Sunday Reflections

The Easter Season beautifully and powerfully makes clear that God (God) pursues us – and each one of us! God is a God Who is madly in love with all of us and each one of us!  Our Beloved Hound of Heaven! Today’s Scripture Readings ooze with this depiction.  The depth of God’s love for us is incomprehensible; and how far God goes because of this blows our mind because this love is infinite, unmistakable, unstoppable and overwhelming.

Resurrectionists are called to build, and to teach others to build, a Christian community “in which all can experience the hope, joy, and peace of Christ’s Resurrection” (Charism Statement of the Congregation of the Resurrection).  Our gospel today focuses on the peace that the Risen Lord longs to bestow upon the early disciples and upon us today.  Like the early disciples, we can find ourselves anxious and disturbed, not only by the trials and tribulations of our daily lives, but also by the troubling events of our world.  In the midst of these disconcertin

During the lengthy Lenten season we have avoided the ‘A’ word, Alleluia.  Now it is time to proclaim it loud – ALLELUIA!!  The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not only a date on the calendar – April 21 this year – or even the weeks that the Easter candle continues in the sanctuary of the Church, but should be about the attitude of hope that we bring to the world.  This is the Charism of the Congregation of the Resurrection – hope – that God can do the impossible and the improbable.  The disciples did not understand the words of Jesus about his ‘rising’.  They

Today is among the most important liturgical days in the year; so listen to today’s scriptural readings very closely and absorb them into your very being!  There is a great amount of salvation history in them that calls us to make today’s readings the core of our being.

One of the most significant phrases in the Gospels emerges this Sunday when Jesus says "neither do I condemn you" to the woman caught in adultery.  By law, Jesus had every right to condemn her but he chooses not to.  Perhaps even a compassionate glance accompanied his words that continue to soften so many hardened hearts. 

Sometimes the Scriptures bring forth a strong reaction from people.  I find this to be one of them, like in Matthew 20:1-16 (the workers in the vineyard), which brings people to say, “It’s not fair!”  Many identify with the other son, the one who was dutiful and faithful, obedient and hard working.  Thus, they feel ‘hard done by’ and protest such a forgiving father.  It is difficult for some to understand that the ‘logic’ of God is not ours.  Instead of 2 + 2 = 4, God tells us that 2 + 2 = 5.  It may not make sense, but that is the way of God.  The gospel

We are presently well into this Holy Season of Lent.  Who is this “we”? All of us baptized into Jesus Christ who form the Body of Christ made visible and present here on earth – all of us who incarnate the Risen One in order to proclaim His Saving Gospel for the world.

Unfortunately at this time we are the Christian Community also hanging our heads in shame and sorrow because of the greatest abominable shame in the Church’s History – that of sexual abuse within the Church.  It is like a huge malignant cancer throughout the world that rests at our feet!

The story of the fall in the Garden of Eden is about humanity’s inability to trust in God, but it is also the story about how God never compels, but continues to invite humanity into a relationship that depends upon God’s graciousness. While the first man and woman could not trust in the creator and his ways, Abraham stands as one who responds to God’s invitation and is justifiably called the “Father of Faith.”

The temptations of Jesus call our attention to one of the goals of the Lenten season – to overcome the attraction to evil, temptation and sin.  We don’t have to look far outside ourselves, or around us, to see such sources.  Jesus, as God-made-man, shows us how to resist temptation.  He forever had his eyes on the will of the Father.  This special ‘sight’ helped him to constantly distinguish between the call to grace, and the call to evil, temptation and sin.  Our temptation may not be bread, power, and security, but the evil one knows us well enough to know exactly

THE WORD OF GOD! What happens when we encounter the Word of God, let us say at Sunday Mass?  Looking back quickly on my long priestly ministry, I notice that the approach usually taken was to roll up our sleeves and tackle the Word to get Its’ message.  When stated this way, we realize a problem immediately – we do not master the Word but we should let the Word master us!