Articles for Ordinary Time

  The comic strip Family Circle had a motif my dad thought was funny and accurate. When the mother would ask her four small children who was responsible for this or that domestic disaster, the children would blame it in on “invisible gremlins”: Ida Know, Not Me, and Nobody. These ghostly figures would show up…

  I recently heard an interview in which the two people commiserated about anxiety during airplane travel. They reckoned that even though they were not particularly afraid of flying, rather it was a situation in which one feels most alone among a group of strangers. Much about modern life is alienating. Both the independence that…

  St. Thomas Aquinas said that the mean between two extremes is virtue; the only exception to this is love. Extremes that are ultimately done in love – love being willing the good for the other – can be necessary to make the wayward amend. The Lord punishes the Israelites who murdered the prophets of…

  What is the nature of division? Is it evil? Well, Christ says the devil’s minions are unanimous in evil goals! Evil unity is bad! Christ says elsewhere that He did not come to bring peace but division: pitting brother against brother, son against father, and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law. The gospel means making choices that…

  “I will sing of your salvation.” Ps. 71. 15. Mary, O sweet and beautiful mother! Mary is known by many titles. The mother of God, Help of Christians, Refuge for Sinners, and so on. Today we honor her in devotion to her Immaculate Heart. She was conceived without any sin, and her heart itself…

  “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.” Isaiah 12.2 What is it about a human heart that captures attention? Isn’t it just the organ that pumps blood throughout the body? In Jesus’ time and in the thought of the Bible, the heart was the center of one’s self. The heart is…

  “Teach me your ways, O Lord.” Ps. 25.4 Theology is one of the greatest treasures of the Church, without question. You cannot love what you do not know. Remember, God wants to be known by us in His infinite love and mercy. The art of studying theology and knowing the faith more is like…

  “To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.” Ps. 123. 1 As you read this week about the call to holiness and our own response to God’s loving initiative, it comes time to explore the role of all people in the Church with evangelizing. The word “evangelization” means the spreading or proclaiming of…

  “In every age, O Lord, You have been our refuge.” Ps. 90. 1 Suppose someone asked you the question, “Are you holy?” How would you respond to this question? Would you be offended? Would you question them back? Would you offer a half-hearted answer saying that you hoped so? For me, this would be…

  “In you, my God, I place my trust.” Ps. 91.2 A common pattern emerges in Salvation History, God initiates and we respond. God is always the one who begins in creation and the divine action, and humanity responds to it. This pattern has played out from time immemorial in Genesis, Exodus, the Prophets, to…

“I will raise up the cup of salvation.” Ps. 116. 13 To eat and drink with Jesus, our Lord, our Savior and our God, is to realize that we are not in our own world anymore. We walk and wine and dine where “angels have longed to tread.” I took a class recently on St.…

  In the three short years of his ministry, Jesus had to contend with much controversy. How’s that for an understatement? Perhaps controversy reminds us that changing our minds and our deeply held attitudes does not happen easily or without a certain amount of personal discomfort. “My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with…

  Every family has family stories. These are the stories that children love to hear over and over as the elders share their memories within the family circle. Perhaps the story of Mary crossing the Judean hills on a solo journey to visit and assist her cousin Elizabeth qualifies as one of those beloved family…

  The figure of Bartimaeus the blind beggar in Mark’s Gospel today is powerful in the midst of weakness. It’s hard to imagine the helplessness and isolation of a beggar in ancient times compounded by blindness. Jesus did not shy away from the most desperate as he found them. Here there is the added dimension…

  The Gospel of Mark is known to be the shortest, the first to be written Gospel, and perhaps the most blunt. Today’s reading from Mark is jarring, not so much in what is said, but in what is omitted. Jesus was leading a caravan of apostles and assorted friends as they approached Jerusalem with…

  “If I had known then what I know now” is a common expression as we look back over the events and experiences of our lives. Some early choices and decisions might seem rather naïve or even misguided in the light of hard-won wisdom and valuable learning experiences. Today we can either choose to focus…

  The story of the encounter between Jesus and the very self-assured young man in the Gospel today reminded me of a comment attributed to the American author Mark Twain about himself. He said that, as an 18-year-old, he thought his father was just about the dumbest man alive. And then when we got to…

  It would seem that in today’s world, anything of importance must be superlative in some way, as in the biggest, the fastest, the deepest, the highest, the strongest, etc. Perhaps it’s part of our human nature to measure greatness according to size, and that often means trying to supersize everything around us from hamburgers…

  The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. We regularly hear these phrases in the gospels. They often come as a conclusion to some particular sayings of Jesus. Much of Jesus’ teaching was intended to instruct the disciples in the ways of the kingdom: Often in the gospel, a child is held up…

