Today we begin reading from the Book of Sirach also called Ecclesiasticus. The Jewish author, Jesus ben Sira, was a scribe living in Jerusalem around 117 B.C. His grandson wrote a forward to his work when he translated it from Hebrew into Greek and explained the...
A choice is put before us in today’s Gospel: the way of the cross or the way of earthly honor and glory. Jesus continues in today’s Gospel to teach his disciples that he is to be a suffering Messiah. In yesterday’s Gospel Peter rebuked Jesus for this teaching and...
Beware when you hear someone say: “I have it all figured out, I understand it completely.” I always find that right after I have “mastered” a subject I realize there is much more that I do not know or understand. Peter shows his understanding and his lack of...
Jesus’ words addressed to the Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel are very harsh: “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” This woman is a non-Jew, a Gentile. She came to Jesus asking him to...
Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel would have shocked many of his fellow Jews. When he teaches that “everything that goes into a person from the outside cannot defile” they would have been shocked since Leviticus 11 gives a whole list of animals that are not to be...
