2 Thes 2:1-3a, 14-17  /  Mk 6:17-29
Like a runaway train, life can get away from us and surge out of control. It sneaks up on us. At one moment, we’re like those foolish maidens in the gospel, all dressed for the party, their lamps burning brightly, relaxed and unworried about taking a little nap while […]

1 Cor 1:1-9 / Mt 24:42-51
Our culture is filled with examples of phony commitments. Couples live together, sneering at unimportance of “a piece of paper,” and splitting fast when something better comes along. Corps of lawyers are retained either to guarantee that any contract is breakable or to try to figure out how […]

2 Thes 3:6-10, 16-18 / Mt 23:27-32
There’s an old saying to the effect that people will know us by the friends we keep. There’s solid insight in that, on several levels. The most obvious is the likelihood of our choosing companions who share our more important views and attitudes towards life. But […]

2 Thes 2:13,14-17 / Mt 23:23-26
Rarely a month goes by without the announcement of some new miracle drug or some new technology that will “change our lives forever.” And not far behind come reports from here and there around the world about this or that new apparition or some self-appointed guru announcing the end […]

2 Thes 1:1-5,11-12 / Mt 23:13-22
There are far too many things in this world that make absolutely no sense! Our newspapers and our daily conversations are filled with examples that utterly astonish us: The $600 toilet seats purchased by the Pentagon, the crazier aspects of our well-intentioned welfare programs, the follies of our local […]

Is 22:19-23 / Rom 11:33-36 / Mt 16:13-20
On Sunday morning a man showed up at church with both of his ears terribly blistered, so his pastor asked, “WHAT happened to YOU?”
“I was lying on the couch watching a ball game on TV while my wife was ironing nearby.  I was totally engrossed in the game […]

Ez 37:1-14 / Mt 22:34-40
There’s one particularly thorny problem we face in trying to come to terms with how utterly dependent we are and how unnecessary to the operation of the larger world, and that’s the fact that, as long as we can remember, we’ve been right here. We cannot remember a time when we […]

Ez 36:23-28 / Mt 22:1-14
From time to time the media provide coverage of fantastic parties all over the world, and many of us watch with fascination from a distance. Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball is still talked about decades after the event. Malcolm Forbes’s $5 million birthday party thrown in his own […]

Ez 34:1-11 / Mt 20:1-16
Measured by the popularity of certain types of talk shows and of the pulp publications available at supermarket checkout stands, our fascination with the derelictions of public figures knows no bounds.
Misuse of public funds for private purposes, blatant abuse of government power, gross infidelity to the most fundamental of oaths, both […]

Ez 28:1-10 / Mt 19:23-30
Ezechial has hard words for the Prince of Tyre in today’s first reading. For whatever reasons, the prince had let his imagination get the better of him, persuading himself that he had “the mind of a god” and that no one in the whole world was greater.
That was not a […]

Ez 24:15-24 / Mt 19:16-22
Once in a while it’s fascinating to take just a peek, with the help of our TVs, at the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The yachts and private jets, the designer clothes and jewels, the posh residences scattered helter-skelter across the world, and the regularly-scheduled face-lifts: It all seems […]

Rv 11:19a;12:1-6a,10ab / Cor 15:20-27 / Lk 1:39-56
There was a king whose only son was an angry, rebellious young man. Try as he might, the king could not find a way to his son’s heart. And finally one day the boy gathered up his things and rode off into the sunset. The father tracked his […]

Ez 12:1-12 / Mt 18:21-19:1
Have you ever reflected upon the fact that every time Mass is celebrated, no matter where in the world, it always begins with a rite of reconciliation? Even in the convents of cloistered nuns and the monasteries of silent, scholarly monks, the Mass begins every day with that same rite […]

Ez 9:1-7, 10, 18-22 / Mt 18:15-20
If you wander through almost any gathering of people, be it a seriously upscale cocktail party at the very best club or a notably downscale hay ride and picnic in the country, before too long you’re almost certain to hear laments and denunciations of everything from music and hair […]

Ez 2:8-3:4 / Mt 18:1-5,10,12-14
Have you ever thought how much time it takes to train someone to enter one of the professions? Year after year of study: kindergarten, grammar school, high school, college, graduate school, and more often than not, internship after all that. A fortune in time, and a fortune in money. […]

Ez 1:2-5, 24-28 / Mt 17:22-27
Have you ever tried to imagine what 100 billion of anything might look like, or how far it is to edges of the universe, or exactly how many sub-atomic particles there were in the strawberry you ate for breakfast? Have you ever tried to wrap your mind around the […]

1 Kgs 19:9a,11-13a / Rom 9:1-5 / Mt 14:22-33
Three men were pacing nervously in the fathers’ waiting room of the maternity ward. Eventually, a nurse came to the door and said to the first man, “Congratulations, you’re the father of healthy twins.”
He was shocked but pleased and said, “What an incredible coincidence! I play for […]

