Our faith in the humanity and divinity of Jesus can sometimes run up against vexing questions. An example is Jesus’ foretelling of the end of the world that he concludes by stating: But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Surely, if […]

Twentieth Sunday, Year C, 18 August, 2019: Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10; Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 12:49-53     Don’t we know from experience that if we honestly attempt to live the Gospel, we find ourselves at odds with conventional values, expectations and even our own desires? An alternative is flight from my inner conflicts, creating scapegoats and villains, […]

Eighteenth Sunday, Year C, 4 August, 2019:  Qoheleth 1:2; 2:21-23; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21      I believe this Gospel is a very timely. We live in a religious culture that can distort the Gospel into a way of achieving prosperity. Some believe that if we behave and follow the prescribed norms, God will reward […]

The great mystic, Teresa of Avila, used to lament the fact that her soul was like a dirty and unkempt inn wherein she, nevertheless, welcomed her Lord. However, unkempt or not, she welcomed him whose coming and abiding within her would—as he did in the temple—cleanse her of all defilement and transform her! I am […]

The parables suffer from our familiarity with them. That familiarity, however, may be more superficial than intimate. It is important to remember that the priest and the Levite mentioned in today’s Gospel were bound to fulfill their cultic obligations for the good of the people, obligations they couldn’t fulfill should they be defiled by a […]

The German word “Schadenfreude,” is one we have come to use in those situations where the misfortune of another brings us pleasure—albeit one we will not openly admit to. Similarly, we have probably all had the experience of hoping for the downfall and punishment of some villain portrayed in a film or novel. In daily […]

In the long history of Christianity heresies have sometimes been associated with Christians unwilling to live with mystery and thus seeking (with puny human intelligence) to comprehend and describe the infinite. And although this tendency has been more pronounced in the great mysteries of the Trinity and the person of Christ, it has not been […]

In dogmatic theology we refer to the Trinity as a “procession,” that is to say, something or someone that “proceeds”. In the Creed we speak of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, and this, in fact, refers to John’s Gospel, at the end of Chapter Fifteen: the Spirit of Truth that proceeds from the […]

Spiritually, there has long been a negative association with the depths of the earth as the realm of the dead and of hell. Conversely, the sky and the heights are associated with the realm of the living and the glories of heaven. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that Christ’s return to the Father in his […]

Our readings certainly cover a wide range of topics: our Lord’s leave-taking during the Last Supper; the controversy in the early church whether people had first to become Jews to be Christians; the New Jerusalem at the consummation of time and history. The Gospel mentions the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send […]