This week’s readings are, in short, about the Ascension of our Lord to heaven where he takes his place at the right hand of our Father. As big as the event is, I feel like the most important part is what happens right before Jesus ascends. In all three readings, Jesus leaves his apostles with an especially important task, that of going out and spreading the good word and his love.
We are, and have been entrusted to be, Jesus’s hands, ...
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We have music, movies, books, and children’s books, puzzles and toys!
How Does it Work?
Every spring, bar none, I spend a good amount of time pulling out lots of seedlings from my garden and flower beds. They sprout up from the thousands of maple seeds that fell last fall from the maple trees on the church property. They are everywhere, and they require so little to get started. They are under the leaf litter. They are found in the smallest cracks. They are against the rectory foundation. And they are growing against the greatest ...
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Whenever a coach feels his/her team is not living up to their potential, he/she will always say something typical like, “We’ve got to get back to basics.” Without demoting anyone to the minor leagues, let’s look at some of the basics of liturgy that we would do well to return to. I’ll call them my seven deadly liturgical “sins”. The first four “sins” we have little control over due to COVID; the next three we are totally in control of. ...
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Faith is a very precarious thing isn’t it? The moment you think you have it, something will happen this very day to make you doubt that you had it at all. But don’t get discouraged because these scripture readings are telling you that you probably have more faith than you know and moreover, you never lose it entirely. Like learning how to ride a bicycle, you never lose it. Your faith will by tried and tested, no doubt. It will ...
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“Whoever abides in me and I in them bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
(John 15: 5); we hear these words from Jesus in our Gospel reading this week. This is a lesson that is taking me a lifetime to learn, and in fact, is still a work in progress. More the second part of the statement than the first, as I don’t think there is much to debate in the first part. Having said that, ...
As you probably already know, the Bible is more like a mini library than a single book. I say that because the Bible is composed of many books written by many authors over hundreds of years. When it was put together in its final form, the form we have, one of the books included was the book entitled, The Acts of the Apostles. We hear from the Acts of the Apostles as our first reading each Sunday throughout the 50 ...
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Today, the 4th Sunday of Easter, is the familiar parable of the Good Shepherd. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
Growing up in a solid Catholic family and benefiting from Catholic schooling, I always had an image of shepherds as being kind, loving, patient, strong and self-sacrificing. And I also ...
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For the longest time I questioned (and still question), why Jesus chose the 12 apostles that he did? I realize we all need an inner circle of trusted confidants, sounding boards, soul mates, good friends; I get that. Yet, given the fact that the apostles are portrayed so poorly in all four gospels, why choose these and not some others? The other question, that I do not have an answer to is: why did Jesus appear, after the resurrection, to ...
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The days are getting longer and warmer. We have had flocks of evening grosbeaks and redpolls at our feeders. Spring is here! It is a time of hope, of excitement, of possibility … And yet, the dominant emotions that I am seeing and hearing all around me are discouragement, sorrow and frustration. It is hard for many of us to see what we have because we are so acutely aware of what we are missing. Even Easter seemed to fall ...
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