Friar Daily Reflection
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: “Appoint a king for us to govern us, like all the nations to judge us.”...
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 lepers. Jesus teaches and shows us how we must respond to such...
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 it is Eli who is calling him. Finally, Eli helps Samuel to realize...
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. Then we even tend to explain away the expulsion using modern science,...
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 places us with Hannah, a woman living with a deep and painful barrenness....
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 the town, and they could only support themselves through begging. They...
The Word Fulfilled
When Jesus returns to this hometown at the beginning of his public ministry, he chose the reading from the prophet Isaiah that we just heard. It was obviously a reading that set the tone for his whole ministry. As such it should also be foundational in our own...
Overcoming Fear with Faith
It’s a new year and each time January brings a mixture of hope and anxiety. We have hopes for 2026, but we carry unresolved worries, unanswered questions, and fears that did not politely stay behind in 2025. The readings for today come at the right time. In the...
The Compassionate Shepherd: Teaching and Feeding
Today we look at one of the most iconic moments in the Gospel. We generally call it “the multiplication of the loaves”. The whole event is centered in the first verse that we just heard: his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a...
Discerning the Light
In today’s Gospel, Matthew deliberately situates the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in a very particular place: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali… Galilee of the Gentiles.” This is not just geography. There is a meaning: Galilee was not Jerusalem. It...