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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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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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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“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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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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My brother-in-law prefers to celebrate his “birthday” in AA to celebrating his traditional birthday. His last one was his 35th. Most of us just celebrate one birthday. Shortly before that day our mother knew what was about to happen when her water broke. That is the “water” that is involved in the ceremony of Baptism. In my childhood catechism some 70 years ago, the element of water was for cleansing Original Sin and restoring an individual relationship with God. St. ...
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When I hear the word Epiphany, I automatically think of the Feast of Epiphany, the story of the Wisemen who came from the East to seek and to pay homage to the newborn king, Jesus. In secular terms, the word epiphany means a moment of sudden revelation or insight. We’ve all had epiphanies of one kind or another. (One day you looked in the mirror and realized you weren’t 22 anymore and had lost the ability to turn people’s heads. ...
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When I was a child our Christmas tree went up either on or just before December 24th, and came down January 6th, a day referred to by my parents as Old Christmas Day. Likely unbeknownst to them, my parents were in sync with the rhythm of the Church in their preparation for, and celebration of, Christmas. Despite the fact that the coloured lights that have graced our communities for most of December (or longer) have, mainly, been extinguished, for the ...
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Christmas has changed significantly for me since I was old enough to remember Christmases. One Christmas Eve when I was three or four years old, I recall driving from Musquash to Saint John in the middle of a snowstorm to attend mass, imagining I was Santa Claus flying through the snowy night sky. To adult me, this would represent a harrowing, steering-wheel clenched fiasco, but the four year-old in me remembers it as magical.
I have another distinct memory of one ...
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That very first Christmas has a little bit of detective work built into it. It’s not a “who did it?” as much as it is a treasure hunt. The treasure is, obviously, Jesus. He is not playing hard-to-get, but the shepherds still have to unravel the clues the Angel of the Lord gave them if they are to find the Messiah. At this point, they don’t know that their lives and the life of the world will be forever changed. ...
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