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If you remember, last weekend’s gospel referred to a tax collector in the Temple whose sincere prayer to God garnered the praise of Jesus. Today’s gospel is about another tax collector, Zacchaeus, who likewise is praised by Jesus. What basically goes over our heads but was not lost on Jesus’ audience 2000 years ago, was the hatred Jews had for tax collectors. It’s important for us to know the depth of the hatred for tax collectors, if we are …

A little story about people who are self-righteous, like the Pharisee who prayed in the Temple. 

Jimmy, the local drunk, womanizer, and thief dies. His wife, a proper lady, wants a nice funeral for him to keep up appearances, if for nothing else. So, even though religion meant nothing to Jimmy, his wife, nevertheless, goes to visit the parish priest. “Please,” she begs the priest, “I know Jimmy was a scoundrel and never went to church, …

Jesus says, “If you know these things, then blessed are you who do them” (Jn. 13:17). In other words, if you know better, you must do better. Once you know, you cannot pretend you don’t know. When I consider the deplorable state of presiding and preaching that we find in most of our churches– not just here in our diocese, but almost everywhere I go—I wonder if these priests actually do know better. They should know better, but …

Contrary to popular belief, the Irish (and I can say this because I’m from Irish stock) do not have a monopoly on stubbornness, but what we have done is that we have polished it into an art form. Stubbornness is not a virtue, but persistence—like the type we find in all three Scripture readings today—can be. Stubbornness is often self-serving, but when we persist in promoting justice, truth, peace, fairness, equality, dignity, and beauty, we are acting like God. …

We just heard the familiar story of how 10 lepers were healed, yet only one of them bothered to thank Jesus.   I suppose the simplest and most direct message of that story, especially on this Thanksgiving weekend, is that we ought to be more grateful for all we have. That’s certainly true in my life. If I thanked God only 10% of the time, for all that I have received, I would be a more grateful person than I am …

Once again, we have Scripture readings that are not easily understandable, at least not in the first reading or the first hearing of them. There is a message in these readings, Good News, but we must do a little digging. It seems to be the prophets’ and Jesus’s preferred way of doing things. They get you thinking about something, and then they walk away leaving you to puzzle it in your mind. Neither Jesus nor the prophets are into …

As is the case with almost all our Sunday Scripture readings, there is a strong connection between the first reading and the gospel. Let’s start with the reading from the Book of the Prophet Amos and see how it spills into the gospel and from there, see how it spills into our lives. 

First a little background. Amos lived about 700 years before Jesus. At that time the Jews, God’s Chosen People, lived in the northern …

As I try to preach the Word of God in my own ministry, I’m beginning to appreciate, more and more, the wisdom found in the first readings especially from the prophets of old. As social justice issues arise in our own time, I realize social justice issues were front and center for the Biblical prophets as well. The prophet Amos, whom we heard from in that first reading, protested the wealthy class, the business class, who were notorious for cheating the …

The late Fr. Daniel Berrigan was an American Jesuit priest, a peace activist, a poet, and an author. He was a person who put his faith into practice. Daniel stood for a consistent ethic of life, a respect for human life from conception to natural death and an equally strong ethic for the life of the planet. However, with being prophetic comes resistance. He was the first priest on the F.B.I.’s most wanted list. Because of his protests to …

As you may have already figured out, there’s always a connection between the first reading, the Hebrew Scriptures, (or what we used to call the Old Testament) and the gospel. Sometimes all three readings dovetail nicely. The connection between the first and third readings centers around humility, being humble.

It says in that first reading from the Book of Sirach: “perform your tasks with humility.” A little later it says, “The greater you are, the more you must humble …