For the first three hundred years after the resurrection of Jesus, the Christian faith spread across the Mediterranean through the missionary work of the first apostles and disciples. The Christian...
Missionary Zeal
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Friar Reflection
Signs and Wonders
In John’s Gospel Jesus performs signs and wonders, also called extraordinary deeds or miracles in the other Gospels. These signs lead to faith but ultimately faith comes through an encounter with...
Forgive One Another
The readings today go right to the core of Christian life: forgiveness. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus repeats the centrality of forgiveness – in teachings, parables, and conversations with his...
The Finger of God
God is in our midst but sometimes we refuse to listen to him and refuse to see his hand at work. This is the message of the prophet Jeremiah in our first reading and the message of Jesus in our...
Old and New
Today we listen to another portion of the Sermon on the Mount which is the central core of Jesus’ project for human beings. Tradition was extremely important for the Jewish people and rabbis of that...
The Bulwark
We should certainly hear an echo of the Lord’s Prayer in today’s gospel: ““Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you,...
Prophet
In today’s Gospel Jesus recognizes that is it hard for a prophet to be recognized in his hometown. “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” Even when the people of...
Rejection
In today’s Gospel Jesus both quotes a Scripture text from the Psalms and alludes to a passage in the prophet Isaiah. Jesus quotes Psalm 118: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the...
Lazarus and Conversion
This year Pope Leo in his annual message for Lent invites us to listen and fast through Lent. He connects those two practices. It is so easy for us to walk through life blind and deaf to everything...
Disturbed
I am a bit troubled by today’s readings. The gospel is this uncomfortable sequence in which Jesus, for the third time, has told his disciples “Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and...
When Worship and Life Drift Apart
Both readings today speak with a sharpness that may unsettle us but it is the sharpness of a physician’s scalpel, not a weapon. God is not condemning for the sake of condemning. He is calling His...
Be Merciful
In today’s Gospel Jesus calls us to act like or imitate God. “Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.” Jesus goes on to teach that we need to “stop judging…and stop condemning.” We...