Signs are important things, especially street signs; they tell us a lot. I notice kids love to twist signs around so they point in the wrong direction, maybe we’ve even done it ourselves, and most of us would have been a victim of that little trick once or twice in...
As we prepare for the Nativity of our Lord the issues that surround us this Advent season are enormous. Once more this year, we struggle to find peace – peace among the nations and among ethnic groups, peace in our own homeland, and peace between civilizations. Drug problem still plagues...
It can be hard for us to understand John the Baptist today as hard for us now as it was for the people who gathered in the wilderness to hear his words some 2000 years ago. Few people then really comprehended what he meant when he declared his mission was ...
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine, stands face-to-face with the Lord of the universe. Pilate is agitated by the circumstances, but thinking clearly because it’s still early. Jesus is exhausted from the first twelve hours of his passion, but his eyes glow with the love and determination that had...
Among the many memories of my youth I clearly remember the moment when it first dawned on me that when I died the world would go on happily without me. The thought came as an unpleasant shock, which no one else seemed particularly interested in sharing with me. ‘When I...
Every week, in our Liturgy of the Word, we meet new people. We see them interacting with one another, we listen to them speak, we admire them, pity them, are attracted to them or repulsed by them. Some are close to God, some are far from him, some repent, and...
In today’s gospel account we find Jesus at the threshold of Jerusalem. He was about to climb on a donkey and ride into Jerusalem, an event we celebrate every Palm Sunday. Bar-Timaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting begging along the way. We don’t know for how...
In the Gospel we hear today – as we have been hearing these past few weeks – a story of Disciples behaving badly, of Disciples not getting it, of Disciples missing the point that seems so obvious to us who listen with well trained ears. Can you believe it? These...
As I read this Sunday’s gospel, I wondered how divorced people feel to hear what Jesus is saying. It’s no secret that all of our communities are made up of people who have for one reason or another, divorced or annulled their marriage. In many cases these people have remarried. ...
In today’s gospel Jesus’ follows his dreadful parable about scandal in the Church and millstones around the neck with a thoroughly rational but breathtakingly radical teaching, “Cut it off!” Too often I see in the hospital men with red, swollen feet, and blackened toes. Obesity, alcohol, diabetes and tobacco, take...