In today’s Gospel the unclean spirits call out to Jesus, “You are the Son of God.” Somewhat surprisingly Jesus commands them not to make him known. The title of this Gospel is, “The beginning of...
Friar Reflection
About Temptation
Today is the Memorial of St. Anthony the Abbot and the readings for the celebration are taken from the Memorial rather than the daily reading. St. Anthony lived during the third century and for a...
The Law and the Savior
The Word of God comes to us today to show us how easy it is for us to limit our conversion and judgments based on rigid interpretations of the law. We rigidly obey the rule of the law but not the...
New and Old
Many of us have grown up with traditions such as mass in Latin and fish on Friday. While these traditions were good and nourishing in their time and place, they never were intended to be the core...
Unity in Service and Love
The principle sign of being a Christian person or a Christian community is living together in unity, serving and forgiving each other. That is why we have a family and a local Christian community....
Confidence and Thanksgiving
In Israel during the New Testament times, leprosy was a disease that was fear. It was considered the result of punishment for sins, either of the leper or some ancestor. Being sick with leprosy was...
Everything Everywhere All at Once
One of last year’s celebrated movies was “Everything Everywhere All at Once” - a tale of a middle-aged Chinese immigrant who is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save...
Amazing – New Light, New Authority, New Healing
After all the celebrations of the Advent and Christmas seasons, we begin again what the Church calls “Ordinary Time”, a time of no special feasts, no special season. The folks gathered in the...
Taking the Plunge
I can remember coming home from 3+ years of mission in Kenya, friends were driving me home, and as we wound through trees, I could see the porch light on at my home in the foothills of the Blue...
Follow Me
Jesus’ invitation to Philip in today’s Gospel is simple, “Follow me.” How does Philip respond? He brings Nathanael with him to follow Jesus after telling him, “We have found the one about whom...
Faith in Action
Elizabeth Ann Seton has a personal history that we would not expect in the life of a saint: orphaned when 3 years old, married at 19 years old to a wealthy husband, mother of five children, widowed...
The Lamb of God
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” We hear the same expression at every Mass, but do we hear the words in the same way as John the Baptist would have understood them? For...