  Remaining faithful to the breaking of the bread, let us live together in love. (Refrain of a song from the monks of St Meinrad) That seems to be the key: Remaining faithful. Today we have more instructions for living the way of the Lord. From James: do not complain about one another, that you…

  I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Anyone who gives even a cup of water will be rewarded. Whoever welcomes a child, in the name of the Lord, welcomes the Lord. These words make following…

  Wherever you are Lord, there is mercy, there is truth, and there is compassion. That states it pretty clearly. Today’s short gospel passage talks about being with the Lord, being in the circle of faith, or not being with the Lord. As was often the case, the disciples and their responses to situations provide…

  Today a teacher might start the day with, “Where did we leave before the break?” Today we return to “ordinary time” with readings from the Letter of St James, and back to Mark’s gospel chapter 9. We left off back in February before Ash Wednesday. Since then, we’ve had our annual revisiting of what…

  In today’s Gospel, Jesus and the disciples are on a boat, a storm comes out of nowhere, and the disciples become worried and terrified of capsizing. But Jesus is asleep while the storm begins. When the disciples awaken Jesus, pleading for His help, he again calmly wakes up and rebukes the storm, which immediately…

  In today’s readings, I find a beautiful teaching on the value and necessity of faith, patience, and perseverance. Before, when I read this Gospel of Mark passage, I would be somewhat confused. Why would Jesus refuse to give “this generation” a sign? Why not just give it to them, and then they would believe…

  Today’s readings and psalm powerfully communicate that while we get caught up in this world by sin and wickedness, God constantly pursues us with love and the promise of salvation. In today’s first reading, we hear of the brutal, painful quality of life someone with leprosy endured as an Israelite in the Old Testament.…

  “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion.” This text, from the Song of Songs, given us by the Church for the feast of St. Scholastica, the twin sister of St. Benedict, shows a side…

  “(Jesus) looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) In the Church’s rite for of baptizing an infant, there is this entry: Ephphetha or Prayer Over Ears and Mouth. In this ritual, performed at the discretion of the celebrant, he touches the ears and mouth of each…

  “She begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. You may go… When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.” This is the way faith must operate in our lives—we ask; Jesus replies; and then we act as if we believed in Jesus acting…

  “The things that come out from within are what defile.” The saint who the Church remembers tomorrow, St. Josephine Bakhita, provides a beautiful image of the contrast we heard in our Gospel today: what comes from outside and what comes from within. For the young girl, Bakhita, from the outside came slavery. Her slave…

  “You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.” Today the Church honors the memory of St. Paul Miki and Companions who died in 1597. These 26 martyrs of Japan were crucified on a hill, now known as the Holy Mountain, overlooking Nagasaki. Among them were priests,…

  “… [they] begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak” Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing for a human being to have; boredom is a real drag! The people in our Gospel today are very enthusiastic. They want to get close to this wonder-worker. The Scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, remarks about…

  “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” All of us can agree that mental anguish is a great human suffering. Loneliness, fear, doubt, betrayal, infidelity, depression—these are hard to take. We who follow Jesus seek to square such experiences with the goodness of God.…

  There is a certain familiarity that comes across as we read the opening lines of the Gospel today. The apostles were returning from their first “mission trip” wanting to share stories, awesome experiences, fearful challenges, funny stories, and sad memories. And they simply needed to rest. It makes perfect sense that Jesus would want…

  This beautiful feast of the Presentation of the Lord is often an overlooked treasure in the course of the liturgical year. The core meaning goes far beyond a description of the holy family fulfilling a legal requirement. Something powerful and amazing is happening. Divinity is revealed through the humanity of a little child. But…

  Many years ago, one of the most popular TV suspense/action shows was “Mission Impossible.” Besides the awesome challenges of the mission itself, there were the equally awesome (then) gadgets and electronic gizmos used to help accomplish the weekly mission. Our liturgical readings for today make us think of those assigned missions. Some of those…

  We celebrate the feast of St. John Bosco today. Whenever we celebrate the life of a saint, we tend to wonder what they were like. Surely, they must have been people with great determination and clear focus. No matter what might have stood in their way, their mind was fixed on the goal before…

  Today’s liturgical readings present a feast for those who love multitasking and sorting out plots and subplots. Rather than getting lost in details, it’s far better to ask the Holy Spirit to touch us and show us the insight meant for us. We begin by hearing of an exhausted messenger coming to King David…

  If our liturgical readings for today could be color-coded to measure their emotional content, we would get a full spectrum of color. Since the Word of God uses the prism of human experience to teach us, it’s not surprising to see the full range of human feelings. The first reading from the Second Book…

  Amid a crisis, such as a car accident or a serious illness, someone needs to step forward and “take charge.” Without that self-appointed leader, chaos can reign. Or perhaps it is just the opposite—a paralysis of fear. I suggest a connecting thread found in the liturgical readings for this week might be the theme…