Our first reading tells of the apostles in the early days of the Church. It was a time of togetherness, sincerity, and joyful praise. They met in their homes to worship, pray, and eat together. They shared all that they had, and Love—yes Love with a capital “L”—united them. The Holy Spirit had come upon them just before this at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). It was this Spirit of peace and unity that gave them the…
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear how Jesus restored the sight of the man born blind. Just as David was anointed with oil and received the spirit of the Lord in our first reading (1 Samuel 16:13), Jesus anointed the blind man with clay, a combination of the earth and Jesus’s spit: “…he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes…(John 9:6). Recall that God formed…
Here in the desert of Lent, the Lord brings us to the oasis of Jacob’s well. The Samaritan woman came at noon to fill her water jar. Had she been without water all morning? Perhaps she came at noon to avoid people who gossiped about her and her five husbands. We can use our Gospel imagination and suppose that she came to the well dry, thirsty, and ashamed. But something amazing happened: she had an…
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk 12:49). Jesus longs to see each one of us on fire with love for God and for each other. He doesn’t want to see just a little flicker of love. No, he wants to see our hearts blazing—full of warmth, energy, and light. Fire is usually destructive. It burns away almost everything in its path, leaving behind…
Experiencing the Holy Spirit is kind of like a visit from a butterfly. You can’t force a visit from a butterfly. You can’t send an invite and expect one to show up for tea next Tuesday afternoon. No, butterflies come and go with the breeze. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit in a similar way: “the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it…