Daily Reflections

   “We know that anyone begotten by God does not sin; but the one begotten by God he protects, and the Evil One cannot touch him.” What does this saying mean for us Christians who profess faith in the one true God and His Son who brings us salvation? To be honest, at first glance,…

  In today’s Gospel, I am struck by the story of the man full of leprosy. He sees Jesus coming and falls prostrate and cries out to him, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” It is his faith in Jesus that gives him the courage to cry out to him. Jesus’ response…

  “Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.” These words from the first reading remind us that all we have is from God, even our ability to desire and love our Heavenly Father. We are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore are created in the image of His eternal…

  “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is brought to perfection in us.” Today we see one of the ways that God is revealed to us. It is through a radical love for each other that we come to an encounter with…

  In today’s gospel, notice how we are both fed by Jesus and are called to feed those in need. Jesus sees the vast crowds coming to see him and his divine heart is move to piety for them because he knows their desire for the word of God and that they are seeking a…

  In today’s first reading from the first letter of St. John, we hear that, “We receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” Upon reading this, the first thing that may come to mind is that we can get whatever we want as long as we…

      “We celebrate a holy day adorned by three miracles: this day, a star led the Magi to the manger; this day, water was changed into wine at the marriage feast; this day Christ, for our salvation, willed to be baptized by John in the Jordan, Alleluia.” This Antiphon, which is chanted by…

  “What are you looking for?” St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born into an Episcopalian family in thoroughly Protestant society of the early United States. Accompanying her husband on a work trip to Italy, her husband died. Staying with a Catholic family during her period of mourning, she observed their piety even while she continued…

  The late Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, confounded many with his philosophical distinction between different kinds of national intelligence issues. There were, he said, known knowns – those things we understand exist – and there are also unknown unknowns – things we are neither aware of nor understand. There are also unknown knowns. This…

  In the movie 500 Days of Summer, a woman asks the sad sack protagonist why he became a greeting card writer when he had trained as an architect. He sardonically replied, “I figured, why make something temporary like a building, when I can make something like a greeting card that lasts forever.” The cutting…

  Not many of us have left Mass on Corpus Christi crying out: “Transubstantiation!” Not many of us here have probably ever left the Feast of Christ the King to shout: “Viva Cristo Rey!” Yet in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus, the common folk of that city ran through the streets in…

  As we become more technologically advanced the less we think about times and seasons. Even farmers who are tied to land and weather have found ways to overcome much. Here in the country, farmers’ wives lament that farm implements now have headlights and they plant and harvest without ending when the sun goes down.…

  I find myself jealous of the Evangelists at times—only four men got to write Christ’s story, inspired by the Holy Spirit. When we consider the differences in the gospels, we consider that they were not just chroniclers of facts but also storytellers. In other words, they used details to bring out greater meaning to…

     When we imagine the Holy Family, we could imagine an idealized family – the first century version of Leave It to Beaver with unpleasant episodes being nothing more than worrying if Jesus prayed a little too much! The sweetly beautiful paintings and statues of a placid-faced Virgin Mother, wise-beyond-His-years Christ Child, and rock-solid St. Joseph might…

  When I was in third grade our house alarm went off in the middle of the night. All the bedrooms were upstairs, and we feared that an intruder had entered the house downstairs. My brothers and I ran to my parents’ bedroom. My Dad went downstairs to investigate. Alone. In the dark. Unarmed. While…

  St. John is beautifully called, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And, it’s true, Jesus loved John in a special way. In my experience, however, I come across a lot of faithful Christians who do not truly believe that they are loved by God. Because of their sins, past failures, or current struggles in life,…

  St. Stephen did not die in vain. He witnessed the power and love of Jesus Christ even to the very end, and the Holy Spirit was powerfully at work in him. Those who were stoning Stephen “laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.” The man who would later…

   We all want to be home for Christmas and will travel great distances to get there. We monks are happy to be home for Christmas, even though our home is not where our natural family lives but our monastic family. We decorate it similarly, and we have our own set of rituals and…