What Advent Offers Us
We blinked, and it happened. The year has ended, and a new one begun, because for the Church, the arrival of the season of Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year. The Church asks that we live Advent in anticipation of and preparation for the arrival of the Christ child, born again as the Child in the Manger, even as we know Christ is with us now, even as we continue to await Christ’s second ...
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On this last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year, the Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe, we have a couple of readings that are as bizarre as last Sunday’s readings. The first reading from the Book of Daniel and the second reading from the Book of Revelation fall under the category of “apocalyptic” readings. You may have heard the word “apocalypse”; it means revelations. Some truth, hidden until now, is about to be revealed. The word “epiphany”, one of ...
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I don’t know about you, but I find the Scripture readings we just heard obscure and cryptic, very hard to get my head into. They’re not the typical stories that I can easily place myself in the middle of. Readings about the end time tend to be that way.
It reminds me of a “Peanuts” cartoon. Many of us grew up as kids reading only the cartoon section of the newspaper. In this one episode, Charlie Brown is laying back on ...
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Back in 2003, while on a sabbatical year, I drove from Toronto to Tucson, Arizona to go on a retreat. What spurred me on to drive the 3600 km was the title of the retreat: “The Soul Tells A Story.” It was a retreat for writers, editors, publishers and, if you happened to be a priest, you could come too. So I went. Ever since then, I’ve had a secret passion to write. From that time on, I’ve discovered many ...
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The readings today emphasize that LOVE is the greatest law fulfilling all commandments. We are urged to love God ” with all our heart soul , mind and strength”. Jesus also teaches that we must love our neighbours as ourselves. We are told to love God and show that love through our actions towards others. Every opportunity to love someone is an opportunity to love God.
As a former English teacher, I’ve looked at the word “love” – is “love” ...
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To Follow Jesus is to Stop and Ask What is Needed
Throughout the gospels people come to Jesus asking for healing for themselves and others, so why is it that in today’s gospel a blind man is scolded and told to be quiet when he calls out to Jesus?
One of the things that stands out to me about this healing story is that the man in need of healing is identified both by name and by family. He is not just ...
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Scholars still don’t know who wrote The Letter to the Hebrews, that second reading we heard. But what they do know is that, like all the other books of the Bible, The Letter to the Hebrews is inspired by God. What I find inspirational, personally, is the part where the author says, “We have a great high priest (referring to Jesus) who, although he was in heaven, was never content with remaining there ruling the world from a distance. He ...
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My mother had a multitude of pithy sayings, some her own phrases, some borrowed from others. One such saying was, “Misery loves company.” I thought of that when I read today’s second reading. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are,” Paul writes to the Hebrews. Someone who can sympathize with us; someone who understands our sufferings; someone who ...
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Room for God to Work
Can you tell me how God is at work in your life today? Maybe pause for a moment and give this some thought…where do you see evidence of the Holy Spirit moving through your life?
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What did you come up with? I suspect each person will have a unique take on this. Did anyone answer, “I don’t know”?
If I am being honest, I rarely feel confident in my understanding of how God works in my life at ...
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I am no mind reader. However, I know that questions do swirl around in the minds of many people who form the Church, questions like, “Who’s who and what’s what? Who has the right to say or to do what, when and where? Who’s in and who’s out? These are questions in today’s scripture passages and, as petty as it may sound, are still being asked today. I think a lot of it has to do with control and how ...
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