This gospel episode begins by telling us that Jesus was teaching the crowd. Jesus often targets a particular group with his teaching, like the Scribes or Pharisees or a particular person like a centurion or a leper or a Canaanite woman. But this is not the case here. He is teaching the crowd, which means this teaching is for every person on this earth at all times and in all places including us right here.
Some …
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We all need conversion; that’s a given. Lent is given to us as a gift to ponder what conversion looks like in each of our lives, what it looks like for the Church, and what it might look like for the world. One of the most important conversions Pope Francis says the world needs is an ecological conversion. Ecological conversion is a change in how we look at, interact and behave, to care for our common home—the earth. It …
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About 25 years ago, I took up the hobby of stained glass making. The first thing I attempted to make, with my new-found hobby, was the “comedy and tragedy” masks you have probably all seen. It’s a laughing face alongside a frowning face based on ancient Greek theatre. It’s called “comedy and tragedy,” but my first attempt at stained glass was so bad, I named my creation, “tragedy and more tragedy.” However, I didn’t give up. Nothing I make, …
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At the Sunday Mass, 6 ½ weeks ago at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, we celebrated a special ritual within the R.C.I.A. process with seven wonderful people who will be joining the Church at the upcoming Easter Vigil. Perhaps the most powerful part of this ritual came when their sponsors, with obvious gestures, made the sign of the cross over various parts of the candidates’ bodies, beginning with the head and ending the candidates’ feet. From their heads to …
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When Jesus commanded us, in last Sunday’s gospel, to “love our enemies,” it was probably the most challenging thing he could have said. Most days, loving my enemy takes more courage than I think I have. Today, in the gospel, he commands us to take the “log out of our own eye” before we even attempt to take the sliver out of our neighbour’s eye. Again, most days, removing the log from my own eye takes more honesty than …
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Church. Why bother?
Back in the 1st century when the Church was just getting going, St. Paul wrote, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you with a part to play in the whole” (1 Cor. 12:27). The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as the Church. Every part of our physical body is dependent on every other part. You are part of Christ’s body—that’s …
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Our starting point in anything, especially in life, is so important. Experts say that 80% of our personality is formed by the time we are five years old. That’s probably why therapists are so interested in our childhood or the household we grew up in. That was our starting point, and it was so formative. Coincidentally, 80% of your image of God has to do with parental imagery. If your parents were punitive, cold, distant, and just waiting for …
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You’ve probably heard about the “Sermon on the Mount” in the Gospel of Matthew. Well, this version is from the Gospel of Luke and doesn’t happen on a mountain. It happens after Jesus comes down the mountain and stood on a level place, a plateau perhaps. That’s the opening line of today’s gospel reading, “Jesus came down the mountain with the twelve and stood on a level place.” Luke tells us that Jesus spent the entire night on a …
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I don’t know if you guys know this, but my late mother wrote the entire Bible. That’s not true, but when I read the Word of God, it often feels like it’s absolutely true. It’s programmed into mothers all over the world and from the beginning of time to say, “If I told you once, I told you a thousand times.” Similarly, Scripture repeats itself in the hopes that if we didn’t get it the first 99 times, maybe …
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On the last Sunday of the Christmas Season we had a story about the adult Jesus being baptized. Today, three weeks after the Christmas Season, we are back to the baby Jesus. Go figure.Today’s feast, traditionally called the Feast of the Presentation was also called the Feast of the Encounter. Simeon and Anna, in their old age, have a powerful encounter with Jesus, a baby who is anything but powerful. Yet, isn’t that what everyone of us wants, not …
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