Not God of the Dead
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The first reading today from 2 Maccabees is an amazing story of courage in the face of terrible persecution. Read it for yourself, because it ties directly in with today’s Gospel reading. In the Gospel reading today from Luke 20, Jesus talks about marriage and the resurrection. Some Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, […]
Who (or what) Will You Serve?
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St. Paul went through a lot in his life. Early on, he had it all. He was well off, well educated, well liked. But later he was beaten, thrown in prison and eventually martyred. In today’s first reading, he tells the secret of getting along in both situations. Read Philippians 4:13 for the answer. In […]
Win-Win for God
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In today’s first reading from Philippians 3, St. Paul speaks of people whose “God is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame’.” Funny, isn’t it, how some things never change? So many today glorify sin and sinful behavior to the point where they glory in it; it becomes their “God.” The parable in today’s […]
God's Odds
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In the first reading today from Philippians 3, St. Paul says that if anyone had a right to boast because of his pedigree, it was him. But all of his upbringing and righteousness meant nothing. “But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.” In the Gospel reading […]
Hating Your Family
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In the first reading today from Philippians 2, St. Paul says to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” He then goes on to say, “Do everything without grumbling or questioning.” In other words, St. Paul expects Christians to be positive people! Not always easy, but when we do, we will “shine like lights […]
Prayer for the Dead
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Today we celebrate All Souls Day. On this feast (and throughout the month of November) we pray for the souls of the faithful departed. To many non-Catholic Christians, this seems extraneous. After all, if someone is in heaven, they have no need of our prayers. And if someone is in hell, then our prayers would […]
All Saints Day
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Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. For the past 17 years, whenever this day falls on a weekday, I have a tradition of calling everyone with whom I speak on that day as St. (Your Name). It’s really a lot of fun! Why not try it today? Everyone you talk with today, call […]
Zacchaeus
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The character in today’s Gospel passage from Luke 19 is a favorite of kids the world over. Every time I read this story, I can hear the little song in my head that we used to sing to our children. “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up […]
Seeking the Lowest Place
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In the first reading from Philippians 1, St. Paul struggles with whether he would rather stick around on earth or go home to be with the Lord. Not a true death wish, but recognizing that the life to come will be eternity with Christ. But Paul realizes that he has a mission on earth to complete.  In […]
He Completes
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In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 14, we see another instance of Jesus healing someone on the sabbath. He then asks the scholars of the law and the Pharisees, “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” They never answered His […]
Hopeless Cause?
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Today is the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles. Typically I do your :60 on the daily Scripture readings. But I want to veer from the format today. The readings are the same as the feast days of other Apostles; Ephesians 2:19-22, which I recently wrote about, and Luke 6:12-16, which is the listing […]
The Gate to Heaven
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In today’s first reading from Ephesians 6, St. Paul talks about relationships. Relationships between parents and children, slaves and masters, God and us. He tells us that with God there is no partiality. He loves us all! In the Gospel reading, someone asks Jesus, “Will only a few be saved?” Jesus responds, “Strive to enter […]
Husbands and Wives
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In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 13, Jesus tells two short parables about the Kingdom of God. The first compares the Kingdom to a mustard seed, the other to yeast. Our first reading today from Ephesians 5 is one of the most misunderstood passages in all of the New Testament. The longer version is Ephesians […]
Imitators of God
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In the Gospel reading today from Luke 13, Jesus heals a woman who has been crippled for eighteen years. He does this on the sabbath. This infuriates the leader of the synagogue where this healing took place. He chastised Jesus and the woman. Jesus’ retort humiliates the man and all of Jesus’ adversaries. Read what […]
The Danger of Pride
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In the Gospel reading from Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about two people praying in the temple. A Pharisee thanks God that he is not like all the low-lifes out there, including a tax collector who is with him in the temple. “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole […]
Don't Give Up on Them
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In our first reading today from Ephesians 4, St. Paul talks about how grace has been given to each of us in different ways. He then goes on to explain some different ministries in the Body of Christ. In the Gospel reading today from Luke 13, Jesus tells an interesting parable. A landowner has a […]
