Reflection – May We See the Sacredness in Each Other

This week’s readings are the most challenging yet. With so much going on in the world today and so many of us having problems with our spirituality, it makes you wonder what is next.

The statement in the first reading makes you realize that we are holy because we were created in the image of God. This holiness that is given to us in baptism, is our gift that carries us through life with a caring heart.

A caring heart doesn’t discriminate ...

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Homily – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 12th, 2023

We continue, for the third week, to be on Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. We started off by saying the Beatitude are ways of seeing. Jesus wants us to see and love in ourselves what God sees and loves in us. What God sees and loves in us is blessedness, salt, and light.  In the Beatitudes, Jesus says “blessed are you” eight times, and then he gives us two more truths about ourselves: “You are the ...

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Reflection – We Need a New Story

From time to time, a man, a woman, and occasionally a child, will emerge in the Church to remind us that prophets still walk among us.  Prophets, whether within the Church or beyond its boundaries, are often ahead of their time, misunderstood, and suffer ridicule and indifference.  More often than not, they are appreciated only after they are long dead.  Prophets point us to a larger reality where we can situate our lives and our decisions, both good and bad. ...

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Homily – 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 5th, 2023

We heard in the opening line of last week’s gospel passage: When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. He spoke to us from the mountain in what we traditionally call the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon begins with the Beatitudes where Jesus told us, no less than eight times, “Blessed are you.” We said that the first four beatitudes tell us that we have transcendence power. In other words, there is a power within us that ...

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Reflection – Let’s give them something to talk about

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 the ...

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Homily – 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 29th, 2023

There was a well-known German philosopher, Max Scheler, who said that Zacchaeus came to see and love in himself what Jesus saw and loved in him. And that Peter, gradually and progressively, came to see and love in himself what Jesus saw and loved in him. It’s not a bad way of summarizing a lot of gospel spirituality. In the Beatitudes that we just heard, all that blessedness stuff, Jesus is telling us what he sees in us, and his ...

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Reflection – Blessed are those……

Today’s Gospel reading highlights the familiar Beatitudes we have all encountered as Catholics.  As a pupil growing up in the Catholic school system, (in Ontario) I had to memorize the Beatitudes because the Beatitudes were a way to teach about who will find favor with God.  I remember thinking, “How can you be “blessed” if you are poor in spirit, or meek, or persecuted then be “blessed” if you are pure in heart or be peacemakers?”  My mother was very good at ...

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Homily – 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 22nd, 2023

Once in the first reading, from Isaiah, and twice in the gospel we just heard, “the land” or “the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali” mentioned. On first hearing, I just want to skim over these words, these ancient Biblical places, and get on with the rest of the Scripture story. Historically Zebulun and Naphtali mean nothing to me, but metaphorically and symbolically they may have something to say to us. Geography and spirituality are more linked than we realize. 

Zebulun and ...

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Reflection – Time to Stop Sitting in the Dark

“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.”  These words from today’s gospel touched something deep within me. Recently I have felt like many of us are people sitting in darkness.  We are tired and worn and it is often easier to see what is getting worse than it is to see what is getting better.  Day after day the news is full of stories of deterioration, of systems we depend on that are hovering near the ...

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Homily – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 15th, 2023

All four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, have their own version of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s rendition of the story, a voice from heaven—the voice of God—says to the crowd, “This is my beloved Son,” or Jesus himself hears the voice say, “You are my beloved Son.” The version we heard today, from John’s Gospel, is not a story about Jesus or the crowd hearing the voice of God, but ...

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