Today’s first reading is one of my favorite passages from St. Paul: “We hold this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7) - also as "jars of clay". It points out one of the great paradoxes of this...
Jars of clay
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Friar Reflection
Signs
It is a natural human desire to see signs, signs of God’s presence, signs of God’s power, of God’s goodness, of God’s love. Some of the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel respond to that human...
Passover and Sabbath
In today’s Gospel Jesus once again cites the prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13; 12:7). Neither the prophet Hosea nor Jesus wants to do away with the cult, the...
What am I to tell them?
Today’s first reading continues the story of Moses’ encounter with God on Mt. Horeb. God has commanded Moses to return to the “scene of the crime,” - his own taking of a life and Pharaoh’s attempted...
The Burning Bush
In the first reading for today we continue with the story of Moses who “was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.” (Ex 3:1) Meanwhile “A long time passed, during which...
Unrepentance and Conversion
We have been hearing of Jesus’ activities in the towns along the Sea of Galilee - preaching, teaching, and mighty deeds. In the Gospel Jesus’s marvelous deeds accompany his preaching and clearly...
Mission
In today’s Gospel Jesus finishes the second of five discourses in Matthew’s Gospel. The first discourse was the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-7:28). In this second discourse Jesus commissions...
Evangelization
Evangelization is a word we often hear today in the church. We are called to evangelize. The word “evangelization” comes from the Greek word for Gospel (Greek: euangelion, Latin: evangelium). In...
Joseph’s Revenge
In the sequence of first readings for weekday Masses, we have just made a huge leap from Jacob (Gen 28) to the end of the story of Joseph and his brothers (Gen 41). A quick synopsis of the story...
Renouncing Everything and Evangelization
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Benedict who really put into practice Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel to abandon everything and center our lives on him. Benedict is the founder of monasticism in...
Repurposing
In the first reading, Jacob, having fled from his brother Esau’s wrath, finds himself at a shrine, where he rests for the night, using a stone for a pillow. It is here that a divine revelation comes...
Mercy, Not Sacrifice
What is your favorite book of the Bible? What is your favorite Bible verse? If we asked Jesus this question, he might well answer that Hosea is his favorite book of the Bible and Hosea 6:6 is his...