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1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Do I fear being poor, in spirit or otherwise, and prefer to be rich in money, brains, or influence? Is my desire for poverty of spirit congruent with my lifestyle? Do I use the word of God to rationalize my lifestyle, or am I willing to have God’s word criticize it? Do I cling to my own ideas, opinions and judgments, sometimes to the point of idolatry? ...

One of the ways sin in defined in the four gospels, is that it starts off with an inability, or a failure, to see. There is something about our seeing, when we sin, that gets screwed up right from the get go. It reminds me of a story in John’s Gospel, that we often hear during Lent, of how Jesus gets in trouble for curing a blind man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, who value the keeping of the law ...

We are all familiar with this gospel story often called the “cleansing of the Temple.” For some people, Jesus showing anger, making a whip, upsetting tables, and driving people out the Temple seems too much of a stretch from the Jesus they grew up with. Afterall, did Jesus not ask us to be tolerant, loving (even of enemies), patient, and just nice to one another? The truth is Jesus never asked us to settle for nice. In fact, the word ...

At each Mass, just before we share in Communion, the priest says aloud: Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your Apostles: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you…” It is one of those rare occasions where the Eucharistic Prayer addresses the Son and not the Father. These are Jesus’ words taken directly from John’s Gospel (14:27). They are part of what scripture scholars call the “Farewell Discourse” (chapters 14-17 inclusive). It is Jesus’ good-bye speech, and it goes ...

As many of you know, over 50 years ago the Church established a 3-year cycle of Sunday Scripture readings. That is to say, we hear the same readings only once every three years. However, every year that pattern is broken when we are given one version or another of the gospel story of the Transfiguration. Maybe one of the reasons we are given this reading every year is that it is so rich in symbolism and meaning we just have ...

The last line of today’s gospel, “repent, and believe in the good news” are the words that every Lent starts with when we receive the ashes each Ash Wednesday. To repent means to change our minds. To turn 180 degrees. That is not easy to do. It is now believed that the number one addiction in all of us is that we are addicted to our thoughts, our way of thinking. We think things have to be this way and ...

While the classic disciplines of Lent prayer, fasting and alms giving offer us pathways to a deeper spirituality and deeper sense of social justice, they can easily get highjacked. In other words, we can crank up pray, fasting and charity without any cost or any real letting go or any real transformation of ourselves. And when we are not transformed, it is really hard to transform the world without looking, as Jesus says, like a hypocrite. Hypocrites always want to ...