Daily Reflections
The Priesthood My spiritual director in college assigned me to read the Letter to the Hebrews. He wanted me to have some spiritual reading, to read it prayerfully while I discerned a call to the priesthood. Hebrews was a lot of theology for me to take in as a 20-year-old. I’m still striving to…
Continue ReadingThe Heart of the Matter Today is a day of prayer for unborn children. God intended children to be born in love—real, sacrificial, unifying love. But when that real love is missing, misguided, or twisted, children are often conceived but not born into loving situations. It is sad to see a child abandoned, unloved,…
Continue ReadingA Great Light “The people…have seen a great light.” Isaiah 9:1 What does this mean to us today? We hear it in church; we read it in our Bibles or daily devotionals. But what does it mean? This ancient prophecy by Isaiah meant one thing to the people who heard it or read it…
Continue Reading“When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, ‘he is out of his mind.’” (Mark 3:21) The response of the crowd in today’s Gospel with the tone of the first reading and the psalm could not be more different with the reaction of Jesus’ relatives. The first…
Continue Reading“Brother and sisters: Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). This new covenant, given to us by the Son, is better because the because of what it brings about and how it is brought about.…
Continue ReadingIn today’s Gospel, we see the great desire of the people to seek out Jesus. They came from far away just to see him and touch him so that they may be healed. At that time, the people and even Jesus—for he was worried about being crushed by the crowd—were limited by humanity. But…
Continue ReadingIn today’s Gospel, Jesus poses a question to the Pharisees that I found to be very profound. He says, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” This is profound to me because it is easy to see the good…
Continue Reading“Brothers and sisters: God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones” (Hebrews 6:10). In today’s reading from Hebrews, we see that God looks upon all we have done and are doing and remembers…
Continue Reading“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” Oftentimes, we are called to do what we at first do not want to do or are maybe just too scared to do. At the…
Continue ReadingIn today’s readings, we see how God acts in our lives; he calls us and then exceeds our expectations. Our God is not a God who is distant, but rather a God who enters into our lives and brings us closer to Himself, and then raises us up to become more than we could…
Continue ReadingOften, cradle Catholics, usually women, will come to me and admit that they do not feel that sinful. The sentiment is sincere, and it is not that they do not sin, but rather that they feel somehow their conversion was minimal. Having never overcome some grave sin or falling away, can they experience the…
Continue ReadingWe are used to Jesus performing dramatic miracles, but certainly less familiar with dramatic means to His miracles. When the friends of the paralytic man opened up the roof and lowered him on a stretcher into the home where Jesus’ was, it could have seemed tactless, overbearing, and for the paralytic himself, embarrassing. The…
Continue ReadingThe Letter to the Hebrews says a very curious thing today: “We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end.” It’s that beginning of the reality that sticks out to me. Why is the beginning so important for Christian life and ministry? Realistically, human…
Continue ReadingIn contemporary culture, we have made individual happiness the end-all-be-all. Even well-formed Christians have had the live-and-let-live mentality of, “if it doesn’t bother me, I can’t intervene.” But happiness is fleeting and subjective. I remember being in a college classroom and a classmate saying that, logically speaking, God could not punish you for a…
Continue ReadingMy Dad was a small-town attorney and municipal judge. In his office, he had many law degrees and awards up on the wall. If you were to go there back then, you’d also notice a very strange framed picture among those prestigious plaques. It was a drawing I had made at five years old.…
Continue ReadingThe Feast of the Baptism of the Lord ends the Christmas Season. It probably seems very unlike other Christmas events: the Nativity, Holy Family, and Epiphany. However, this feast is sometimes called the Theophany, which means “a manifestation of God.” Like all the Christmas mysteries, we grapple with the “both/and” of Jesus’ divine and…
Continue ReadingWe all know the three gifts the Magi brought to Jesus at the Epiphany—His “manifestation” to all peoples of the world. What do they symbolize? Gold has an easy answer: recognizing Christ’s kingship. The incense may be harder, as even modern Catholics do not seem to know—much less appreciate—why we use incense to this…
Continue ReadingA simple but sometimes overlooked reflection on the wedding feast of Cana is that we are called to genuine human joy. We, of course, are called to have our hope on the future joy that we will receive in heaven as our true and everlasting joy, but God did not make us suffer and…
Continue Reading“On coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open.” Imagine the scene: you look up and see dazzling lights, lightning and fire, and what seems like the day sky ripping apart to reveal the night sky, and with it, a booming voice says, “you are my son!” What an…
Continue ReadingWe are all probably familiar with the phrase, “blood is thicker than water.” Typically, it means that family comes first. We are willing to support and protect family before anything else, even our own comfort. This week we have been reflecting on what it means to be sons and daughters of God, and today…
Continue Reading“No one who is begotten by God commits sin because God’s seed remains in him.” This sentence in John’s letter should give us pause. If we have been made to be sons and daughters of Christ in baptism, does that not mean we are begotten by God? Yes, we are, but it means we…
