Friar Daily Reflection
Goin’ Fishing
In today’s Gospel Jesus continues to teach us about the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. He has been teachings about the Kingdom using different concrete examples from everyday life such as Sowing and Fishing. So, in today’s Gospel he begins his teaching with...
Waiting with Quiet Conviction
There are seasons in life when faith feels less like certainty and more like waiting. We pray for healing, but the illness remains. We pray for reconciliation, but the relationship is still broken. We pray for guidance, but the way forward remains unclear. We pray for...
Being Seeds and Living in the Midst of Evil
God created us with free will. The capacity to choose the path for our own lives. That means we are not obligated to unite our will or lifestyle to the will of God the Father, our creator. Hence there is a lot of evil in the world. There are many evil people, who...
Small – The Most Important
Contemplating nature is a wonderful experience. Looking at the sky on a clear night is awesome. This is especially so if you are someplace where there are no electrical lights – like in a desert or a forest. That experience of God’s creation just seems to put us into...
Sacred Things, Sacred Hearts
There is one verse in today's first reading that almost takes us by surprise. The prophet Jeremiah says: “They will in those days no longer say, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD!' They will no longer think of it, or remember it, or miss it, or make another.” (Jer...
Seeing the Action of God
Thomas Merton once said that each moment of every day was filled with the seeds of God’s love, seeds of God’s action, God’s presence in our lives. Unfortunately, most people wander through life as if they were blind, as Jesus says today. We do not recognize God’s...
Already Seeking Us
Most of us think of the spiritual life as our search for God. We pray because we are looking for him. We come to Mass because we want to draw closer to him. We read Scripture because we hope to hear his voice. We struggle through doubt, grief, and confusion, trying to...
First Family and Family First
All of us would probably say that family is our first and most important value. As human beings we need a family to survive physically through the first years of our life and we need a family to survive emotionally through the rest of our lives. So, family first is...
Walking in the World
There are times when I think groups within the Church offer us a false choice: opposition between liturgy and justice, or between ritual and discipleship. The Church has always taught that both are essential. Today’s readings for Mass pair Micah and Matthew which...
Mercy, Not Sacrifice
In today’s Gospel Jesus applies the prophetic message of Isaiah and Hosea to a practical question of what can be done on the Sabbath. Last week Hosea proclaimed that “God desires mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6) and this past Monday Isaiah proclaimed, “Though you...