The Good Word

The preaching of the good news is like one beggar telling another where to find food This is an arresting aphoristic definition of unknown origin likely to give pause to an aspiring Bossuet Such a definition well illustrates Mary Catherine Hilkert s fundamental point that Every preacher has a

Summer reading lists have appeared in the last few weeks giving readers especially beach-going ones suggestions for enhancing their leisure time As strange as it might sound I m using today s blog to recommend adding the Bible to your summer-reading list One of the most significant trend

It is in the Acts of the Apostles that we hear most about Barnabas He is famous as a preaching companion with Paul in present-day Turkey with all the attendant success failure and persecution of Paul Prior to that he was grouped with Christians at Antioch who were known as having special gifts

To spend any time with Jesus teachings is to be amazed by the depth of the simplicity I have sometimes asked students in class to write parables in order to see how difficult it is to tell a simple story that has power meaning force and a moral that does not seem sappy contrived or sentiment

I am so happy that Fathers Leonard and Kilgallen have blogged recently on Ordinary time and especially its connection in the Northern hemisphere to the coming of Spring and Summer and the blossoming of plant life of all sorts I have been looking for a scriptural and liturgical entr e into the worl

Jesus words I came to call sinners are a compendium of Gospel themes They acknowledge that we are sinners they reveal the divine intent on finding what was lost and giving life to what was dead But these words are cited by Gospel writers for still another purpose The society in whic

After 16 Sundays celebrating Lent Holy Week Eastertide and then the four great feast days of Ascension Pentecost Trinity and the Body and Blood of the Lord last week we returned to Sundays in Ordinary Time I like Ordinary Time It s the moment in the church s year coming as it does out of

Advent done Christmas time done Lent and Easter and Pentecost too From those momentous events we come into a long period of Ordinary Time The color is green No more long-lived white nor fretful purple just green It is Ordinary Time But what a wonderful color is green of many shades

The Apostle Paul packs a mighty punch in his letters even when delivered in small doses this Sunday s Second Reading Romans 3 21-25 28 is a short passage that delivers great power It can be difficult today to understand the challenge of the theological issues buffeting the early Church espe

Many years ago now Pope John Paul II went to Lima Peru There he was met by a massive crowd of two million people Instead of the usual greetings from the President and the Cardinal two people from a shantytown stepped forward to the microphone Their names were Irene and Viktor Charo As the hug