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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Without having the text right in front of you, as I do, it’s hard for you to remember a word or a line that may have stuck with you in one of today’s scripture readings. However, the last line of that second reading, the Letter to the Hebrews, stands out for me. It went like this: “Everyone is one in God, therefore he (Jesus) is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” That text was written almost 2, 000 ...
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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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“Would that all the Lord’s people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” Isaiah 11:29
If we took time to give it some thought, we could all probably think of the person or persons in our lives who have told us about God. For most, I think our parents would be the first to have introduced God to us by teaching us our prayers and encouraging us to call on God for help. In my home, ...
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This competing for power, this desire to be recognized by Jesus as the most important or the greatest Apostle among the twelve is spun out a little differently in the various gospels. It must have been a real problem, though, because it’s mentioned six times in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Because human nature is human nature, what Jesus has to say to them he also has to say to us.
When these ancient texts were written, the authors ...
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Do we ever know who another person really is? Do we ever know who we, ourselves, are? Sixteen years ago, I participated at a Men’s Rite of Passage Retreat (M.R.O.P.) in Southern California with 50 other men of various ages and backgrounds. After the first night’s talk, the assignment was to go back to our cabins and to share with the other men in our cabin this way. Each man was to describe himself to the others in 10 ways ...
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“You shouldn’t have to suffer … You don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen. … You have to stay positive! … There must be something you can do to change it. … Have you thought of … I think you should try … Why don’t you talk to …”
I don’t know what Peter’s words were, when he was rebuking Jesus for talking about his impending death. I imagine that they may have been similar to many of ...
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