Teach What You Believe

This weekend Jesus tells us through parables that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a sower who leaves weeds in his wheat…is like a mustard seed…and like yeast. So, what do these three parables have in common and, after all, what and where is the Kingdom of Heaven? And how does all this point to what we each need to be doing right now in our lives?  Check it all out…

This Sunday we return to "Ordinary Time" but for the past 3 months, clearly nothing has been ordinary - forcing us to revisit what discipleship needs to look like. So, taking scripture and current events - what may we be missing in our lives that prevents us from living the Gospel? 

It is every year during the first Sunday of Lent that we hear the familiar Gospel story of angels leading Jesus into desert to be tempted by Satan. What is interesting, is that the line immediately preceding this passage speaks of God’s love for his Son. It doesn’t seem like the way you would treat your son or daughter.  So there must be a reason why the Gospel writer crafted this story of the thr...

Most if not all of us have likely been spending some time choosing some form of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that we will exercise this Lent. But maybe – just maybe – this might be the year we stretch ourselves so to choose to live, to see and to act differently in such a way that these 40 days of Lent may move us in a different direction than years past.  A direction that has us living the marr...

On December 23, 2019, just after turning 93 years old, my father-in-law Peter Poloney died…joining with the Communion of Saints, with his beloved wife, Patricia, who died just months ago.  It is not uncommon for a couple who spent so many years together to die within months of one another…as it was with Peter.  So yesterday we laid Peter to rest – back at “home” with Patricia…together again to spe...

As we light our fourth Advent candle, this season of waiting and hoping and preparation comes quickly to close with Christmas just a few days away.  All Advent we have sung Maranatha – which is Aramaic for – Our Lord has come. So how does living a life woven in the fabric of this season allow us to be aware of the Christ who in our lives right now?  Perhaps John the Baptist, Joseph of Nazareth and...

This evening we bring our Liturgical Year to a close as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.  But this feast day is really more about kinship than it is about kingship. Just look at the Gospels we have been given this past year. For Jesus was always eating with wrong people, at the wrong time, on the wrong day with non-Jews, and sinners, and ignoring all the purity codes that his religion re...

Certainly listening to today’s readings of apocalyptic literature, dealing with end times as well as the destruction of the temple may make some of us squirm a bit in our seats. But if you look carefully at when and why it was written you realize that this scripture is not about future events rather it is about imminent reality – the here and now.  So where does our focus need to be? And what insi...

This past weekend I had the honor to officiate the wedding of a longtime friend, Carole Moore, who has directed the Children’s Choir at our parish of St. Paul Church in Princeton for over 30 years. Having lost her husband and my dear friend to cancer some 10 years ago – it was one of the first funerals I served as a Deacon. Allowing God to open her eyes, Carole met a wonderful man, John Wagner, wh...

I think one of hardest lessons we learn is that life and death always coexist. As was witnessed this past Friday when my mother-in-law’s 6th great-grandchild was born and by the end of the day her life in this world ended. Today, family and friends came together as we mourned her death and celebrated her life in the Mass of the Resurrection. I was Privileged to preach at her funeral...so listen to...

This weekend we are cautioned to, “Be prepared for at an hour you do not expect the Son of Man will come.”  But if our only concern in life is all about just focusing on what we need to do in order to get into heaven, we are missing the whole point of the entire Gospel. For the Divine Knock on the door just doesn’t happen before we take our last breath, rather it happens all the time – in unexpect...

This week we hear that all-too-familiar gospel of Martha and Mary.  The one with Martha running around and doing all the work while Mary remains seated at the foot of our Lord…and is told that Mary has chosen the better way. But this gospel is not one that was written necessarily to show that a contemplative life is superior to one that is filled with action….or that Jesus necessarily prefers pray...

This weekend we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi and the Gospel provides us one of the six accounts of the multiplication of loaves and fishes – the only miracle recorded by all four Gospel writers. Maybe you have noticed the one line in the Gospel, which I have missed all these years.  What is that line and why is it so important in yielding the key to unlock the meaning of this well told st...

This weekend’s Gospel from John drops us in at the end of the Last Supper as Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment on how to live and love. The old directive was to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’  Jesus takes this up a few notches and says we are to love another as Christ loved us. So, what does that kind of love – depth of love – Christ centered love - look like?   Perhaps the easiest wa...

This weekend’s Gospel is the story of the adulterous woman who is about to be stoned with the scribes and the Pharisees having Jesus caught between a rock and a hard place ( bad pun ). We all know how the story ends – but what was Jesus really teaching those gathered in the Temple?  Take a second look and you will find the deeper lesson of this Gospel – one that is so often missed…because it just...

Every year on the second Sunday of Lent we hear the Gospel story of the Transfiguration. A story that speaks of the brilliant LIGHT of Christ shining on all gathered – but juxtaposed with the dark Cloud of God which casts shadows and frightens. I think we could all find it easy to associate the Divine with the Light of Christ…but with darkness?    See how the story of a starving 10 year old Ecuado...

This past Wednesday Christians came together to be marked on the forehead with ashes, beginning the 40 day journey of Lent. Most have figured out some favorite food or activity to give up, which is all well and good.  But what about looking at the way we pray.  Sure we come to church…we say our prayers at home…but do we pray as Jesus taught us how to pray? The Gospel passage is of Jesus teaching h...

This weekend we heard how blessed are those who are poor and hungry and woe to those who are rich and well-fed.  Once again Jesus is turning our thinking upside down.  The Beatitudes always seem to perplex many as to what kind of lives are we being called to. Using some insight from the soon-to-be-released book by world renowned liturgical music composer David Haas, along with wisdom from Lutheran...

The birth of Christ is God’s deepest intention to love.  Jesus is the ‘yes’ to God’s love – reminding us that God is already here and now…always ready to be with us in our becoming something new. Christmas is a time for us to move out of darkness...by beginning to see with a new set of eyes the glory of the God that shines around us. See what I mean...

Holidays have a way of often bringing to the surface darkness from the past…darkness from hardships and losses…darkness from broken relationships…even darkness coming forth from our own Church…leaving us, at times, blinded to God’s presence, asking, “Where is God in all this?”  Allow this Sunday’s Gospel to shed new light on that age old question...

This weekend we celebrated the 33rd and final Sunday in Ordinary Time and over the past year Mark’s Gospel has given us the necessary waypoints for our spiritual journey.  And it is these signposts which tell us how we need to see differently and thus leading us to change the way we live.  But what does that new sight look like for us? What changes are being asked of us? And where do we begin?  Pe...

Isn’t part of life all about gaining wealth – about one’s net worth – being successful and living the dream?  Matter of fact this is so ingrained into our psyche that we can easily and erroneously transfer this ideal to our spirituality – just as the rich young man did in the Gospel story this weekend when he asked, “What do I need to do to inherit eternal life?” The challenge we all face is that...

Today’s Gospel may be one of the earliest instances recorded in the Bible of clericalism, for we hear the disciples arguing as to who, among themselves, is the greatest. The second reading warns - “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice. Interesting timing for these readings as the Church continues to deal with the fallout from the recent report from t...

This weekend we will hear the Gospel of two women, who represent the entire spectrum of society, from impoverished to privileged, who are healed through faith. Jesus says, “It was faith that saved you.” What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do we show it? For the faith that this Gospel points to is likely not what you may think. So what is it? Check it out.

In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear the three most important words given to us in the Bible. By far, it is the greatest and hardest thing Christ asked us to do...but truly…it is all that really, really matters. What are those words…and why do we find it so hard to follow them? Check it out….