Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C
Happy Dependence Day! That’s right, it’s Dependence day, not Independence Day. Let me explain.
Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time • Year C
In general, there are three sorts of questions we encounter daily. First, there are things that sound like questions, but really aren’t. Second, things that don’t sound like questions, but really are. Third, there are real questions.
For instance, when we walk by someone we know in an office hallway or on campus or at the store, one of us says, “Hi! How are you?” Usually, we don’t want a real answer. If the person we have greeted stops and starts telling us about his recent medical exam, or about her mother in Altoona, generally we aren’t happy about it. It wasn’t a real question.
Third Sunday of Ordinary Time • Year C
Can you imagine what those final words of Jesus that we hear today might have meant to the people gathered in the little synagogue of Nazareth on that Sabbath day two thousand years ago! In fact, if we were to have continued reading we would have heard that initially their reaction was very positive. They spoke highly of Jesus and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. But they were also a little puzzled, for these were his neighbors; they had watched him grow up; he had played with their children; they knew him well and so wondered what this carpenter, the son of Joseph and Mary, could mean by “this passage is now fulfilled!”
Second Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C
We live in very uncertain times. Where are we going as a world, as a nation, as a church? Our political environment at this time is very charged, to say the least. The debates about the direction of our country have, at times, been fierce, even to the point of incivility.
Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
Having recently returned to the Gospel of St. Mark, after several weeks of hearing St. John’s discourse on the Eucharist, we discovered in last week’s Gospel that Jesus is attempting to open our minds and hearts both to what defiles us from within and also defines us as children of God. If we were to take last week’s Gospel at face value, we might find ourselves quite depressed over the listing of vices that can come forth from within each of us; vices that arequite prevalent in the very world that we live in.
Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
In general, there are three sorts of questions we encounter daily. First, there are things that sound like questions, but really aren’t. Second, things that don’t sound like questions, but really are. Third, there are real questions.
For instance, when we walk by someone we know in an office hallway or on campus or at the store, one of us says, “Hi! How are you?” Usually, we don’t want a real answer. If the person we have greeted stops and starts telling us about his recent medical exam, or about her mother in Altoona, generally we aren’t happy about it. It wasn’t a real question.
Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
One of these scenarios has happened to all of us:
• You keep your Saturday afternoon schedule clear so you can watch a baseball game.
• You shuffle the children off to their grandparents so you and your husband can have one dinner where no milk is spilled, no food goes airborne, and the conversation involves more than the latest adventures of “Dora the Explorer.”
• You finally find a few hours to start that book or watch that movie everyone has been recommending.
And then the phone rings.
Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
“So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
Hospitality was a sacred duty in the East. When a stranger entered a village, it was not his duty to search for hospitality; it was the duty of the village to offer it.
Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
Some years ago, W. Timothy Gallwey wrote a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. In it Gallwey tells how one cold winter night he was driving from Maine to New Hampshire. It was about midnight, and he was on a deserted country road. Suddenly his Volkswagen skidded on an icy curve, slammed into a snowbank, and stalled.
Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B
The Gospel this Sunday addresses healing–our need for it, and Jesus as the source of it. Each of us, our families and our churches, our country and our world need healing. There is nothing more evident to us as we live in this moment of time. How can we find this healing?