As I reflected on today's readings, I heard several messages and invitations.  The first invitation I heard was to be attentive to how I am crippled, bent over and/or burdened.  What is keeping me from standing erect?   ...

Today, with the fresh memory of Ash Wednesday in our hearts and minds the scripture readings speak plainly and bluntly of life and death. While the message is consistent through the readings from Deuteronomy, the psalm and ...

Faced with the old scenario of "desert island books," I wonder if I would take the Bible. I'd have to take it, right? But desert island books are for comfort and edification. The better reader I become and, I hope, the ...

In the first reading today we have Jeremiah, the prophet, comparing how living without faith would be like living without clean water. He tries to make the people understand that life cannot go on long without one or the ...

"Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."|In two paragraphs, today's Gospel gives us a summary of the life of following Jesus. It will not always be easy and it ...

The first thought that came to me after reading today's scriptural passages was Barbra Streisand's song "People" from the show "Funny Girl." The lines that kept playing over and over in my head were "people who need people ...

The story of the rich man and the beggar at the gate is so familiar that it probably has lost its power to disturb us - as surely it should. Why? Well, there is no indication in the story that the rich man had broken any ...

A parable is not a picture of reality. It is an illustration using an imagined case to convey a message. But, for the parable to be credible, people must recognize real situations in the imagined one. How credible was this ...

It was Christmas Day 1995. I was fresh out of the Jesuit novitiate, doing my graduate studies in education in Goa, India. I was looking forward to a sumptuous community lunch when my provincial, Fr. Gregory Naik, came to ...

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent||One of the things that makes this gospel parable so powerful is its simplicity. All we know about Lazarus is that he is a beggar covered with sores. We don't know if he was one of the ...