Friar Daily Reflection
Being Guided by Faith
Joseph is kind of a forgotten figure in the history of salvation. This was sort of planned so that God can be seen as the true Father of Jesus throughout the Gospel. Joseph is not mentioned often in the Gospel. There are very few Christmas carols about Joseph. The...
Possibility of New Life
The scene in today’ gospel (a woman caught in adultery) is a mixture of zealous righteousness that seeks to enact the law without pardon or quarter, the leadership who want to trap Jesus between mercy and the Law, and a woman caught in sin, fearing for her life. True...
Love Everyone
Today’s Gospel is truly remarkable. It is part of the Sermon on the Mount which is sort of a life plan from God’s point of view for all Christians. It comes out of Jesus relationship with God the Father. Israel received God’s plan for us from Moses in the form of the...
Word of God
Each Sunday we hear the Word of God, the Sacred Scripture. The first reading is usually taken from the Old Testament, the second reading is usually a reading from a letter of St. Paul and there is always a reading from a Gospel. We stand for the proclamation of the...
Despair or a Mother’s Care and Love
In the first reading today, the Lord sings a beautiful song of compassion and love to Israel through the words of the prophet Isaiah. I answer you. I help you. I keep the covenant. I restore you. I give you green pastures and straight paths. I give you green pastures....
On Living Waters
Part of the baptismal ceremony for infants is the blessing of the waters of the sacrament. It is a wonderful blessing that tells the history of salvation through the story of the living waters. It is a panorama of events from Sacred Scripture: At the very dawn of...
New Heavens and Earth
It has been said that a prophet is someone who “comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.” This saying describes well both Isaiah in our first reading and Jesus in today’s Gospel. Isaiah “comforts the disturbed,” Israel suffering in Exile in Babylon. The...
Commanding Love
The scribe's question in our gospel from St. Mark about the greatest commandment was not posed “to test” Jesus as is done in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels. The question is, in fact, a familiar one from Jewish tradition: “Is there a way of summarizing the commandments?”...
The Voice of God
The prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading calls us to hear the Voice of God. Jeremiah becomes God’s mouthpiece, speaking the very words of God: “Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people.” Today’s reading is taken from Jeremiah’s...
Hope
The Word of God in the Old Testament continually proclaimed the coming of the Messiah who would re-establish a right relationship between God and all creation. Many in Israel chose to live out their relationship with God as a simple completion of the rules and rituals...