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Readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Zechariah 9:9-10;  Matthew 11:25-30 Our world loves to be loud and showy.  Our world stands in awe of power and strength.  But our God comes not in those ways.  Our God comes in quiet and vulnerability.  Our God comes not on a steed but on the back of a donkey.  Our God sits not on the throne of power, but washes the fee...

Readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Romans 6:3-4, 8-11;  Matthew 10:37-42 Jesus continues to prepare His followers to go out and bring the Gospel to the world.  And what does that look like?  It looks like loving God before everything else in our lives.  That includes parents.  That includes children.  It even includes ourselves.  Paul reminds us that...

Gospel for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Matthew 10:26-33 Jesus is continuing to give a pre-game, fire-up speech to the Twelve before sending them out, but his words have an ominous tone.  He speaks about fear and Gehenna and proclaiming on rooftops that which has been given to us in a whisper.  So how does this make sense to us?  What can we take from it?  It all comes do...

Gospel for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Matthew 9:36-10:8 Welcome back to Ordinary Time for the first time on a Sunday since Feb. 19.  Yes, maybe it's ordinary and mundane, but it's where most of our lives are lived.  And Christ walks with us here.  So if we, as our title suggests, are the answer - what is the question?  Today our discussion revolves around the crowd and...

Readings for the Solemnity of the Body & Blood of Christ - Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a;  John 6:51-58 It's all right there in Deuteronomy: God let us be afflicted with hunger in order to feed us His very being.  Everything else leaves us wanting and wandering in a desert needing more and more.  There is only one thing that satiates that hunger - and it's what we celebrate today....

Readings for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity - Exodus 34:4b-6; 8-9; John 3:16-18 Unknowable and undefinable.  That's God's own definition of God's very self.  Yet that doesn't keep us from trying to know and define God.  And that's a fine thing.  Theologians have been doing it for millennia.  We all have.  That's how we come up with the very definition - three yet o...

Readings for the Feast of Pentecost - Acts 2:1-11; John 20:19-23 This weekend we celebrate not just an event that happened 2000 years ago, but an ongoing reality within our individual lives and the life of the Church.  And we will hear not only one rendition - but two: Luke's and John's.  And while both are different - different places, different scenes, different outcomes, both are true...

Feast of the Ascension of Jesus - Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11; Gospel of Matthew 28:16-20 What does it take to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?  Well, a whole lot, really.  It takes tenacity.  It takes strength.  But more than anything?  It takes presence.  It simply means we need to show up and be counted.  Often times we can fall into the trap of perfectionism, k...

Gospel for the Sixth Sunday in Easter - John 14:15-21 Can there ever be too many A Few Good Men quotes?  I think not.  Today we speak about truth - and what it is.  Why?  Because Jesus promises to send the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth.  But what exactly does that mean for us?  While I certainly cannot claim to have a handle on it, I invite us into that conversation t...

Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter - John, Chapter 14, verses 1-12 Special episode today because you get lots of cultural references like The Softer Side of Sears and Jack Nicholson quotes from A Few Good Men.  What could go wrong with those?  But the real good news lies within the Word of Jesus - that we don't need to be afraid.  Jesus and the Father are One.  If we've seen...

Fourth Sunday of Easter - Gospel of John, Chapter 10, verses 1-10 This Sunday is commonly called Good Shepherd Sunday, and it's easy to see why.  Our readings are saturated with reminders of God's goodness and invitation to trust and follow.  But to follow, we need to listen.  And to listen, we need to be able to hear God's voice.  That's never as easy as it seems.  But yo...

Third Sunday of Easter - Gospel of Luke, Chapter 24:13-35 Today, we hear one of Luke's masterpieces in telling us the resurrection story of two disciples walking on their way to Emmaus.  While on their journey, wrapped up in their own pain and disappointment, Jesus draws near.  But they don't recognize Him.  It's only later - in the Breaking of the Bread - that their eyes are opened...

