Today’s readings from the Book of Isaiah, the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians and the Gospel of Matthew speak of an invitation to the Great Feast of the Lord Jesus. Summarizing these readings, the first one is prophetic in nature. It speaks of the Great Feast that is...
Today, when listening to the readings, we heard similarities between the First Reading from the Book of Isaiah and the reading from the Gospel of Matthew. Both spoke on the same subject in different ways. The Book of Isaiah referred to this subject as “The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard”...
During today’s First Reading from the Book of Ezekiel, we learned that those who turn away from their wickedness by doing what is lawful and right, they will be saved. At the same time, those who were previously chosen and saved and who have turned away from their righteousness they...
The prophet Isaiah in our first reading passage today spoke of this call for all of us mankind to turn to God and to trust in the Lord in all that He had planned for us, responding to His call and follow Him into the path of righteousness. Contextually,...
In the Church today there are two groups of people: Those who believe we should forgive because otherwise God won’t forgive us. Those who believe we should forgive because God has already forgiven us. Each one of us here would do well to ask ourselves which group we belong to....
Jesus is speaking here to his disciples about correction within the community of believers. The manner of this correction is aimed at preserving communion even if, ultimately, the offender refuses correction and shows himself to be outside the communion of the Church. It is important to note immediately that Jesus...
The secular, godless, materialistic world has two great enemies – suffering and death. From these two calamities it seeks to be delivered by its many gods: medicine, technology, psychology, science, and so on. For a Christian, things are very different. The worst thing that can befall a Christian is sin...
What was it that Jesus was trying to do in his preaching? Almost every parable, every story he tells, his entire message is really about one thing – the kingdom of heaven. Think about it. Each parable begins with the words “The kingdom of heaven is like……” When he teaches...
Today’s Reading from the Gospel of Matthew, [Mt. 15:21-28] the account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman, is one of the rare encounters of Jesus with Gentiles. As you all heard earlier, when Jesus went to the district of Tyre and Sidon, [Mt. 15:21] in Southern Phoenicia, He was approached...
The account of this miracle is recorded in the Gospel so that we, like the disciples in the boat, might bow down before Jesus and acknowledge him to be the Son of God. In fact, all Jesus’ words and deeds were done for this reason: so that you may believe...