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The Eucharist is in its very core an act of Thanksgiving. We give thanks to God who is the source of our being, and who keeps us in existence. This is the most fitting thing to do. And as we respond in the Preface, “it is right and just.” This weekend the church begins a new Liturgical season, the season of Advent. Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas. Major feasts in the church are marked by a period of preparation... [Click here to read more]

This weekend the church celebrates the Solemnity of Jesus Christ the Universal King. This feast was inaugurated for the universal church by Pope Pius XI in 1925 with the encyclical letter, Quas Primas. Pope Pius attributed the evils of the time to the fact that men had cast Jesus and his holy laws out of their lives. These had no place in people’s private or political lives. This rejection of Jesus as Savior and the refusal to come under his reign will continue to make peace elusive. This feast was therefore to call all people to acknowledge Jesus’ supremacy as King over all of creation and to submit to his kingship... [Click to read more]

As the liturgical season draws to its end, we will begin to see a shift in focus to the end of time, the last days, judgment and what follows. Last weekend the first reading presented us with the example of a Hebrew mother and her sons who demonstrated courage in the face of persecution, even to the point of willingly accepting bodily death in defense of the faith and traditions of their fathers. The story offered us one of the earliest Old Testament references to the belief in the resurrection, a life after death, implied in belief in the restoration of severed limbs. The saints, the heroes of our faith, did not see this earthly life as all there is. They believed that there is life even after death. And this faith urged them to live joyfully even when people treated them with contempt and so much hate. They knew that their destination was not this world, but the world which Christ had gone to prepare after his resurrection and ascension. [Click here to continue reading]

One of the core tenets of the Christian faith is belief in the resurrection from the dead. We believe that death is not the end, but that life continues even after bodily death. This faith is anchored in the belief that Christ both died and rose from the dead. He is the first fruit from the dead, and by his rising has won victory over death for those who believe in him. We believe that when our own earthly sojourn concludes in death, we too will rise with Christ again...

One might wonder what a wealthy and popular man like Zacchaeus was doing rubbing shoulders with commoners, wanting to see an itinerant preacher of no standing, like Jesus? Should he not rather be hobnobbing with famous rabbis, instead of a wandering Jew of no pedigree? On the contrary, Zacchaeus humbled himself to seek Jesus. However, he had some impediments that made his quest a herculean one...

God always hastens to the aid of the weak and oppressed. This does not imply partiality on God’s part, because the judge of all the earth cannot be unjust. God does not support the weak simply because they are weak, but because they have no one but the Lord. Weakness is not a virtue in itself. However, there is the perception of weakness as an effect of injustice. Orphans and widows come under the category of the weak, the poor, and often, oppressed. They become the privileged recipients of God’s solicitude...

The First reading for this weekend narrates a dramatic victory won by the Israelites against the Amalekites. Moses positioned himself on a hill, a posture of prayer and held up the staff of God, a symbol of his authority...God gave victory to this aggregate of people whom he had chosen as his own. It was not on account of anything they had done, but because God wanted a relationship with them. [Click to read more]

Gratitude is the central theme in the readings for this weekend. Every year, we have the privilege of celebrating Thanksgiving Day. I would typically ask people what they were thankful for. I notice how difficult it could be for people to verbalize what they were grateful for. We take things for granted that we do not realize that everything is grace, and that we receive everything we have freely from the loving hands of God. For example, we get accustomed to good health that we do not realize to what extent people are willing to go to regain their health or stay healthy. Today, permit me to ask you, “What are you thankful for?” Do you consider that there is someone deserving of your gratitude or do you take favors done to you for granted? There is a saying among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, “Not to be grateful for favors received is to have stolen them.” Rendered differently, “The ungrateful person is worse than a thief.” It is appropriating what one had received as though one had a right to it. [Click to read more]

