One of the messages we’re hearing from scripture this month as Ordinary Time wears down is that God is the creator and sustainer of everything. All life comes from God and all life depends on God.

How close to the Apocalypse are we this week? Considering that our national presidential election is mere days away, it may feel like we’re poised on the brink of a volcano.

Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to take the widow to wife and get her with child. Well, there once were seven brothers.

Sunday pasta is both a tradition and a ritual for many Italian families. Ours was no exception. Along with the pasta, the crusty bread, the red wine, the platter of meatballs, neck bones and ox tails cooked for hours in the sauce, there were always two bowls with sliced cucumbers and halved radishes sitting in iced water ready to be salted and popped into your mouth.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

False spirituality is a denial of the flesh; true spirituality is the regeneration of the flesh, its salvation, its resurrection from the dead.