Exploring the Word

5 Mar 2023

Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

Seeing with new eyes

How do you see the world around you? “Charged with the grandeur of God,” as Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins did? Full of life, love, power, and possibility? Perhaps on rare occasions we perceive reality this way. Or maybe it only seems that way when we’ve fallen in love or won the lottery.

26 Feb 2023

First Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

Conversations with the devil

Pull up a soft chair, the devil says. He’s such a gracious host, always concerned about our comfort. His living room is a tribute to the couch-potato life. As we sit, he fluffs the pillows and lays out the dessert even though we’ve just eaten a huge feast in the dining room.

19 Feb 2023

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

So you want to be perfect?!

As children, most of us believed in perfection as an attainable goal. Maybe not our own particular perfection (I was never going to get an A in science!), but the finish line was clearly marked out and someone was going to cross it.

12 Feb 2023

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Do you love the law?

Few of us love the law. In a country that sometimes views government with hostility and authority with suspicion, our reflexive stance toward rules is to shred first, reconsider later.

5 Feb 2023

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

In praise of simple things

Things are better when we take care of one another. Things grow worse if we don’t. That is nowhere truer than in families. Loving and purposeful families grow together and yield abundant dividends in loyalty, mutual encouragement, and assured welfare.

29 Jan 2023

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Blessed are the accursed?

I don’t know if anyone short of Jesus Christ would have ever uttered the Beatitudes. It just doesn’t make sense to say that the poor, the sad, the trampled, the abused, and the insulted are blessed.

22 Jan 2023

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Pledge allegiance with your feet

In these days of heightened political partisanship, our loyalties are always courted and often divided.

15 Jan 2023

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Can I see some identification?

Who are you, really? Most of us can’t give a one-word answer to that question.

8 Jan 2023

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, Cycle A

We five kings

The royal head count in the familiar Christmas carol is a little off. Epiphany is the story of five kings at the very least. Of course, we have to begin by admitting we don’t know that the Magi were kings in any technical sense.

1 Jan 2023

Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord; Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Cycle A

It’s time for a fresh start

There’s no intrinsic reason why a new year should be any different from an old one. While we’re conscious of having turned a page on a whole new calendar, New Year's Day is really no more than just another sunrise.