Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining. – Easter Sequence Alleluia! Jesus is risen! Happy Easter! This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the victory of Jesus over the powers of death. Death seems so frightening and final, like nothing can stop its grip on us. On the surface, seeing only with worldly eyes, it seems like death has the final word. But Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the true victory.…
I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life. – John 8:12 Jesus loves analogies, similes, and metaphors. He uses these figures of speech to help His listeners–including us–grasp complex and lofty concepts, such as what it means to live in the Kingdom of God and be a Christian disciple. He gives us two metaphors for discipleship in Sunday’s Gospel passage: “You are the salt…
What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:3-5 Merry Christmas! During Advent, we prayed for Jesus, the Light, to come to brighten our world. We prayed to receive the Advent gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love. But we didn’t pray for these for ourselves alone. We prayed to…
Happy Gaudete Sunday! Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin. We rejoice this week because Jesus is coming soon. We will celebrate that Jesus, the Life (John 14:6), came to us through the Blessed Virgin Mary. We rejoice and thank Mary for her “yes”–her fiat. We rejoice and give thanks to God the Father for giving us the gift of His Son (cf John 3:16). We rejoice in Christ, the Light (John 14:6) who is coming into…
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!- Isaiah 2:5 Advent is a beautiful time of silence, patience, and prayer. We prepare for Christ, the Light (John 8:12), to come to us in the darkness. We prepare for the fullness of life–zoe in Greek–that Jesus, the Life (John 14:6) offers us: “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). We light the…
…and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. – Luke 20:36 Being a child of God means that we shall live forever with Him. Those of us who have been baptized have the power to become God’s children (John 1:12). The Lord promised that His children shall have eternal life: “those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead…are…
What’s going on with the barren fig tree in today’s Gospel? It’s growing in an orchard and a gardener cares for it. It should have everything it needs to bear fruit, but it’s barren. So what’s the problem? When the orchard owner tells the gardener to cut down the barren tree, the gardener asks him to spare it: “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize…
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith. Our faith, hope, and love flow out of our prayerful reception of Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity that we receive each time we worthily receive Holy Communion. The union with Christ that we experience after receiving Holy Communion is a foretaste of the goal of our faith: being one with Christ in heaven. Receiving Holy Communion enables us to become one with Christ,…
Come Holy Spirit, set my heart on fire with Your divine love. Renew my spirit and fill me with Your holy power. Burn away my selfish and sinful habits. Bless me with Your gifts and then empower me to use those gifts for Your glory. Bless me with the gift of wisdom so I recognize how crucial it is to keep You at the center of my life. Bless me with understanding that I might…
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…