The power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit are the themes I took away from today’s mass. In the gospel Jesus says he is the vine and we are the branches. Branches must be pruned every once in a while…

Today’s mass offered a good reminder of the connection between our occupations and our identities. Christ identified himself as a shepherd who is so good at his job that he knows each sheep in his flock and they know him.…

In today’s gospel, the disciples see Jesus in the flesh. Knowing their friend was crucufied, rather than be delighted at seeing their teacher alive again, they were horrified. “In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing…

Today’s gospel was close to my heart. It starred Thomas “Didimus,” my patron saint. He personifies the human condition: doubt. This worldly life has conditioned us to believe only what we can see. Thomas was one of the 12 who…

The last line of today’s gospel says a lot about the Christian faith: “Till this moment they had still not understood the scripture, that He must rise from the dead.” Even His most fervent followers had a hard time grasping…

Our Savior rode into His kingdom on a donkey, not as a King but as a Slave. But He didn’t hide his true identity which also happened to be His mission–to save our souls by freeing us to be slaves…

In today’s gospel Jesus show Himself to be the ideal of bravery and wisdom. Every saint who followed Jesus had that ideal branded into their soul and were willing to lay down their life so Jesus’ teachings may live. His…

In today’s gospel we hear of people who hide from the light and those who are drawn to it: “though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And…

Today’s first reading had bracketed text. You know when you see brackets in a reading the editors of that missal you’re reading consider the text within them either extraneous or embarrassing to modern audiences. The brackets in today’s case surrounded…

I may come off sounding a bit heretical here, but I have an alternative take on today’s first and gospel readings. The first reading was about God’s test of Abraham. The common teaching is that God wanted to test Abraham’s…