My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,  January 22, 2019 marks the forty-sixth anniversary of the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision. This year, as has become a tradition, hundreds of thousands of the faithful will gather in Washington, DC for the an-nual March for Life. This year's march is on January 18 and the theme is: &q...

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Think of what it's like to wait a long time. Can you imagine what it would be like to wait for centuries? No one person lives that long, of course. But for the Israelites, they had heard the stories from generation to generation. They had been conquered time and time again, and now "the people were filled with expectation, and al...

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Here we are, mere days from Christmas, and we hear a Gospel anticipat-ing the birth of another child. Mary has received word that her cousin Elizabeth is with child. Pregnant as she is, Mary "set out and traveled to the hill country in haste." She has recently received the greatest news of her life - that she is to be mother to ...

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  “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23)    My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,  May the spirit of this holy season fill your hearts with joy and your homes with peace! Christmas cele...

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In Christianity, we hear often about the "Good News." We might often associate it with Jesus' compassion to the poor, his healings and miracles, and the salvation he won for us. In today's Gospel, we read of John the Baptist. "Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people." Yet as we ex...

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"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cae-sar...and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee...and Lysani-as was tetrach of..." Did you need to pinch yourself awake during the first few lines of this Sunday's Gospel? John the Baptist received quite a prelude today as Luke described the religious and political leadership of th...

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If you brought your child to the restroom during the Liturgy of the Word, you might walk away with one of two interpretations of Jesus as King. The first and second readings are bold and victorious. We see Christ coming on the clouds for the final judgment of heaven and earth. The Gospel sets a very different tone. Jesus is under arrest a...

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Turkey Dinner, long car trips, family, the Macy’s Parade, football, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the beginning of the holiday season: all these things come to mind when we think of Thanksgiving Day. Apart from all that, Thanksgiving Day is a time when we pause to reflect upon our many blessings, both material and spiritual, and to gi...

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  As we edge closer to the closing of the liturgi-cal year, the Church selects readings that re-mind us of the final close: the second coming of Christ. It's easy, perhaps, to forget that this is a dogma of our Catholic faith. We see this dramatic end times language in today's Gos-pel. "The sun will be darkened ... an...

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In 1 Samuel, God advises the prophet Samuel not to observe as men see but as God sees. He tells him to "look to the heart." This is the movement of this Sun-day's Gospel reading. "Beware the scribes," Jesus ad-vises. He points out their public greetings and "seats of honor," which stands in sharp contrast...

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