Ask a group of boomers who pops into their minds when they hear the word king Some candidates might be simply The King Elvis or the King of Pop or more soberly some might remember The Boss singing Poor man wanna be rich Rich man wanna be king And a king ain rsquo t satisfied Till he rules e

The readings today leave most Catholics ill at ease and puzzled and they often relegate their message to fundamentalist television evangelists shouting about the coming end of the world Malachi thought that the day of the Lord was coming and it did not come Jesus says that ldquo this generation

As the liturgical year winds down the Gospels for the next four weeks address our deepest fears and offer our most profound hope Today Jesus speaks of God as a God of the living who promises that the ones who will rise will be God rsquo s children Next week the readings speak of the persecutions

In his wonderful novel Handling Sin Michael Malone portrays Raleigh Whittier Hayes a rather proper lawyer in a small Southern town whose life begins to fall apart when his eccentric father a defrocked Episcopal priest flees from a hospital bed with a young prostitute Hayes did believe in God

This year a special poignancy attends our annual celebration of the communion of the saints as we recall the saints triumphant and mourn loved ones who have died Wave after wave of images of death destruction and seemingly unending rituals of funerals and memorial services wash over our conscious

Today rsquo s Gospel concludes a diptych on prayer begun last Sunday in the familiar Lukan pattern that juxtaposes a story in which a woman is a central character with another that has a male protagonist It also provides a bridge to next Sunday when another tax collector is praised The beginning o