The following headline made Section A of last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal : “Mass Shootings on the Rise” The report said the mindset of the shooters in these incidents is often the same: “a real or perceived deeply held personal…
Pete, the manager of Kingdom Enterprises, sat in his office pondering his future. It was midnight, but time on the job hasn’t mattered since the Boss tore out all the time clocks and instituted a new “continuous improvement” program. He…
God may be part of a trinity, but this Sunday’s readings make Him look two-faced. There’s the Old Testament God depicted as mean and vengeful in our first reading (nm 21:4b-9), striking swiftly after Moses’ flock complains about their conditions…
“If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.” This is Jesus’ advice, taken straight from this Sunday’s gospel reading (mt…
If there’s one thing Jesus and Satan had in common, it was their low estimation of Millennials. That was Jesus’ generation (Millennials of the FIRST Millennium), and repeatedly throughout the gospels Jesus is quoted saying some pretty harsh things about…
I don’t know what’s worse: saying you understand the mind of God or not even bothering to try. In this Sunday’s second reading (rom 11:33-36), Paul tells the Romans: “How inscrutable are [God’s] judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For…
Anyone who’s flummoxed by the mystery of the Holy Trinity might get some relief from this Sunday’s readings—especially the gospel passage from Matthew (mt 15:21-28). We get to see the Son and the Spirit converge into a miraculous act of…
My older brother and I came home one night in 1967 to an empty house. I was 11, my brother 18. No one there but a cop who told us our mother had a heart attack and was taken to the…
“Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. … I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.” (is 55:1-3) If we didn’t know this was a quote from the prophet…
I wonder if L. Frank Baum knew he was writing the parable of our age when he authored his “Wizard of Oz” series. Study this Sunday’s mass readings and you’ll realize they all contain elements of that story—or, I should…