Jesus’ question in today’s Gospel is pointed and personal: “But who do you say that I am?” In yesterday’s Gospel Herod the tetrarch is curious: “John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” (Luke 9:9). Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus in...
Herod’s question in today’s Gospel becomes the defining question for the rest of the Gospel: “Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” While Herod the tetrarch asked the question, he never allows Jesus to challenge him or his own self-understanding and...
Today is the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. The Gospels, particularly the Gospels of John and Luke, bring out the sorrows and pains that Mary had to endure as she saw the great suffering of her Son. When Jesus’ parents presented him in the Jerusalem Temple the...
In today’s Gospel is Jesus’ most difficult and challenging teaching. It was difficult in the 1st century, and it is difficult in our time, especially today as we remember the terrorist attack of our enemies on 9/11. Jesus’ words are especially difficult to hear on...
Today’s first reading from Colossians exhorts us to “seek what is above” in other words, to seek and do the will of God. We know the will of God because through our baptism we are already “living” in heaven. In baptism we die to our old self and rise to become new...
