The Good Word

18th Sunday We only have to look at so-called reality television to see just how far some of our compatriots will go to be famous to be wealthy or to be part of the popular imagination We should never be surprised when our media culture reflects this back to us And by watching these programs re

Seventeenth Sunday of the Year Gen 18 20-32 Col 2 12-14 Luke 11 1-13 Today s readings are about the power of prayer In the first reading Abraham pleads with God to spare the people of Sodom and Gomorrah In the gospel passage Jesus urges us to ask his Father for what we need and assures u

Did you know that Lincoln s Gettysburg address was 250 words long The man before Lincoln spoke for over an hour The man who followed Lincoln spoke for even longer Today no one remembers what they said Lincoln s 2 minutes by contrast changed the USA s history and the mentality of the

This Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time In his reflection on this week s readings Daniel Harrington writes that Luke s journey narrative provide a framework or outline for developing a sound Christian spirituality One essential element in any variety of Christian spirituality is pra

On one level this Sunday s readings from Genesis and Luke both inculcate perseverance in prayer It is surely an important point because many people give up on prayer fairly quickly if nothing happens Abraham certainly keeps after God And to judge from Luke 11 5-8 Jesus would applaud such b

The Gospel teaching on asking with its embedded parable seems to set the tone Though I am sympathetic with the sleepy householder Ask sooner friend Ask more quietly more politely Bake your own bread I hear something quite different Ask for anything Ask importunately Ask for basics As

Some New Testament scholars use the model of a sage a novel dispenser of wisdom to explain how Jesus might have looked to his contemporaries Though the idea of Jesus as sage does not do justice to the entirety of the gospel stories it certainly fits Luke 11 9-13 On the heels of the Lord s Pra

Of the many criticisms of the work of biblical scholars the one I have most recently been attacked with is that we are not theological enough so it was with some eagerness that I agreed to review a theological commentary on 1 2 Kings My eagerness was diminished somewhat when I discovered that

Gen 18 1-10a Col 24-28 Luke 10 38-42 Mary spends time listening to Jesus because he opens up a whole world to her Paul calls it the mystery hidden from ages and generations past but now revealed to his holy ones Many people are totally closed off from this mystery it is a world they find t

Sixteenth Sunday of the Year C Luke 10 38-42 In 1999 I met an elderly Dominican at the Sainte Baume the holy cave in Provence the beautiful Cezanne region in the south of France where tradition has it that Mary Magdalene having labored for the evangelization of the region retired into solitu