“If you love me you will keep my commandments” (Jo. 14:15). There’s a conditional quality to the word “if” in our Gospel today. “If” is a dependent word: it points to a certain situation that may or may […]
Learn more“I go to prepare a place for you” (Jo. 14:2). Some of you will remember the HBO series The Sopranos, which had its final episode in the early 2000s. Over six seasons viewers followed mob boss Tony Soprano […]
Learn more“Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:38). St. Francis of Assisi is supposed to have gotten his start when he heard the […]
Learn more“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk. 1:1). The gospels are called “the gospels” because of St. Mark the Evangelist, whose feast we celebrate today, and who describes the life, death, […]
Learn more“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven” (Acts 2:38). Each of us has a “life story”: that is, a narrative we tell ourselves of […]
Learn more“This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses” (Acts 2:32). If you’re a witness in court, there are two things going on. First, you know something that’s pertinent to the matter at hand, […]
Learn more“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed” (Jo. 20:1). There’s a quality of mystery to the story of […]
Learn more“When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom” (Lk. 4:16). The Gospel writer Luke catches Jesus on the move today, in the […]
Learn more“He kept saying, “I am the man’” (Jo. 9:9). So, who is the “man born blind”? We’re told over and over again that he was born blind: in fact it gets repeated six times in the course of […]
Learn more“A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’ (Jo. 4:7). In the ancient world, a lot of business got done at the local equivalent of the water fountain. People went […]
Learn more“The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Gen. 12:1). When God called Abram to leave his father’s family (in our first reading today), […]
Learn more“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; cf. Deut. 8:3). In our Gospel today, the fencing match between Jesus and the devil is purely verbal: […]
Learn more“You do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19). The season of Epiphany begins with […]
Learn more“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”(Matt. 5:13). “Salt of the earth,” from our Gospel today: an online definition of the expression uses the words […]
Learn more“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters” (1 Cor. 1:26). St. Paul wrote his letters, which make up a large part of the New Testament, to small Christian communities in Europe and Asia, hundreds of years ago. When […]
Learn more“Why are you standing here idle all day… You also go into the vineyard”(Matt. 20:6-7). Today we commemorate Phillips Brooks, a noted preacher and pastor, elected Bishop of Massachusetts not long before his untimely death around the turn […]
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