As we know, the starting positions for runners in Olympic track events are staggered to compensate for the different lengths of each lane—the inner lanes being slightly shorter than the outer ones. Unfortunately, when it comes to our spiritual lives, running that race—which Saint Paul completed so magnificently—similar allowances or compensations are not offered. Instead, […]

Saint Thomas Aquinas’ dismissal of all his writings as “so much straw” after his final mystical experience gives us a glimpse into the joy Jesus expresses in today’s Gospel: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed […]

Understood in a certain light, Jesus’ call to pray to the Master of the Harvest to send out laborers seems to imply that, if we fail to pray, no laborers will be sent. Yet if God would send laborers regardless of our prayer, then Jesus’ insistence on praying to the Master of the Harvest appears […]

Hunger is an aversive sensation that Saint Augustine likens to an illness, with food and drink serving as the medicines that temporarily treat this very human condition. Yet, as he observes, food does not cure hunger; it merely quiets its symptoms for a time. Inevitably, several hours after a satisfying meal, hunger returns and we […]

Peter and John’s journey to Samaria and their praying for the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on those who had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus highlights one of two clear instances in the Book of Acts in which the effects of Baptism—that first sacrament we all received—don’t always follow the […]

Although perhaps less common today, Lent has long been associated with giving things up and denying ourselves. Such self‑denial has been practiced either as reparation for sin or as a way of strengthening our weakened wills, freeing them from enslavement to inordinate desire and the pursuit of pleasure. And when Saint Benedict says that the […]

12 April, 2026:–Second Sunday of Easter, Year A: Acts 2:42-47; 1Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31 Thomas was willing to follow Jesus to Jerusalem to die with him (Jn 11:16). But at his arrest, Jesus said, “…let these men go.” Did Thomas realize then that Jesus was called to something unique, if unknown to Thomas; that it […]

We have spent these last six weeks of Lent in a spirit of repentance, sorrow, and lament for our many sins and failings. Indeed, these final days have focused especially on the great price that Christ lovingly paid for our sins and our salvation. Somewhat suddenly, then, on this holy night of the Lord’s rising, […]

The impassioned feelings and sometimes heated controversies surrounding the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo of pre–Vatican II worship highlight the complex nature and sacred purpose of the Eucharist whose institution we celebrate this evening. The relatively simple and pared‑down Novus Ordo might even be considered elaborate when set beside the utter simplicity of that […]

22 March, 2026, Fifth Sunday of Lent, YR A: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45 In John’s Gospel, Christ is life, but much more than biological life. For those who believe, Christ gives eternal life. In Christ, we begin to function at that level where faith is cultivated, where compassion is born, where our life […]