Continue ReadingSonship in the scriptures is essential. It often signifies two things. The first is belonging to a people and family, and the second is priestly ministry. Within a theological framework, this sonship is vital for both men and women because it is in this sonship we find our fullest identity. Regarding sonship and belonging,…
Continue ReadingWe have just welcomed Christ into the world. Jesus, born of the Virgin, visits us, and we call him Emmanuel. With rejoicing, we pledge our faith and life to this small child, “Lord be with us always!” Then amid the rejoicing, we begin to experience suffering, pain, confusion, and distraction—consider the feasts we have…
Continue ReadingAs we finish the Octave of Christmas, we face a roller coaster of emotion. We have experienced the joy of the coming of Christ, the horror of the slaughter of innocence, and the comfort of John the Evangelist. In the face of such strong emotions and experiences, it is easy to get overwhelmed…
Continue ReadingThroughout these Christmas Octave reflections, we can hope that the thought of God communicating His divine love in human form provides a background or a sounding board for all of us. The birth of the Christ is the grand announcement “sung out by the heavenly hosts” to the world that a particular point had…
Continue ReadingAs this Octave of Christmas continues to unfold, the liturgical readings provide us with something like observation windows concerning the “rest” of the Christmas story. While growing up, we always enjoyed hearing our elderly aunts, uncles, and grandparents telling stories about the “good old days,” even if we had heard them before. The stories…
Continue ReadingThe smile of an infant lying in its mother’s arms can touch the heart of anyone. Sometimes people even find a new language of cooing with the little one to show their joy. Today’s Gospel story of Joseph and Mary bringing their child for the required temple rites seems to focus on the experience…
Continue ReadingEven with our sensitivities somewhat dulled by constant reports of horrible violence inflicted on innocent people, the story of the slaughter of the innocents continues to jolt our imagination. How could someone be so cold-hearted and paranoid as to order the execution of all two-year-old male children in and around Bethlehem? Perhaps the best…
Continue ReadingThe series of feast days during this Christmas Octave week and their liturgical readings remind us of a wonderful family Christmas banquet. Just when you think all the food is on the table you’re surprised with yet another dish or course which adds another level of delight. Yesterday the feast of martyr St. Stephen…
Continue ReadingAt the bottom of the center stairs at Conception Abbey, we have a set of two very heavy brass house chimes. They are rung by hand with a mechanism using two large wooden hammers. When the chimes are struck, their rich melodious sound travels throughout the house but after the sound dies down the…
Continue ReadingWhenever a child is born, there is change and hope, not only for the child and its family but for all of us. That change and hope come about because each new baby is capable of making the world a better place. Christmas is about hope and change because it involves a newborn Child,…
Continue ReadingWe have arrived at the end of the Fourth Week of Advent. It is quite rare that the calendar allows us to celebrate a full week. What a blessing it has been. On Sunday, we heard about Saint Joseph, from the pen of the evangelist Matthew. Every day since, our Gospel selections came from…
Continue ReadingFor the last two days of this week, the Gospel selections return us to the story whose beginning we heard on Monday. It is the story of the birth of John the Baptist. His father Zechariah and his mother Elizabeth are the protagonists. Elizabeth gives birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives rejoice…
Continue ReadingToday’s Gospel selection gives us the very familiar “Magnificat” of Mary. Mary is still visiting her cousin Elizabeth. Upon greeting one another, Mary breaks out in song. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Over the centuries, Christians have sung this song with Mary. For us…
Continue ReadingOne of my favorite poems has the simple title, “Elizabeth and Mary.” It was written by the poetess/artist, Mary Lou Sleevi (1926-2014). I first got to know Mary Lou in the early 1990s. She had given me a copy of her book, Women of the Word. This is a collection of her paintings and…
Continue ReadingToday’s Gospel reading is a very familiar passage. It is the Annunciation by the angel Gabriel to Mary that God has chosen her to be the mother of Jesus. I do not need to repeat the details. How many artists throughout history have striven to give us a picture of how this happened? During…
Continue ReadingIn yesterday’s reflection, I focused on the role of St. Joseph as the adoptive father of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew. Because of his righteousness, he related to his wife Mary with compassion and tenderness. Throughout the rest of this week, our Gospel readings will come from St. Luke. Other persons…
Continue Reading The central figure in today’s gospel is clearly Joseph. This is a special feature of the Gospel of Matthew, focusing on Joseph more than on Mary. Matthew starts out by giving us the genealogy of Jesus. It is a genealogy that starts with Abraham and ends with whom? Not Mary. No, Matthew…
Continue ReadingThe intensity of the liturgy ratchets up a few notches today as we enter the last week before Christmas. On the 17th, we begin the use of the ancient “O Antiphons.” These are special texts used before and after the Canticle of Mary at Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the…
Continue ReadingThe opening words of the liturgy set the tone for these days of Advent waiting: “Behold, the Lord will come descending with splendor to visit his people with peace, and he will bestow on them eternal life.” In the first reading from the Book of the prophet Isaiah (56:1-3a, 6-8) we hear of the…
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