Amid the complexities of John’s theology, we find two simple statements: God is love, and no one has ever seen God. In our concrete experience of love, therefore, God becomes “visible.”

I’m surprised how often I encounter Catholics and former Catholics who say they were raised to believe in a punishing God. Somehow the message of today’s readings did not get through to them.

The unity of the early church was in trouble. We know that from reading the letters of Paul and other pastoral leaders, who argue over table fellowship, circumcision, and dietary regulations.

I used to be picked last when my grammar school friends and I gathered to play 16-inch softball. It wasn’t because I was that bad a player. Actually, I was pretty good.

Tom is a photographer and art director by profession and a Nebraskan by birth. Maybe the combination of creative vision and Midwestern common sense keep him on such an even keel.

If we love one another, God remains in us.

The God who sent Jesus to show God’s great love for creation will certainly hear our prayers, which we now make in the Lord’s name.

He was counted with the eleven apostles.

Let your heart be an altar. Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice. God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender.