“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Matthew 6:6 It would be a great grace of Lent if we were to become aware of our greatest pretenses and then have the courage to…[read more]
When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together he rebuked the unclean spirit and said to him: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you. Go out from him, and never enter him again.” And after shouting and convulsing him greatly it went out. And he became like a dead man so that many…[read more]
“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day.…[read more]
So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.” . . . David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord,…[read more]
Matthew’s infancy narrative uniquely features the figure of Joseph at its center. So little is revealed about him, and yet, as we approach the end of Advent and the coming of Christmas, he challenges us to awaken to the Divine presence, activity, and call in our own lives. No matter what our intentions each year, the final days before Christmas inevitably have about them a sense of the hectic and compressed. There never seems to be enough time to do all that must be done in preparation for the coming celebration. So caught do we become in the stress of…[read more]
At the parish where I attend Sunday liturgy, there is a custom of a member of the parish giving a brief personal reflection after communion during Advent. Last Sunday the woman who is often the leader of song at the Saturday evening mass spoke. She has a very good and strong voice, and there is a joy and vibrancy in her singing that is unmistakable. She began her reflection with a question she is often asked which is why do you seem so joyful as you sing. She mentioned that this is due in part to her basically joyful disposition…[read more]
On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, / And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. / The lowly will ever find joy in the Lord, / And the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. / For the tyrant will be no more…[read more]
On this first weekday of Advent, we pray that when the Lord comes and knocks, we shall be found “watchful in prayer.” To be in prayer is to be awake and watchful in a way far more truly and distinctively human than the way we are present to life much of the time. In today’s gospel Jesus exclaims to his disciples that in no person in Israel has he found the faith that the centurion manifests. For what Jesus experiences among his own people is what he well may experience among his church today when he comes. He may find…[read more]
Suddenly, opposite the lampstand, the fingers of a human hand appeared, writing on the plaster of the wall in the king’s palace. When the king saw the hand that wrote, his face became pale; his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook, and his knees knocked. Daniel 5:5-6 It will lead to your giving testimony.…[read more]
So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, a person who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise a person in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of…[read more]
“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Matthew 6:6 It would be a great grace of Lent if we were to become aware of our greatest pretenses and then have the courage to…[read more]
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