This weekend we celebrate the Feast of our patroness, St. Thérèse, the Little Flower of Jesus (October 1). We thank all who joined in praying the Novena leading up to this feast day. We also were blessed with the opportunity to spend time with our Eucharistic Lord in adoration. Thanks to all who visited whether for a short time or for a long period. Like our heavenly patroness, we too are friends of Jesus. And our friendship grows every time we spend time with him. [Click to read more]

The prophet Amos champions the cause of the poor and speaks of God’s displeasure for injustice against the poor. He is relentless in preaching that wrongs perpetrated against the poor always have repercussions. In this weekend’s first reading, Amos communicates God’s word to the oppressors of the poor that they would be taken into exile not only for actively perpetrating injustice against the poor, but for neglecting to come to their help. We see this repeated in the Gospel story of Lazarus and the rich man. [Click to read more]

I ask that you ponder on the readings for this weekend. Both the First and Gospel readings challenge us to evaluate our attitude to money or material possession. Money is the major contender with God for human hearts. Jesus said, “you cannot serve both God and mammon” (Luke 16:13)... [Click to read more]

The people who came out of Egypt (First Reading) rejoiced at their liberation from slavery, but this joy was short lived. No sooner had they left Egypt than they craved what they perceived to be the good life of Egypt. Their greed and insatiable desires pushed Moses to the edge. They lost sight of God’s promise of freedom and plenty because they wanted things to work according to their own schedule and timing. They wanted to be like the nations that surrounded them, and they wanted a God they could domesticate, rather than a transcendent reality whom they had no grip on. [Click to read more]

St. Teresa of Calcutta’s List of Ways to Cultivate Humility

The Eucharist is a sacrificial meal, “the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood.” Its fundamental pattern is found in the Jewish celebration of the Passover, which involves both a meal and a sacrifice. [Click to read more]

The Sacrifice of Christ 8. To begin to comprehend the tremendous gift offered by Christ through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, that gift that is made present to us in the Eucharist, we must first realize how truly profound is our alienation from the Source of all life as a result of sin. We have abundant experience of evil, yet so many of us deny the cause of much of that evil—our own selfishness, our own sins. As St. John wrote in his first letter, If we say, “we are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 Jn 1:8). 9. Sin is an offense against God, a failure to love God and our neighbor that wounds our nature and injures human solidarity.

This weekend’s readings speak about the difficulty associated with prophetic ministry. It is fraught with danger for the prophet. Jeremiah was persecuted and rejected (First Reading), and Our Lord Jesus tells us that rejection comes with following him. Some people might have difficulty reconciling a Jesus who preached peace and reconciliation with the one speaking in this weekend’s gospel. We might wonder why Jesus is saying he has come for war rather than for peace, to stir up strife within families, rather than mend relationships. However, this is not the sense Jesus is communicating to his listeners in the gospel... [Read more here]

This week I thought to share a reflection from Gerald Darring in hopes that you find it helpful as you respond to the Lord’s invitation to discipleship. "We are a people who have been promised inheritance and life; we are 'heirs of the same promise' made to Abraham. We have, therefore, put our hope in God: 'our soul waits for the Lord,' who will come when we least expect him... [Click to read more]

Qoheleth, the protagonist of the book of Ecclesiastes, speaks of the vanity of human existence. All our toils under the sun amount to nothing. At face value, this represents a dark and nihilistic attitude to life. It would be a terrible way to live if one held such an extremely negative view about life. We believe that the world was created good by God, and it is the best world that God could create. The evils we see in the world are largely consequences of human sin... [Click to keep reading]

A young mother called asking for help with rent. Nothing unusual there; it is a frequent request. Her story, however, still leaves us in awe.   She is the oldest of five children, all of whom, including herself, were abused by their mother, a drug addict who was in and out of jail. She had her first child at a very young age, and two others soon after... [Click to read more]

Persistence. This is the word that comes to mind as I reflect on the readings for this weekend. Abraham prevails with God until he quits. Imagine what difference his persistence would have made. The man in the Gospel gets his request because he persists. Jesus promises those who ask, seek and knock whatever they need... [Click here to read more]