the Father for the gift of them. He looked around at the faces of people he loved and received each of them and all of them as a gift. In their goodness and…
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail…
Last Words of Christ
Jesus always chose his words carefully. There was great meaning and intention behind each word, part of which we can only begin to understand by listening carefully. How much more, then, should we pay attention to Jesus’s very last words? The ones he painfully uttered as he was dying on the cross? What do…
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and…
A Father And Son Moment
There’s an intense vulnerability to letting people into your most tender moments. Allowing someone to witness a private, cherished part of life is no small thing, and being a witness to one of these moments is an honor. There’s a particular part of Jesus’s life for which we get to be these witnesses only a few times…