Daily Reflections

  In today’s Gospel, we see two very different points of views and motivations. Jesus comes to visit his friends in Bethany and out of love for him Mary anointed his feet with costly perfumed oil and uses her hair to dry them. You can see in her a deep love for Jesus, a love…

  Today is a very popular day in the liturgical year and is one of my favorites. I think this is because we are dropped into the very life of Jesus. We gather in excitement awaiting the entrance of our Beloved into our very lives. We pick up our palms and begin to wave them…

  “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, ‘What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?’” My grandmother, Bernice Migliazzo,…

  Things are starting to get rough for Jesus. The Jews want to stone him because he is claiming himself to be like God, but they are blind and only worried about themselves! The healings that Jesus has performed physically, spiritually, and yes even mentally, is something that they can’t comprehend. People hate change, and…

  In today’s gospel, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” As many of you know I am a big TITANIC buff! I love the ship and everything about her. I even have a lump of coal from the ship—probably the only time…

  I remember in the great movie “The Song of Bernadette,” Dr. Dozous asked the little girl Bernadette, who was suppose to be stupid, “’My dear, do you know what a sinner is?’ she replied back to me, ‘certainly monsieur, a sinner is one who loves evil.’ Mind you she said one who loves and…

  “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten [by the serpents] will live.” “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM!” In the first reading we have the prefiguration of the cross. The…

  “No one arrested Jesus, because his hour had not yet come.” The hour is his passion. In a way, this shows the power and authority that Jesus has. We hear it over and over again in the gospels, especially within the coming days when either no one could lay a hand on him because…

  Let’s take a deep breath, shall we? How are we doing on our Lenten observances? Have we been doing good and moving forward? Or have we sort of fallen off course after… Ash Wednesday? Sadly, for me it is the latter. But I am not going to be too hard on myself because, as…

  The Pharisee Nicodemus appears three times in the Gospel of St. John, and his journey shows a gradual movement from curiosity to deeper faith. Originally came to Jesus at night (wishing not to be seen) wanting to see for himself who Jesus was. He acknowledged that Jesus must have come from God, and Nicodemus…

  The chilling voice of the speaker from in the Book of Wisdom is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ famous novel, The Screwtape Letters, which presents a series of letters from the seasoned demon “Screwtape” to his inexperienced nephew Wormwood, and offering guidance on how to tempt a human person away from Christianity and towards damnation.…

  The exchange between God and Moses comes after one of the great low points in Israel’s history. Moses was delayed in coming down the mountain, and the people lost faith and turned their backs on the Lord (who had very recently rescued them in a rather dramatic way from slavery in Egypt), and they…

  Jesus says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own…” Jesus saw Himself to be totally dependent and in union with the Father. I’ll admit, I try to do a lot on my own, and it doesn’t go well. This is why I take the time in prayer…

  “Do you want to be well?” The answer to Jesus’ question seems obvious. This man has been ill for 38 years, and he is just lying there. But, Jesus’ pointed question seeks to draw out the desire in this man’s heart—Jesus wants him to activate his faith. If we are not in touch with…

  Before Jesus heals the royal official’s son, the Gospel provides an important detail. In Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, we know He was rejected and thus the Matthew’s Gospel recounts, “And Jesus did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith” (Mt 13:58). But, at the outside of today’s Gospel,…

  If you had never heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son, how would you think it would end? Wouldn’t most of us conclude it this way: I shall get up and go to my father, and I shall say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve…

  Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee leaves all of us feeling a little uncomfortable. It should; that was Jesus’ intention! Lent is an appropriate time to examine our interior attitude toward prayer. This gospel passage holds up a mirror to our spiritual lives. Most Catholics take on bona opera or good…

  Today’s gospel from St. Mark opens with the beautiful words of the Shema, the prayer mounted on the doorpost of every Jewish home: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with…

  “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:8). This responsorial refrain echoes throughout the readings in today’s liturgy. In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims the Lord’s message in unvarnished words: “Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk in…

  The Torah was the foundation stone of the faith of ancient Israel. God made a covenant with his chosen people. They were to be a people particularly his own. He would bring them into a land of promise, flowing with milk and honey, and protect them on every side. For their part of the…

  Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she is to be the mother of the Savior. On this day, nine months before Christmas, we celebrate the reality that Isaiah proclaimed: “the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name…

