Posts from 2024 (Page 5)

Almost every day the news media bring into our living rooms immediate images of harrowing pain, hardships, and death from our country and from other parts of the world. We love Jesus too much to be able to turn away from those horrible scenes unfazed, unaffected. The most painful aspect of our empathy for these unfortunate people must be our powerlessness to do something tangible and concrete to alleviate their suffering besides our thoughts and prayers, and the occasional donation. Our…

For more than 30 years, I’ve served as a an adjunct lecturer in economics at a local university. During Covid, I remember the department chair asking if anyone would be willing to teach in person, to which I gladly replied— “YES.” Now if you remember, during the midst of the pandemic, few cars were on the road. At the university, the same was true when my students and I seemed to be the only cars in the parking lot. Each…

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19) The first thing that might strike us as relevant in this passage from our gospel passage for the Second Sunday of Easter could be that the doors of the Upper Room were locked. Yet also in this environment of defeatism, fear and…

The Book of Genesis tells us that, at the end of each creation day, the Lord God, stepped back to admire his handiwork and declared it “good.” However, at the end of the sixth day in which he created male and female human beings, stepping back, the Lord God declared his masterpiece “very good.” This must have been the reason why, St. Irenaeus (130-202), bishop of Lyon, wrote this famous phrase: “Man fully alive is the glory of God.” St.…

In 1938, a young Spaniard traveled to Japan where, for more than a quarter century, he worked as a medic, teacher, and counselor. One date, however, divided those years: August 6, 1945. For on that morning, at 8:15 a.m., he was tending to his responsibilities in Hiroshima when a single B-29 airplane flew over the city and dropped a bomb that killed nearly 80,000 people and injured at least that many more. This Spaniard’s name was Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.,…

In the final scene of the 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan, a now old Private James Francis Ryan is found kneeling among thousands of white crosses at the American Cemetery in Normandy. At the grave of Captain John H. Miller, whose mission was to locate and rescue him following the deaths of his three brothers, Ryan spoke: “My family is here with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how I would…

In 2011, during a “Lift the City” flash mob, a Capuchin friar in England entered a public square, exposed the Blessed Sacrament, and began to speak: Jesus Christ is in every book of the Bible. In Genesis, Jesus is the Seed of the Woman; In Exodus, He is the Passover Lamb; In Leviticus, He is the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of Sacrifice; In Numbers, He is a Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by…

One of the great preachers through whom God really speaks to me is the famous American preacher Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. His anointed words still touch my heart and give me God’s saving perspective in my life. Holy Week is a splendid opportunity for us to let people like Fulton Sheen journey with us. This famous creator and host of several television and radio programs throughout the American country has alot to teach us concerning the Holy Week. To…

As human persons, God (potentially) gives us five senses: …to See, to Hear, to Touch, to Smell, and to Taste. Given these gifts, we note that we are different than the angels. Unlike our heavenly helpers, who are purely spiritual beings, we humans have been created with both spirit (soul) and matter (body). According to the Baltimore Catechism, “a sacrament is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, to bring grace.” In each of the 7 Sacraments, God (through His Church) uses physical…

In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death… (Hebrews 5:7) This powerful statement underlines forcefully how close to our flesh, to our predicaments, to our fears, to our anguish God made himself in the flesh of his only begotten Son, Jesus. We must be heartened by Jesus’ loud cries and tears to ponder existential questions that we might…

Once upon a time there was a widowed mother whose only family member was her son, and she loved him with all her heart. The boy grew up, and as a young man entered the army and went off to war. One day the woman received the tragic news that her son had died in battle. She was heartbroken and had no one to console her. Having a deep faith in God, she prayed, “O Lord, I need to see him again—just for five…

Decades ago, a familiar sign held by bold believers at major sports events, simply read “John 3:16.” For those unfamiliar with the Bible, it refers to these words: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” But what are we to understand by the words “everyone who believes in him?” Taking into consideration the pattern of Jesus’ public life and his horrific…