Friar Daily Reflection
God’s Incredible, Unexpected Love
Zacchaeus was a notorious public sinner in Israel. He collaborated with the Romans by collecting tariffs and tolls. That made him a traitor to his own country in the eyes of all his neighbors. To make things worse, he was a chief tax collector, ostentatiously wealthy...
Lost along the way
Today’s first reading is from the always mysterious, often misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted Book of Revelation. Perhaps the centerpiece of the book is the letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor from which we hear the letter to the community as Ephesus....
Thankfulness and Being Ready
November is the end of the harvest here in North America. This is the month when we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. It is also the month when we come to the end of our liturgical year. Advent brings the beginning of a new year in the Church at the end of November. The...
The What, When, and How of the Kingdom of God
The Gospel is full of questions about the Kingdom of God. What will it be like? How can we recognize it? Who will get in? Who will be excluded? Today a group of pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom will come? Seems like the folks in Jesus’ times the same questions or...
Eucharist
The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word “to give thanks.” As we hear in today’s Gospel only one of the ten lepers returned “fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him (eucharistōn).” This man, since he was both a leper and a Samaritan, was truly an outsider and...
Servant or Employee
When I was a kid, my brother and I worked all through junior high, high school and my first year in college doing all sorts of odd jobs in the neighborhood: raking leaves, shoveling snow, hanging wallpaper, cleaning houses, gardening, or painting. Then after my first...
Servant and Apostle
Today we begin reading from Paul’s letter to Titus. Paul begins this letter as he begins all his letters by “introducing” himself: “Paul, a servant of God and Apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's chosen ones and the recognition of religious...
The world as it is
This story about the “dishonest steward” follows immediately after St. Luke’s telling of the Prodigal Son in which the young man wastes wealth and opportunity, but comes to his senses, returns home and is restored to the family. The dishonest steward is one who wastes...
Looking for the Lost
The opening of today’s Gospel says that tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus. In a natural religiosity based on rigid rules and external purity, Jesus’ practices were scandalous. He constantly contaminated himself by actively associating...
Carrying the Cross
Today’s Gospel is shocking indeed. Jesus seems to preach hate: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Does Jesus really want us to hate those the...