Daily Reflections

  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…