-
Lent 2023
Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Feb 21, 2023 (message contributor)
-
1. This Lent Get Your Passions Under Control
Contributed on Feb 21, 2023
We take pleasure in the lesser goods of earth–food, drink, beauty, sex. And if we take too much pleasure there, we can treat them as if they were the highest good and we fall into sin.
Ash Wednesday Homily What brings us here today so early? We are here because we want something. Not a mere smear of black soot, no. If that were our goal, we’d be certifiably insane. We are here because we want at the end of our lives to be united with the Blessed Trinity forever, body and soul, ...read more
-
2. The Pre-Conditions God Sets For Us In His Mercy
Contributed on Feb 22, 2023
God turns away from our fasting unless we are getting our behavior together
Saturday of the First Week in Lent Today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah is the second part of a very late prophecy, one that appears to have been written down years after the Babylonian exile. The prophet Zechariah tells us that in this late period, there were fasts in the fourth, fifth, ...read more
-
3. The Struggle With Satan Lent Sunday 1
Contributed on Feb 23, 2023
Was the Lord bragging about how He defeated the old Worm, man’s adversary, Satan? No.
First Sunday of Lent 2023 How did St. Matthew come by the story he shared in today’s Gospel? It was easy to understand the first line, what happened when Jesus, who was fresh from His baptism by John, where the Holy Spirit came upon Him in form of a dove, went into the wilderness of Judea. ...read more
-
4. Playing No Favorites--Like God Does
Contributed on Feb 28, 2023
Jesus tells us today not just to forgive our enemies, something we heard earlier in the Gospel, but to wish them well, to do good to them, and, yes, to love them.
Saturday of the First Week of Lent 2023 One of the worst heresies of the past two thousand years, an opinion that keeps coming back with almost predictable regularity, is the error first heard in early times from Marcion. The idea is that the God of the OT was a harsh, vindictive judge, almost ...read more
-
5. Jesus On Two Mountains
Contributed on Mar 3, 2023
It's hardly possible to contemplate Mt. Tabor without thinking of Mt. Calvary.
Second Sunday of Lent 2023 After St. Aelred I don’t know if it is possible to hear the Gospel accounts–any of them–of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mt. Tabor without thinking of another elevation a few miles away. I mean the holy hill we call Mt. Calvary, where Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of ...read more
-
6. Has The Way Of The Most High Changed?
Contributed on Mar 8, 2023
God loves us. He wants to shed His grace–His very divine life–on every human being.
Saturday of the Second Week in Lent 2023 Every four weeks, those of us who pray the Church’s official morning prayer encounter Psalm 77, which is a lament by a temple Levite. Things are not going well for Israel, in this man’s view, and after reviewing all the awful things that have been ...read more
-
7. Water, Life And Divine Forgiveness
Contributed on Mar 9, 2023
Jesus was on earth to forgive our sins and raise us to divine status.
Third Sunday of Lent 2023 Take a moment as we settle down from a very long Gospel, close your eyes but stay awake. Think of the best person you know who is not a relative. This person, man or woman, is honest, self-controlled, just to a fault, and cheering to everyone. The best person you know. ...read more
-
8. Only Then May We Celebrate
Contributed on Mar 14, 2023
The truly repentant one knows where the problem is. It’s in his own mind, which he bows down to the Almighty, and in his heart, which he beats as he prays.
Saturday of the 3rd Week in Lent 2023 When we read the Gospel passage that looks into the minds and hearts of the Pharisee and the tax collector, we see two entirely different ideas of sin and repentance. The first, which is way more popular than the other, is what is called “comparative” ...read more
-
9. Always More To Do
Contributed on Mar 17, 2023
Take a fresh look at familiar Scriptures: we are all sinners in need of repentance and grace. If we want to be saints, there’s always more to do.
Fourth Sunday of Lent 2023 Laetare Sunday; Rejoice Sunday. We are about halfway through the season of Lent. So how do you know that there’s more work to do to become more like Christ before the Paschal celebration of Easter? Look at it with a sense of humor. You are on Greta Thunberg’s speed dial, ...read more
-
10. The Master Of Plot-Twists
Contributed on Mar 21, 2023
God is a master at plot twists, isn’t He?
Solemnity of the Incarnation 2023 The prophet Isaiah was, in my opinion, a master of irony. Although King Ahaz, who was king over a territory about the size of a Texas county and thus a kind of rump king, had allied his little nation with the huge Assyrian empire, that big gang of thieves was ...read more
-
11. Looking Forward To The Reward
Contributed on Mar 23, 2023
This flesh of ours, when given the choice of visiting a prayer chapel or going to a wild party, pushes us to choose the party.
Fifth Sunday of Lent 2023 It’s very easy for us to be so taken with today’s Gospel that we push aside the short Epistle taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. So let’s look at what he is telling this relatively young community of Jews and Gentiles who have believed in the Gospel of ...read more
-
12. Grand Dream Or Magnificent Reality?
Contributed on Mar 30, 2023
Here was the man who showed by His mighty works that He could perhaps make the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah and all the other prophets happen.
Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent 2023 Let’s start off our reflection with a few facts that need to be remembered if we are to understand why the Church gives us these rich Scripture passages to consider today: First, the prophecy of Ezekiel the priest was given to the Babylonian exiles about six ...read more
-
13. The Passion Of Jesus: What And Why And Who
Contributed on Mar 31, 2023
Don’t waste the week. Come into intimate contact with the God-man and His redemptive death.
Palm/Passion Sunday 2023 We have just proclaimed some of the longest, most intense Scriptures of our Christian year, informing us and all the world of the what and why and who of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ not quite two thousand years ago. These words invite long contemplation; the ...read more
-
14. Did Judas Do Any Good?
Contributed on Apr 5, 2023
Judas got nothing good–not pleasure or honor or power. He ended up being the only person in the Bible whom God judged as being better off never being born.
Wednesday of Holy Week 2023 It does not seem terribly fair what happened to poor Kerioth-born Judas, as Matthew records it. He sells out Jesus for what in today’s currency would be about $260. Then, seeing Jesus condemned to death, he changes his mind and attempts to return the money to the ...read more