The Word

October 12, 2025, Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time: How does the act of healing fit into the wider mission of Jesus as presented in the Gospel of Luke?

October 5, 2025, Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: Faith in this instance is the remarkable insistence of divine mercy practiced by Jesus and his followers. May the Lord increase the faith of us all. 

September 28, 2025, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: This Sunday’s Gospel compares the heavy load that Lazarus lived because of his poverty with the supposed lightness of a rich man who lived in daily comfort. How does this warning against complacency speak to a society faced with the growing polarization of its citizens?

September 21, 2025, Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time: This Sunday’s readings place before the reader a situation into which rich and poor could both fall. What is the most prudent action when one needs to act quickly and decisively?

September 14, 2025, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: This Sunday’s Exaltation of the Holy Cross did not historically come about to focus on Christ’s passion but to reflect on the instrument used during that crucifixion. The cross was a psychological weapon, and the discovery of the true cross in the fourth century allowed the faithful on this feast day to reflect on the cross as an instrument of God’s power over death.

September 7, 2025, the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time: This Sunday’s Gospel reading presents a much more difficult challenge to anyone who wished to follow after Jesus. A disciple must hate “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life” (Lk 14:26). How can anyone understand these unreasonable demands?

August 31, 2025, the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Gospel compares two guests discerning their seat arrangement at a wedding banquet. Choose wisely.

August 24, 2025, the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jesus’ response to the question—“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”—remains puzzling.

August 17, 2025, the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time: There remains a glimpse of hope, according to this Sunday’s psalm, for those who wait in the Lord. But the readings also provide a meditation on lament before the realization of renewal or resurrection. 

August 10, 2025, the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: This Sunday’s readings offer three different lenses to examine what is perhaps best left mysterious: how faith works within one’s tradition.