In this Sunday’s gospel, Peter, James, and John experienced the mystery of the Transfiguration of Jesus and heard a voice from the heavens which filled them with fear. As the mystery of the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines airliner over the weekend deepened this week, each passing day . . .

“I will make of you a great nation,” the Lord promises Abram in the first reading this Sunday, “I will make your name great.” As Russian President Vladimir Putin seems intent on burnishing his strongman reputation and restoring some of the former Soviet Union’s reach and power with the recent move of Russian forces into . . .

“Upright is the word of the Lord, and all his works are trustworthy,” affirms the psalmist this Sunday. The same can’t be said for some of the recent activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), argued veteran Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California Tuesday in revealing . . .

Jesus makes it clear in this Sunday’s gospel that he is not interested in worldy fame or adulation, as he sternly directs those disciples who witnessed his Transfiguration not to tell of the vision to anyone until after his Resurrection. Pope Francis is also not interested in hero-worship, he made clear . . .

“My complaint is not about the art-worthiness or the meaning behind the sculpture. It is about people driving into our beautiful, reasonably upscale neighborhood and seeing an ugly homeless person sleeping on a park bench.”

More than half the prisoners in the U.S. have mental health problems, according to the U.S. Justice Dept. This country houses three times the number of mentally ill people in prisons than in mental hospitals.