Interpreting the Times
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In our first reading today from Ephesians 4, St. Paul urges his readers to “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.” I love this passage of Scripture because it first assumes that we have received a call. It […]
On Fire for Jesus
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Our first reading today from Ephesians 3 is, in essence, a prayer. St. Paul prays that the Father “may grant you…to be strengthened with power through his Spirit…and that Christ may dwell in your hearts…that you…may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Be sure to read St. Paul’s beautiful prayer for you! I […]
Pro-Lifer Runs Graphic TV Spots
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Here is the other TV spot that Missy Smith is running in her race for Congress. WARNING: THIS SPOT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES Â
Entrusted with Much
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In today’s first reading from Ephesians 3, St. Paul talks about the gifts that God has given him, and his responsibility to use them properly. This is a theme that will come up in the Gospel reading today. St. Paul also tells us about a couple of gifts that God has given to us…”we have […]
Vigilant
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There is a word used in the first reading today from Ephesians 2 four times. That word is peace. “For he (Christ Jesus) is our peace.” “…Thus establishing peace…” “He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near…” You think St. Paul is trying to get […]
St. Luke
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Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Luke. St. Luke is the author of two books of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. In fact, Acts may be considered a “sequel” to Luke’s Gospel, as that story picks up right where Luke ends. St. Luke is the only […]
Spiritual Telemarketers
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In the Gospel reading from Luke 18, Jesus tells the story of a widow who wants to get a ruling from a corrupt judge. She continues to pester him to give her a fair ruling. Because of her persistence, he finally does so. We need to pray like telemarketers. What do I mean by that? […]
Open to the Spirit
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In the Gospel reading from Luke 12, Jesus speaks of the importance of standing up for him. “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.” Something else Jesus says reminds me of something that I have really been working on in my life […]
A Good Cry
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When’s the last time you had a good cry? For me, it was towards the end of my silent retreat. I’ve shared before that I tend to be a pretty emotional guy. I like to say that I’m such a softie that I cry at toilet paper commercials on TV. While that may be a […]
God Notices You
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Why are we here? I mean, why do we exist? Is it to accumulate stuff? To, as Spock would say, live long and prosper? Perhaps it is only to serve our fellow man. Even though that is a noble thing, it is not the right answer. What is? St. Paul tells us in today’s first […]
Chosen
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In the first reading today, we begin reading St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This will be a very rich couple of weeks as we go through the book of Ephesians. In the Gospel reading today, we hear more woes coming from Jesus to the Pharisees and scholars of the law. He ticks them off […]
The Fruit of the Spirit
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Jesus was never one to mince words. We see this again today in the Gospel reading from Luke 11, where He is pronouncing woes on the Pharisees. When a scholar of the law hears this, he tells Jesus that they (the scholars of the law) feel insulted, too. So, just to even things up, Jesus […]
The Two Reeds
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Isn’t it interesting how so often God can give us messages through simple things that we may never even notice if our eyes aren’t open? I had a neat experience that would fall into this category on my recent silent retreat that I would like to share. I spent a lot of time during my […]
Outside vs. Inside
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God doesn’t care about anyone’s background. You don’t have to have any kind of “pedigree” to give your life to Christ. St. Paul puts it like this in today’s first reading: “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 11, […]
Reflections From a Retreat
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I recently went on a four day silent retreat at the Holy Name Monastery in Saint Leo, FL. I thought I would share a few of my experiences with you while I was there. First, here is a shot of the monastery’s sign through one of their garden areas at sunset. I started my retreat […]
Christ Set Us Free
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In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 11, Jesus says, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” Hmm…seems the more things change the more they stay the same. So many today are seeking a sign. They won’t believe until they see […]
Attitude of Gratitude
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In the Gospel reading from Luke 17, Jesus heals ten lepers. Yet only one comes back to thank him, and he was a Samaritan at that. One out of ten. Not good odds. I think if we look at our lives, there are probably an awful lot of things that we take for granted. Our […]
Blessings for All
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We hear more about justification and faith in today’s first reading from Galatians 3. “For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.” Good news, no? Lord, strengthen our faith this day. We have a very short Gospel passage today, only two short verses from Luke 11. A woman cries out to […]
