The message of Jesus is so very simple, but often I don’t want to hear it. Help the poor, love my enemies and don’t be so obsessed with wealth and power. All wonderful ideas and ones I cheer with my whole heart. Well, ...

Yesterday was the glorious feast of Easter joy. Today the churches are quieter as we begin to return to “normal” life. But what can be “normal” after Easter? Can we be the same people we were before the passion, death ...

Today we celebrate the return of Ordinary Time in the Church. The Christmas season ended yesterday with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and our ordinary days seem to begin again. The Church calls it “Ordinary Time” ...

When I was in grade school, I remember Ash Wednesday as a melancholy day. The sisters who taught us were unusually somber and whispery to us that day. It felt like Ash Wednesday, with its marked foreheads and meager meals, ...

Today's gospel can sound startling and uncomfortable to a rational, Western mind like mine. Jesus' story uses the social structure of his time to make a point. You wouldn't invite your servant to sit down at the table and ...

My husband and I were once invited to join a Jewish family for Passover dinner in their home. We loved the stories behind each course and every ritual and it gave me a better sense of my own faith. To someone unfamiliar ...

In today's gospel, Luke tells the story of the centurion whose slave is sick. The centurion was a Roman soldier would have represented to Jesus and other Jews, a government which cruelly suppressed the Jewish people and ...

The dishonest steward is someone determined to land on his feet. As Jesus tells the story, the steward was about to be fired for "squandering his property." His power and prestige, his important place in the household, ...

|In today's Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, James and John, his closest friends, up to the top of a mountain. There, "he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light." And in ...

|Then the apostles laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. |Although there have been times in my life when I never had a clear picture of the Spirit's place in my life, the older I get, the more I can feel ...