Friar Daily Reflection
Worthy
Whether it is a business meeting, a social gathering, a volunteer organization planning meeting or any number of similar situations - and you discover you are not invited. Our reactions vary depending on our expectations, track record on previously having been...
Driven
What drives you? What is your passion? What are the parts of your life that are intrinsic to who you are? This is more than a question of identity. I am a Catholic priest, a Franciscan friar, a Naval Academy graduate, former nuclear submariner, and the list can go on....
Judgement: Love Your Enemies
Today we continue to listen to the Sermon on the Plain from Luke’s Gospel. Now Jesus announces how deep our conversion must go. Look at how we try to justify our hatred of others, and our actions based on that hate. In English the main phrase is translated ‘love your...
Sermon on the Plain-The X-Ray Vision
In Luke’s Gospel Jesus begins his public life ministry by going up a mountain to pray and choose his apostles. Then he comes down onto a plain and wades right into the crowd of folks there to begin healing their daily life. After all those healings which demonstrate...
Prayer, Call, and Action
Today in the Gospel of Luke we find Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. In today’s group organizational theories, he would be organizing his team, setting-up his mission statement, deciding goals, and picking objectives. Instead, we see that Jesus has a...
Outside the Camp
Although the expression “outside the camp” appears nowhere in today’s reading, it is a core biblical idea at play in both today’s first reading from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians and gospel passage from Luke. In Sacred Scripture, the expression "outside the camp"...
The Best Seats in the Assembly
In our Christian assemblies we tend to forget the children. That is except of course the little babies who scream and cry. And to do away with the screamers, we put them in a special room in the back where they cannot be heard or seen! Overall, even the bigger...
The Astonishing Catch and the New Vocation
This encounter with Jesus that Peter and his companions had must have been quite shocking. They were professional fishermen. They knew all the tricks about fishing: how to fish, where to fish, and when to fish. Yet all their human experience, knowledge, labor and...
God’s Field
We are all aware of the divisions in our modern society. There are divisions and polarization not only in the political but also in the religious sphere. Perhaps surprisingly this is nothing new. We hear in today’s first reading that Paul must deal with divisions...
Wisdom and Folly
Today’s first reading from St. Paul is part of a cohesive thought that he has been building upon since the beginning of this 1st Letter to the Corinthians (which began with Friday’s readings and continues for about three weeks.) It all began after Paul left the...