It’s not often that we benefit from the devil’s actions, but this Sunday’s gospel reading shows him doing us a great favor. Indirectly, by trying to goad Jesus into several acts of selfish pride, we actually learn important lessons in prayer. Jesus’…
After months of exposure to the self-serving hot air rising from some of the people fighting for the U.S. presidency, this Sunday’s mass readings are refreshingly Marxist. Groucho, not Karl. Groucho Marx once resigned his membership from an exclusive Hollywood…
We’ll never understand the struggle between love and hate until we also recognize their closest living relatives: wisdom and ignorance. We tend to believe that hate appears in the absence of love, but this Sunday’s mass readings teach us something…
Hollywood has done good things with grand moments from the Old and New Testaments. When you think of “The Ten Commandments” in Hollywood terms you may think of Cecil B. DeMille directing Charlton Heston’s Moses to lead a cast of…
If you’re reading this you probably didn’t win the $1.5 billion Powerball drawing this week. You may want to give thanks anyway, considering the awesome responsibility that comes with such a win. Ideally you’d want to use that sum in…
In this Sunday’s readings we celebrate the examples set by John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ in one shared sacramental act. We also witness two different styles of outreach in John and Jesus. In 21st century terms, these styles…
This Sunday we celebrate the epiphany of the Lord. This celebration is called THE epiphany, but it isn’t the only one our Lord inspired. He works through his people by epiphanies. They happen every day, just as miracles do—below our…
Visiting my parents’ grave on Christmas Eve, I realized something about the gravestone inscription that hadn’t hit me until then. When my father chose the epitaphs for my mother and himself, he didn’t use occupations or accomplishments to help visitors…
When people mention “Baltimore Catechism” it’s usually in some derogatory way—either as “old-school” and naïve or simplistic and irrelevant. But one of the core questions in that catechism asks “Why did God make me?” The answer goes, “God made me…
As children we tend to love teachers who are nice, offer lessons we can easily understand, and grade on a generous curve. By the time we’re adults and we’ve learned a bit more of what life has to teach us,…