Posts from 2025 (Page 3)

We are swamped with words. Some poisonous like gossip; some devastating like slander; others unsettling like rumors and criticism. Most of them, though, are empty and meaningless, hot air—precisely. How many millions of words have invaded our being this past week? Printed words, broadcast words, casual words from friends and passerby—words, words, and more words. Almost screaming, we take refuge in our churches and say: “No more words…we need facts!” There we get more words. But we do not mind…

But who will endure the day of his coming? For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. …He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi… (from the first reading, Malachi 3:1-4) Isn’t it overkill, a pure exaggeration? We are talking about a 40-day-old baby, so cute, so charming. The 2nd reading (Hebrews 2:14-18) sheds light on this obvious discrepancy. It speaks of Jesus’ entire life as spent in obedience to…

The readings for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time are about freedom.  From the first reading (Neh 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10) we gather that, after returning from exile, for the first time, in a highly charged atmosphere of deep emotions, the Jews were free to celebrate God’s gift of the Torah (the Law). In the second reading (1 Cor 12:12-30), St. Paul tells us how Jesus freed us from sin through his blood on the cross, and how he has poured his Holy…

In an 1894 letter to her newlywed cousin, St. Therese of Lisieux wrote: “I am asking our Lord to be as generous to you as He was to the bridal pair at Cana. May He invariably change the water into wine! I mean, may He prolong His gift of happiness, and as far as possible sweeten the bitter trials you will meet on your way. Trials! Fancy introducing that word into my letter—how could I?—at a moment when I realize that life for…

Have you ever been given a gift and not opened it? Or, have you ever been given a gift and partially opened it? Years ago, I remember watching the movie, Agnes of God, in which a prosecuting attorney (and lapsed Catholic) was interviewing the mother superior of a convent regarding a potential crime she believed had been committed there. As their relationship deepened, the two found themselves beneath a gazebo on the convent grounds. On a cold, crisp Canadian morning, weather…

The importance of the Solemnity of the Epiphany is all in the contemplation of the mystery, hidden for millennia from past generations, and revealed in the fulness of time in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God in human flesh. It is the desire of God the Father to save every one of his children and, at the end, to welcome all of them into his heavenly home, to share in his endless joy. The fulfillment of this grandiose…