Category: Sunday Faith Reflections
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Busy times, blessed times, are times of spiritual struggle
I have always found that times of great blessing, success, and fruitfulness are sometimes times of the greatest spiritual struggles. It’s on my mind now, because I have a lot of beautiful milestones coming up in my author career, and I’m not surprised to be feeling the blahs a bit. “Is this all there is?”…
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Sunday Reflection: a prophet like Moses who teaches with authority
In the Torah, or the first five books of the Bible, we see Moses teaching with authority because He spoke with God “face to face, as with a friend.” While those books are clear Moses could not look upon the face of God, he spoke with God directly. This is why he could teach and rule…
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Sunday Reflection: Repent and believe
In today’s Gospel reading at Mass, we get Jesus’s first words in the Gospel of Mark: Repent and believe in the Gospel.” This is a message not enough Christians hear today, let alone the non-Christians we are called to evangelize. First, repent. We must recognize that we are sinners, and that, contrary to the platitudes…
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Sunday Reflection: What are you looking for?
Today’s Gospel gives the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John: “What are you looking for?” My favorite translation (The RSV-CE) puts it, “What do you seek?” This is an important question. It is important because, as we saw last Sunday with the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple, not everyone…
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Epiphany: God reveals Himself
The Feast of the Epiphany today traditionally links three events from the Gospels: The visit of the Magi, when God revealed Himself to the Gentiles; the Baptism of the Lord, when the heavens opened and the Father revealed Jesus to be His Beloved Son; and the wedding feast at Cana, when Jesus revealed Himself through…
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Sunday Reflection: The humble recognize Jesus
Think of the hundreds of people who were probably in the temple in Jerusalem when Mary and Joseph brought in the infant Jesus to “redeem” Him as the Firstborn with the poor man’s sacrifice of two doves or pigeons, according to the Mosaic Law. Think of the opportunity . . . to see their salvation…
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Sunday Reflection: The Bride of Christ
Today’s first reading at Mass is all about Israel as the Bride of God (and the Church, as the New Israel, as the Bride of Christ). One of my favorite quotes from Chesterton is “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” And he’s absolutely right. Orthodoxy matters, of…
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Sunday Reflection: staying on mission
John the Baptist is one of the quintessential Advent figures. He epitomizes active waiting–confident yet humble service in trusting patience. That’s really what Advent is all about. I love John’s example of staying on mission. His particular mission–he was the last Old Testament prophet, the only one for hundreds of years–brought him lot of attention,…
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Sunday Reflection: Blessed are our eyes
I’ve been talking a lot in recent Sunday reflections about being watchful, which is the theme of this week’s Sunday Gospel at Mass, so I want to focus on the first reading instead. Isaiah says, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome…
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Sunday Reflection: the humble Shepherd King
It’s hardly surprising that a culture bereft of history, tradition, and Scripture can’t recognize or understand Jesus. Who can wonder that it holds such strange and even contradictory views of Him? Just looking at the first reading and the Gospel today paired by the Church shows how confusing it can be to get a handle…
Creative Writing with the Crimson League 