Nahum 2:1,3. 3:1-3,6-7 / Mt 16:24-28
The spectrum of differences within any random group of people is always very broad, not just in talent and appearance, but in the alacrity with which the various individuals connect maturely with life and find their own place. One need only scan a high school or college graduating class […]

Jer 31:31-34 / Mt 16:13-23
When it’s time to prepare a tax return or when the IRS shows up for an audit, there are very few people anywhere who fail to ask the question: “What’s the least that I can do and still stay out of trouble.” It’s a fair question in that circumstance, and […]

Dn 7:9-10, 13-14/2 Pt 1:16-19/Mt 17:1-9
I cannot understand how some people can so easily dismiss the miracles of Jesus when we read the simple eyewitness accounts we have in places like our reading from Peter’s Second Letter.
Oh… May I be permitted to vent a little? I really cannot abide the undemanding re-write of the story […]

Jer 30:1-2,12-15,18-22 / Mt 14:22-36 or or Mt 15:1-2
There are times when our lives are coming apart at the seams and only the most extreme measures are sufficient to hold things together and get us through. The crisis may be a family matter, a financial issue, or something related to our careers. Whatever […]

Jer 28:1-17 / Mt 14:22-36
There are times when our lives are coming apart at the seams and only the most extreme measures are sufficient to hold things together and get us through. The crisis may be a family matter, a financial issue, or something related to our careers. Whatever the issue, there’s no […]

Is 55:1-3 / Rom 8:35, 37-39 / Mt 14:13-21
There was pastor who used his computer to create a personalized printed program for every Baptism. To make each one special, he’d use the computer’s “search & replace” function to find the name of the last baby baptized and then replace it with the next baby’s name.  […]

Jer 26:1-9 / Mt 13:54-58
It must have been fascinating to have been a neighbor or a relative of the Holy Family and to watch Jesus growing up from childhood through adolescence and finally into young adulthood. What was He like? St. Paul gives us an all-purpose answer: He was like us in […]

Jer 18:1-6 / Mt 13:47-53
Most of us have the habit of thinking too small.  Whether at home or at work, in friendships or in business, we miss too many possibilities and we expect too little. We end up making do with far less than we need to: We settle for moribund relationships, boring jobs, and […]

Jer 18:1-6 / Mt 13:47-53
Most of us have the habit of thinking too small. Whether at home or at work, in friendships or in business, we miss too many possibilities and we expect too little. We end up making do with far less than we need to: We settle for moribund relationships, boring jobs, and […]

Jer 15:10,16-21 / Mt 13:44-46
There is something intrinsically fascinating about heroes, geniuses and other people of extraordinary achievement, whatever their field of endeavor. Where did they get it? How did Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, and so many others develop such seeming ease at what they do? Dozens of studies confirm the same answer: Single-minded focus […]

Jer 14:17-22  / Jn 11:19-27 or Lk 10:38-42
Lord Jesus, You are the way that leads to the Father. Lord have mercy.

Christ Jesus, You are the truth that sets the captives free. Christ have mercy.
Lord Jesus, You are the life that makes our joy complete. Lord have mercy.
This is one of my favorite ways to lead […]

Jer 13:1-11 / Mt 13:31-35
We take great pleasure in toting up lists of our assets and the other things we call “ours.”  But it’s all a fiction and a hallucination, because nothing is ever really ours. A mental stroll through the castles and palaces of Europe makes that abundantly clear. Here are the things that […]

I Kings 3:5, 7-12 / Rom 8:26-27 / Mt 13:24-43 or Mt 13:24-30
A man and his wife pulled into a gas station. As their tank was being filled, the attendant washed their windshield. But when he finished, the driver said, “It’s still dirty. Wash it again.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy, searching for any bugs he […]

2 Cor 4:7-15 / Mt 20:20-28
A wise old Irish nun once quoted an old saying to me: “Pain is the price of consciousness.” How regularly that truth is evident in the life of St. Paul, who was painfully aware of his own feet of clay. As he says in today’s epistle, “We possess a treasure […]

Jer 2:1-3,7-8,12-13 / Mt 13:10-17
Today’s gospel doesn’t sound like Jesus. It sounds like the worst and most cynical aspects of a capitalist economy: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And it seems to have the Lord’s blessing!
That’s a misreading of the text! This gospel is a meditation on God’s kingdom, that […]

Jer 1:1,4-10 / Mt 13:1-9
Most of life’s tasks hit us in the face without warning and without preparation. I was never married before — what do I do? I was never a parent before, never a kid before, or a teacher before, or a pastor before, or old before! Why didn’t they give us a […]

