Friar Daily Reflection
New and Old
Many of us have grown up with traditions such as mass in Latin and fish on Friday. While these traditions were good and nourishing in their time and place, they never were intended to be the core of our faith although we can understand why some people cling to these...
Unity in Service and Love
The principle sign of being a Christian person or a Christian community is living together in unity, serving and forgiving each other. That is why we have a family and a local Christian community. In the times after Jesus’ resurrection, people who did not know Jesus...
Confidence and Thanksgiving
In Israel during the New Testament times, leprosy was a disease that was fear. It was considered the result of punishment for sins, either of the leper or some ancestor. Being sick with leprosy was similar to a death sentence to a life of physical sickness, separation...
Everything Everywhere All at Once
One of last year’s celebrated movies was “Everything Everywhere All at Once” - a tale of a middle-aged Chinese immigrant who is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she...
Amazing – New Light, New Authority, New Healing
After all the celebrations of the Advent and Christmas seasons, we begin again what the Church calls “Ordinary Time”, a time of no special feasts, no special season. The folks gathered in the synagogue on the sabbath at Capernaum were like us. They expected the...
Taking the Plunge
I can remember coming home from 3+ years of mission in Kenya, friends were driving me home, and as we wound through trees, I could see the porch light on at my home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Even from afar, it shone like a welcoming beacon. It was the sign I...
Follow Me
Jesus’ invitation to Philip in today’s Gospel is simple, “Follow me.” How does Philip respond? He brings Nathanael with him to follow Jesus after telling him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote and the prophets.” Philip proclaims that Jesus fulfills the...
Faith in Action
Elizabeth Ann Seton has a personal history that we would not expect in the life of a saint: orphaned when 3 years old, married at 19 years old to a wealthy husband, mother of five children, widowed at 29 years old, and then a convert to the Catholic church. She...
The Lamb of God
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” We hear the same expression at every Mass, but do we hear the words in the same way as John the Baptist would have understood them? For us, the image of a lamb conjures up thoughts of innocence, cuddly and...
Family and Faith
After the death of the first twelve apostles, the Church entered the patristic stage, a time of guidance by the early fathers. Basil and Gregory come from that period. Basil lived from 329AD to 389AD. Gregory died ten years before Basil. During their lifetime both had...