Works of the Law
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Today in Galatians 3, St. Paul has strong things to say about faith and “works of the law.” More on that in a moment. In our Gospel reading from Luke 11, we see Jesus being accused of casting out demons “by the power of Beelzebul.” Jesus responds by asking how that could be. If that […]
Asking, Seeking, Knocking
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Today the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. To find out more about the Rosary, click here. I wonder how well received was the part of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians that we read today. It starts out with, “O stupid Galatians!” And again, “Are you so stupid?” Paul obviously […]
Hypocrisy Happens
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In the Gospel reading today from Luke 11, Jesus’ disciples come to Him and say, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus then teaches them the Lord’s Prayer, aka the Our Father. Of course, we know this prayer so well that we often recite it from memory without even thinking […]
The Gifts of Martha
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In our first reading today from Galatians 1, we read a bit about what happened to St. Paul after his conversion. He didn’t jump right into ministry after being called by Christ. He probably knew that, since he had been one of the greatest persecutors of the Church, that he would not be trusted or […]
St. Francis of Assisi
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Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. So, rather than comment on the Scriptures, I’m going to go a bit out of format for today. If you’re not familiar with the Prayer of St. Francis, then today would be a good day to familiarize yourself with it. And if you already know […]
Increase Our Faith
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In the Gospel reading today from Luke 17, the Apostles say to Jesus, “Increase our faith.” Interesting, isn’t it? I mean, here is a group of guys who have given up everything, family businesses, jobs, everything, to follow Jesus. And yet they still feel that they need an increase in faith. Jesus tells them, “If […]
Our Guardian Angels
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Today we celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels. In the optional first reading for the feast day from Exodus, we see God telling the people that he is sending an angel before them to lead and guide them. He says that He has given this angel His authority; they must listen to him. In […]
You Ain't God
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In the Gospel reading today from Luke 10, we hear more of Jesus’ words to the seventy-two as He sends them out. “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” We must always remember that Jesus’ authority lies in the Church […]
Shaking the Dust
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In the first reading today, we see more of Job’s great faith. While he was a miserable soul (and rightly so), he always knew that there was a purpose to his suffering, and that it would not end in vain. “I know that my Vindicator lives…Whom I myself shall see…And from my flesh I shall […]
Be an Angel
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Today we celebrate the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael – the Archangels. We truly celebrate all of the Holy Angels. Our readings reflect that. We have two options for the first reading. The first, from Daniel 7, contains a vision of heaven. Here we see “myriads upon myriads” attending to the Ancient One. […]
Calling Down Fire
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If Job were around today, he certainly would have been diagnosed with serious depression. In today’s first reading, he rues the very day that he was born. He knows that anything would be better than all the stuff he was suffering through. Yet through it all, he never curses God for his plight. In the […]
Job
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In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 9, the disciples are arguing amongst themselves about which of them is the greatest. Actually, this seems like pretty typical guy stuff. But Jesus takes a child to help straighten the men out. Jesus then gets a report about someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Trouble was, the […]
Eternal Riches
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In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 16, Jesus tells the Pharisees a story about a beggar named Lazarus and a rich man. Both of them die and wind up in opposite places. Some theologians say the rich man was in hell. Hell is the word used in many translations, Hades in others and netherworld in […]
Youth
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In the Gospel reading today from Luke 9, the disciples do not understand something that Jesus says. Even though they didn’t get it, they were afraid to ask Him about it. What was it that Jesus said that confounded them so? Read it for yourself! Have you ever heard the old saying, “Youth is wasted […]
Everything Has Its Time
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Today’s first reading is from Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every thing under the heavens.” If you’re a baby boomer like me, you can’t read that Scripture without hearing “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds in your head. Not a bad ear worm to have! In the […]
Vanity
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In the first reading today, we begin the book of Ecclesiastes. The book is something of a study in the futility of life here on earth. More in a moment. In the Gospel from Luke 9, we see Herod wondering about this Jesus character. He had heard much about him and was obviously very curious. […]