The gospel for today is one of my favorite passages: Luke 2, the Nunc Dimitis, or the encounter with Simeon in the Temple. The moniker of the passage comes from the opening words in the Latin...
Nunc Dimittis
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Friar Reflection
Villains and Innocents
The video above is a classic Christmas song known as the Coventry Carol. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and...
The call to be Good News
Did you ever consider that as Christians we are called to write the Gospel of our lives? Gospel means “good news”. Our lives are or should be a Gospel, good news for others. The values we live,...
What… will this child be?
Today we hear the story of the birth and naming of John the Baptist. The response to his birth is the question: “What, then, will this child be?” The people recognized that the “hand of the Lord...
It all began with Mary’s Yes!
Today Mary prays, perhaps even sings that most beautiful prayer, the Magnificat. In the birth of her son Mary tells us that God is about to turn the world upside down. He scatters the proud in the...
Blessed are you
Today’s Gospel is a very familiar Gospel, commonly called the Visitation. Mary, the mother of God, comes to visit Elizabeth. Luke tells us that Elizabeth, like her husband Zechariah, is “filled...
The Annunciation
Today’s Gospel is a familiar part of the Christmas story - the Angel Gabriel inviting Mary into the plans of God for redemption and salvation of the world. Given its proximity to Christmas, I...
Genealogy
Reading today’s Gospel might appear at first sight as exciting as reading the phone book. Today’s Gospel is the “book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” What follows is primarily a list of names. ...
A Burning and Shining Lamp
Tomorrow begins what is often called “Late Advent” or “Deep Advent”; the Scripture readings and orations begin to take on different tones and topics. The first part of Advent proclaims that Christ...
A week of questions
There is always continuity in the readings for daily Mass, especially the gospels. Often there is continuity in the story itself. The readings for the previous two days came from the gospel of St....
It’s About Performance, Not Just Promise
The key to this parable is that it is not really praising anyone. It is describing a picture of two sets of imperfect people. Neither son in the story was the kind of son to bring full joy to the...
Authority
In today’s Gospel Jesus is challenged by some Jewish Temple authorities about His actions in the Temple, specifically His “cleansing” of the Temple. Jesus as a Jew recognized the holiness of the...