SICKNESS AND DEATH are an inevitable part of our experience. As such they seem almost natural—but not when in the presence of a sick child.

“John the Baptist inaugurates the good news of God’s kingdom like a champagne bottle shattered against the hull of a new ship.” Catherine Murphy’s description of John, in John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age, is my favorite. She might have added: The bottle doesn’t survive the inaugural ceremony, and neither does John.

There may be two main ways to get religion wrong. One is to presume it has nothing to do with the material world. So forget political and social realities, pray harder, and concentrate on the spiritual life because it’s the only forum that counts. The other mistake is to assume that if religion has nothing to do with the material world, then it has nothing to offer because that’s where people find themselves.

MY NIECE WAS born with a heart defect and at 10 was deemed eligible for corrective surgery. Every viable family member opened a vein for this little girl and donated blood for the operation. Of course we did.

DECIDE RIGHT NOW what this Sunday is about: exhorting Catholics to intellectually embrace the fundamental doctrine of the faith? Explaining the mystery of the Trinity (to no one’s satisfaction)? Providing the scriptural origins of an idea-feast? Determine now why this solemnity is on the calendar and what good it does to your assembly to observe it.

WHAT DOES IT take for a coward to become courageous? More to the point, what would it take for you, or me, to become a disciple?

The Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes is a remarkable document when viewed from any angle: conception, content, or consequences, but equally intriguing is its subtitle in English: “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.”

THE NARRATIVES ABOUT Jesus by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John fit nicely into a classic American genre: the road story.

TODAY IS MOTHER’S Day. In a rather direct sense, your mothers are among the most significant people you will ever encounter in your lives. You can add fathers to that ultimate group of associations, too. Depending on your culture, chances are you may carry the names your parents picked for you or gave you legally your whole life long.

JESUS WAS A smart teacher. He took images that his neighbors understood and used them as the undergirding of his instruction.