We are all aware of the polarization in our country as many of our leaders tend to emphasize more how we disagree than how we agree. This polarization often leads to the demonization of our...
Polarization and Demonization
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Friar Reflection
Persistence: Ask and You Shall Receive
God has many ways of speaking with us: the Word of God, events in our lives, historical situations, council from our friends, tradition, and Church teachings. Another way God speaks to us is through...
Gift of Healing and Life
In today’s Gospel we have a summary of Jesus going about curing, healing and driving out demons. Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God: “After John had been arrested, Jesus came to...
Faith and Fear
In its history the Church has known fear. The empire wide persecutions during the first 300 years. There have been persecutions in Japan, Mexico, France, China and more. In our history, the faithful...
Authority and Law
Mark wants to establish early-on in his Gospel who Jesus is and the authority of his teachings. The religious leaders of his time centered their teachings on traditions and laws. The purpose of the...
Intersections
Old garments and old wineskins represent the established religious practices, traditions, and structures of Judaism at the time, particularly those associated with the Pharisees and their legalistic...
One of the enduring tensions in the life of faith is the tension between control and trust. In the first reading, the elders of Israel come to Samuel with what sounds like a reasonable request:...
A Leper
Today’s Gospel is the story of Jesus healing a leper. While the disease of leprosy has been pretty much eradicated today there are still many people in society today who are treated as outcasts or...
Here I am
Today’s first reading is the story of the call of the prophet Samuel. His first couples of responses are “Here I am” as he mistakes the voice of God for the voice of the priest Eli, thinking that...
Astonished and Amazed: New Authority
Most people will miss what is happening in today’s Gospel. Most of us modern day listeners would tend to focus on the expulsion of the demons and lose the rest of the importance in today’s Gospel....
Something New
One of the quiet truths of Scripture is that God often begins something new not at moments of obvious strength, but at moments that feel empty, unproductive, or closed off. Today’s first reading...
Restoration of Life
Today we find Jesus acting to cure a terrible disease called leprosy. This was a very scarry disease in the times when Jesus lived. I was incurable and contagious. The lepers had to live outside of...