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Imagine that your best friend is leaving town and there is no way to change things. How would you feel? What would you do with your sorrow? This seems to be the scene in this weekend’s gospel. Jesus is comforting his disciples because he is moving, not just to a different town, but away from this world. His departure is certain and there is nothing the disciples can do about it. [Click here to read more]

Before his passion, our Lord gives a ‘New Commandment.’ This is a commandment of love, which would characterize the new community he is establishing, which is the church. Jesus says, love one another (not as yourself, which is already admonished in the Old Testament, but as he, Jesus, loves you). This begs the question, how has Jesus loved us? And the response would be: “Look at the Cross.” His dying and rising are proof of his love. The cross demonstrates the extent to which he would go for love of us. [Click to read more]

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is popularly called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because each year the Gospel reading is from John 10, the “Good Shepherd Discourse.” On this day prayers are offered for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, because priests and religious are visible manifestations to us of Christ in his role as the Good Shepherd. [Click to read more]

What inspiration can Christians today gain from the defiance of the disciples? They had been instructed by the Sanhedrin not to preach in the name of the risen Christ again. These fearful men, who only some days before, had fled and abandoned the Lord as he went to his death, now stand in defiance before the highest Jewish authority. Where did they get this courage? [Click here to read more}