This Sunday is sometimes called “False Prophet Sunday” because the readings from the Old Testament and Gospel are both warnings against false prophets. False Prophet Sunday was the occasion for my installation and my first Sunday as your pastor. What a great way to be ushered into the ministry: “Here…

James and John, his brother, came to Jesus with a plan to secure positions of status and honor in the Kingdom of God. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” (Mk 10:35). It’s always dangerous to promise to do an unnamed favor, but Jesus, being God, already knows what they want. Even…

Tell me if you agree with this statement: “If I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find forgiveness given there.” Is this statement the biblical truth, or is it heresy? Let me say it again, “If I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will…

St. Paul says that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now ( Rom 8:22 ). By using the analogy of childbirth, St. Paul makes reference to the Fall of man and curse that resulted from sin, a curse that includes the physical pains of giving birth. Every woman who…

Jesus loves sinners. This is one part of the gospel message that the Church seems to have effectively communicated to the outside world. Most unbelievers who have just the vaguest notions about Christianity seem to have heard that Jesus, whoever He may be, was welcoming and loving towards sinners. It’s…

St. John writes to us in his epistle, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” ( 1 John 3:13 ). John is simply repeating the words of Jesus, who said to the disciples, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first” ( John 15:18 ). Certainly, the world hates Jesus. In our Gospel…

Today we hear and consider Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the rich man. This has been the custom of the Church catholic on this First Sunday after Trinity for at least twelve-hundred years. But as these words are read today, I wonder how many people across our country might want to refashion them to say…

It is the fifth week of the seven-week season of Easter. You will notice that as we near the day of Pentecost, the texts increasingly focus on the coming of the Holy Spirit. While Jesus was still with his disciples on earth, he began to teach them of the Holy Spirit, in preparation for the day of his…

On this day, April 25th, the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Mark, Evangelist, Bishop, and Martyr. He is called an evangelist because he penned the gospel that bears his name, though it was Peter, not Mark, who witnessed the events and related them to Mark. He is called Bishop because it is believed…

“And the women went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” ( Mk 16:8 ) What a strange and somewhat anticlimactic ending to the Gospel reading for the greatest occasion of the Christian calendar. Perhaps the Holy…