A family I know had been faithfully attending to their seriously ill mother; they knew that death was imminent, yet when she finally died it was a surprise to them because, despite her compromised health, she seemed to be ...

Into the Light||To live with eyes open takes faith. We learn early to screen out everything beyond the task at hand. With jobs in decline, our gaze grows even more shuttered. Fear alternates with forgetfulness. To be ...

Following Jesus as his disciple is not easy - then or now!||In the gospels Jesus never left his followers with the impression that being his disciple would be easy. He realized that it would involve a radical break with ...

|Sometimes the readings can be confusing.  However, today's readings hit me right between the eyes.  In Isaiah, the Lord encourages believers through Isaiah.  "And out of the gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall ...

|In the birth of Jesus, God brought light into a dark world. Several of our New Testament writers say this in different ways. John takes a cosmic point of view: the eternal Word, through whom all things were created, was ...

"Do you believe that I can do this?" Matthew 9||This is the central question of our Christian lives. To be a follower of Jesus, to accept what he offers us, and to accept our mission to make a difference by loving and ...

Isaiah is a prophet, one who sees reality as God inspires him to and who then speaks of that reality as God impels him to. Here Isaiah speaks of the changes that God will operate, and he describes those changes in three ...

"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."||This directive from Jesus in this gospel used to mess me up as a kid. ...

Today is St. Nicholas Day. I am reminded of how much our responses are dependent on our background and context. I grew up in a very comfortable environment in the suburbs. The evening before St. Nicholas Day would involve ...

Today is Friday of the First Week of Advent. This is a season of waiting, a time to live by faith, trusting that God will soon act on behalf of his people.||I have never been a very patient person. My mother used to rattle ...