Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

Compromising the Faith Brings False Unity Our first reading today tells the sad tale of how many of the Israelites abandoned the practice of their faith in  order to fit in better with the pagans around them. The got tired of having to live a lifestyle that was different than the rest of the culture. The Gentile king even proposes that it would be much better if everyone could be unified in worshi...

Winning in the 4th Quarter of Life The football team at the high school where I am chaplain has the tradition at the end of the third quarter of raising four fingers in the air to remind everyone that it is now the 4th quarter. If the team is behind, it's a sign that the game is not over yet. "We can still win this thing!" If the team is ahead, it's a reminder not to quit or try to coast to a vict...

A "Chair" Man in Service of Unity Many people think a cathedral is just a really big or beautiful church. Actually, any church could be a cathedral. A cathedral gets its name from the Latin word cathedra which means "chair." Each diocese has a church which houses a special chair reserved for the bishop. This chair represents his governing and teaching authority over the diocese. A Bishop's church...

Finding the Joy in Giving Today's readings present us with the tale of two widows. In biblical times, widows were some of the most vulnerable in society. With no husband to provide for them and no welfare system, they were completely on their own. The widow in our first reading has absolutely nothing, not even food enough for one more meal. In the midst of this, the prophet Elijah comes and demand...

Stewardship is Serious Business Today's Gospel tells us of the "unjust steward" who gets in trouble with his master for not doing a good job with his stewardship. This reading is a good opportunity to reflect on just what it means to be a steward. A steward is someone who in charged with the care of someone else's property. We often describe the use of our time, talent, and treasure as an act of s...

Judging When We Should Judge St. Paul cautions us today about judging our brothers and sisters. If you've ever tried to help someone who was doing something harmful to themselves, perhaps you've been reminded of this as the person demands that you stop judging them (not that they're judging you of course). The word the Paul uses for judging would actually be better translated as "condemning." We s...

Recognizing Death as Our Enemy that We Might Rejoice in Victory Sometimes we try to pretend that death isn't really all that bad. When a loved one dies we may try to reassure ourselves with the consolation that "they're in a better place." We may even think that we should feel happy for them. While it is true that death is not the end and that it is the doorway to eternal life, we should not be so...

One with our Heavenly Friends Description to come...

Christians and Jews in God's Plan In our first reading at Mass today, St. Paul shows clearly that he never saw himself as having given up being a Jew to be a Christian. Similarly, to be a good Christian today, you really have to understand our Jewish history. As Pope Pius XII once said, "Spiritually, we are all Semites." In our Catholic liturgy, we continue pray for and revere our Jewish brothers...

The Virtue of Hope The theological virtue of hope is the virtue that causes us to desire heaven. St. Paul reminds us that no one hopes for something that he already has. Hope keeps us constantly looking forward toward the life to come. This is especially important when life is difficult and we might be tempted toward despair. This life is not all there is and thank God for that. Why do we often st...

Keeping Holy the Sabbath There is a lot of debate about the Sabbath in Scripture as we see in today's readings. Today, we have almost lost the concept of the Sabbath rest. Why should we rest? Well, the point of the rest was always to remind us of why we work. If we continue to work every day and just do different kinds of work on Sunday, we will soon forget what the work is all about. We will come...

Blindness to the Members of God's Family After a long exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah brings good news to the Israelites in our first reading today. It's was time to go back to the promised land! However, he says something very interesting. He says that they were going to be taking the blind, the lame, mothers and women pregnant with children along with them. The journey back to the holy la...

Living with a Longing to See God In our struggle to do good and avoid evil as we go through life, we can sometimes start to think that God is keeping track of all the bad we do in some kind of accounting system. We act as though the goal is to try to have enough good things in the book to balance out all the bad so that, hopefully in the end, everything comes close to zero. This we think will then...

Why King Wenceslas Was Good St. Wenceslas died a martyr in the early 10th century, being killed by his own brother. Wenceslas used his authority as king of Bohemia to ensure that the poor were taken care of. He also very openly practiced his Christian faith, even though this brought him into danger with pagan members of his court and even his own family. Eventually his strong Christian witness wou...

The fact that Catholics have the fullness of truth doesn't mean we use it very well and it doesn't mean we don't have a lot we can learn.

Grace is Given According to the Plan of Christ Matthew himself thought that he was an unlikely choice to be an apostle. Yet, the words of the first reading remind us that "Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift." Jesus chooses not those who seem most qualified in the eyes of the world. Rather, who gives his grace to those he chooses. He chose Matthew for a special...

St. Paul reminds us to compete well for the faith, to be the very best we can be, but never at the expense of putting others down.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary Today's memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows reminds us that Mary shared intimately in every aspect of the life of Jesus. This means that she shared in many great joys, but it also means that she felt, more than anyone, the sorrows of his life. The Church has traditionally reflected on seven events in the life of Mary that have come to be called the "Seven Sorrows of Mary." Th...

A Heavenly Peace...and Justice Jesus gives us many difficult examples in the Gospel today. "Turn the other cheek" best sums up all of them. He tells us when someone wrongs you, don't try to get even. Not only are we not supposed to get even, but we're actually supposed to give even more than the person has already unjustly taken. This is a hard teaching indeed. However, I think we tend to focus to...

Be Open to Hear the Word of God We all know that Jesus performed many healings in his public ministry, most of which were not recorded anywhere. Why then, among all these, did St. Mark choose to tell us about the healing of the deaf and mute man in the Gospel today? For one thing, the Greek word for "mute" is used in only two places in all of Scripture, in the Gospel and in our first reading from...

Being With Jesus In today's Gospel the Pharisees criticize the apostles for picking heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath. Jesus responds by reminding them of the time that the army of Israel violated the law by eating the bread of the temple that only the priests could eat. What do these stories have in common? In the story of the army eating the temple bread, Jesus reminds them that it w...

The Image of the Love of God We often hear that "God is love." Yet, this can be a hard thing to understand in the abstract. Love is a concrete thing manifested by tangible actions. Until the time of Jesus, God revealed himself through sacred words and deeds in history. Yet, the greatest revelation of God was when he became one of us and came in person to show us how much he loves us. St. Paul tell...

Catholic Rapture Perhaps you've heard various Protestant groups refer to something they call "The Rapture." It can all be rather confusing as they speak of hoping to be "raptured" away from this life and speeded away to heaven. Catholics naturally back away from this idea of "rapture" because it doesn't sound like anything Jesus every talked about nor anything the Fathers of the Church mentioned....

As the temperature in the pot continues to rise all around us today, we could use a few good prophets like St. John the Baptist.

Learning from the Life of St. Augustine Today we celebrate a saint that had perhaps the most famous conversion in the history of the Church. Yet, there were many other people that helped St. Augustine to finally turn back to God. First, his mother, Monica, raised him well and taught him the faith from an early age. Second, in adulthood St. Augustine needed another teacher who could help his adult...