“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). With these words, Jesus makes sacrificial suffering a condition of Christian discipleship. He says this right after his first passion prediction: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly Read more…
We are all familiar with the manger scene. Mary and Joseph kneel by the baby Jesus in the manger with the ox and ass in the stable. They are surrounded by shepherds below and angels above with magi approaching and the star shining in the sky. It is the scene Read more…
The season of Advent, and Gaudete Sunday in particular, invites us to rejoice. In Year C, our readings on Gaudete Sunday include a passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in which he exhorts his readers, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again, Rejoice! . . Read more…
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So says Saint Paul to the Christians of Corinth (1 Cor 1:18). The message of the cross is the power of God because God acts Read more…
Every year we celebrate Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. We hear the account of the Lord’s Passion from one of the four gospels. As we listen to this account of the agony, arrest, torture, crucifixion, death and burial of the Lord Jesus, we are, as people of faith, aware Read more…
Everybody wants to be home for Christmas. Everybody wants to spend Christmas with family. But some people can’t be home or don’t have family. Some people are homeless or feel homeless, especially at Christmas time. Some people are sick and estranged from home at a hospital or nursing care facility. Read more…
The patients I encounter in my health care ministry are not, for the most part, runners. Many of them can walk, others have hopes of walking or even running again, and some, sadly, must accept that their ambulatory days are behind them. For all these people, however, and for every Read more…
Every year on the first of November, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of All Saints, the great commemoration of all the holy men and women whom God has raised up throughout the two thousand year history of the Church. On November 7th, we Dominicans and those who share our charism Read more…
Every year at Pentecost the Church commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary as they gathered in Jerusalem awaiting the “promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4): the gift of the Holy Spirit that continues to be poured out upon the disciples of Jesus. Read more…
On Easter Sunday the Church is full of rejoicing! That rejoicing is expressed in many ways, but never more beautifully than in the Exultet, the Easter Proclamation, which is sung at the solemn beginning of the Easter Vigil. In the Exultet, Mother Church unites with all heaven and earth in Read more…
Throughout our lives, and most especially in the season of Lent, the Church invites us to reflect upon and more fully share in the sufferings of Jesus. The practice of praying the Stations of the Cross is a characteristic of this Christian reflection. As we pray the Stations of the Read more…
Throughout the forty days of Lent, the Church invites us to practice penance by praying, fasting, and giving alms. As the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday (see Matt 6:1-6, 16-18) reminds us, that penance is not meant to be a matter of merely external observances, but is to proceed from Read more…
Christmas is a time of giving. It is the celebration of the greatest gift of all: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was given to us at his birth on Christmas day. One of the ways we celebrate that great gift is by the giving and receiving of lesser gifts. Christmas Read more…
For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day Read more…
I was ill and you cared for me. (Matt 25:36) So the king will say, seated on his glorious throne with all his angels in attendance and all the nations assembled before him: some on his right and some on his left. The king will speak these words to those Read more…