Friar Daily Reflection
Unclean Woman?
In today’s Gospel it seems like Jesus is having a bad day. Instead of welcoming this “outsider,” a Syrophoenician woman he callously replies, “…it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Like so many people before her in the Gospel...
Unclean
What can defile a person or make them unclean? Jesus addresses this question in today’s Gospel. Jesus’ society, like our society, tended to classify people as insiders and outsiders. Whatever people feared or did not understand, such as leprosy or a foreign...
Conditions of the Heart
In a way this is a follow-on from yesterday’s reflection. The first reading again concerns itself with King Solomon. It is part of the dedication of the first Jerusalem Temple (a longer version of which you can read in 2 Chron 6) and, in a way, marks the high point of...
The Temple of the Lord
Did the first reading for today make you feel like you were dropped into the middle of a movie and you want to lean over to your friend and ask, “What’s going on?” The reading is from the 1st Book of Kings and describes a key event in the history of ancient Israel....
Presentation
Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. As we hear in today’s Gospel Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus up to the Temple in Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord.” Jesus is welcomed by Simeon and Anna into the people of God. In a similar...
Twelve Apostles
In today’s Gospel Jesus commissioned the Twelve to be “apostles.” The word “apostle” comes from the Greek word that means “to send.” So, as we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus “summoned the Twelve and began to send them out” to continue his mission of preaching and...
Amazement
Today’s gospel is, in its own way, part of a thread in Mark’s gospel in which the nature of the family of God is slowly revealed. In Mark 3:7-12, Jesus is calling and appointing 12 as apostles, the foundation of the family of the Church In v.21, Jesus’ biological...
Fear and Trust
In today’s gospel we encounter the well-known stories of the Daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus is closely involved with women nine times. Today’s gospel captures two of those interactions. with two of Jesus’ more moving...
Legion
In today’s Gospel we have a classic battle between good and evil, Jesus against an unclean spirit who calls himself “Legion…there are many of us.” This unclean spirit tries to do battle with Jesus, even claiming to have power over him because he knows who he is:...
Anxiety and Trust
This week, in our second reading, Paul simply writes: “I should like you to be free of anxieties.” (1 Cor 7:32). Seriously, can I get an “Amen” to that? Wouldn’t that be awesome, to have a life without anxieties? In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us not to have anxiety about...