  Today’s first reading relates the story of Naaman, an Aramean army commander who suffered from leprosy. Naaman, a pagan foreigner reluctantly approaches Elisha, the prophet of Israel, to find healing for this dreaded disease. Doubtful that the prophet’s seemingly simplistic instructions to plunge into the Jordan River seven times could possibly bring about a…

  On this third Sunday of Lent, we are presented with Jesus’ remarkable parable of the fig tree. We are told the story of a frustrated owner of an orchard who instructs his gardener to cut down a fig tree that has not borne fruit for three successive seasons. The owner reasons that the unproductive…

  Motivation itself can fail. When you focus on motivating yourself to do something, it is easy to give up once the enthusiasm fades. Focusing on the goal or end we have can fade, too. Different sources about motivation and self-improvement inform people to focus on the process of their work instead of the reward…

  Jim Collins is known as one of the best writers on business. He wrote about the greatest American companies. He discovered that the best companies and leaders knew how to make a good return on luck—luck being the hand that they were dealt. Faith isn’t business, and some people have better circumstances than others.…

  We have to confront brutal facts to get anywhere meaningful in life. How we think about the harder parts of life determines how we face reality. We can linger in denial or a false sense of naïve optimism instead of accepting reality and learning from it. A better way of thinking is to face…

  The wise say that we find our calling where our needs and God’s will come together. It seems too simple, and yet it is so true. God calls all people to holiness. He calls you to accept his love and mercy right now in your life. Gurus and lifestyle coaches can make things overly…

  New beginnings. Lent means beginning again for us Catholics. Whether this is our first time in Lent or our fiftieth year of Lent, we are on this journey again. There is an old monastic saying that says “What we do daily, we do dully unless we do it deeply.” Again, what is done daily…

  The desert is a place of spiritual rejuvenation and renewal. We journey with Christ again to return to our original grace. This Lent is a rare time, a scarce time. Lent comes every year, and still it is the only time in the year we can have to reset and prepare for Easter glory.…

  “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,” is a parallel to the story of the Rich Young Man. The rich man goes away sad because he has many possessions and is unwilling to give them up to follow Jesus unreservedly. What could be scarier than choosing poverty in order to accept…

  Once I got very upset with a group of seminarians who presumed permissions to do something that I, as Dean of Students, had not allowed. Not only did I think I had given my directions quite explicitly, but also, I was upset that they did not ask me. Then, several days later I turned…

  Queen Esther’s prayer is desperate. She lays flat on the ground with her face in the dust and shakes with anguish from morning to night. It might sound extreme, but I would imagine most of us who have lived long enough and been persons of faith, have had these times when we felt like…

  There is a form of biblical interpretation that is within the Bible itself: typology. In this, we look at an event or person from the Old Testament and find how Christ parallels, fulfills, or surpasses these mighty deeds and prophets. In today’s gospel, Jesus does typology about Himself. He compares Himself to both the…

  We’ve all probably had the experience of putting a dollar bill into a vending machine, and instead of taking the money, it spits it back out. It’s frustrating. We were doing all the right things, we had the right tender, why would this stupid machine not take our money and give us our chips?…

  When we read a gospel like this, we have to face some hard truths. We realize that hell is a real state of being, not set up to scare us straight. And although faith is a gift that leads the faithful to salvation, we are apparently going to be judged by our charitable works.…

  Several years ago, we constructed the new seminary dormitory, Good Shepherd Hall. It was a welcome upgrade, but the building process happened to be going on right next to the seminary chapel. During each morning meditation period where the seminarians and formation personnel were dutifully being good boys, praying in silence, we would hear…

  It is easy to fall into judging other people. It happens all around us, almost as if the air itself is diffused with judgment. Certainly, there is no shortage of suffering and harmful acts around us, but we often make assumptions about people’s motivations and designate them as evil. When Jesus encounters the tax…

  The monastic tradition has always emphasized that penances must be discerned with the guidance of a wise elder in order to avoid the sins of pride and vainglory. Those who are zealous for God can find themselves moved to perform burdensome penances in imitation of great saints or to purify themselves of vice. It…

  It seems backward that we should lay down our lives in order to save them. All of our basic instincts are oriented towards self-preservation: finding food, running from danger or attacking threats, seeking relationships for their support, etc. Just like any animal, our natural inclination is to avoid death. The difference, however, is that…

  We begin the Season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, and there is always discussion about whether we should keep our ashes on our heads throughout the day or wash them off after Mass. The Gospel reading suggests that we should wash our faces and not at all look like we are fasting because the…