Today's Scripture readings are all about prayer. Jesus tells us a parable that encourages us to pray with persistence and then stresses the good fatherhood of God, who loves it when we ask for things. In the first reading, Abraham boldly and persistently addresses his concerns and questions to God. But the highlight of the readings is certainly Luke's version of the "Our Father", which reminds us that God does indeed gift us with "memorized prayers", mercifully giving us the words to pray when w...
Jul 28, 2025•15 min•Ep. 516
One of the themes that is often forgotten when we discuss the Gospel scene of Martha and Mary at their home with Jesus is the virtue of hospitality. This is brought home by the fact that the Church pairs this Gospel with the first reading from Genesis, where Abraham and Sarah show hospitality to God Himself, appearing as three men. In another place in the Gospel, Jesus says, "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me!" May we all value and grow in thi...
Jul 22, 2025•14 min•Ep. 515
In today's Gospel Jesus helps us to see who our "neighbor" is (anyone whom God places in our path), and he calls us to be inconvenienced and involved in the lives of those who need help. Reflecting on how Jesus has done this for us, may we say "yes" to his call: "Go and do likewise!"
Jul 13, 2025•12 min•Ep. 514
Today's challenging Gospel gives us the opportunity to reflect on God's call to mission for each one of us Christians. What is my mission? In each particular way that God calls us, we are going to experience at times our poverty and weakness that forces us to rely on God's strength and not our own. The harvest is abundant, so may the Lord of the Harvest give us the grace to go out on mission, where we will experience God's power working through our weakness.
Jul 07, 2025•13 min•Ep. 513
Whenever June 29 falls on a Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul instead of the normal Sunday in Ordinary Time. When this happens, we have the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the Church and its masculine, hierarchical dimension. This aspect of the Church gives us the grace of the Sacraments and the guarantee of the truth of her teachings. Yet, the constant conviction of the Church is that her nature is fundamentally feminine, as the "Bride of Christ." Learning to be ...
Jul 01, 2025•14 min•Ep. 512
350 years ago, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary, exposing for her His Sacred Heart, He called His Heart the "Sacrament of Love". He was referring the the Holy Eucharist. When Jesus gives us His Body and Blood, He is giving us His Heart. What does this mean for Jesus? And what does this mean for us who receive Holy Communion?
Jun 22, 2025•14 min•Ep. 511
Today we celebrate the central mystery of the Christian faith: That the one God is a Communion of Love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While God never needed to reveal this to us, He did in Jesus Christ. As if this wasn't amazing enough, He chooses to allow us to share with Him the Divine Life by giving us of His Spirit -- the Love which flows between Father and Son.
Jun 15, 2025•13 min•Ep. 510
Some of those who were witnesses of the transformation of the disciples at Pentecost and their joyful praising of God accused them of being drunk with "new wine." The Fathers of the Church says that they were! They were inebriated with the new wine of the Holy Spirit, which results in the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, etc. May we experience the closeness (and gladness) to God that the Holy Spirit brings!
Jun 08, 2025•11 min•Ep. 509
The account of Jesus's ascension into heaven in the Acts of the Apostles gives us the detail that Jesus is taken up in a cloud. From a Scriptural perspective, this is a sign that Jesus is not going "up, up, and away" but rather into God. This actually the meaning of what we profess in the Nicene Creed: "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father." Jesus goes into the realm of God, which is also heaven. As Pope Benedict taught, heaven is not a place but a person. To ent...
Jun 02, 2025•11 min•Ep. 508
In today's Gospel Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Clearly Jesus is distinguishing his own peace from the peace that the world has to offer, but what is the difference? How can we seek Christ's peace and not simply what the world considers to be peace?
May 26, 2025•13 min•Ep. 507
We recognize our graduating seniors this Sunday at Holy Family, and we have a beautiful Gospel with which to do so. Jesus commands his disciples (and us): "As I have loved you, so you must also love one another." What does Jesus mean by "love" and is his meaning different from the way we usually understand it? Is he commanding us to have warm feelings for each other? To like each other? We explore the various meanings of "to love" in Greek and look at how Jesus uses the word "agape" to define wh...
