Friar Daily Reflection
Sharing Our Faith Experiences
Today’s Gospel gives us insight into who Jesus is, the importance for us to maintain faith’ and our mission to announce that faith. In the times of Jesus leprosy was a terrible disease. It brought a physical, spiritual, and social death. The people sick with leprosy...
Flesh and Blood
Jesus is one of us! Our first reading proclaims this perhaps surprising and even shocking message. Jesus, the Son of God, is one of us, our “flesh and blood.” He shared not only the life that every human experiences but also, the death from which no one can...
Astonishing New Authority
There is a lot going on in today’s Gospel reading, especially in the background. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus goes to the synagogue at Capernaum which was a city located at a crossroads and was a social, cultural, and economic center. The synagogue...
God Speaks
God wants to speak to us, are we listening? Today’s first reading from Hebrews proclaims how God has spoken to us in the Old Testament and now speaks to us in a unique way in Jesus Christ. “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through...
A Love Letter
Since Tuesday of this week (today is Friday), the first reading has been from the First Letter of John starting with the fourth chapter. John’s letters are sometimes a challenge to read and often presents challenges in listening as the letter seems to continually curl...
Amazing Fulfillment
All this week between the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord, the readings concentrate on who Jesus is. Who is this Prince of Peace, this Christmas Christ Child born rejected, persecuted, and poor in a barn and placed to sleep in a feeding trough for animals? The...
Passing By
Today’s gospel (Mark 6:45-52) has some verses that have always, for me, lingered between odd and troubling: “When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and [Jesus] was alone on shore. Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was...
Jesus’ Compassion and Living in That Compassion
Jesus is the manifestation of God’s love and compassion for all of us. God showed himself to Israel and to us constantly through indirect means: through the council and word of the prophets, judges, or kings; through occurrences in our personal lives or in historical...
Faith and Love
Both the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John focus us clearly on the essential elements of our religious life, namely faith and love. In the Gospel we have the core of the Gospel or the Gospel within the Gospel in the famous passage John 3:16. “For God so loved...
Joy and Witness
Our culture has reduced the Christmas season to one day, the 25th, and even more so that one day has been reduced to one or two hours for opening presents and eating a meal. Then for most families the celebration is all over. We have lost a lot in the reduction and...