Posts from February 2025

In 1996, the American singer & songwriter, Sheryl Crow, wrote and performed a song that made its way to the Billboard Top Ten and earned her a Grammy. Entitled If It Makes You Happy, the lyrics go like this… If it makes you happyIt can’t be that badIf it makes you happyThen why the hell are you so sad? Decades later, I surmise that her song (and question) continues to resonate because, despite our success in amassing greater wealth and “things”…

We are swamped with words. Some poisonous like gossip; some devastating like slander; others unsettling like rumors and criticism. Most of them, though, are empty and meaningless, hot air—precisely. How many millions of words have invaded our being this past week? Printed words, broadcast words, casual words from friends and passerby—words, words, and more words. Almost screaming, we take refuge in our churches and say: “No more words…we need facts!” There we get more words. But we do not mind…

But who will endure the day of his coming? For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. …He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi… (from the first reading, Malachi 3:1-4) Isn’t it overkill, a pure exaggeration? We are talking about a 40-day-old baby, so cute, so charming. The 2nd reading (Hebrews 2:14-18) sheds light on this obvious discrepancy. It speaks of Jesus’ entire life as spent in obedience to…