Monthly Archives: October 2024

Action from Mercy

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Our gospel is the well known story referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The reading opens with a question posed to Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  After recounting the parable, the reading closes with Jesus asking the one who posed the question: “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”  The man replied: “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” Continue reading →

Inheriting the Kingdom

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This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, lectionary cycle B. Jesus has been consistently teaching his disciples the meaning of the Kingdom in his examples and explanations: greatness means to serve the least among the people (9:36-37).  He has already told them that the path of discipleship will consist, not just of demonstrations of power (healing and casting out demons), but also one in which one “must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (8:34) At times these lessons have come at the end of a dispute with the Pharisees or scribes as we saw in the previous Sunday gospel. There Jesus tells the disciples about the creative intent of God in the formation of marriage and family (10:2-16) as a means of describing the Kingdom echoed in human experience. Continue reading →

Being Complete

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There was a just-ordained priest was asked to celebrate a wedding for the first time.  He was nervous. So he decided to seek help from the Pastor, who told him, “Don’t worry about it.  Just recite any appropriate Bible verse and everything will be all right. They’re not going to remember what you say anyway.” The day of the wedding came, and the priest was even more nervous. As he looked at the couple standing before him, he forgot everything he was going to say.  Remembering what the Pastor said, he quoted the first Scripture that came to mind, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Continue reading →

Finding Oneself in God

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In the first reading, we reach the end of the Book of Job. In a certain way, the story line has been a prosecution of the events that “robbed” Job of his family, possessions, and well-being. The event was well described and presented. Witnesses appeared: the four dialogue partners – or perhaps they were the prosecution team with Job acting as his own defense lawyer? In Job’s closing argument, continuing to profess his innocence of any wrongdoing, he laments that the key witness, the Lord, has not appeared. Continue reading →

The Family as Kingdom

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This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is fitting that a passage on children should follow one on marriage since both were especially vulnerable in first century society. But this passage first addresses the Kingdom of God and what prevents people from being included. The Pharisees and scribes had already been rebuked for substituting the traditions of men for God’s law and intention. Jesus made an example of service to a little child to overturn the disciples’ arguments about which of them was the greatest in 9:33–37. That episode was followed by the disciples’ trying to prohibit an outsider from using Jesus’ name (9:38–39). This episode begins with the disciples’ attempting to enforce the standard social norms that children are not deserving of attention or time. Continue reading →

An Invitation to Wisdom

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The first reading this week has been taken from the Book of Job. It is considered to be one of the scrolls belonging to the Wisdom category and is a narrative that, in its own way, attempts to address the question of suffering during one’s life. Our story began with Monday’s reading in which we learn that Job is pious and upright, richly endowed in his own person and in domestic prosperity. He suffers a sudden and complete reversal of fortune. He loses his property and his children; a loathsome disease afflicts his body; and he is overcome with sorrow. Nevertheless, Job does not complain against God. Continue reading →

I bear the marks…

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In the first reading today for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Paul writes: “From now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.” (Gal 6:17).  Over the centuries many hold that St. Paul is referring to the beating and other physical assaults he has endured. Others hold that Paul had received the stigmata. Stigmata, from the Greek word, generically points to a “brand” or a “mark.” It is the common word to describing branding of cattle. In the Christian context it refers to the bodily marks resembling the wounds of the crucified Christ. St. Francis was the first person, historically recorded, who bore the marks of the crucified Christ in his hands, his feet, and in his side. Continue reading →

Buona Festa!!

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Today is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Many blessings to all Franciscans and all those of a Franciscan heart.

The Lord bless you and keep you.
May He show His face to you and have mercy.
May He turn His countenance to you and give you peace.
The Lord bless you!

Happy Feast Day!

In Private

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This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the privacy of a house, the disciples question Jesus about “this” – presumably, “what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”  Jesus has taken the question back to the divine intent. One way to understand the unstated question is that the disciples are not asking about divorce per se, but the broader question of all the things that cause the separation of what God has joined. Jesus declared without qualification that a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. The use of the word “adultery” directs the disciples back to the absolute command of God (Ex. 20:14) and clarifies the seriousness of the issue. But to be clear, Jesus is not saying that divorce and remarriage is the only circumstance that lead to adultery, but it is of the same gravitas. Continue reading →

Through Death to Life

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In Western Christianity, the Transitus (translation from Ecclesiastical Latin: crossing or passing over) refers to “the time of passage through death to life”. The Christian theologian German Martinez writes that: “The idea of death in the Latin transitus … represents a unique Christian terminology linked to the paschal mystery. It consecrates the passage of the dying to eternal life. Offering the sacrifice of his or her personal life, the believer shares in the paschal transitus of Christ himself. Each year on the evening of October 3rd the Franciscan family throughout the world pauses to celebrate the solemnity of our Holy Father Francis’s Transitus, passing over from this life to the next. Continue reading →