The author of the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to strive for peace with everyone. Striving, of course, is distinct from actually successfully living at peace with everyone, and is an acknowledgment of the great challenge involved in doing so. For some, the challenge lies in dealing patiently and compassionately with the weaknesses, failings, […]

In our contemporary American usage, “Sir” is a form of address intended to convey respect and, at the same time, is usually reserved for persons we either don’t know or don’t know very well. And it is in this sense that Saul (whom we also know as Paul) initially addresses Jesus as “Sir” during his […]

Flexibility, the ability to change, and an authentic spirit of detachment are all essential elements in effective and reliable discernment of God’s will. For, it is when we are rigid, anxious about change, and inordinately attached that discernment becomes virtually impossible. According to today’s gospel Saint Joseph seems to have possessed flexibility, the ability to […]

In the passion account of Saint Luke, we are told that in the course of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, an angel was sent to strengthen and comfort Jesus as his undependable friends lay asleep a stone’s throw away. There is no record of any similar heavenly consolation during the actual crucifixion as […]

Just as Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, so we have to enter into the depths of our hearts (through ever-deepening self-knowledge) so that we can drive out from our hearts all that still desecrates this temple of the Holy Spirit. A central means for doing […]

For many of us, our search for God takes us out of ourselves in search of a “god” out there. In doing so we are actually distancing ourselves from the God who already dwells within our hearts—a God who is closer to us than we are to ourselves—to paraphrase Saint Augustine. And so, Jesus comes […]

The charge of turning the God’s house into a marketplace is one that Jesus levels not just at the Jews of his time but also at us. Through baptism we have become living temples of the Holy Spirit and thus God’s house. And, alas, we too, all in varying degrees, bring into our hearts much […]

Many—if not most—of those who sought out Jesus were in search of a physical cure or some other self-serving need or request. In contrast, the tax collectors and so-called “sinners” were all drawing near to listen to Jesus—to quote today’s gospel. In other words, they were seeking the person of Jesus and not merely some […]

A casual reading of the gospels would suggest that all the Pharisees were opposed to Jesus and were intent upon killing him. And yet we know that this is not true: Nicodemus, a Pharisee, was a secret disciple of Jesus, and Gamaliel, another Pharisee, defended Jesus’ apostles before the Sanhedrin. So too, we have just […]

As Saint Paul reminds the Galatians, it is through faith that we receive the Spirt, while in relation to today’s gospel, faith assures us that if we ask we will receive, and if we knock the door will be opened. In a somewhat paradoxical fashion, faith is also what we exercise in asking for a […]