A passage from today's gospel struck me in a fresh and astonishing way today. It's the final few verses in which Jesus emphasizes his identity as the lowliest one by embracing a child. “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Taking a child, he placed [...]
Today, on the Feast of St Matthew the Apostle it is worth taking a look at the "Synoptic Problem". This discussion among Biblical scholars concerns the authorship, development and dating of the first three gospels. They are called the "Synoptic" gospels meaning to look alike or looking the same way. This is because Matthew, Mark and [...]
If you're like me you look at the news today and remembering the events of the last five years, you wonder what next? Wars and rumors of wars, race riots, political instability, a pandemic, religious uncertainty, the disintegration of marriage, skyrocketing levels of addiction, suicide, abortion--broken families, broken hearts, broken lives... If you spend too much [...]
The Feast of the Transfiguration is all about seeing things as they really are. Some time ago as I was saying Mass it seemed to me that there was, beneath the altar, another whole realm of being. This other realm was connected to this visible realm in more complex and beautiful patterns than I could ever [...]
With the rise of Christianity a new perspective entered human history: the triumph of the victim. Previously if you were a slave, if you were poor, if you were disabled, if you were strange, if you were an alien in the land, if you were an outcast you were considered to have got what you deserved. [...]
I think it was Fulton Sheen who said something like "There are not a hundred Americans who hate Catholics, but there are thousands of Americans who hate what they think the Catholic Church is." It expresses in a nutshell the problem of anti-Catholicism not only among the general population, but also amongst our non Catholic, Protestant [...]
One of the Catholic buzzwords at the moment seems to be "Mission". So this recent quote is typical: "Synodality is essentially missionary and vice versa mission is always synodal." Apart from the incomprehensible English usage ("missionary" is a noun not an adjective. "Missional" is the word they were looking for) Anyway, in the usual word salad [...]
The other day on social media a Catholic grumbled about his experience at confession. The priest launched into a long lecture which was a mixture of personal advice, psychobabble and pop theology. The penitent was impatient at this and resented having to sit and listen to father's ruminations. I sympathize and certainly in my years as [...]
In today's gospel the mother of St James and St John cheekily asks Jesus for a couple of prime seats in his cabinet for her boys. He corrects her asking if they can share in his chalice of suffering. The embarrassing event of James' mother reminds me of all social climbing, ambitious, manipulative people. In this [...]
I'm blogging from Boystown near Guadalajara Mexico --which is one of the charity boarding schools for poor kids founded by the American priest Ven. Al Schwartz. The school educates 2000 teen aged boys from the poorest families in the area. This morning I attended early Mass with the Sisters of Mary--the religious order established by Schwartz. [...]