Mi 7:14-15, 18-20 / Jn 20:1-2, 11-18
Pay special attention to the responses Mary Magdalene makes in today’s Gospel. When she responds to the angels, she says “they have taken the Lord. . . .” When she speaks to Jesus, she says “they have taken my Lord. . . .”
This is not a “difference that makes […]

Mi 6:1-4,6-8 / Mt 12:38-42
The Roman emperors heard and felt one constant pressure: “Give us bread and circuses!”  Political candidates hear the same chant, and too often they respond with panicky 30-second sound-bites, which mean nothing and add nothing to the large conversation that we’re supposed to be engaged in as a national family.
It was […]

Wis 12:13,16-19 / Rom 8:26-27 / Mt 13:24-30
When a boss is at a dead end with an employee, it can inspire some real eloquence. Here are a few samples of frustrated bosses’ evaluations of their less than competent employees:
1) This employee is a few fries short of a “Happy Meal.”
2) If he were any more […]

Is 38:1-6, 21-22 / Mt 12:1-8
One of the more desirable consequences of growing a little older is that at least some of us begin to develop a greater awareness of our own faults and limitations, and stop projecting them onto other people as often as we did in our youth. So when we hear in […]

Is 26:7-9, 12, 16-19 / Mt 11:28-30
We human beings have an uncanny knack for making simple things complicated. We go from San Francisco to Los Angeles by way of Hong Kong, we respond to simple questions with answers befitting a Philadelphia lawyer, and we stonewall a friend when a simple “I was wrong” would fix […]

Is 10:5-7, 13-16 / Mt 11:25-27
It’s something of a standing joke in our culture that some of the most learned professors and cleverest scientists are thoroughly incompetent at the most basic of tasks, like changing a tire or pumping their own gas. But the mismatch between general ability and the performance of ordinary tasks doesn’t […]

Is 7:1-9 / Mt 11:20-24
By the very nature of the human condition, we get caught up in the little stuff. Somebody has to pick up the dry cleaning, pay the light bill, fill the car with gas, and carry out the trash.  Those things don’t get done by themselves. As a result, we can get […]

Is 1:10-17 / Mt 10:34-11:1
When we think of Jesus, the images that usually come to mind are of a man of peace who brings healing and forgiveness to people, the man who saved the life of the woman caught in the act of adultery, and the man who raised dead people back to life.  So […]

Is 55:10-11 / Rom 8:18-23 / Mt 13:1-13
A bright little fifth-grader was doing an experiment on a grasshopper for his science project. He put the grasshopper on a table, leaned down till his face was just inches away, and shouted, “Jump!” The grasshopper leapt into the air. Then the boy carefully removed one of the […]

Hos 14:2-10 / Mt 10:16-23
Today’s gospel contains one of the most notoriously misused passages in all the Bible, and the chief culprits are the clergy. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about what you are going to say or how you will say it. When the hour comes it will be given to you.” It doesn’t take […]

Hos 11:1-4,8-9 / Mt 10:7-15
Some problems have no easy solutions, but that doesn’t stop the toughest of us from continuing to try, and try, and try again. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And more often than not, persistence pays off.
But there are few problems that can be more intractable than matters […]

Hos 10:1-3, 7-8, 12 / Mt 10:1-7
For those of us who are reasonably conscientious and self-aware, the reality of our unfinishedness can sometimes be a heavy burden. It’s more than just our sins, which, like the poor, seem to be with us always. Sometimes it’s the lack of the wisdom that we feel we should […]

Hos 8:4-7, 11-13 / Mt 9:32-38
Good help is hard to find. It’s always been so, and we need only listen to our own conversations to verify it. In the course of any week, a lot of us will have rendered judgment on the inadequacies of gardeners, politicians, grocery store clerks, teachers, preachers, and host of […]

Hos 2:16-22 / Mt 9:18-26
Every one of us carries considerable baggage left over from earlier parts of our life’s journey.  And not only our bodies but our spirits bear many wounds, some self-inflicted, others the result of simple bad luck, and still others the intentional work of those who wish us no good.  These are […]

Zec 9:9-10 / Rom 8:9, 11-13 / Mt 11:25-30
St. Paul is walking on a two-edged sword in this weekend’s reading. We need to be right there with him. What are the two edges? Trying to put it tightly: 1) we are spiritual beings and this world doesn’t matter, and 2) our mission is to make […]

Amos 8:4-6, 9-12 / Mt 9:9-13
Self-knowledge is a hard-won treasure, and even the best of us are blind to much of what our friends see clearly. Too often we blithely give convoluted explanations of our actions and intentions which convince no one but ourselves. Fictions like “I was just resting my eyes during the third […]

Eph 2:19-22 / Jn 20:24-29
More than a century ago, Abraham Lincoln made the famous observation, “You can fool all of the people sometimes, and some of the people all the time, but you can never fool all the people all the time.” Quite so, yet a lot of our politicians keep trying!
For us, an important […]