Hunger in the Desert
For Sunday, August 2, 2015, 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time There it is! Right outside my window. I’m here in the Negev Desert of Israel. It’s possible that Moses and the chosen people walked in this area a few thousand years ago. Right now at 4:30 PM, the temperature is 103.6 degrees in the shade. Just […]
Enough to Go Around
For Sunday, July 26, 2015, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Is there enough to go around? Living in an industrialized nation, it can be easy to forget how much poverty there is in our world. With all the advances in technology over the past century, we might even be deluded into thinking that most people lead […]
Getting Away from It All
For Sunday, July 19, 2015, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time At a time when you would think a lot of Americans are heading for the beach or the campground for vacation, more of us may actually be staying home. A survey last January found an astonishing forty-two percent of workers didn’t take a single vacation day in […]
Gospel Relationships
For Sunday, July 12, 2015, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Every day we become aware of circumstances and issues that perk the interest of Christian consciousness. Whether they are issues surrounding human life, political agendas, morality, or our responsibility to the earth, we must realize that the Gospel has much more to do with how we […]
Bearing Witness to an Unpopular Message
For Sunday, July 5, 2015, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time I remember a time when the world was changing very rapidly indeed. It was the late 80s and much of the change was centralized in Europe with the Solidarity movement in Poland, Perestroika and Glasnost in Russia, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The change was […]
Water in the Desert
For Sunday, June 28, 2015, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time The Arava Desert is the northeastern portion of the Negev Desert in Israel. It is arid, rocky, and hot. This is where I am for three months of volunteer work at Biblical Tamar Park. There is a tel here (archeological site), going back to the […]
Fortnight for Freedom
For Sunday, June 21, 2015, 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time What is a fortnight? It is simply another term for “two weeks.” It is a word more frequently used in England than in the United States, perhaps because of our shorter attention spans. In 2012, the bishops of the United States established the Fortnight for […]
Seeds of the Kingdom
For Sunday, June 14, 2015, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time If you read any of the accounts about American Pharoah last weekend, and the way he secured a place in sports history by winning the Triple Crown, you might have thought his triumph was inevitable. But the man who helped raise him wasn’t so sure. Tom VanMeter, […]
Eucharistic Presence
For Sunday, June 7, 2015, The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Our first reading this weekend from the Book of Exodus makes a very bold and confident statement of faith. “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.” People of faith must constantly be reminded of what God says and […]
Father, Brother, and Spirit
For Sunday, May 31, 2015, The Most Holy Trinity Are you ready for months and months of presidential candidate news, speeches, and controversies? The next presidential election is over a year away, but already the Internet, television, and print media are filled with information about all those who aspire to be arguably the most powerful person on planet Earth. […]
Our Surging Life Force
For Sunday, May 24, 2015, Pentecost Sunday It’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere. New life is surging up all around! Male birds in all their colorful finery are dancing and prancing to attract mates. Turkey tails are fanned. Rich melodies permeate the morning breezes. Farm animals are fat with soon-to-be-borns. Yes, even the maternity wards in our hospitals are […]
Handling Snakes
For Sunday, May 17, 2015, The Ascension of the Lord Walking through some grass during a warm spring morning, I stepped on something squishy. My immediate thought was that it was a snake. Waves of revulsion washed over me as I jumped away. Thankfully, it turned out to be only an old discarded length of […]