“I thank you Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”
Two weeks ago, I was involved in Vacation Bible School and this line from our gospel today really came to life. At Vacation Bible School we have children from many different parishes in our diocese and at times from beyond and other faith traditions as well. We also have a wonderfully international …
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“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
It has been mentioned to me by wife on more than one occasion that she may need to point out a task that needs to be done more than once to get any results. Guilty as charged in some instances. If I am being honest, the tasks I don’t tackle right away are the ones I either don’t want to do, or …
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How quickly life can change. That is never more apparent than in the two readings we hear this morning from Matthew’s Gospel. In the first, Jesus is the toast of the town as he enters Jerusalem. Crowds are gathering to offer praise, going so far as to spread their cloaks on the road. By the time we get to the second Gospel, crowds have again gathered (probably a lot of the same people), but for an entirely different purpose. …
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Many years ago, I read a quote that said (and I paraphrase), “Give people a reputation they will want to live up to.” Since then, I have tried to make this a motto for my life and to live it as best I could. To say that I was 100% successful in doing this would be to give myself a reputation I have not lived up to. In one of our R.C.I.A. sessions last year, we were talking about …
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Last Sunday we were introduced to John the Baptist through Matthew’s gospel and his description of how John was baptizing any-and-all comers in the river Jordan. In reading Matthew’s description of John, his clothing, his dietary choices and his no nonsense, in-your-face method of bringing people to God, I can see why so many people went to see what all the fuss was about. I think for many who went to see him, they were already entrenched in their own religion; …
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I have been blessed to be on the team that writes these scripture reflections for over ten years, so it stands to reason that every now and then I would be writing about the same group of readings as I had in the past. This is one of those weeks, and I have to say that it is so true that you can read the same passage of scripture countless times and it can impact you in very different ways …
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Of all the Feasts, Solemnities, Memorials or Ordinary Time Sundays that come up in the liturgical calendar, I do not think there is one more “Catholic” than the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ which we celebrate this weekend. I use the big “C” in catholic as opposed to the small “c” as the big “C” means belonging to the Roman Catholic Church as opposed to the small “c” which means “all embracing, or universal”. …
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Imagine you are one of the disciples sitting at the table during the Last Supper. As Jesus comes and takes his place at the table, things look like they do at every other Passover meal they have shared. There is nothing that would suggest that this would be the last meal they would share together as a group. Life can be, and often is, like that. Today doesn’t look a whole lot different than yesterday and tomorrow will probably …
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Well, that time of year again. Lent is upon us. And if you didn’t know that before you came here today, and you didn’t notice the change from green to purple in the environment of the church and in Fr. Phil’s ensemble. Then the ultimate tip off would be the Gospel we just heard. In the three-year cycle of the Lectionary, this is the only Sunday in the liturgical year that no matter what cycle we are in, Year A, B or C …
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Throughout my life I have had many friends and acquaintances who have been loyal members of evangelical churches. These people are faith filled and extremely committed to the teachings of their individual churches. We have had many conversations over the years on the “taboo” topic of religion, and I have been blessed and enriched to learn of the faith principles that guide their lives.
One question that would often be posed to me, and to be honest, would …
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