May 19, 2025•14 min•Ep. 506
On this Good Shepherd Sunday, the Church and world rejoice that a new Shepherd for the Church has been named, Pope Leo XIV. The Gospels make it clear both that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that he Shepherds through Peter (and by extension through the bishops and their priests). May we rejoice today that Jesus is our Shepherd and that He shepherds us through the Church!
May 11, 2025•15 min•Ep. 505
In today's Gospel, Jesus is standing by a charcoal fire, and he invites his disciples to come towards him for breakfast. There is a deeper significance going on here, because the last time we saw a charcoal fire in the Gospel, it was in the courtyard of the high priest, while Jesus was awaiting trial. Peter stood by the fire, warming himself, and it was there that three times he denied knowing Jesus. Now at this charcoal fire, Jesus invites Peter to confess his love for him three times, forgivin...
May 04, 2025•10 min•Ep. 504
Happy Easter! I've finally been watching "The Chosen" series, and I love it. Although it goes far beyond the Scriptural narrative, it makes me think about the personal stories of those who surround Jesus. How did they come to follow Jesus? What is their story? As we hear about the bravery of Mary Magdalene this morning, who not only accompanied Jesus on the Way of the Cross but also courageously visited his tomb on Easter morning, we can wonder, "What is her Jesus story?" What is mine? What is y...
Apr 20, 2025•16 min•Ep. 503
In today's Passion account from John's Gospel, the author goes out of his way to tells us that the narrative begins and end in a garden. Obviously, the author is hearkening back to the beginning of Genesis and the Garden of Eden. It was there, as a result of man's disobedience, that man lost favor with God and was exiled from the garden. But now in this new garden, the New Adam has responded to God with obedience, thus cancelling out my death sentence for my own disobedience. Let us venerate the...
Apr 19, 2025•5 min•Ep. 502
Tonight the Church gives us the Gospel of John, which gives us a unique account of the Last Supper. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, and then tells them that they must do the same. Tonight we celebrate the Institution of the Priesthood and two of the Sacraments that only the priest can celebrate: Reconciliation and the Eucharist.
Apr 18, 2025•8 min•Ep. 501
Today as we reflect on the Passion narrative from Luke's Gospel, we can't help but see how the totality of evil and human dysfunction flood over Jesus. But we also can't help but see what comes from Jesus during the Passion: healing and forgiveness and mercy. May we always see the Passion as our safe harbor and refuge as Jesus suffers the consequences for our sins and reconciles us to the Father!
Apr 14, 2025•8 min•Ep. 500
In today's 2nd reading from Philippians, Paul tells us that he considers all of this as "loss". If we open our Bibles, we realize what is the "this" he is talking about: Paul has a pure, Jewish heritage, and he has been a faithful follower of the Law. For much of his life he took pride in this privilege and accomplishment. Yet, when he met Christ, he was radically changed. From thence forward, he knew that his righteousness would come from Christ and not from his own achievement. May we too leav...
Apr 07, 2025•16 min•Ep. 499
This Sunday's amazing readings bring us back to the heart of our faith: Christ has accomplished his Passover for us, and we have been saved by the baptismal waters. Yet we remain in a period of trial and testing until we ourselves reach the Promised Land. What rejoicing there is in heaven when we repent and return to the Father, who makes us into a new creation: His Son.
Apr 02, 2025•14 min•Ep. 498
Jesus responds in a most surprising (and off-putting) way to those who bring him the news of yet another atrocity committed against believers by the Roman legate Pontius Pilate: Instead of saying, "Oh, how terrible that he did that to those people," he says, "Unless you repent you will all die as they did." Jesus's unmistakable message today is, "Repent!" May we respond during this Lenten season to this urgent command of our Savior!
Mar 23, 2025•13 min•Ep. 497
In the Transfiguration of Jesus, Christ's divine nature shines forth in a strange and wonderful way. Interestingly, this revelation of his divinity does not diminish or destroy Jesus's humanity in any way but it is precisely through and out of Jesus's humanity that the divine light shines forth! In our life, too, grace does not lessen our humanity but rather it elevates, enlightens, and glorifies it.
Mar 16, 2025•12 min•Ep. 496
As Adam was driven into the wilderness because of sin, so Christ goes out into the desert wilderness to rescue us from our exile.
Mar 16, 2025•12 min•Ep. 495
Homily from Ash Wednesday 2025.
Mar 16, 2025•9 min•Ep. 494
