Religious Education - Children
Catechist BlogLove and Hate
“Whoever loves their life loses it, and whoever hates their life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Hate yourself! At first this seems to be what Jesus is demanding in today’s Gospel: hate your life to preserve it. But we must be careful how we...
Vaccines and Being Pro-Life
One of the curious arguments for not receiving the COVID vaccine is that no government should tell a person what they can or cannot do with their body. In fact, there are a range of things for which the government and the common good, do just exactly that. Think of...
Paying Attention
Would that acquiring our funds for paying taxes were simply a matter of taking an afternoon off and going fishing. Wouldn’t that be nice! I think today’s Gospel is one of those accounts which people hear, give the holy nod (Jesus did it, I believe, I don’t exactly get...
Transfiguration
This had to be a special moment in the lives of the disciples. They had been with Jesus for some time and had experienced the ups and downs of Jesus’ ministry. The miraculous cures, the messages of compassion and forgiveness, but also the times when Jesus and His...
Peter – the Rocky Rock
Saints never have a bad day, never do anything wrong, they are “goody two-shoes.” At least that is what I thought growing up and why I had such a difficult time identifying with saints. They were not like me! When we dig deeper, however, we see that saints are a...
What We Believe
Each Sunday at Mass, we profess our faith. We proclaim what we believe via the Creed. A creed is a brief statement of faith used to list important truths, to clarify doctrinal points and to distinguish truth from error. The word creed comes from the Latin word credo,...
Crossing Over
I am sure each one of us has our own story of a time when we came to that bridge too far and we didn’t cross over. Didn’t cross over, couldn’t cross over, refused to cross over – these are very thin lines of distinction. Sometimes the very act of crossing over...
Before the Storm
The Sea of Galilee has a temperament of wind and storm that can turn on the unwary sailor. The seas and wind are building. Is this just the front of a more powerful trailing storm? It’s the dead of night and one can’t see the horizon. Maybe concern is giving way to...
We Want Food!
In today’s first reading the Israelites murmur: “Would that we had meat for food.” They remember the “good old days” as they complain: “We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt…But now we are famished.” Of course, they forget that when they were in...
Different Kinds of Pearls
Off the shores of the Philippines, a fisherman discovered a very large, misshapen pearl. It was not pretty. It looked more like an amoeba, with blobs and folds everywhere. He took the unusual find home and stowed it under his bed. When he moved ten years later, he...