Gospel for Divine Mercy Sunday - John 20:19-31 We hear the same Gospel every year on this Sunday - Jesus coming into the fear and isolation of the disciples on Easter Sunday night and wishing them peace.  And this is what divine mercy looks like...not just for those disciples all those years ago, but for you and I now.  Jesus does not stay distant.  There is no wall too tall or lock...

Easter Sunday Gospel - Mt 28:1-10 Our 40 day retreat is finished.  We reach the holiest three days within our liturgical year: the Triduum.  The Three Days.  And what they reveal to us is no less than a mirror showing us the pattern of our own lives.  Death.  Waiting.  Life.  It's as simple as that.  And the more this idea takes root within us, the more we s...

First & Second Reading for Palm Sunday (April 2) - Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11 Suffering is a reality in the world.  It was true for Jesus.  It will be true for us.  We live most of our lives in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday - in that middle space that holds the suffering of the past and has not experienced the full resurrection of the future.  Our readings fo...

Gospel for the 5th Sunday of Lent (March 26): John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-35 This Sunday, as we draw nearer to Holy Week, we hear of perhaps what is considered Jesus's greatest miracle - and God's greatest sign of what the Kingdom is meant to be: Life!  This also sets the stage for why Jesus, in the minds of those in power, must die.  This week - the raising of Lazarus.  "Did I not...

Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent - John 9:1-41 In another multi-layered, long Gospel from John, we actually see many of the same attributes that we did last week.  Faith is a progression.  However, there are two other points of note.  Like the blind man in the story, how do we answer the question when people ask us who Jesus is?  And how often do we get caught up in the non...

Third Sunday of Lent - John 4:5-42 We enter a three week stretch in our cycle of readings where we will have three Gospels from John in a row, all very long.  So because of that, we will focus only on the Gospels in those podcasts.  That begins today with an incredibly layered and deep story - the Woman at the Well.  There are dozens of places the Word of God could have taken us thi...

Readings for the 2nd Sunday of Lent: Genesis 12:1-4a; Matthew 17:1-9 The word "vocation" finds its roots in the word "summons".  And it's easy to fall into the trap that says once we've found our vocation, we've done the heavy lifting.  It's over.  Now I just ride that out the rest of my life.  But we would be incorrect.  God continually calls us.  And that calling of...

Readings for the First Sunday in Lent - Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7;  Matthew 4:1-11 In the Book of Deuteronomy, God tells us "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  Choose life, then, that you and yours may live."  And while we don't hear that exact reading today, we really do.  We hear about the choices of Adam and Eve and Jesus, and the profound conseque...

Readings for the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Leviticus 19:1-2; 17-18; Matthew 5:38-48 Jesus continues through His Sermon on the Mount, once again inviting His disciples to take the law into their hearts and not live it as an external reality.  One of the examples He uses is turning the cheek and walking the extra mile.  But how do we do that and not allow ourselves to be abused or becom...

Readings from the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Sirach 15:15-20; Matthew 5:17-37 My friends, we are created in the Image and Likeness of God.  What, exactly, does that mean?  That answer is beyond my pay grade and beyond the scope of this podcast, but certainly part of that image and likeness is the ability to carry free will.  What we do with that free will determines how well the...

Readings for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Jesus continues through the Sermon on the Mount, picking up from last week's discussion of the Beatitudes.  Today, Jesus reminds us that you and me - we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Not the person down the street.  Not the person in front or behind us in the pews.  You.  Me.  In all of our wheat an...

Readings for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13;  Matthew 5:1-12a On this 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with some of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture - the Beatitudes.  But before we can even really begin to unpack their beauty, we instead focus upon the first line in that passage.  Jesus saw the crowds.  What...

Readings for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Isaiah 8:23-9:3;  Matthew 4:12-23 Today we hear about Jesus moving from Nazareth to Capernaum, and in so doing, brings the Light of God to a people walking in gloom.  Jesus also calls his first disciples.  How does this speak to us today?  Our world continues to be in darkness and gloom.  Do we believe the light is stronger?&n...